Kantor dan badan-badan PBB setiap tahun mengemisikan 1,7 juta ton karbon dioksida – Indonesia mengemisikan 1,4 miliar ton pada tahun 2000. Sekitar 770.000 ton karbon dioksida diemisikan dari operasi menjaga perdamaian di sejumlah negara, dengan lebih dari separuhnya berasal dari penerbangan.

Sebanyak 3,3 persen dari seluruh emisi di salah satu organisasi terbesar di dunia tersebut dihasilkan dari aktivitas di Kantor Pusat PNN di New York, AS. Demikian disampaikan Direktrur Eksekutif Program Lingkungan PBB (UNEP) Achim Steiner dalam peluncuran buku Moving Towards a Climate Neutral UN di sela-sela Konferensi Perubahan Iklim 2009 di Kopenhagen, Denmark, Rabu (16/12).

Kajian dilakukan Kelompok Manajemen Lingkungan PBB (EMG). Mulai tahun 2010, EMG akan mendata dan melaporkan perkembangan upaya pengurangan emisi gas rumah kaca di bawah sistem yang mereka kembangkan.

Menurut Achim, PBB sebagai badan internasional yang mendorong pembangunan berkelanjutan perlu mengambil langkah nyata mengurangi dampak perubahan iklim. Laporan tersebut berisi kajian sumber-sumber pelepasan emisi gas rumah kaca, metodologi pengelolaan jejak karbon, dan tindakan yang perlu dilakukan untuk menghilangkan jejak karbon tersebut.

“Adalah kewajiban setiap negara dan organisasi, termasuk PBB, untuk mengukur dan mengurangi dampak (emisi karbon) terhadap lingkungan,” kata Achim. Akumulasi sejumlah gas di armosfer – di antaranya karbon dioksida (CO2) dan metana, yang disebut sebagai gas rumah kaca – menyebabkan suhu Bumi meningkat karena ultraviolet yang dipantulkan Bumi terjebak.

Pada bagian pembuka, Sekretaris Jenderal PBB Ban Ki-moon mengatakan, kajian yang mereka lakukan adalah langkah ptaktis dan dorongan moral yang penting diikuti demi penghormatan terhadap kemanusiaan, pembangunan berkelanjutan,kemjuan sosial, perdamaian, dan stabilitas.

Organisasi PBB menjadikan laporan ilmiah yang dikaji ribuan ahli dari seluruh dunia (IPCC) sebagai dasar pendapat bahwa dunia memiliki waktu 10 tahun untuk mencegah petaka, yang disebabkan perubahan iklim karena ulah manusia yang tidak ramah lingkungan.

Emisi COP-15

Di tempat yang sama diumumkan emisi karbon dioksida dari kegiatan Konferensi Perubahan Iklim PBB 7 – 18 Desember 2008. Menurut perkiraan, konferensi yang dihadiri daeri 193 negara, 23.000 peserta, serta lebih dari 130 kepala negara dan pemerintahan itu mengemisikan sekitar 40.500 ton CO2.

Jan-Christoph Napierski dari Denmark menyebutkan, emisi itu akan “ditebus” (offset) melalui program Mekanisme Pembangunan Bersih (CDM) di Banglades. Program CDM merupakan skema penurunan emisi negara-negara maju dengan membantu negara berkembang melalui pendanaan teknologi, dan pembangunan kapasitas.

Sumber  :

Emisi PBB 1,7 Juta Ton | Kompas, 17.12.2009

I followed the live broad casting all day, until I fell asleep early in the morning and I have also read a few comments and talked with some of my friends around the world – in particular African. First, I would say the trend is that; if you want to show the world you are a credible leader you have to take Climate Change seriously (Brazil, Japan etc)! Secondly, Hugo Chavez is just worried to lose his power base in Central America. But, he might be shooting himself in the foot. Other developing country leaders are bit naive. But it is all normal and expected.

What is a paradigm shift is that, if you listened to US, Russia, Brazil etc the new attitude and understanding, which we in Sweden has understood for a long time, is that “Independently of the outcome of this meeting we will cut carbon emissions as stated as it is good for our country”. And, when they say good they mean from a Sustainability point of view. It is good for Business, it is good for the People (social) and also for the Environment!

