This would be accomplished by building stockades in remote places where the highest-polluting carbon lifeforms could be rounded up and sent. This will neutralise their harmful effects on the world and generate millions of dollars in offset revenue for companies that trap them. A good place to build these stockades would be in the deserts of Arizona, but we could get off to a good start by locking the gates at Westminster Palace and not letting them out. We would have to be vigilant against attempts to tunnel out, but the chances of them getting themselves organised enough to manage that are frankly slim.

However, where there is a market there will be those who seek to exploit it and so we will need to consider measures to prevent the creation of additional unwanted politicians. This might be accomplished by psychometric profiling to look for anyone with a high self-importance factor combined with a low threshold for humiliation, or by organising “sting” elections where those who enter as candidates self-identify themselves as politicians and can safely be trapped and traded.

This would leave the rest of us free to deal with the real problems facing the world.

To read a little about the inanity of carbon trading, please see this article in the New York Times: Profits on Carbon Credit Drive Output of a Harmful Gas

Next proposal: Bankers’ bonuses to be paid with jars of Marmite

English: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change nations: Green: UNFCCC Member Peach: UNFCCC Observer Gray: Not party to UNFCCC (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Author: Daniel Bodansky, July 2012
In December 2011, parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, which launched a new round of negotiations aimed at developing “a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force” for the post-2020 period. The Durban Platform negotiations got underway this year and are scheduled to conclude in 2015. This Viewpoint analyzes the elements of the Durban Platform and the possible role that a new instrument might play… (more)  http://ow.ly/1lq12K

Related articles

• China says it holds fast to Durban outcome (junkscience.com)
• Germany: Durban Platform climate talks in Bonn (afriquejet.com)
• Climate Change: The Quest for a Fair Global Climate Policy (ionglobaltrends.com)
• Global warming: Inching ahead at Bonn climate talks (summitcountyvoice.com)
• Germany seeks Petersberg climate boost (upi.com)

First time i heard the term i thought it a type of mushrooms from China or Japan! So the more i heard of it on the International meia houses i decided to find out what exactly is the KYOTO Protocol.

Definition of ‘Kyoto Protocol’

Kyoto Protocol

An international agreement that  aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the presence of greenhouse  gases. Countries that ratify the Kyoto Protocol are assigned maximum carbon  emission levels and can participate in carbon credit trading. Emitting more than  the assigned limit will result in a penalty for the violating country in the  form of a lower emission limit in the following period.

The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC), aimed at fighting global warming. The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty with the goal of achieving the “stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system

The Protocol was initially adopted on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, and entered into force on 16 February 2005. As of September 2011, 191 states have signed and ratified the protocol.^[ The only remaining signatory not to have ratified the protocol is the United States. Other United Nations member states which did not ratify the protocol are Afghanistan, Andorra and South Sudan. In December 2011, Canada renounced the Protocol.

Tanzania ratified and accepted the kyoto protocol in August 2002.  One of the initiatives in Tanzania is through The national REDD strategy  which is  yet to be completed though it is at an advanced stage of preparation. It will enable Tanzania to gain billion of shillings annually from the international carbon trading markets, through conserving forests.

The Kyoto Protocol separates  countries into two groups. Annex I includes developed nations, while  Non-Annex I refers to developing countries like Tanzania. Emission limitations are only placed  on Annex I countries. Non-Annex I nations participate by investing in projects  that lower emissions in their own countries. For these projects, they earn  carbon credits. These credits can be traded or sold to Annex I countries, which  allow them a higher level of maximum carbon emissions for that period.

Carbon Credit is  permit that allows the holder to emit one ton of carbon  dioxide. Credits are awarded to countries or groups that have reduced  their green house gases below their emission quota. Carbon  credits can be traded in the international market at their current  market price.

The carbon credit system was  ratified in conjunction with the Kyoto Protocol. Its goal is to stop the  increase of carbon dioxide emissions.
For example, if an  environmentalist group plants enough trees to reduce emissions by one  ton, the group will be awarded a credit. If a steel producer  has an emissions quota of 10 tons, but is expecting to produce 11  tons, it could purchase this carbon credit from the environmental  group. The carbon credit system looks to reduce emissions by having  countries honor their emission quotas and offer incentives for being below them.

In response to the Kyoto Protocol a Carbon Trade idea was presented. The Idea  involves the trading of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission rights between nations.

