RUDD AWAKENING: NO POST-KYOTO DEAL WITHOUT BINDING TARGETS FOR CHINA, INDIA

Australia's Centre-Left is now sounding very much like George Bush -- much though they would loathe that comparison

Trade Minister Simon Crean says developing countries like China and India must set tough binding emissions targets before Australia agrees to a new Kyoto agreement beyond 2012. Last week the Australian delegation indicated it supported a 25 to 40 per cent cut in emissions for developed countries beyond 2012. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said it was not the Government's position.

Mr Crean, who is in Bali for trade talks today, says developing countries must agree to binding targets before Australia commits. "Australia's task is at the appropriate time to commit to targets but it's also to try and secure binding commitments from developing countries," he said. "We all know the environmental imperative of facing up to the challenge of climate change." Mr Crean said Australia was not going to sign up to any binding commitments on battling climate change until they had the results of a report commissioned by Mr Rudd's climate change economic specialist, expected next year.

The European Union, developing countries led by China, and environmental activists are urging the rich world to commit to reducing their polluting greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020.

But Mr Crean said that promises by rich countries alone to cut carbon dioxide emissions would not solve global warming. Environment ministers will arrive in Bali at the end of next week, while trade and finance ministers and representatives have begun gathering on the sidelines of the summit. "The meeting of trade ministers emphasises the point that it is not just an environmental imperative that we're dealing with, but the economic opportunities that come from solving climate change," Mr Crean said.

Mr Rudd will confirm Australia's position when he arrives in Bali next week.

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TROPIC FEVER OVER CARBON TARGETS

Kevin Rudd will need all his diplomatic skills in Bali, as the sides have already squared off fiercely at the climate change talks, writes Marian Wilkinson. There is a simple but powerful equation that was being thrown at officials and reporters from the developed nations in Bali this week. Almost 70 per cent of the greenhouse gas pollution already causing climate change was put into the atmosphere in the past by rich countries as they built prosperous economies for fewer than a fifth of the world's population.

Officials from China, India, Africa and the small island nations argued, at times acrimoniously, at the United Nations climate talks that this inescapable reality means rich countries must shoulder much of the burden in the fight to slow climate change and pay much of the bill to weather the damage that will continue for decades.

This is the harsh diplomatic reality facing the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and his Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, when they arrive in Bali early next week. While scientific necessity, and the developed world, demand that heavily polluting developing countries such as China and India must rein in their own soaring emissions, the fight over who pays most and who sacrifices most underscored every discussion in Bali this week.

The crucial talks that began on Monday have one main aim: to agree to begin formal negotiations that will produce a new global climate change agreement by 2009. The outcome in Bali is not supposed to determine targets for rich or developing countries. But as officials from more than 180 nations ground out proposals for the "road map" to this agreement, the debate over what targets the rich countries would meet was impossible to ignore.

Led by China's formidable delegation, the developing world asked explicitly whether developed countries were trying to walk away from a consensus reached in Vienna earlier this year that they should take the lead in making deep cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. This proposal emerged from the hard scientific facts put together by the UN's peak scientific body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. If the world is going to avoid dangerous climate change, it needs to halve the soaring level of emissions by mid-century. To do that it must start now. The UN recognised that industrialised countries have the technology and government institutions capable of taking the lead. Under the principles of the Kyoto Protocol, that is expected.

As a newly ratified member of the protocol, Australia is now aligned with that position. But this week, developed countries under the protocol, such as Japan and Canada, appeared to want to water down the Vienna consensus. After a week of basking in plaudits for Australia's ratification of Kyoto, Rudd suddenly found Australia's position on the Vienna proposals under scrutiny. Where did Australia stand on developed countries cutting their emissions between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020?

Critically, the so-called Vienna Declaration does not commit individual developed countries to these cuts now. And how they can be achieved is up for debate. But in Bali this week, the developing world demanded that the Vienna proposal be recognised.

Europe and New Zealand confirmed their support for the Vienna Declaration, and by Wednesday night the Australian delegation did as well. But immediately, Rudd at home had to confront accusations from the Opposition that he had committed Australia to reckless cuts in emissions that would damage the economy. He was quick to insist that the Vienna Declaration was not a commitment.