This is an attitude that could and should be adopted by the developing countries as well – Support and promote Green Business!

What I am sure of is that there will be a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, or something similar, that makes it possible to fund the movement to turn Africa Green again!

According to this report, a decision has been made in the Copenhagen meeting to exclude clean coal from the Clean Development Mechanism (CMD).

The CDM mechanism provides carbon credits to developed nations in return for investment in sustainable projects in the developing world, such as renewable energy and methane gas capture projects.  The CMD scheme has the potential to significantly lower the costs of the deployment of technologies such as clean coal, increasing their competitiveness.

Apparently, Brazil and allied countries blocked the inclusion of clean coal into the CDM.

This is another blow for clean coal which has been recently attacked as being unviable and too late to make a difference. Many believe, however, that clean coal is an essential technology if the world is to get any where near the required carbon reduction targets.

Justin Blows

For those that haven’t heard it, I did a boardroom radio interview outlining progress at the conference to date. To access it, click here.

http://www.brr.com.au/event/preview/qyrg7ffpas/62715

There is a general trend to start large scale production of pellets in Africa for the hungry, heavily subsidies EU Biomass-to-Power market. Take UK as an example; where the so called ROCs (Renewable Obligation Certificates) makes it a good business to chop up trees in the heart of Africa, make pellets that has to be transported, usually, on dirt roads to the coast and shipped to a port in UK where only 40% of the energy is used for Power Production and the rest released to the atmosphere. And, 1/3 or more of the total value added is consumed by transportation (which in itself creates Green House Gases).

Sembcorp Biomass Power Station in Middlesbrough, UK, releases about 65% of the energy to the atmosphere.

This is a serious waste of resources:

1) By the UK to have such as generous subsidy on an electric production that wastes 60% of the energy.

2) A subsidy that do not have a LCA approach (Life Cycle Analysis, e.g. no consideration to transportation emissions/cost)

3) Exportation of biomass that is in short supply and soon will be of no supply in the producing countries.

Free Trade and other practices imposed by the West, in favour of the West, makes it very difficult to stop this development. However, the CDM (carbon credits) and other schemes makes it possible to compete with the prices in EU with the local Cooking Fuel prices in Africa. Especially if you compare the price for Charcoal and Plain Biomass for pellets used in an Improved Cooking Stove.

Lets come together and make a plan how we can organise a cost and environmental efficient production of Cooking Fuel and same time reduce emissions of Green House Gases, create additional jobs locally, save the little forest there is left and above all; save hundreds of thousands women’s and children’s life!

Please, help me connect with the NGO’s, owner’s of biomass and if there is anyone in central or local government you think would be interested in making making a difference.

This blog is designed to complement Andrew’s blog about the Saturday session in relation to CDM negotiations. The talk in the corridors around the position of Brazil in relation to the inclusion of carbon capture and storage in CDM is very interesting. Essentially, Brazil is sitting on the largest carbon sink in the world (the Amazon forest). As such, Brazil is looking for additional credit for two abatement activities: reforestation and avoided deforestation. Both of these activities are somewhat provided for under the CDM (more reforestation though).

To a Brazil negotiator, the inclusion of CCS under the CDM presents potential oversupply of CER issues as well as movement away from discussions around additional benefits for reforestation and avoided deforestation. As such, the Brazil position is essentially designed to prevent loss of value from its activities and redirection of capital towards countries with CCS opportunities (i.e. India and China).

The ever-coveted Lou Reed sample is flipped perfectly for one of my 5 personal favorite Tribe cuts..

Download: A Tribe Called Quest – Can I Kick It? (CDM) – 1990

1. Can I Kick It? (Spirit Mix)
2. Can I Kick It? (Edit)
3. Can I Kick It? (Phase 5 Mix)
4. Spirits
5. If the Papes Come (ft. Afrika Baby Bambaataa)
6. If the Papes Come (Remix)
7. Can I Kick It? (LP Version)

It might sound like a paradox to suggest an All-Electric car strategy to a continent that is suffering from cut-offs, load shedding and where 90% of the rural population and 46% of the urban population is without access to electricity! (Read ‘UNDP-WHO report on energy access in developing countries: review of LDCs & SSAs’)

What we suggest is a combined strategy producing power from biomass and other renewables and All-Electric vehicles!