For example, if Country A exceeds  its capacity of GHG and Country B has a surplus of capacity, a monetary  agreement could be made that would see Country A pay Country B for the right to  use its surplus capacity.
The Kyoto Protocol presents nations with the  challenge of reducing greenhouse gases and storing more carbon. A nation that  finds it hard to meet its target of reducing GHG could pay another nation  to reduce emissions by an appropriate quantity.

Since COP 16 in Cancún, governments have agreed that safeguards are required for the implementation of REDD+. They are indispensable, both to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of REDD+ and to ensure coherence with international standards on environment and human rights. Governments included important safeguard elements in the Cancún Agreement and instructed SBSTA to develop guidance on providing information on how these would be addressed and respected. The process stalled somewhat in Durban, and many felt some governments were even moving backwards on their commitments regarding safeguards, since the final decision was mostly related to modalities to provide information rather than on the actual information to provide. Although the discussion about the level and contents of SBSTA guidance continues, no guidance or policies have yet been developed at an international level to operationalise and actually implement REDD+ safeguards. http://indigenouspeoplesissues.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15517:international-forests-and-people-first-the-need-for-universal-redd-safeguards&catid=34&Itemid=73

By Alan Caruba

Why anyone still believes anything the UN Environmental Program and its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has to say is one of those great imponderable questions. To prepare you for the flood of totally idiotic predictions to which you will be treated during the June 20-21 Earth Summit, here are just a few and I strongly advise you to ignore all of them.

A 550-page preparatory UN report, put together by “600 experts”, the Global Environmental Outlook—intended to soften up global suckers—predicts that Earth’s environmental systems are nearly at “their biophysical limits” thus subjecting the Earth to “irreversible and possibly cataclysmic world changes” and “If humanity does not urgently change its ways” it is doomed.

Notably, the Earth Summit will abandon “global warming” and “climate change” as its main theme and instead focus on “sustainability”, the utterly bogus notion that humans are using up all of the Earth’s resources.

The people most famous for really bad predictions these days are environmentalists. Rachel Carson kicked it off fifty years ago with her book, “Silent Spring”, assuring everyone that all the birds would fall dead out of the sky because of pesticide use. These days they are more likely to be chopped to shreds by wind turbines.

Ever since the early days of environmental hysteria just about every awful scenario cooked up in the fevered brains of the Greens has become front page news. There is method to their madness and it comes down to a simple equation: Scaring People Equals Money and Power.

Environmentalism is all about controlling you while picking your pocket. By any other name it is Socialism or its big brother Communism. It depends on lies backed up by a massive propaganda machine, funded by ultra-wealthy foundations, by governments who support Green programs of all sorts, and by the members of an endless succession of environmental organizations.

For example, you may recall that global warming, a massive heating of the Earth due to carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gas emissions” was predicted to occur twenty, thirty or fifty years hence when the hoax kicked off in the late 1980s. Keep that in mind when the Rio+20 United Nations Earth Summit is held in Rio de Janeiro, the site of the first conference.

Supported by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the so-called “scientists” backed up their claims with all manner of computer models, dubious graphs, and tons of “scientific” papers to convince governments and people that massive changes had to occur—primarily a huge reduction in the use of fossil fuels—or we were all doomed.

Exposed in November 2009 by the “Climategate” release of thousands of emails between the perpetrators, I still find it astonishing that not one single member of this conspiracy has gone to jail. Indeed, in 2007 the IPCC and Al Gore shared a Nobel Peace Prize.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has issued a formal request that all the “researchers” who contributed to the global warming hoax be granted immunity from prosecution. Unbelievable, eh?

Back in 1956, a geologist named M. King Hubbert released the findings of his calculations to let the world know that U.S. oil production would “peak” between 1965 and 1970. It didn’t. What has since slowed oil production in the U.S. has been the refusal of the Obama administration to issue the permits necessary to drill on federal lands and offshore. The world is afloat on an ocean of oil and, in addition, the U.S. is not running out of coal or natural gas.

Similarly, all the population predictions made by Prof. Paul R. Erhlich and his wife in 1968 have proven false as well. A colleague of his, Dr. John Holdren, is the science advisor to the President. One of the central themes of environmentalism is that humanity is to blame for harming the Earth and that there are too many people.

The other theme is that all these people are “consuming” too much of the Earth’s natural resources and should be penned up in cities and kept out of most places on Earth in order to protect its “endangered species”, etc. Meanwhile, as this is being written, huge sections of western states’ forests are going up in flames thanks to Mother Nature setting off fires off with lightning strikes.

