Climate Change and Global Warming

Introduction
Author and Page information
• by Anup Shah
• This Page Last Updated Monday, January 31, 2011

• This page: http://www.globalissues.org/article/233/climate-change-and-global-warming-

introduction.
• To print all information e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links, use the print
version:
o http://www.globalissues.org/print/article/233

This web page has the following sub-sections:

1. What is Global Warming and Climate Change?

1. What are the main indicators of Climate Change?
2. What is the Greenhouse Effect?
3. The Greenhouse effect is natural. What do we have to do with it?
4. The climate has always varied in the past. How is this any different?
5. Doesn’t recent record cold weather disprove Global Warming?
6. 2010 joint warmest on record; most of 2000s in top 10
2. What are the impacts of Global Warming?
1. Rapid changes in global temperature
2. Small average global temperature change can have a big impact
3. Extreme Weather Patterns
1. Super-storms
4. Ecosystem Impacts
5. Rising Sea Levels
6. Increasing ocean acidification
7. Increase in Pests and Disease
8. Failing Agricultural Output; Increase in World Hunger
9. Agriculture and livelihoods are already being affected
10. Women face brunt of climate change impacts
3. Greenhouse gases and emissions resulting from human activity
1. Differences in Greenhouse Gas Emission Around the World
2. The United States is the World’s Largest Emitter of Greenhouse Gases Per Capita
3. The previously 15-member European Union is also large Emitter
4. Stalling Kyoto Protocol Gets Push by Russia
5. Rich nation emissions have been rising
6. Developing Countries Affected Most
4. Skepticism on Global Warming or That it can be human-induced
 1. Bush Administration Accused of Silencing its own Climate Scientists
5. Many Sources Of Greenhouse Gases Being Discovered
6. Warming happening more quickly than predicted

What is Global Warming and Climate Change?

Global warming and climate change refer to an increase in average global temperatures. Natural
events and human activities are believed to be contributing to an increase in average global
temperatures. This is caused primarily by increases in “greenhouse” gases such as Carbon
Dioxide (CO2).

A warming planet thus leads to a change in climate which can affect weather in various ways, as
discussed further below.

What are the main indicators of Climate Change?

As explained by the US agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
there are 7 indicators that would be expected to increase in a warming world (and they are), and
3 indicators would be expected to decrease (and they are):

Ten indicators
for a warming world, Past Decade Warmest on Record According to Scientists in 48 Countries,
NOAA, July 28, 2010

What is the Greenhouse Effect?

The term greenhouse is used in conjunction with the phenomenon known as the greenhouse
effect.

• Energy from the sun drives the earth’s weather and climate, and heats the earth’s surface;
 • In turn, the earth radiates energy back into space;
• Some atmospheric gases (water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases) trap some of the
outgoing energy, retaining heat somewhat like the glass panels of a greenhouse;
• These gases are therefore known as greenhouse gases;
• The greenhouse effect is the rise in temperature on Earth as certain gases in the
atmosphere trap energy.

Image source:
Greenhouse Effect, Wikipedia(Link includes detailed explanation of the above image). Note,
image above expresses energy exchanges in watts per square meter (W/m2)

Six main greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) (which is 20 times as
potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide) and nitrous oxide (N2O), plus three fluorinated
industrial gases: hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride
(SF6). Water vapor is also considered a greenhouse gas.

The Greenhouse effect is natural. What do we have to do with it?

Many of these greenhouse gases are actually life-enabling, for without them, heat would escape
back into space and the Earth’s average temperature would be a lot colder.

However, if the greenhouse effect becomes stronger, then more heat gets trapped than needed,
and the Earth might become less habitable for humans, plants and animals.
Carbon dioxide, though not the most potent of greenhouse gases, is the most significant one.
Human activity has caused an imbalance in the natural cycle of the greenhouse effect and related
processes. NASA’s Earth Observatory is worth quoting the effect human activity is having on
the natural carbon cycle, for example:

In addition to the natural fluxes of carbon through the Earth system, anthropogenic (human)
activities, particularly fossil fuel burning and deforestation, are also releasing carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere.