Starting on the Road of Independence from Oil

Replacing fossil fuels by biological based fuels is the current approach for most governments to solve the addiction to oil. However limitations in biomass supply, competition with food and limited water supply may within a short horizon of time call for better solutions. Both fossil fuels and bio fuels are based on carbon. The bio fuel value chain suffers from low conversion efficiency at the bio fuel factory (25 – 40%) and even worse conversion efficiency in the vehicle (15 – 25%). This multiplies up to an unacceptable low total efficiency measured from biomass to kilometers. The valuable biological carbon deserves a better faith. By shifting the focus from bio-fuels to sustainable transport more efficient, climate neutral and reliable solutions show up.

Biomass-to-Power vs. Bio Fuels

Even if you compare the most efficient 2^nd generation bio diesel made from biomass with generating power from biomass, the Biomass-to-Power alternative ends up as winner:

Biodiesel from Biomass Replacing Fossil Diesel.

A factory producing biodiesel must be big and handle several hundred thousands tons of biomass yearly to be profitable. Hence huge logistic, transport and investment challenges are introduced. The over all efficiency of a biomass to liquid factory today is about 30 %. This means that the calorific value of the bio diesel is 30 % that of the feedstock. The upper limit is suggested to be about 40 %.

Figure 1: Assume the calorific value of a ton of biomass is about 4000 kWh. At current efficiencies the calorific value of the bio diesel produced will be 1200 kWh, corresponding to about 120 liters. Assuming a vehicle efficiency of 20 km/liter (0.5 liter per 10km) 120 liters will propel the vehicle 2400 km. Achieving plant efficiency of 42 % will propel the vehicle 3400 km. However, as the plants must be big the feedstock and the products must be transported over long distances. As a rough estimate we can assume that the total forest-to-tank efficiency is reduced by 10 – 20 % giving 2000 – 3000 km per ton biomass.

Figure 2: In a small-scale plant, say at a power output of 500 kW_e, the current power generation is about 850 kWh electricity per ton biomass. The electric conversion efficiency for biomass is then about 20 %. An electrical vehicle consumes about 0.18 kWh electricity per km, charging losses included. Hence the electric vehicle can be propelled about 4700 km per ton biomass. The electric efficiency of small scale biomass power plants are expected to reach 30 % as technology develops. This will propel the electric vehicle about 7000 km per ton biomass. In addition the electric car is silent, has no local emissions as particles or NOx or no CO₂ emissions.

The Fuel of the Future is Electricity – Power to the People!

• Best utilisation of the resources, hence lowest CO₂-emissions
• Does not compete with food
• Independence of import, security of supply
• Multiple energy sources: PV, wind, hydro, biomass, waves, waste
• EVs are silent and zero local emissions – good for people
• Potential for local business development
• Makes people responsible
• Local Power Production from Multiple Sources Increases Security of Supply.

On the lines of sale of carbon credits by 9 power-intensive sectors, under the clean development mechanism, the Cabinet is expected to discuss a proposal in order to allow trading of energy units saved.

However, saving of an energy unit is to achieve the targeted production by consuming energy lesser than the prescribed level while the saved units can be sold to those who consume more energy than the norm.

Meanwhile, the proposal by the Power Ministry will require amendments to the Energy Conservation Act of 2001 whereas if the amendment goes through, the companies in power, steel, cement, fertilizer and five other sectors will be able to trade energy units saved.

Further, it is said that this would be a tad different from sales of carbon credits under the CDM, wherein a certificate of efficiency is issued to companies on the basis of overall energy conservation.

On the other hand, the proposal suggests reduction in the threshold limit of minimum load for buildings/offices to 100-kw from the existing 500-kw to bring in more commerce buildings and offices under the purview of the Energy Conservation Act.

China just said at the CMP-Meeting that it is not agreeing with the finding of the CDM Executive Board (EB) on taking back some CDM-Windprojects in China. The initial Critique came up by groups like CDM-Watch that China was lowering subsidies for Windprojects which are enabled under the CDM. They would then not be “additional” any more since they would have taken place without CDM (=certificates for the West) as well.