Does it surprise anyone that the Earth Summit is calling for a “climate fund” and wants nations to kick in $100 billion? The proposal for the fund called “The Earth We Want” covers an extraordinary range of topics that includes gender equality, woman’s empowerment, and all the usual social justice and environmental clap-trap that is intended to ensnare everyone in a web of laws, regulations, and treaties aimed directly at eliminating the freedoms the West has and that many in other parts of the world want.

There is one good reason to not ignore the Earth Summit. They are telling you just what kind of an Orwellian and totalitarian world they have in mind for you.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

April 2012 global temperature anomalies.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Health experts say more botton-up grassroots activism is needed to make it clear that global warming poses a public health risk that’s at least equal to the impact of tobacco.

The international group of researchers published their report last week in the journal PLoS Medicine. The authors included public health experts from institutions in Sweden, Germany and South Africa.

From their report:

“It is becoming increasingly clear that maintaining a sustainable and healthy climate is something that can only be achieved by means of a concerted global effort, including large-scale and small-scale actions, in which the public health community must play an active part … As yet there seems to be a lack of coherence in terms of clear public health messages about climate aimed at populations in general.”

The authors said that there are some things that can help: “Encouraging people to walk and cycle rather than using motorised transport, and to eat healthier, locally produced foodstuffs, are clear examples that can bring both individual health benefits and reduced climate impact.”

However, moving from the individual to the corporate and societal levels needs further actions.

“In general, individuals cannot regulate their lives in terms of carbon footprint, for example, in a way that is completely independent of the societies in which they live.”

The authors argued that at the global level the need for consensus actions on climate that only governments can make is equally important.

“Public health voices must be heard on health-related issues in those circles, including lending support and influence for legislation, regulatory action, or other reform designed to address climate and environmental concerns.

“We hope that the continuing [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] process will nevertheless lead to an improving global prognosis—to which the public health community must contribute by effectively promoting health and climate co-benefits.”

Liberals live it up while preaching austerity

There’s nothing so profitable as being among the concerned climate experts who preach austerity. These enlightened few hector ordinary Americans into sacrificing their functional light bulbs, toilets and sport utility vehicles so the planet can be preserved. According to them, failure to give up these luxuries will overheat the globe and provoke devastating floods and hurricanes.

The peddlers of such apocalyptic tales rarely practice austerity themselves. Earlier this month, Rep. Darrell E. Issa, California Republican, asked Michael J. Ahearn, chairman of the board for First Solar Inc., to come and testify before a congressional oversight panel about his solar-panel business. Sun power is hailed by the left as the solution to the world’s energy needs. That’s why the Obama administration showered First Solar with $1.5 billion in taxpayer-backed gifts, recognizing the firm’s unquestioned eco-correctness.

An impious Mr. Issa, however, couldn’t help but inquire about how Mr. Ahearn made the journey from Tempe, Ariz., to Washington. According to liberals, carbon dioxide – the odorless gas that makes respiration possible – is destroying the Earth itself. So instead of driving an SUV, we’re all supposed to take the bus, ride a bicycle or even walk. Mr. Ahearn did none of these. “I flew in yesterday on a Challenger,” he explained. “A 300,” referring to the model.

According to data from Bombardier, the manufacturer of the $20 million luxury jet, the round trip would have produced about 21.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide. That’s equal to five years’ worth of per-person emissions from the average household, by the Environmental Protection Agency’s reckoning. There’s no telling how many thousands of households would have to turn down the thermostat to offset the emissions from the annual travel of just one green-energy CEO.

Many more need to forgo modern technology to offset the impact of a global-warming strategy session. At the 2009 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, for example, about 1,200 limousines and 140 private jets were used to ferry the international bigshots looking “to save the world,” the London Telegraph reported. These posh conferences are always held in exotic locales such as Cancun, Mexico, and Durban, South Africa, subjecting the popular resort destinations to critical shortages of organic champagne and sustainable caviar.

Bureaucrats from around the world suddenly forget about planet-saving travel options such as wind-powered ships (otherwise known as sailboats) when booking reservations. Those who aren’t of the level to qualify for a private jet can attend the next U.N. conference in Doha, Qatar, in November on Qatar Airways, the event’s official airline. “Doha is home to world-class hotels and restaurants, where you can enjoy 5-star service and renowned Qatari hospitality,” the airline bragged in its advertisement to attendees. “You can also indulge in some fine shopping at luxurious shopping malls or a variety of water and beach sports available at various hotels and resorts throughout Doha.” Now that’s austerity.