"The target that you referred to, 25-40, is in fact contained in what is described generally as the Vienna Declaration," he explained. "Many states have publicly recognised the work of the IPCC in putting together that report but, in so doing, states have also indicated that they do not necessarily accept those targets, nor do they accept those targets as binding targets for themselves. That has been a reality since the Vienna Declaration was issued in August of this year. That is also the position of the Australian Government."

He repeated, as he did before the election, that Australia will not set any 2020 target until the report by the economist Ross Garnaut is delivered next year. That, he said, "is to ensure that those targets are meaningful environmentally and responsible economically. And that's the way ahead".

But in Bali, Rudd will not so easily duck this issue. As he spoke in Brisbane, in Bali the head of the UN climate negotiating team, Yvo de Boer, told reporters he had just come from a meeting discussing the Vienna proposals. And he said: "I think it is clear to everyone that industrialised countries will have to continue to take the lead. All countries, all governments, realise that industrialised countries will have to reduce their emissions somewhere between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020. So that's an agreed range for industrialised countries."

Australian and UN officials are anxiously stressing that these targets do not have to be signed or sealed in Bali or, indeed, until some way down the track. The Kyoto Protocol's first targets do not expire until 2012. Under these, Australia has an easy ride. While many developed nations agreed to cut their emissions by up to 5 per cent on 1990s levels, Australia was allowed to increase its emissions by 8 per cent of 1990 levels. Unfortunately for Rudd, this deal, and a decade of inaction by the Howard government to slow Australia's soaring emissions, means that making deep cuts by 2020 will be difficult.

While Australia can correctly insist the 2020 targets are not up for discussion in Bali, they are now deeply colouring the debate as officials move behind closed doors to nut out a deal on the road map.

Put simply, the Bali talks have divided the developing world and the developed. And among some developing nations, especially India, there is a very hard line emerging that there should be no concessions until the developed world takes the lead on cutting emissions, agrees to technology transfers and puts up serious money to fund the world's adaption to climate change.

On the other side, Japan among others wants to see serious proposals from China and India on emissions reductions before it agrees to commitments after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol's first round expires. The new global agreement that follows this cannot give its two biggest competitors, the US and China, an unfair advantage.

The hope is that a consensus will prevail. It is possible there will be a commitment to begin negotiations on two tracks: one will continue down the Kyoto track to pursue commitments from nations which have ratified the protocol. The other will be under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, called the dialogue track. This would include the developing countries and the US, which remains outside Kyoto and opposed to binding targets. By 2009 these two tracks could come together in a final agreement.

By the time Rudd attends the Bali talks early next week it will be clear whether a consensus is emerging. Along with the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, and the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, he will be performing on the main stage. This week, Rudd said he wanted to act as a "bridge" between the developed and developing world, especially between China and the US.

But when he stands to make his statement on the floor of the talks, many in the developing world will be listening to what the new Prime Minister will say about the burden Australia and the developed world are willing to take in the battle to save the planet.

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Gore Takes Train From Oslo Airport, Luggage Takes Mercedes

The Green/Left do seem to drink up hypocrisy and deception with their mothers' milk

Friday's adoring Associated Press piece concerning Nobel Laureate Al Gore's noble decision to take the train from the Oslo airport rather than the traditional motorcade to his hotel neglected something else besides the huge amount of carbon dioxide being emitted by the Global Warmingist-in-Chief: his luggage! After all, Gore and wife Tipper aren't going to wear the same clothes this entire trip they wore on the plane, right?

So, where was all their baggage as the couple took the train? Well, according to the Norwegian website VG Nett, Gore's luggage went by Mercedes van (h/t NB reader in Norway Trond Ruud who supplied the following translation):

Peace Prize laureate Al Gore and his wife Tipper are having a nice trip on the airport express train. On the motorway, their luggage is being whisked to Oslo in a Mercedes van. Together with the Leader of the Nobel Institute, Geir Lundestad and the Nobel Committee Leader, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, they took the Airport Express train from Gardermoen airport to the National Theatre station in Oslo.