China now argued in a longer speech, that this dealing is basically unfair because the review (and cancellation or re-modelling) of CDM projects is role of the hosting nation (China). Thus, the EB went over its mandate by cutting those CDM projects. It is unclear, how this discussion (under the CURRENT CDM) is affecting negotiations for future Carbon Offsetting.

Early in the peaceful darkness while walking together, a vibrant energetic voice popped out from around a dark corner… “Hello!” We were greeted with the most ecstatic and exciting  welcome from Adrian, and led down cobblestone streets, round corners of mist, a walk of mystery. We arrived at the University of Copenhagen only to find ourselves amongst beautiful, crusted, gorgeous old buildings. No lifts – just stairs. NZYD had volunteered to help set up for what went on to be an exciting, energy-massive weekend, shared between more than 60 nations of the world, 600 like-minded global peers and family, big love and warming hugs, and a whole lot of shared vision. Welcome to Conference Of Youth (COY)… Our first NZYD experience in Copenhagen.

Adrian, one of the key organisers of COY, had us working on hand-made coloured direction signs, “Welcome to COY!”, “This way to COY!”, we slapped them onto posts and buildings all around this “village” with big black duck tape, provided our tech skills in setting up the hall, arranged and organised the registration processes for the 600 + people to come, and welcomed young people from around the world at the door with big Aotearoa aroha… We had a ball!

Speaking with great hope and inspiration, sharing stories that shook up perspectives, new knowledge, exploration and searching together for a fair and just world, this is COY. This is what the youth of our world are doing together. And, they do it with pizzazz!

I workshopped on CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) and Carbon Trading; LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forests) which is basically how, and in our present case if, we account for our forest management emissions; REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) something the New Zealand Government is keen on…

I learnt so much, about so many things, that are so complex, and so connected to our everyday lives without us realising it. But most importantly, I learnt that there are so many acronyms that I need to carry dictionary around, that my experience of chaos was gonna be blown to new proportions in the weeks ahead, and that… Wow! Now I can see how this is issue is so incredibly complex – I already felt I knew that, but now I had seen how it is manifesting in conversations and words for action, and… Well, why it is taking us so long to get on with it.

I was blown away by the small speech made by a strong woman from the Caribbean. In the middle of discussing CDM, numbers, profit, and business, she boldly put us in place reminding us of what we are really playing with. She mentioned the state of her homeland, the struggles with changes in weather, the effects it had on food supply, she was hungry for a genuine solution, and frustrated by slow pace in dealing with this global challenge.

“Those who are in charge are manipulating the system and using their powers to get ahead, using jargon language and making it look as though they are doing something. When are we going to get on with it?!” …Her reactivity and passion gained applause from the room, and I left with a sense of overwhelm, a wave of guilt, and with my love for understanding all experiences and perspectives I thought, “I’m in the right place”.

According to a recent (26 Nov 2009) report from UNDP-WHO 56% or 3 billion people rely on solid fuels for cooking. In Sub Saharan Africa the number is 620 million people or 82% of the population. 90% is biomass and the rest fossil coal.

A traditional standard, reasonable 3-stove fire uses about 7-8 kg of dry wood per day. And say the average family in the developing world is 6 people (World average is 4) 3 billion divided with six is 500 million times 3000 kg is 1,5 billion tonnes.

An Improved Cooking Stove does the same job with 2-3 kg of dry wood.

While we are waiting for electricity to reach these people and for them to make enough money to afford such a luxury, we should distribute the Improved Cooking Stove technology and Sustainable Fuel Production concept. This would half the overall use of biomass and possibly more than half the need to cut down trees as we would also make pellets of from forest (sawdust) and agriculture residues (from rice husk to straw) not used for any purpose today.

The main three results would be:

1) Many of the 2 million women and children dying from respiratory illnesses would not die and many, many more would not suffer!

2) We would possible save 5 million ha of forest every year (say there is 200 MT/ha of dry biomass) if we cut down half the amount of trees.