It’s hard to avoid the obvious conclusion that government envoys and renewable-energy hucksters don’t really credit their own claims. The global-warming myth is simply an excuse to pillage public coffers to enhance their personal lifestyle.

NASA’s monthly mapping tool shows temperature anomalies in April 2012.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Two weeks of climate talks in Bonn following up on the last year’s Durban summit didn’t yield much progress in some critical areas, although the delegates did take some steps toward finding a way to extend the Kyoto Protocol and on finding ways to help the most poor and vulnerable countries deal with global warming impacts.

The next round of climate talks is set for Doha, Qatar in November, when delegates are to decide on how long the extension of the Kyoto agreement should be, as an interim step before adopting a legally binding climate treaty in 2015.

The Doha meeting is also aimed at defining the precise emission reduction commitments of industrialized countries that have obligations under the Kyoto agreement.

United Nations climate officials tried to paint the Bonn talks in the best possible light, emphasizing the baby steps toward progress, while downplaying the fact that key players, particularly India and China, are balking.

“Work at this session has been productive. Countries can now press on to ensure elements are in place to adopt the Doha amendment to the Kyoto Protocol,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “I am pleased to say that the Bonn meeting produced more clarity on the Protocol’s technical and legal details and options to enable a smooth transition between the two commitment periods of the protocol,” she said, referring to the fact that the Kyoto Protocol (the first significant international climate agreement) will expire this year.

Meanwhile, China and India were doing all they could to stall progress toward a legally binding climate treaty, concerned that limits on emissions could stifle their rapidly growing economies.

While UN officials remained hopeful and diplomatic, EU delegates expressed frustration.

“The world cannot afford that a few want to backtrack from what was agreed in Durban only five months ago. Durban was – and is – a delicately balanced package where all elements must be delivered at the same pace,” EU climate chief Connie Hedegaard said in a statement. “It is not a pick and choose menu. It is very worrisome that attempts to backtrack have been so obvious and time-consuming in the Bonn talks over the last two weeks.”

The Bonn meeting did help outline agreements  technology, finance and capacity-building aimed at building climate equity between developing and developed countries. Those deals are set to be ratified at the Doha meeting.

On another track, delegates at Bonn also tried to hash out how to speed up actions to reduce emissions even before a global treaty takes effect — but that’s where the talks ran into serious roadblocks.

“The agenda guarantees that attention is given both to the 2015 agreement, as well as to efforts to raise ambition to curb greenhouse gases up to 2020. This is a very important component of the Durban Platform and a response to what science is telling us on a repeated basis, namely that current mitigation efforts are not sufficient,” Figueres said.

By most calculations, the opportunity to limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius is nearly gone, and more urgent action is needed. Most recently, the International Energy Agency said greenhouse gas emissions have reached a record high and would need to peak no later than 2017 for the world to have half a chance of staying below the 2 degrees Celsius benchmark.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change outlined key areas where progress was made on implementation in a press release:

Climate Technology Centre
Governments confirmed the ranking of three shortlisted hosts for the Climate Technology Center (CTC), with a UNEP-led consortium leading. The Climate Technology Centre, along with its associated Network, is the implementing arm of the UNFCCCís Technology Mechanism established by the Cancun Agreements in 2010. This means that the UN Climate Change Secretariat can start work immediately to help establish the CTC.

Green Climate Fund
Progress was also made on the Green Climate Fund, envisioned as a major global channel for long-term financial support to help developing countries in the urgent task of building their own sustainable and climate-resilient futures. During the Bonn meeting, most nominations to the Board of the Green Climate Fund were received and those outstanding are expected soon. Governments say they want a first Board meeting to go ahead at end June/beginning July, which would allow for the Fund to become operational in 2013.

Long-Term Finance
Regarding long-term Finance, there was strong endorsement of confidence in the Co-Chairs in Bonn and support to go ahead with a work programme that will deliver a clear report to governments meeting in Doha on the sources of finance that need to ramp up to $100 billion by 2020.

Adaptation
In the field of adaptation, a draft decision text for Doha was agreed on ways to implement National Adaptation Plans for least developed countries, including linking funding and other support. In addition, governments submitted nominations for the members of the Adaptation Committee. This paves the way for the first meeting of this important committee, which is tasked with better coordinating international adaptation efforts. In the area of loss and damage, governments agreed to recognize the impact of slow onset events, such as sea level rise and ocean acidification, and acknowledged the importance of local communities.