When we mine coal and extract oil from the Earth’s crust, and then burn these fossil fuels for
transportation, heating, cooking, electricity, and manufacturing, we are effectively moving
carbon more rapidly into the atmosphere than is being removed naturally through the
sedimentation of carbon, ultimately causing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to
increase.

Also, by clearing forests to support agriculture, we are transferring carbon from living biomass
into the atmosphere (dry wood is about 50 percent carbon).

The result is that humans are adding ever-increasing amounts of extra carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere. Because of this, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are higher today than
they have been over the last half-million years or longer.

— The Carbon Cycle; The Human Role, Earth Observatory, NASA

Another way of looking at this is with a simple analogy: consider salt and human health:

• A small amount of salt is essential for human life;

• Slightly more salt in our diet often makes food tastier;
• Too much salt can be harmful to our health.

In a similar way, greenhouse gases are essential for our planet; the planet may be able to deal
with slightly increased levels of such gases, but too much will affect the health of the whole
planet.
 Image
source: NASA.(Note, values shown represent Carbon Gigatons being absorbed and released)

The other difference between the natural carbon cycle and human-induced climate change is that
the latter is rapid. This means that ecosystems have less chance of adapting to the changes that
will result and so the effects felt will be worse and more dramatic it things continue along the
current trajectory.

The climate has always varied in the past. How is this any different?

Throughout Earth’s history the climate has varied, sometimes considerably. Past warming does
not automatically mean that today’s warming is therefore also natural. Recent warming, has been
shown to be due to human industrialization processes.

John Cook, writing the popular Skeptical Science blog summarizes the key indicators of a human
finger print on climate change:
 John Cook, 10
Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change, Skeptical Science, July 30, 2010

This graph, based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more
recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the
Industrial Revolution:

(Source: NOAA) via: Climate Change: How do we know? NASA, accessed October 27, 2009
The above covers hundreds of thousands of years and shows how atmospheric CO2 levels have
dramatically increased in recent years. If we “zoom” in on just the past 250 years, we see the
following:

Global CO2 emissions, 1751–2007, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC),
August 2010,DOI:10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2010

NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) tracks atmospheric global temperature
climate trends. As environmental engineer, D Kelly O’Day, writes on ProcessingTrends.com
explains: “To facilitate assessments of long term trends, climatologists compare the mean for a
base period with the annual mean. Differences between the annual mean and baseline mean are
called anomalies. GISS uses the 1951 - 1980 period for their baseline period. They use the
difference between the annual mean and the baseline mean to determine the global temperature
anomaly for the year.”

O’Day produced a chart showing global temperature anomalies between 1800 and 2006 using
data from NASA. I updated the chart he provided to include recently updated data up to 2010:
Sources: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis, NASA, accessed January 30, 2011; Global
temperature, 1800-2006, ProcessTrends.com, accessed October 27, 2009

In the 1880 - 1935 period, the temperature anomaly was consistently negative. In contrast, the
since 1980 the anomaly has been consistently positive. The 1917 temperature anomaly (-0.47oC)
was the lowest year on record. Since 1917, global temperature has warmed, with the most recent
years showing the highest anomalies of +0.6 oC in the past 120 years.

And, as Sir David Attenborough explains, natural variability alone does not explain recent
temperature rise:

Sir David Attenborough: The Truth About Climate Change, October 22, 2006

As well as the links above, see also Skeptical Science, which, while examining the arguments of
global warming skepticism, provides information on causes of anthropogenic global warming.

Doesn’t recent record cold weather disprove Global Warming?

In different parts of the world, there have been various weather events that at first thought would
question global warming. For example, some regions have experienced extremely cold winters
(sometimes record-breaking), while others have experienced heavy rain, etc.