3) If we measure the saving in green house gases ONLY from the reduction in biomass used and ONLY in the 1,5 tonnes/1 tonne biomass of CO2. the reduction is 1,1 billion into account.

However, if we take a closer look at the statistics, more than 10% of the Biomass is actually Charcoal, which takes 5 times it weight in production and 6-12 times higher GHG emissions. If we replaced charcoal with virgin/plain biomass, this would save:

Another 5 million ha of forest and another 1,1 billion of CO2, equivalents.

If this concept was implemented it would equal 2,2 billion CERs. 2009 the total yearly reduction in ALL CMD project will be 329 million CERs.

This is what the developing countries should have brought with them to Copenhagen!

Cross Posted from Grist.

Well it was opening day of the madness that is COP15: the meeting of the UNFCCC that is supposedly going to decide the fate of the entire world. And what better way to open it than with broad civil society outrage at the egregious lack of democracy in the process.

Here’s the inside scoop: the Danish presidency is desperate for a positive spin on any outcome of the climate negotiations here. That means forcing an outcome by bringing together the rich and powerful nations to broker a deal in private and then to announce it to the rest of the world. There is widespread concern of US-friendly text being “parachuted” into the negotiating documents, at the expense of G77 countries (everyone else).

We all know that international agreements involve quite a lot of back-room deals and often intimidation. We just usually don’t expect it to come from the facilitators. Obviously this is both antithetical to the UN process but also to the duties of the Danish Government in playing a neutral convening role at the Conference of Parties. It’s not just an attack on democracy, but it amounts to an attack on the rest of the world on behalf of a few powerful interests. It’s the sort of “green room” behavior one would expect from the World Trade Organization, not the United Nations, which has a consensus process designed to make global decisions.

The logic is this – the US needs to be on board to get any deal, so therefore let’s force a watering-down of the process to get the US to sign. Déjà vu? It’s errily like we’re replaying the Kyoto meeting in 1997. Remember how the world watered down the treaty (giving birth to the concept of offsets and the Clean Development Mechanism) so that the US would sign? …and the US never even signed anyway.

Will COP15 be a race to the bottom, hijacked to pander to the United States? Today Raman Mehta from Action Aid India said, “The global community trusted the Danish government to host a fair and transparent process but they have betrayed that trust. Most importantly, they are betraying those who are disproportionately impacted by climate change and whose voices are not being heard. This unfair behavior strikes a blow to all efforts to achieve justice and equity in the climate change negotiations process.”

Civil Society has brought foreward a number of specific concerns:

– Undemocratic practices that have been adopted by the Danish Prime Minister who has been convening small and exclusive groups of countries before the Copenhagen meeting, excluding the vast majority of countries (everyone but the G20) whose futures are at stake in the negotiations.

- The Danish Prime Minister’s decision to produce draft “Copenhagen Accords” before the meeting has even started. These have been circulated to a select few governments, excluding others. They have been produced in spite of on-going negotiations under the UNFCCC and prejudiced the outcome of good-faith negotiations among all Parties.

- Systematic disregard for the demands of developing countries in order to privilege the position of Denmark and other developed countries on key issues.

- Danish Prime Minister’s consistent disregard for the concerns of developing countries by downgrading expectations for Copenhagen to a “political agreement” and by falsely stating that the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.

What does this mean?:

The Danish Government’s self serving actions reinforce efforts led by the U.S. and Canada to subvert the Kyoto Protocol to move towards a treaty under the only other negotiating track of the LCA. This moves us closer to the U.S.“pledge and review” process proposal – which would mean that instead of setting a total international science-based target, each country would choose a target based on domestic consultation with industry, leaving the world with whatever the aggregate total is. This will in no way bring us close to the targets that science demands, but it is easier to justify the U.S.’s weak commitments.

While efforts to seal a global deal on climate change are laudable, we can’t get caught in the mindset of settling for a dirty deal. When we sacrifice democracy in the interests of getting something we can call “politically successful”, we get the lowest common denominator – and it has nothing to do with actually stopping climate change.

As Meena Raman from the Third World Network put it, “The Danish government’s biased actions threaten the trust that is the very foundation of a fair and effective deal in Copenhagen and, left unchecked, these actions will cause the collapse of the Copenhagen process.”