Registry
The UN Climate Change Secretariat presented the prototype of a registry that matches information on developing country actions to curb emissions with industrialized country support. The prototype was well-received, and the secretariat will now finalize a working prototype ready for Doha at the end of the year.

About the UNFCCC
With 195 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by 193 of the UNFCCC Parties. Under the Protocol, 37 States, consisting of highly industrialized countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to a market economy, have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.
UNFCCC on Twitter: @UN_ClimateTalks

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres on Twitter: @CFigueres UNFCCC

On Facebook: facebook.com/UNclimatechange

The savings are also because the AC system is more energy efficient and the transmission and distribution losses are less compared to the DC format. The WR runs 1,250 suburban services. The savings are substantial although the number of services has increased from 1,210 in December 2011.
“In 2011-12, WR was able to save Rs 53 crore after the conversion to the AC system,” said Sharat Chandrayan, WR’s chief public relations officer.

“The savings are bound to be substantial even though there may be an increase in services on WR’s suburban system in the future,” he added. WR has 77 AC-DC compatible rakes on its network.

WR has also registered the project with the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change. “Each rake has the potential to earn 35,000 units of carbon credits. It is estimated that these rakes will reduce overall carbon emissions,” he said. After the Mumbai division switched to the AC system this year, three phase locomotives with regenerative-brakes, which have the potential to save 15 to 17 % energy, have been introduced.

Super Saver

• Savings : 4cr in April

• AC-DC rakes on WR : 77

• Energy savings : 30%

•Savings (2011-12) : 53cr

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIM/2012/05/26&PageLabel=11&EntityId=Ar01100&ViewMode=HTML

originally published at zcommunications.org

In June 2012, movements and leaders will meet in Rio for Rio+20, 20 years after the Earth Summit was organized in 1992 to address urgent ecological challenges such as species extinction, Biodiversity erosion, and Climate Change. The Earth Summit gave us two very significant international environmental laws, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations framework Convention on Climate Change. It also gave us the Rio principles, including the Precautionary Principle, and the Polluter Pays Principle.

The world has changed radically since 1992, and sadly, not for the better. Ecological sustainability has been systematically sacrificed for a particular model of the economy, which is itself in crisis.

1995 created a tectonic shift in what values guide our decisions, and who makes the decisions. Rio was based on values of ecological sustainability, social justice and economic equity, across countries, and within countries. Rio was shaped by ecological movements and ecological science, and by sovereign governments. The establishment of WTO, and the paradigm of global corporate rule, inaccurately called “free trade”, more accurately described as corporate globalization, changed the values and the structures of governance and decision making. Conservation of the Earth’s resources, and equitable sharing was replaced by greed and the grabbing and privatization of resources. Sustainable economies and societies were replaced by non sustainable production systems, and a relentless drive to spread the virus of consumerism. Decision making moved into the hands of global corporations, both directly and indirectly. It is therefore not surprising that when we meet at Rio+ 20 the ecological crisis is deeper than what it was at the time of the Earth Summit, and the will and capacity of governments is weaker.

While the corporations wrote the rules of WTO and global free trade, they have also subverted the environmental rules which were supposed to regulate their commercial activities to ensure sustainability. They have mutated environmental laws which are supposed to regulate commerce into laws for commercializing and commodifying the earth’s resources and ecological functions. They have subverted the Climate Treaty and the Biodiversity Convention. Instead of polluters paying and being regulated at the national and international level to stop pollution, the biggest atmospheric polluters who have contributed most to climate change are laying the rules on how to deal with climate change. The biotechnology industry which has caused genetic pollution by releasing genetically engineered organisms into the environment is laying the rules on how to manage biodiversity and how to govern Biosafety. The attempt to introduce BRAI, the Biotechnogy Regulatory Authority of India, is an example.

The original objective of the Climate Treaty was to put in place legally binding emission reduction targets for the historic polluters, who in the pre–globalization period were concentrated in the rich industrial North. The treaty was destroyed at the Climate summit in Copenhagen, by an attempt to replace it with a non-binding Copenhagen Accord. The Kyoto Protocol introduced emissions trading, which in effect meant the polluter got paid, not punished. The big industrial polluters were first paid by allowing them to get private rights to our atmospheric commons. They then got paid by profiting from carbon trading. Profits increased and emissions increased. Climate chaos is worse today than it was in 1992. And the polluters look for new avenues to make money and grab resources. Now they want to commodify the ecological functions and services that nature provides. This will be the big Climate debate in Rio+20.

