Tag: CDM

#31 The Great Carbon Offsetting Scandal

Most Popular, The 300-350 Show on August 14, 2009 | Make a Comment

It is the fatal flaw at the heart of both the EU and US climate policies which threatens to make a scientifically robust and fair climate deal in Copenhagen impossible. It is the reason that when the EU says it is cutting greenhouse gases 20% by 2020 or 30% if there is a global deal in Copenhagen, they are in fact putting a cut of just 10 or 15% on the negotiating table. And it is the reason why when the UK says it is cutting greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050 it is actually committing itself to a cut of only 40% within the UK.

This week we take a look at the creative accounting mechanism which makes this sleight of hand possible – carbon offsetting under the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism – more commonly known at the CDM.

We take the argument against large-scale carbon offsetting under the CDM to the head of the Market-Based Instruments Unit at the European Commission, Yvon Slingenberg; and we hear from Tom Picken, Head of the International Climate Change at Friends of the Earth, who is co-author of the most accessible report yet on the case against carbon offsetting under the CDM, “A Dangerous Distraction.”
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#27: Ricardo Navarro

The 300-350 Show on July 9, 2009 | Make a Comment

We get a majority world perspective on the climate emergency from Goldman Prize winner Ricardo Navarro. Navarro won the Goldman prize for sustainable development back in 1995 for his work as founder and director of the El Salvador Centre for Appropriate Technology and he is a former director of Friends of the Earth International.

Here he talks about how a new regional Movement of Climate Change Affected Peoples is responding to the pressures of climate change with awareness raising, permaculture techniques and low-level technologies as well as putting up resistance to inappropriate development. He also gives us his wider perspective on the United Nations climate talks which he has been attending since 1992. More…

#25: Halfway to Copenhagen

The 300-350 Show on June 18, 2009 | Make a Comment

At the end of the UN Climate Talks in Bonn we get a close reading of the state of play from Third World Network’s Meena Raman. While the elements of a possible successful Copenhagen global climate deal are on the table and mainly come from developing countries, rich countries continue to ignore their responsibilities and offer weak cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that scientists have concluded are virtually certain to guarantee dangerous climate change.

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#23: Bonn and Biochar

The 300-350 Show on June 4, 2009 | Make a Comment

We start our coverage of the United Nations climate talks in Bonn with a look at some of the targets that rich nations are bringing to the table. We also flag up the dangers of the scientifically unfounded rush to include Biochar and large-scale no-till agriculture in the draft negotiating texts in an interview with Almuth Ernsting from Biofuel Watch.

The bad news is that we have fewer actual answers than we need to make a watertight case for biochar, especially in a climate context … we need to advocate for policies that allow for the emergence of a biochar industry … before we have answers to the many research questions. – Steve Brick – Executive Director, International Biochar Intiative.

There are still fundamental uncertainties associated with biochar as a mitigation option … Our mitigation scenarios are strictly illustrative in nature … [and] assume waste-derived biochar provides only a very small fraction of the land-use related CO2 drawdown, with reforestation and curtailed deforestation providing a magnitude more. – Pushker Kharecha & James Hansen.

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#22: From Washington to Copenhagen

The 300-350 Show on May 28, 2009 | Make a Comment

With a new President in the White House there’s a fresh approach to climate change and energy policy in the US. But the Energy bill currently going through Congress is based on the widely-criticised “Cap & Trade” system and has been weakened further by a massive corporate lobbying campaign. How does this feed into the UN talks in Bonn in June which prepare the way for the critical meeting in Copenhagen in December? We get an informed critique of the Bill from Oscar Reyes of Carbon Trade Watch and ask him what to look out for in Bonn.

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#18: UN Climate Talks – Poznan

Most Popular, The 300-350 Show on December 18, 2008 | Make a Comment

The UN Climate Talks are at crisis point. Nothing on the table matches the scale of the challenge and corporate interests are rife. As the talks in Poznan come to an end, we take stock with three key protaganists: Kevin Smith (CarbonTradeWatch), Oliver Tickell (Kyoto2) and Tom Athanasiou (Greenhouse Development Rights).

Developments include:

• UNFCCC tenders a report on alternative frameworks
• 350 ppm CO2 target endorsed by Al Gore, AOSIS & the LDC country blocks
• Potsdam Institute shows how we can achieve the 350 ppm target
• Climate Justice Now! coalition grows in size from 20 to 160 organisations
• Carbon trading advances despite a crisis of credibility
• 142 organisations sign a statement against the World Bank’s involvement with climate funds
• The China+G77 block support climate funds being managed by UN
• Rich nations still failing to fulfill their commitments 16 years on
• Plans develop for a mass mobilisation in Copenhagen December 2009
• Could extending the scope of the Montreal Protocol and controling black soot be two effective ways forward outside the UNFCCC process?

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