The world is watching.

At Carbon Retirement, we have just published a short piece of research into the efficiency of carbon offsetting through the Clean Development Mechanism, covered today by the BBC. It shows that for every £1 spent on CERs by voluntary buyers, 28p goes to the project’s capital expenditure and maintenance costs.

The chart below, from the report, summarises the costs per CER, with the grey chunks representing project expenditure. Project costs total £3.78 per CER, or 28% of the price paid by the final buyer.

Costs in the CDM market, per CER

This isn’t a study of profitability for any of these actors and the costs at each stage might be reasonable. The big chunk taken by the pCER buyer in our model, for example, may be a fair reflection of the risk it holds that the project will not deliver CERs.

However, the research shows that the efficiency of the overall system is very poor. While some transactional costs are inevitable and you could never expect 100% of your money to go to project funding, 28% seems far too low. Imagine if a development charity told you that 72% of your donation went to middlemen and admin fees!

Co-incidentally, 28% is also the proportion of UK national lottery revenue that goes to charity. So, buying carbon offsets to mitigate climate change is like buying lottery tickets to give money to charity. With carbon offsetting, you don’t even win a prize!

A comprehensive and educative article written by Amitabh Sinha appeared in the Indian Express 6 Dec 2009. The article is very insightful and presents facts on the key environmental and gobal warming terms that we often read but are not sure what they really mean. Also issues related to common questions -  why we should be scared, very sacred, of Global warming and the possible solutions.

“Representatives of 192 countries meet in one of the most widely anticipated international conferences in Copenhagen. Here, they meet to try and hammer out an agreement that, many hope, will save the planet from the fallout’s of global warming and climate change. With the world attention focused on Copenhagen, here is what you should know”.

Read the full text at:

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-copenhagen-guide/550430/

Quote -

“I want to testify today about what I believe is a planetary emergency – a crisis that threatens the survival of our civilization and the habitability of the Earth”. - Al Gore
Testifying on impact of global warming before US congress.

Kia ora all,

Well its been a long day at the Conference of the Youth. This is where youth from around the world get together to increase our understanding and network together.

While I could diarise my actions for the day, you could probably get an outline of that anywhere. Here I want to talk about moving away from absolutes.

I get the feeling that amongst some people they hold true to ‘absolutes’ that reflect their political ideology, not necesarily the best outcome.

Now I am not talking about reduction targets or science (350ppm) which for me are absolutes, but more about how we achieve them.

An example lies in the Clean Development Mechanisms and offsetting. This seems to be pretty well divided along ‘left’ and ‘right’ political ideologies. With the left being more skeptical about its use, and the right being proponents of market mechanisms.

I hate to be one to sit on the fence but I believe the best option will come as a combination of both, as well as some new stuff. The risk is that we get the worst of both instead of the best.

I believe this attitude can be applied to many of the scenarios we face. It is about moving beyond the traditional arguing points and reaching new ground.

So far this blog has been fairly ambiguous and non-specific (maybe its just because its late). But I just wanted to highlighted my belief that there is still political baggage dragging on the negotiations. We need to leave all that behind and break new ground on how we want things to be achieved.

(Insert Albert Einstein quote here)

Anyway, just something to ponder.

According to a Reuters report, a United Nations panel has approved the inclusion of biofuels in a global scheme to reduce carbon emissions, a move that should boost investments in such projects, a Brazilian government official said on Friday. “The United Nations has just approved liquid biofuels methodology as a basis for the CDM. Projects that include liquid biofuels for transport can be included,” Andre Amado, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry’s subsecretary for biofuels and technology, said in an interview.

The CDM, or Clean Development Mechanism, part of the U.N.’s Kyoto protocol, promotes investments in emission-reducing projects in the developing world by companies and governments in rich nations. In return for building wind farms or other projects, such investments can earn valuable carbon offsets, called certified emission reductions, that can be sold for profit or used to meet mandatory targets to cut emissions.

Brazil is the world’s top sugar exporter and hopes to expand the export market for the ethanol biofuel it also makes from its sugar cane. Until now, though, biofuel for transport has not been covered by the CDM.