The original objective of the Convention on Biological Diversity was the conservation of biodiversity and its sustainable and equitable use. This objective has been subverted and is being increasingly replaced by objectives of trade in genetic resources, profits and privatization. The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing restricts access only to global players, ignoring the access of local communities. It treats as utilization only utilization for research and commerce, ignoring the survival needs of local communities. It is in fact legalized Biopiracy, because it enables the transfer of genetic wealth from local communities to global corporations, it undermines the biodiversity economies and cultures which have conserved biodiversity, and are necessary for conserving it for the future.

In both the Climate Treaty and the Biodiversity convention, trade and commerce is replacing conservation and the commons. Rightsof Corporations is replacing the Rights of Nature and People.

And this change in values, from conserving and sharing  to exploiting and privatising, is justified  in the name of economic progress and economic growth. Yet the economic paradigm for which the Earth and Society are being pillaged and destroyed, is itself in deep crisis. Look at the farmers suicides and hunger and malnutrition crisis in India. Look at the protests in Greece, or Spain, or the Occupy movement of the 99% in the US.

As the Spanish indignados said

“We fail to understand why we should have to pay the costs of the crisis, while its instigators continue to post record profits. We’re sick and tired of one injustice after another. We want human dignity back again.

This isn’t the kind of world we want to live in, and it’s we who have to decide what world we do want. We know we can change it, and we’re having a great time going about it.”

A paradigm shift is desperately needed. And it will not come to those who have created the crisis, and who are looking for new ways to extend the life of the Greed economy by commodifying and privatizing all life on earth. They will come to Rio+20 to paint the Greed Economy Green, and call it the Green Economy. And they will have powerful governments on their side.

Movements for ecological sustainability, social justice and deep democracy will come to Rio+20 with another paradigm, one centred on the Rights of Mother Earth, the rights of future generations, of women, indigenous communities, and farmers.

It is this epic contest between a destructive and dying outmoded paradigm and a life enhancing emergent paradigm that will be the most significant aspect of Rio+20. The outcome of this contest will determine the future of humanity. It will not enter the negotiations, which can only be the lowest common denominator in the current context of corporate influence. But it will provide the energy for the People’s Summit, and many government initiatives at Rio Centro. This contest will continue beyond Rio, in every country, in every village and town, every farm and workplace, every home and street. None of us our immune from the crisis, or the response to it. None of us are bystanders. We are all immersed in  processes that are either threatening the planet and our own future, or finding creative ways to shape a sustainable and just future. Every day is an earth summit in our lives. And each of us is negotiating our collective fate on the Earth.

Today is International Day for Biological Diversity.

This evening (Tuesday May 22) the Jamaica Environment Trust will premiere a film created by Esther Figueroa’s Vagabond Media called “Cockpit Country is our Home.”  It will be shown at Red Bones Blues Cafe in Argyle Road, Kingston at 7:00 p.m.  Admission free.

JET’s film flyer.

This article was first printed by IPS on May 11, 2012.  It is by Jamaican environmental journalist Zadie Neufville, who has been writing on development, health and environmental issues for the past twenty years.  She is a co-founder of AhYaad Communications and founder of Our Tomorrows, a development project that seeks to find sustainable and environmentally sound ways to improve the lives of Jamaicans.

Jamaican authorities are going all out to achieve environmental sustainability as one way of minimising the expected impacts of climate change on the local biodiversity.

There is no up-to-date inventory of the island’s flora and fauna, and a shortage of adequate data collection devices, which researchers say are needed to begin climate impact studies and adaptation planning in ecosystems management.

But, by working toward the seventh Millennium Development Goal (MDG) – a series of development and anti-poverty targets agreed by U.N. member states in 2000 – authorities hope to establish the principles of sustainable development across all sectors to reduce environmental degradation, reverse the loss of environmental resources, and significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss.

Ecosystems Manager at the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) Andrea Donaldson told IPS that while the agency’s work on biodiversity is not focused on climate change, they are aware of the likely impacts and continue to implement measures to safeguard the local biological diversity.

The National MDG Report has pointed to the country’s failures in efforts at pollution controls and the protection of critical ecosystems, and it is these factors that worry scientists the most.

