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.

Well, the “last round” of official pre-talks to the Copenhagen extravaganza have also come to an end.
“Copenhagen can and must be the turning point in the international fight against climate change – nothing has changed my confidence in that,” says UN climate chief Yvo de Boer. Although there’s still no major progress on mid-term emissions targets and financing measures in the developing world, environmentalists like WWF are also trying to stay optimistic, saying a deal in Copenhagen could still be possible.
I talked to German climate expert Prof. Mojib Latif on his view of the current situation recently.
He says it would be “disastrous” if we didn’t get a good binding agreement at the December conference. In spite of all the negative stuff we’re hearing, he still hopes the industrialised countries will get their act together. He’s particularly critical of the USA. He’s one of this country’s leading experts on the subject – and one of the few who say things in a way the average person on the street can understand.You can read the rest here.
Interview with Mojib Latif

A poll conducted by the Pew Research Centre in Washington of 1,500 people shows the percentage of US-Americans who believe in global warming has dropped drastically from 77% to 57% in just two years.
Only 57% believe there is real scientific evidence that the atmosphere is getting hotter.Only 36% believe human activity is the cause.
The Guardian’s US correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg quotes Michael Dimock, associate director of the Pew centre as saying the economic crisis and the health care debate in the USA have squeezed the environment and climange issues out of people’s focus. But others, including James Hoggan, the author of “Climate Cover-Up” say there’s a a clever lobbying campaign going on to mislead people about climate science.
One way or other, this is bad news at a time when the US Senate is debating climate change laws this week. With a lot of media attention being devoted to the 1st anniversary of President Obama’s election, it would be great to be able to say public awareness of the urgency of the climate issue in the USA has risen. The fact that the opposite seems to be the case does not bode well for Copenhagen.
The Guardian’s report on the Pew survey
Pew Centre homepage

According to the official source, the UNFCCC, the latest round of climate talks in Bangkok have led to more clarity on the “bricks and mortar” of a Copenhagen agreement. But when it comes to actually reducing emissions from industrialised countries in the mid-term and finance to help developing countries limit their emissions growth and adapt to the inevitable effects of climate change, even Climate Chief Yvo de Boer – an optimist by nature and profession – has to admit little progress was made. And we all know these are key issues.
WWF said the text for the Copenhagen climate agreement was “shorter but not much sweeter”. Kim Carstensen, the organisation’s climate intiative leader, like de Boer sees some technical progress, but still huge political hurdles when it comes to governments committing to emissions cuts and providing funding for the developing world.
The WWF is calling for another meeting of heads of state before the Copenhagen talks. Yvo de Boer is calling for “bold leadership” to “open the roadblocks around the essentials of targets and finance so that the negotiators can complete their journey”.
There are still the grand total of five official negotiating days ahead of Copenhagen , at a meeting in Barcelona, Spain. The “meetings to prepare the meetings” are clearly anything but mere “talk-shops”, plenty of hard work on the nitty-gritty. I don’t envy the people who have to argue over every word, figure or comma.
The lack of a bill from the United States Senate is one major hurdle to progress towards a new agreement. Good will alone will not make for an agreement without the necessary political backing from home. WWF is also calling for a clearer stance from the EU.
It looks to me like the overall message at the end of the Bangkok talks is that things are moving forward – but not nearly fast enough to guarantee the breakthrough in Copenhagen that would bring about the cuts in emissions the IPCC says we need – and there is no shortage of experts who say those targets themselves are no longer tough enough.

Forget the 2 degree C. target. Experts meeting at Oxford University at the moment are discussing what the consequences of a 4 degree rise in temperature would be. Given that emissions growth since 2000 has been at the upper end of the IPCC scenarios, they are saying drastic emissions reductions have to happen or we will be heading for a 4° rise.
While the UNFCCC conference in Bangkok is trying to hammer out the details of an agreement for Copenhagen, the scientists and other experts in Oxford are looking at the consequences if Copenhagen fails to agree major carbon emissions cuts. Professor John Schellnhuber from Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Resaerch, one of the world’s leading climate experts, has expressed grave doubt that the USA will agree to a substantial Copenhagen agreement. He described the US as “climate illiterate”.
The 4 degrees and beyond conference website