Amado, who will attend the U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen next week, said the decision to include biofuels should help boost global production of ethanol, something that Brazil sees as essential to forming a global market for it. “With this, we will arrive in Copenhagen stronger,” he said.

Brazil, where ethanol is widely used to fuel cars, has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the development of ethanol in several countries, including seven in Latin America and two in Africa. It sees local ethanol production as essential to building a global export market because, without it, countries would be reluctant to switch to biofuels if they had reservations about the security of supplies.

Brazil’s cane ethanol renders about seven times the energy used to produce it, an argument the country has used in defense of the controversial renewable fuel. It also points to its vast unused arable land to counter criticism that farm land should be used for food only. Biofuels have been criticized by those who say they offer little more energy beyond that which is used to produce them. But Brazil’s sugar cane-based ethanol is much more efficient than the corn-based variety used by other countries, including the United States.

Amado said the Brazil delegation would argue strongly in Copenhagen for the expanded use of biofuels as a key way of reducing carbon emissions. He said the use of so-called “flex” cars in Sao Paulo had saved 36 million tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2004 and 2008, equivalent to 113,000 trees. “There is nothing comparable in the world in economic terms and that is what we will take to Copenhagen,” he said

I’ve extracted two paras from a comment article published by Energy Bulletin, authored by me:

"The audience comprises investment banks, corporate and oligopolistic investors, and major compliance buyers all of whom will focus on how they can profit today from an increasingly diverse range of carbon-related investment opportunities which are being designed to enter the markets from 2010"

The numbers being prepared for discussion in København are staggering by any measure, at least to those who struggle to find money for social programmes, city infrastructure needs and social sector essentials like health and education. For those accustomed to constructing enormous virtual edifices of dizzying interlinks, this is finance redux with a new set of fundamentals that are defined by the science of climate change and by the growing list of acceptable technologies used to provide adaptation and mitigation methods.

And…

The point here, after half a decade of carbon trading and emissions and climate exchanges, is whether in fact the principles of sustainable development, social justice, equity to all – and especially – respect to and protection for the poorest and most vulnerable has been helped by the CDM and its constellation of allied activities. The short answer is ‘no’, and because that is the short answer, the future of any successor system – many will be unveiled at the København summit – is equally bleak in the terms that genuinely concern us. The evidence of failure on a global scale is in fact all around us.

There’s more to be read here

The UNFCCC secretariat has announced the top 25 shortlisted images and the top 8 shortlisted videos for the CDM International Photo and Video Contest 2009, on the theme “CDM Changing Lives.” The winners will be announced at a ceremony during COP 15 in Copenhagen.

The winning entries will be posted on the UNFCCC website. The images on the front page of this newsletter are among the photo contest shortlisted entries.

For information on the photographers and videographers and the related clean development mechanism projects, visit http://cdm.unfccc.int/contest/09/index.html

In an effort to build on growing interest in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in Africa, partner UN agencies and the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) have announced they will organize a second all-Africa Carbon Forum at the United Nations Gigiri complex in Nairobi, Kenya, on 3–5 March 2010.

In November 2006, then Secretary-General Kofi Annan launched the Nairobi Framework, aimed at spreading the benefits of the CDM. Since then, interest in the mechanism in Africa has grown, and with it the number of projects and hosting countries. Still, Africa accounts for less than 2% of the more than 1,900 CDM projects registered to date in 58 countries.

The Clean Development Mechanism – a clear success of the Protocol – continues to create incentive for investment in climate change mitigation and generate funds for adaptation. That the private sector is anxious to see another carbon market event in Africa is a good indication of CDM’s potential on the continent. The first all-Africa Carbon Forum was held in Dakar, Senegal, in September 2008.