In addition, human activities that result in deforestation, destruction of wetlands and coastal ecosystems, urban sprawl as well as disregard for the natural environment have been identified as some of the most serious threats to biodiversity.

In fact, experts are concerned that disregard for the natural environment could exacerbate the impacts of severe weather. Both the 2010 State of the Environment Report (SOE) and the National Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) pointed to human activities as significant threats.

“Climate change is likely to further increase the negative impacts” of habitat loss, over-exploitation, poor land use and ignorance about the value of natural resources, the SOE reported.

Some experts are already describing changes in coral reefs, forests and coastal wetlands, areas that have been identified as most vulnerable to climate change. It is widely believed that with more than 12 extreme weather events in the last five years, Jamaica is already feeling the effects.

This is the most bio-endemic island in the region. Ranking fifth amongst islands of the world for the number of unique species, Jamaica’s biodiversity losses could be immense. There are more than 8,000 recorded species of plants and animals and more than 3,500 marine species here.

Among the island’s endemic treasures are 10 species of cacti, seven species of palms and 60 of the 240 species of orchids. There are 31 endemic species of birds, nine species of crabs, 505 species of the 514 varieties of land snails, and 33 of the 43 species of reptiles.

At least four of the 24 species of bats here are endemic; 17 of the 19 species of frogs and about 15 of the 115 species of butterflies.

Among the better-known unique species are the Tody, the Jamaican boa, the Jamaican Hutia also called the coney and the Giant Swallowtail Butterfly.

The island ranks among the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) list of places with the highest number of at-risk mammals, due primarily to the threat to its endemic bats and the coney.

Another of the island’s endemic species, the Jamaican iguana, is on the IUCN’s Red List of endangered and threatened species. Roughly 200 of the animals survive in the shrinking limestone forests of Hillshire, several miles outside the capital Kingston.

And as the impacts of fewer but more intense rainy days, increased intensity of hurricanes, and periodic drought take their toll, socioeconomic problems are expected to increase the pressure on natural resources.

As the agency charged with safeguarding the island’s biological treasures, NEPA said it has spearheaded a number of policies, programmes and legislation to manage and prevent unauthorised exploitation.

Its managers admit, however, that enforcement has been difficult so like the Forestry Department, NEPA is making the impacted communities its allies. Adaptation funding has enabled both agencies to replant the forests and coastal wetlands. At the same time, they are working with fishers, farmers and others whose livelihoods depend on the natural ecosystems to find other income-generating opportunities.

The multi-sector, multi-donor climate change adaptation and disaster mitigation project is funded by the European Union. It also compliments NEPA’s efforts to assign economic value to the ecosystem and improve data collection to inform climate change planning.

“We are trying to install data loggers to collect information on sea water surface temperature among other things,” Donaldson noted. “While we do regular reef checks, I can’t say as a fact that any changes we see are from climate change.”

NEPA’s data loggers should provide the Jamaica Clearing House Mechanism (CHM) with information that would be useful in studying the impact of climate change on its vast though outdated databases of plants and animals, biologist Keron Campbell said.

“We are updating the baseline data, the inventories of plant and animal species and this is needed to track any changes,” Campbell told IPS, noting that data-loggers along with ongoing field studies and temperature information from the meteorological service will provide valuable data for adaptation planning.

Jamaica’s Natural History Museum, which houses the CHM, holds 110,000 zoological specimens and a herbarium of 130,000 plant specimens dating back to the 1870s. The CHM is part of an international network and is the result of Jamaica’s commitment under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity.

Donaldson also pointed to charcoal burning, farming, solid waste disposal in fresh water sources and coastal areas, and improper fishing methods including the use of chemicals as some of the most prevalent and worrying factors that impact biodiversity.

The SOE reported that scientists are also seeing changes in the Portland Bight, the island’s largest nature reserve. It is also the only known habitat of the Jamaican iguana.

Dr. Byron Wilson, head of the University of the West Indies Iguana programme, noted that the continued survival of the iguana is due primarily to the remoteness of its habitat. Efforts to build a colony on Goat Island just off the coast failed, he said, making the Hellishire Hills one of the world’s most important natural habitats.

But development is now making the area more accessible. It was a pig hunter who rediscovered the iguana that had been thought extinct for more than 30 years.

NEPA’s wildlife specialist Ricardo Miller noted that the most significant changes during the annual game birds survey is the rate of development.