The confusion that sometimes arises is the difference between climate change and weather
patterns. Weather patterns describe short term events, while climate change is a longer process
that affects the weather. A warming planet is actually consistent with increasing cold, increasing
rain and other extremes, as an overall warmer planet changes weather patterns everywhere at all
times of the year.

Deke Arndt, head of the Climate Monitoring Branch for the National Climatic Data Center in the
US explains it with an analogy:

Climate kind of trains the boxer, but weather throws the punches. And what climate will do is
help train weather to throw certain punches more often. We’ll see these as extreme precipitation
events, extreme droughts.

— Deke Arndt, State of the Climate in 2009, NOAA, July 28, 2010

To get an idea of how looking at short term changes only can lead to a conclusion that global
warming has stopped, or doesn’t exist, see Alden Griffith’s has global warming stopped?

(As an aside, those crying foul of global warming claims when going through extremely cold
weather in Europe for example in 2010, later found their summers to be full of heat waves. The
point here is that a specific short period such as a cold winter — or even a hot summer — is not
proof alone that global warming has stopped (or increased); short term variability can mask
longer term trends.)

Looking at 2010 as a whole year revealed a variety of extreme weather events. A panel of
climate and weather experts ranked the top 10 global weather/climate events of 2010 which
included heat waves to droughts to negative arctic oscillation (a climate pattern where cold
Arctic air slides south while warmer air moves north, bringing snow storms and record cold
temperatures to much of the Northern Hemisphere) show that a variety of weather events can
occur as a result of changing climate:

Top Ten Global Weather/Climate Events of 2010

When
Rank Event Description
Occurred
Source: Top Ten Global Weather/Climate Events of 2010 National Climatic Data Center, NOAA,
December 2010

These lists were compiled and voted on during the first week of December. Significant events,
such as the extreme winter weather in Europe and the flooding in Australia occurred after this
date. These events have been included in an additional section titled, “Honorable Mention”, but
may have warranted top ten placement.
A severe summer spawned drought, wildfires and crop
Russo- European- failures across western Russia, where more than 15,000
1 Asian Heat Summer people died. All-time high temperatures occurred in many
Waves cities and nations in the region. China faced locust
swarms during July.
2 2010 as [near] Calendar According to NOAA, the globally-averaged temperature
warmest on Year for 2010 will finish among the two warmest, and likely
record the warmest, on record. Three months in 2010 were the
 Top Ten Global Weather/Climate Events of 2010
When
Rank Event Description
Occurred
warmest on record for that month.
Rainfall related to the Asian Monsoon was displaced
unusually westward, and more than a foot of rain fell
Pakistani Late July into
3 across a large area of the Upper Indus Valley. Subsequent
Flooding August
flooding down the Indus River killed 1,600 people and
displaced millions.
Mid-to-Late ENSO, the most prominent and far-reaching patterns of
El Niño to La
4 Boreal climate variability, saw a huge swing in mid-2010. Only
Niña Transition
Spring 1973, 1983 and 1998 have seen larger within-year swings.
The AO Index, which is strongly correlated with
wintertime cold air outbreaks, reached -4.27 for February,
Negative Arctic December–
5 the largest negative anomaly since records began in 1950.
Oscillation February
Major cold air outbreaks occurred throughout the
Northern Hemisphere.
A severe drought parching northern Brazil shrunk the Rio
Negro, one of the Amazon River's most important
6 Brazilian Drought Ongoing tributaries, to its lowest level since records began in 1902
at its confluence with the Amazon. The Amazon's depth
there fell more than 12 feet below its average.
Historically The Northeast Pacific Hurricane Season was one of the
May 15th–
Inactive NE least active on record, produced the fewest named storms
7-tie November
Pacific Hurricane th and hurricanes of the modern era, and had the earliest
30
Season cessation of tropical activity (Sep 23) on record.
Despite December 2009 having the second-largest snow
cover extent of the satellite record (mid-1960s), the melt
Historic N. season was ferocious, contributing to spring floods in the
January
7-tie Hemispheric Northern U.S. and Canada. Following the early and
through June
Snow Retreat pronounced snow melt, the North American, Eurasian and
Hemispheric snow cover was the smallest on record for
May and June 2010.
The 2010 sea ice minimum of 4.9 million sq km was the
third smallest on record. The last four years (2007-2010)
Minimum Sea Ice Mid-
9 are the four smallest on record. The Northwest Passage
Extent September
and the Northern Sea Route were simultaneously ice-free
in September, a first in modern history.
A persistent drought centered in the Yunan Province was
First half of touted as perhaps the worst in this region in more than 100
10 China Drought
2010 years. Major crop losses and lack of drinking water
created severe problems for local residents.

