Global Warming & climate change issues remain unresolved

Dr N Yogaratnam

Global warming has become perhaps, the most complicated issue facing world leaders. Warnings from the scientific community are becoming louder, as an increasing body of science points to rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of human-related greenhouse gases - produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and forests.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide were at a record high in 2011and were likely to take a similar jump in 2012, scientists reported in early December 2012 - the latest indication that efforts to limit such emissions are failing.

Global emissions

Over all, global emissions jumped thre percent in 2011 and are expected to jump another 2.6 percent in 2012, researchers reported.

The new figures show that emissions are falling, slowly, in some of the most advanced countries, including the United States. That apparently reflects a combination of economic weakness, the transfer of some manufacturing to developing countries and conscious efforts to limit emissions, like the renewable power targets that many American states have set. The boom in the natural gas supply from hydraulic fracturing is also a factor, since natural gas is supplanting coal at many power stations, leading to lower emissions.

But the decline of emissions in the developed countries is more than matched by continued growth in developing countries like China and India, the new figures show. Coal, the dirtiest and most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, is growing fastest, with coal-related emissions leaping more than 5 percent in 2011, compared with the previous year. Emissions continue to grow so rapidly that an international goal of limiting the ultimate warming of the planet to 3.6 degrees, established three years ago, is on the verge of becoming unattainable, said researchers affiliated with the Global Carbon Project, a network of scientists that tracks emissions.

Yet nations around the world, despite a formal treaty pledging to limit warming and 20 years of negotiations aimed at putting it into effect have shown little appetite for the kinds of controls required to accomplish that goal.

For almost two decades, the United Nations has sponsored annual global talks, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, an international treaty signed nearly 200 countries to cooperatively discuss global climate change and its impact. The conferences operate on the principle of consensus, meaning that any of the participating nations can hold up an agreement.

Doha negotiations

Last year's U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change conference, held in Doha, Qatar, ended in December 2012, with mixed results.

After a 48-hour marathon negotiating session which unfortunately has become typical in these yearly meetings one of the three decisions made by the negotiators ultimately is: The Kyoto Protocol was reauthorized for another eight years, though fewer countries signed on so it now only covers some 12 percent of global emissions.

In general, the response to the meeting's outcome has thus far been varied, but as with most of these climate summits, many consider it far from adequate to address the growing climate crisis. It has been called as a "modest step toward a global climate deal."

The Kyoto Protocol-the world's only legally binding agreement on emissions reductions finalized in 1997-was set to expire at the end of December, 2012, which could have terminated the global carbon market mechanisms that have been established to support it. A majority of countries agreed, though, to extend the protocol into a second term. This second commitment period will begin on January 1, 2013, and will conclude on December 31, 2020.

Durban track treaty

It will thus bridge the gap between the end of the first Kyoto commitment period and the beginning of the next legally binding climate agreement, which ideally will be finished in the Durban Platform track in 2015, though the new treaty isn't set to take effect until 2020 at the earliest.

Unlike the Durban track treaty, which will be universally binding for all nations in the U.N. climate convention, the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol establishes obligatory emissions cuts only for those industrialized countries who have ratified it-at this point, only the European Union and a handful of other parties, including Australia, Norway, and Switzerland. Others that participated in the first period of the protocol, such as Japan, Russia, Canada, and New Zealand, have opted out of the second period for a variety of reasons, one of which being an aversion to signing a treaty that did not include the world's biggest emitters.

The second period does not cover the United States, which signed but never attempted to ratify the original protocol in the Senate, and it does not bind developing countries, such as China and India, to emissions reductions. The United States and China are the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters.

Agreement on the transition to the new commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol was not without controversy. Strong differences of opinion, specifically from the Russian Federation, cropped up as the negotiations were concluding.

Although the Russian Federation opted out of the second period, its area of concern throughout the negotiations was the carryover of surplus "assigned amount units," or permits for allowable emissions that were not redeemed during the first period of the protocol, into the second period.

Russia insisted that unused permits-also known as "hot air"-be transferred to the second period, despite significant opposition from other nations. Surplus assigned amount units are held predominantly by eastern European countries, whose economies collapsed after the fall of Communism. They received credits for the carbon emissions that they never produced but would have been allowed to, given an assessment of their economies before the protocol went into effect.

Contrary to the Russian objections, however, the new agreement does allow transfer of surplus assigned amount units to the second commitment period, over the objection of many blocs of countries such as the least developed countries and the Alliance of Small Island States.

Nonetheless, the treaty does try to limit their environmental damage.

The second term of the protocol mandates that a country "may acquire units from other Parties' previous period surplus reserve accounts into its previous period surplus reserve account up to 2 percent of its assigned amount for the first commitment period." This would limit the amount of "hot air" that can be carried over into the second commitment period of the treaty.

Moreover, in a heartening display of principle, parties such as Australia, the European Union, Japan, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Norway, and Switzerland all pledged during the final negotiations not to purchase excess units.

Kyoto Protocol

Unfortunately, the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol will have a negligible effect on global emissions because the countries that are now bound by it to reduce their emissions produce less than 15 percent of total global emissions. But it is not useless.

CDM - Grim Future after Doha

The extension of Kyoto will also serve as a basis for a globally binding treaty and a working carbon market in 2020 by keeping intact market-based mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism, which allows for limited trading of emission reductions across boarders.

The complicated procedures and mechanisms governing these trades, which pay billions of dollars for clean energy projects in developing countries every year, can be used to later serve as a basis for a treaty that aspires to cover all emissions around the world.

Negotiations at COP18 on the future of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) started off with some good options in the negotiating text prepared by the Chair. However, throughout the sessions on the CDM, the draft negotiation text was remarkably weakened and the final version does not address the significant quality concerns recently highlighted by scientists.

For example, new findings from the CDM policy research team show that large-scale power supply CDM projects (such as large hydro and coal power projects) are unlikely to be additional and therefore lead to an increase in global emissions.

Despite the fact that such projects are expected to deliver more than half of all CDM credits by 2020, policy solutions that would eliminate these fake carbon credits where not even considered. Instead, the final decision allows for more flexibility and less stringent testing.

Other suggested improvements, such as clarity about the consequences of a Party withdrawing a letter of approval and important liability measures for auditors, were removed from the final text.

Suggestions to enhance the contribution of CDM projects to sustainable development were rejected as well. One of the key decisions was the launch of the overall review of the modalities and procedures of the CDM, which will take place in the course of 2013. Against the political unwillingness to address quality issues of the CDM and the current over-supply of about 4 Gigatonnes of CO2 it is hard to imagine how this review will be able to rescue the CDM. With a carbon market price of 50 cent per tonne of CO2, it is impossible to implement projects that are additional. Key COP18 decisions on the CDM include:

Natural rubber

With many Kyoto Protocol and CDM issues still remaining unresolved, eligibility and trading of carbon by rubber plantations may look uncertain. Also, latex yield of rubber trees is mainly determined by physiological factors and harvesting intensity.

Both these factors are influenced by clonal characteristics, agronomic practices and environment. Given the physiological factors and agronomic practices, the major yield-limiting factor is harvesting intensity which, in turn, is mainly determined by weather and price factors.

Extreme weather in terms of long and intense dry spells and heavy rains can substantially reduce harvesting intensity through reduced tapping days. The response of growers to the prevailing rubber prices is also reflected in harvesting intensity. The interplay of weather and price factors in determining natural rubber (NR) production makes it difficult to forecast the influence of weather factors on price formation.