Well, they didn’t do it. The EU is sticking to its 20% by 2020 figure. They could do 30%, but only will if others take more action. So much for being a leader.
UN climate chief Yvo de Boer held his first press conference since Copenhagen this week. It can’t be easy to keep going in the face of the Copenhagen fiasco. Of course he has to try to stay optimistic about the process continuing in Bonn this summer and Mexico towards the end of the year. But bearing in mind the US administration is in a even more difficult position after losing the Senate majority it will need to pass a climate bill, it’s hard to see where the impetus is going to come from.

The question is who is the leader, in the crusade to avert a climate catastrophe? (I know, sounds a bit melodramatic, but…)
Today WWF is calling on the EU to push ahead and set a firm goal of a 30% reduction by 2020 instead of 20%. (There is a meeting of EU reps in Brussels to discuss this on Wednesday).
WWF says this would give the EU the leading position it seeks. If it sticks to its position of only going up from 20 to 30% if other countries also make some concessions, the leadership claim would have to lie elsewhere, says WWF. Seems logical.
On the “climate change calendar”, January 31st is an interesting deadline. The agreement drawn up in Copenhagen includes a list where countries are supposed to enter their planned emissions reduction targets by that date.
Don’t get your hopes up too much – but it’s a date to watch.

Happy New Year Ice Blog readers. I have been on holiday enjoying the winter weather in Germany and the UK. A lot of people are complaining about the cold and the bad road conditions and delays on planes and trains – but I for one am happy to have a real winter. What else would you expect from the ice-blogger? Some colleagues reckon this will save me an Arctic trip…
There is a lot of talking and joking as usual about whether the extreme winter conditions will undermine the acceptance that humankind is affecting the climate.
I was interested to read in the British press today that some British newspapers have even been taking the name of Professor Mojib Latif in vain, a respected climate expert at the Leibniz Institute of Kiel University Germany – whom I have interviewed several times. Two conservative papers apparently misinterpreted his research as signalling a switch from global warming to cooling. Fortunately (i.e. in the interests of the truth and no misrepresentation) today’s edition of The Guardian puts his research into context and quotes him as affirming his strong belief in man-made global warming.Prof Latif says the cold spell is short-term “weather” and not a cooling related to ocean cooling which he describes in his work. He also compares the complexity of the climate problem to Einstein’s theory of relativity and stresses the difficulty of presenting it accurately in the media. I’ll second that, but keep doing my best.

Before I stop for today I’d like to draw your attention to a comment posted by David Scrimgeour under the last entry.
He draws attention to the question of how clean technologies are going to be trasferred across borders, and what incentives there will be for example to German companies to invest in projects in potentially risky locations. Good question, David.
I personally think companies will only go into this if they know there is a market, and a market with a future. We need clear signals from governments – which we didn’t really get in Copenhagen – but we also need to draw companies’ attention to the finance experts who say it will ultimately be cheaper to work against global warming, and to all the studies which indicate the future lies with clean technology which does not put a burden on the climate. And of course companies are ultimately interested in making a profit. Look how some energy companies have realised fossil fuels are finite and are getting into alternative renewables – to secure their future.
Any other views on this?

I was tempted to write “the conference that failed to save the planet”, but I’m trying not to be too negative (or is this just semantic nit-picking?). Am I very disappointed? Well you can only be very disappointed if you have high expectations. I must admit I would have been (pleasantly) surprised if Copenhagen had really come up with a substantial agreement, but the final debacle could and should surely have been avoided.
So now we appear to have agreement(although the countries only took note and didn’t officially accept the document) that we need a 2° maximum rise limit. But the way we are going, we appear to be heading for up to 4°. The industrialised world has opted out of binding targets. The funding arrangements are linked to development aid that would have been given anyway.
Here in Germany, the industry lobby is using Copenhagen to argue against emissions limits which they say would put German industry at a disadvantage. The sceptics – both tue “fundamentalists” who deny any link between human behaviour and climate change or even the existence of the latter – and those who don’t believe in mega-Conferences are rubbing their hands and saying “I told you so”. The big states are trying to tell us it was really a success or at least a step in the right direction. So where do we go from here and is there still hope?
Well, I’m not ready to give up yet, although I find it hard to give rational reasons for that.
Confidence in the power of the UNFCCC negotiations is at an all-time low. The differences between the developing countries facing disaster and the wealthy industrialised nations who think they still have time seems wiser than ever.
2010 is not getting off to a good start from the climate point of view. Can it only get better or is there worse to come?

The heavyweights are on their way to Copenhagen. 115 heads of state. Here’s hoping they’ll produce more than hot air.Things are not really looking good for a final binding agreement. Then again, it’s really hard to tell whether all the warnings from high-ranking people are just designed to make us prepare for the worst so that whatever comes out of the truly-mega-meeting will seem better than expected.
One danger I see is that people expect the politicians and the Copenhagen meeting to solve all the problems. It’s easy to say “there’s no point in my doing anything, it won’t have any effect if the top brass can’t get their act together”. But there is. I met with a group of US energy experts visiting Germany the other day ot look at renewables. One Professor from Texas was talking about how that state, the “oil state” had become a US leader in wind energy. The interest came from “the bottom up”, as he put it. Now the Obama administration is channeling funds in that direction to push the wind energy sector further.
The British opposition leader David Cameron is pushing a partnership between local authorities, businesses and householders to save up to 30% of the UK’s carbon emissions by making homes more energy efficient. Cameron is trying to give his party a “green” profile as the voters head for a general election in 2010. Whatever his motives, campaigns like this mean direct action to reduce co2 regardless of international political agreements.
Let’s not just wait for the bigwigs in Copenhagen to come up with something. Sure, we need these agreements. But in the meantime, we have to do our own bit.