The additional concern, as meteorology professor Scott Mandia explains, it can take decades for
the climate temperatures to increase in response to increased greenhouse gas emissions. So up
until now, perhaps it has been easier for skeptics to deny climate change is occurring or that
humans are responsible.

But as this infographic shows, most of the warming is going into the oceans:

Source: John Cook, Infographic on where global warming is going, SkepticalScience.com,

January 20, 2011 (further notes on the source data used)

As John Cook, creator of the graphic above says (see above link), “Just as it takes time for a cup
of coffee to release heat into the air, so to it takes time for the ocean to release its heat into the
atmosphere.”.

The implications of this is further explained with Inter Press Service’s freezer analogy: The
world’s northern freezer is on rapid defrost as large volumes of warm water are pouring into the
Arctic Ocean, speeding the melt of sea ice.

D. Salmons also has a post at Skeptical Science that explains the impact of warming Arctic’s
relation to the very cold recent winters further, using the following NASA map:
Source: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies,
accessed January 30, 2011

As Salmons explains,

the Arctic has been heating up, and studies show that is happening at two to three times the
global average. This rising temperature in the Arctic has served to reduce the region’s floating
ice layer by more than 20%. And as you would expect, when the reflective ice and snow layer is
stripped away, it leaves a dark blue sea.

Now, what does the effect of the dark blue sea being exposed have on the Arctic area? Well, the
ice and snow layer reflects the majority of the sun’s rays harmlessly back into space. But the
dark blue of the exposed sea absorbs the rays, aiding the heating process.

— D. Salmons, Global Warming and Cold Winters, Skeptical Science, January 15, 2011

2010 joint warmest on record; most of 2000s in top 10

NASA’s GISS Surface Temperature Analysis graph shown earlier (from 1800 to 2010) shows
that temperature anomalies since 1980 have all been positive; i.e. it has been constantly hotter
than normal.

As the same data shows, the hottest years have all been since 1998:

Global Top 10
Anomaly °C Anomaly °F
Warmest Years (Jan-Dec)
Source: Annual State of the Climate Global Analysis, National Climatic Data Center, NOAA,
 Global Top 10
Anomaly °C Anomaly °F
Warmest Years (Jan-Dec)
December 2010
2010 0.62 1.12
2005 0.62 1.12
1998 0.60 1.08
2003 0.58 1.04
2002 0.58 1.04
2009 0.56 1.01
2006 0.56 1.01
2007 0.55 0.99
2004 0.54 0.97
2001 0.52 0.94

Back to top

What are the impacts of Global Warming?

For decades, greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide have been increasing in the atmosphere.
But why does that matter? Won’t warmer weather be nicer for everyone?

Rapid changes in global temperature

Increased greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect has contributed to an overall warming of
the Earth’s climate, leading to a global warming (even though some regions may experience
cooling, or wetter weather, while the temperature of the planet on average would rise).

Consider also the following:

While year-to-year changes in temperature often reflect natural climatic variations such as El
Niño/La Niña events, changes in average temperature from decade-to-decade reveal long-term
trends such as global warming. Each of the last three decades has been much warmer than the
decade before. At the time, the 1980s was the hottest decade on record. In the 1990s, every year
was warmer than the average of the previous decade. The 2000s were warmer still.