Never before, has a Peace Prize laureate chosen this mode of travel. I was told that the Express Train, was both faster and more comfortable, so it was an easy choice. And trains are symbols of environmental consciousness, a vigourous Gore, told the press corps.

Leader of the Nobel Ceremony arrangements, Sigrid Langebrekke from the Norwegian Nobel Institute, said they had to use a Mercedes van to handle all the luggage. She says, that all cars being used during the Nobel Ceremony have high environmental standard.

Do you think his luggage bought carbon credits to offset the greenhouse gases emitted on the trip from the airport? Honestly, would it have been too much like journalism for the AP to inquire about where Gore's luggage was, or might that have interfered with the agenda?

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More of the usual media favouritism towards warmism

Warmists are a fountain of yummy sensationalism so the media must defend them from looking absurd. Post below lifted from Tom Nelson. See the original for links

Excerpt from this article:

Carrying banners with slogans like "cut carbon not forests" and "actions speak louder than words" protesters in London marched in torrential rain and biting cold past parliament and through Trafalgar Square to rally in front of the U.S. embassy.

Update: Check this out--Reuters has now removed "and biting cold" from the above sentence:

Carrying banners with slogans like "cut carbon not forests" and "actions speak louder than words" protesters in London marched in torrential rain past parliament and through Trafalgar Square to rally in front of the U.S. embassy.

Note also the paragraph about disappointing attendance:

British police said 2,000 people took part in the march. Organisers said they estimated the number at 7,000.

Note that organizers had hoped for a vastly greater turnout:

Organisers say they hope up to 40,000 people could attend the rally. "Last year we attracted 35,000 people and we hope this will be bigger," said Phil Thornhill of the Campaign Against Climate Change, which is organising the event.

NOTED CLIMATE SCIENTIST ROGER PIELKE SR. REJECTS THE NOTION THAT ELEVATED CO2 LEVELS ARE THE SOLE CULPRITS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Roger Pielke Sr. is a retired professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, and a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. While Dr. Pielke rejects being characterized as a "global warming skeptic," his work is unwaveringly critical of the current conventional wisdom regarding climate change and what to do about it. EcoWorld Editor Ed Ring recently caught up with Dr. Pielke, who had the following to say:

EcoWorld: How would you say that current conventional wisdom regarding climate change has gotten it wrong?

Pielke: In terms of climate change and variability on the regional and local scale, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, the Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) report on surface and tropospheric temperature trends, and the U.S. National Assessment [of Climate Change] have overstated the role of the radiative effect of the anthropogenic increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) in relation to a diversity of other human climate-forcing mechanisms. Indeed, many research studies incorrectly oversimplify climate change by characterizing it as being dominated by the radiative effect of human-added CO2. But while prudence suggests that we work to minimize our disturbance of the climate system (since we don't fully understand it), by focusing on just one subset of forcing mechanisms, we end up seriously misleading policymakers as to the most effective way of dealing with our social and environmental vulnerability in the context of the entire spectrum of environmental risks and other threats we face today.

EcoWorld: What about experts' predictions of rising sea levels, extreme weather, melting polar ice caps, and so on?

Pielke: Global and regional climate models have not demonstrated themselves to be skillful predictors of regional and local climate change and variability over multidecadal time scales. For example, in the case of sea ice, the models are consistent with the decrease in Arctic sea ice in recent years, but they cannot explain the multiyear increase in Antarctic sea ice (including a record level this year). With respect to extreme weather, a much more important issue than how greenhouse gases are altering our climate is society's greatly increased vulnerability to extreme weather events - a direct result not of changes in weather but of increased settlement by expanding human populations into low-lying coastal regions, floodplains, and marginal arid land.

EcoWorld: But what about the northern icecap shrinking this September to possibly possibly its smallest size in history (exposing more than 1 million square miles of open water) or the comments of Robert Correll, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, regarding recent observations in Greenland ("We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea")? Is something new and alarming happening?