“I have had to change my sampling routes due to developmental changes. Some of the best birding trails are being replaced by houses,” he said.

Jamaica’s climate change preparations began in 1997 with Caribbean Planning for Adaptation to Global Climate Change (CPACC) under CARICOM (the regional Caribbean Community bloc). The programme initiated among other things the design strategies and databases for climate change adaptation in a number of areas.

If the science is correct, Donaldson said, climate change will result in the inundation of costal areas, loss of habitat and the dying off of some species. Others, she added, may very well adapt.

Related articles

• Biodiversity Loss Impacts Ecosystems As Much As Climate Change (chimalaya.org)
• Ecosystem Effects of Biodiversity Loss Rival Climate Change and Pollution (terradaily.com)
• Sunday Simmer (petchary.wordpress.com)
• Widespread Climate Change In The Himalayas And Associated Changes In Local Ecosystems (chimalaya.org)
• http://www.cbd.int/idb/  International Day for Biodiversity – website
• http://www.cockpitcountry.com/  Cockpit Country – website

Cockpit Country, Jamaica from the air

Is it getting warmer?

Delegates targeting 2015 for legally binding, enforceable climate deal

By Bob Berwyn

SUMMIT COUNTY — Trying to follow the latest round of climate talks in Bonn, Germany is a reporter’s nightmare, with every press release filled with incredible amounts of bureaucratic jargon or technical information so dense that it’s almost impossible to follow — even for someone well-versed in climate science and policy.

In a way it’s a good thing. The time for grandiose speeches is long past; now’s the time for nitty gritty details. There’s no other way to ensure some sort of meaningful reduction in greenhouse gases.

But if the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change wants to connect with average citizens, it’s going to have to do a much better job of translating some of the information into plain talk to give people an idea of what’s at stake in meetings like the current conference in Bonn.

Luckily, the big picture and the ultimate goal aren’t that complicated. Basically, most of the world has agreed that it’s necessary to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius to prevent irreversible and potentially catastrophic impacts.

The main way to do that is to reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. For now, the countries participating in the UN climate process have agreed to cuts that should limit warming to somewhere between 2.5 and 5 degrees Celsius, so additional steps are needed.

Near the top of the Bonn agenda was continuing development of a legally binding international climate treaty that would commit signatories to emission cuts. Along with that, the international community has to agree on a way to monitor and enforce the cuts. The goal is to complete the treaty language by 2015 and get it signed by 2020.

“We have all the means at our disposal to close the gap, and the long-term objectives of governments remain attainable,” said Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary. “But this depends on stronger emissions reduction efforts, led by industrialized countries, and a sufficient level of ambition to support developing country action. Concrete and transparent implementation, today, tomorrow and into the foreseeable future, is the answer,” she said.

Global warming deniers and reactionary conservatives like to describe the international effort as a way to create one-world, social-totalitarian government, but don’t be distracted by those irrational voices — it’s far from anything like that.

Instead, it’s a painstaking and sometimes painful path of collaboration, compromise and equity, as countries with incredible wealth try to balance their interests with countries that have almost nothing.

Another key piece of the Bonn conference is trying to figure out ways to help  developing countries adapt to the inevitable effects of climate change. The delegates had hoped to make quick progress in this area because 2012 marks the end of the $30 billion of fast-start finance and no-one wants to see a gap in support, according to Ms. Figueres.

But instead, the first meeting of the Green Climate Fund board was postponed, as countries jockey for position on the board.

“The next window to meet will be the last week in June or first week in July, in Geneva,” said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC. “There is great enthusiasm from countries to be represented on the Board. While I would have liked to see the Board get down to work immediately, a short postponement to reach full agreement on its membership means it can launch smoothly and push ahead with the tasks before it,” she said. “To ensure that happens, I ask governments to submit their pending nominations without further delay so the pressing work of the Board can begin,” she added.

Delegates in Bonn will also discuss how to technologically empower developing countries to build their own sustainable energy futures and how to ramp up funding support for developing nations to $100 billion per year by 2020.

“Progress here in Bonn can give countries the confidence they need to push ahead with national climate policies,’ said Ms. Figueres. “In turn, many countries are beginning to adopt ambitious climate change legislation, which is sending good signals to the international negotiations. All of this can give society and business confidence to act faster themselves,” she said.

Follow UNFCCC on Twitter: @UN_ClimateTalks

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres on Twitter: @CFigueres

UNFCCC on Facebook: facebook.com/UNclimatechange