Most of the events are becoming ‘closed’, where non-press and non-party observers cannot witness the negotiations any longer. A few of the scheduled open events have also been canceled. Given the constricting number of open events, it is surprising that the number of NGO people in attendance at the conference is more than ever. This morning, I heard a talk by Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel peace laureate, who started the green belt movement. She highlighted some of the major problems people face in Kenya: lack of firewood, malnutrition, clean water shortage, loss of topsoil, etc. She said that most of these problems can be solved by empowering women to plant trees, “you don’t need a diploma to plant trees, you just go out and do it…by planting seeds of peace, seeds of democracy, seeds of human rights.” However, of all developing countries, Africa only gets less than 3% of the CDM funding for projects. There are reasons why, such as the difficulty of proving that these CDM projects are additional to what would have been done under a business as usual (BAU) scenario, the problem of regaining costs of the project etc. Are there ways CDM can be used more effectively in Africa?

Second on the agenda today is a request by a few of my readers to discuss the email controversy. I do not think I could do a better job than the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, who released this document recently. I do worry at times that scientists whose research results are against the tide of consensus have trouble getting their voice out. However, that does not excuse scientists from misleading by twisting facts or by using ‘tricks’. It has been said that statistics is more an art than a science. But I hope that having and maintaining a peer-review process for publication allows our community to continue investigating some of the most puzzling questions about life.

President Obama on Live TV accepting his Nobel in Oslo while being viewed by members of COP-15

First, an explanation on the mechanisms of COP-15: There are two separate negotiating tracks at COP-15: (1) AWG-KP, which stands for the ‘Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol’, and (2) AWG-LCA, which stands for the ‘Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention’. The first looks at how the developed countries need to strengthen their targets, the workings of the adaptation funds, and what will happen come 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol expires. The second, AWG-LCA, looks at the Quick-Start fund for the most severely effected developing countries, emission targets for non-Kyoto players like the United States, and what will happen in the future with the COP. These two groups serve as two separate negotiating tracks for the COP-15.

Now to what has happened today, Day 4, of the COP-15: Under the AWG-KP there is a significant divide, where many growing economies who are also developing countries, like China, Brazil, India etc. are asking for a ‘40% GHG reduction by 2020’ by all Annex 1 countries (developed countries). This would be an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol under Article 3.9. Many of these countries do not want to scrap Kyoto after the expiration date in 2012 in favor of a new protocol. The other divide is among the small island states and some African countries (negotiations thus far are being led by Tuvalu, the fourth smallest country in the world, located in the pacific) who want a binding agreement based on the Bali summit to limit global temperature increases to under 1.5 degrees Celsius above 1990 levels and to limit carbon dioxide concentration at 350 parts per million. So far, many other countries have supported Tuvalu’s requested amendment. Madame President, Connie Hedegaard, has asked that this issue now be discussed in a closed-door forum of a contact group. A similar fate was awarded to the request for CCS (Carbon Capture and Sequestration, a clean-coal mechanism) to be considered as a CDM (Clean Developmental Mechanism), which is now being debated out in a contact group.

President Obama was just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. The ceremony was watched intently by many delegates, as much of the outcome of the climate change negotiations hinge on his visit to the COP-15 next week. The COP-15 takes place over two weeks, where week one involves most of the negotiators battling out parts of the text and week two involves heads of state and ministry trying to pass the text through to form an agreement. Much of the action may occur in the last hour of the last day.

Todd Stern, the leading climate envoy from the United States, has rejected the idea of providing reparations to countries who would suffer the most under climate change.

From the side-events: The Climate Action Network (CAN) holds a daily press briefing to boil down major points of the day for the press and activists. Here are some of their talking points from today’s brief:
-    There needs to be one base year for everyone’s reductions (1990) rather than allowing each country to pick their own base years
-    There are major loopholes being generated to circumvent binding emission reduction targets. These are (1) Logging – where many developed countries want increases in logging not to be counted as part of their emissions, (2) hot-air credits – where countries like Ukraine have large number of emission allowances due to their baseline reflecting a period in time with severe economic decline, and (3) Re-labeling/double accounting – where developed countries who will be asked to provide funds for the Quick Start fund to help developing countries adapt to the impacts of climate change will just be provided funds through usual aid channels, not in access of them.

A personal note: The color of ones’ badge represents quite an amount of power here at COP-15. Yellow are non-governmental observers, blue are press, and pink are party members. As the week is evolving, my badge’s worth gets heavily discounted as more of the main events are being held behind closed doors accessible only to press and party members alone. I hypothesize that the press badges will lose footing soon as well.