Pielke: These examples represent selected observations that promote the view that human-input carbon dioxide is dominating climate change. However, the climate is - and always will be - changing. Thus, although human activity certainly affects the way in which climate varies and changes, actual global observations present a much more complex picture than that represented by the two examples listed above. For example, Antarctic sea ice reached a record maximum coverage in 2007, and the globally averaged lower atmosphere has not warmed in the last nine years (and, in fact, is cooler than it was in 1998). In addition, there are regions of the world where glaciers are advancing (such as New Zealand, parts of the Himalayas, and Norway). However, this information - which conflicts with the projections of the multi-decadal global climate models and the 2007 IPCC report - has been almost completely ignored by policymakers and the media.

EcoWorld: What role have alterations in land use played in climate change?

Pielke: Changes in land use by humans and the resulting alterations in weather and hydrology are major drivers of long-term regional and global climate patterns - yet the 2007 IPCC Statement for Policymakers largely ignores their importance (despite extensive documentation in research literature). Along with the diverse influences of aerosols on climate, land use effects (caused, for example, by deforestation, desertification, and conversion of land to farming) may be at least as important in altering the weather as the changes in climate patterns associated with the radiative effect of carbon dioxide and other well-mixed greenhouse gases. Moreover, land use and land cover changes will continue to exert an important influence on the Earth's climate for the next century. The reason for this is that even if the globally averaged surface temperature change over time ends up being close to zero in response to land use and land cover change and variability, the regional changes in surface temperature, precipitation, and other climate metrics could be as large as or larger than those that result from the anthropogenic increase of greenhouse gases. Moreover, people and ecosystems experience the effects of environmental change regionally, not as global averaged values. Thus, the issue of a "discernable human influence on global climate" misses the obvious, in that we have been altering climate by land use and land cover change ever since humans began large-scale alterations of the land surface. ...

EcoWorld: What is your criticism of the IPCC?

Pielke: Mainly the fact that the same individuals who are doing primary research into humans' impact on the climate system are being permitted to lead the assessment of that research. Suppose a group of scientists introduced a drug they claimed could save many lives: There were side effects, of course, but the scientists claimed the drug's benefits far outweighed its risks. If the government then asked these same scientists to form an assessment committee to evaluate their claim (and the committee consisted of colleagues of the scientists who made the original claim as well as the drug's developers), an uproar would occur, and there would be protests. It would represent a clear conflict of interest. Yet this is what has happened with the IPCC process. To date, either few people recognize this conflict, or those that do choose to ignore it because the recommendations of the IPCC fit their policy and political agenda. In either case, scientific rigor has been sacrificed, and poor policy and political decisions will inevitably follow.

EcoWorld: How effective are current climate computer models in helping us understand global climate trends?

Pielke: Using global climate models to improve our understanding of how the system works represents a valuable application of such tools, but the term sensitivity study should be used to characterize these assessments. In sensitivity studies, a subset of the forcings and/or feedback of the climate system are perturbed to examine their response. Since the computer model of the climate system is incomplete (meaning it doesn't include all of the important feedbacks and forcings), what the IPCC is really doing is conducting a sensitivity study. The IPCC reports, however, inaccurately present their assessment as a "projection" - one that's widely interpreted by policymakers and others as being able to skillfully forecast the future state of the climate system. But even one of the IPCC's leading authors, Kevin Trenberth, has gone on record reminding people of the limitations of the models used in its projections. Says Trenberth, "There are no predictions by IPCC & and there never have been." He further states, "None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state, and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate." Indeed, says Trenberth, "The current projection method works to the extent it does because it utilizes differences from one time to another, and the main model bias and systematic errors are thereby subtracted out. This assumes linearity. It works for global forced variations, but it cannot work for many aspects of climate, especially those related to the water cycle."

Thus, as clarified even by one of the key IPCC contributors (who has a vested interest in the acceptance of the 2007 IPCC report), current climate models clearly cannot accurately model observed real-world changes in climate. Global model results projected out decades into the future should never be interpreted as skillful forecasts. Instead, they should be interpreted as sensitivity studies on limited variables. When authors of research papers use definitive words (such as "will occur") and display model output with specific time periods in the future, they are misleading policymakers and other people who use this information.

More here

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