— Past Decade Warmest on Record According to Scientists in 48 Countries, National Ocean

and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), July 28, 2010

At the end of the 1990s, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) had noted that not only
was the 1990s the warmest decade but at the time, the 1900s was the warmest century during the
last 1,000 years.

It is the rapid pace at which the temperature will rise that will result in many negative impacts to
humans and the environment and this why there is such a world-wide concern.
Small average global temperature change can have a big impact

Climate scientists admit that the chances of the world keeping average global temperature at
current levels are not going to be possible (humanity has done little to address things in the past
couple of decades that these concerns have been known about).

So, now, there is a push to contain temperature rises to an average 2°C increase (as an average,
this means some regions may get higher temperatures and others, lower).

Even just a 2°C increase can have impacts around the world to biodiversity, agriculture, the
oceans etc (detailed further below). But in the lead up to important global climate talks at the end
of 2009, some delegates are skeptical that temperature rises can be contained to a 2°C rise (or C0
2 levels of 350 ppm ).

On October 22, 2009, the British Government and the UK’s Met Office (UK’s National Weather
Service) unveiled a new map, showing what would happen if we allowed average global
temperatures to increase to 4°C above pre-industrial levels (the high end of the UN IPCC
projections):

The impact of a global temperature rise of 4ºC (7 ºF), UK Met Office, October 22, 2009(See
larger map)

In short, we would not be able to cope with a 4°C average increase.

As the Met Office noted,

The poster shows that a four degree average rise will not be spread uniformly across the globe.
The land will heat up more quickly than the sea, and high latitudes, particularly the Arctic, will
have larger temperature increases. The average land temperature will be 5.5 degrees above pre-
industrial levels.

The impacts on human activity shown on the map are only a selection….

Agricultural yields are expected to decrease for all major cereal crops in all major regions of
production. Half of all Himalayan glaciers will be significantly reduced by 2050, leading to 23%
of the population of China being deprived of the vital dry season glacial melt water source.

— The impact of a global temperature rise of 4ºC (7 ºF), UK Met Office, October 22, 2009

Side Note»

See also coverage by the Guardian and the UK government’s web site for Copenhagen talks
related activities.

Extreme Weather Patterns

Most scientists believe that the warming of the climate will lead to more extreme weather
patterns such as:

• More hurricanes and drought;

• Longer spells of dry heat or intense rain (depending on where you are in the world);
• Scientists have pointed out that Northern Europe could be severely affected with colder
weather if climate change continues, as the arctic begins to melt and send fresher waters
further south. It would effectively cut off the Gulf Stream that brings warmth from the
Gulf of Mexico, keeping countries such as Britain warmer than expected;
• In South Asia, the Himalayan glaciers could retreat causing water scarcity in the long run.

While many environmental groups have been warning about extreme weather conditions for a
few years, the World Meteorological Organization announced in July 2003 that “Recent
scientific assessments indicate that, as the global temperatures continue to warm due to climate
change, the number and intensity of extreme events might increase.”

The WMO also notes that “New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the globe,
but in recent years the number of such extremes have been increasing.” (The WMO limits the
definition of extreme events to high temperatures, low temperatures and high rainfall amounts
and droughts.) The U.K’s Independent newspaper described the WMO’s announcement as
“unprecedented” and “astonishing” because it came from a respected United Nations
organization not an environmental group!

Super-storms

Mentioned further above was the concern that more hurricanes could result. The link used was
from the environmental organization WWF, written back in 1999. In August/September 2004 a
wave of severe hurricanes left many Caribbean islands and parts of South Eastern United States
devastated. In the Caribbean many lives were lost and there was immense damage to entire
cities. In the U.S. many lives were lost as well, some of the most expensive damage resulted
from the successive hurricanes.

In its wake, scientists have reiterated that such super-storms may be a sign of things to come.
“Global warming may spawn more super-storms”, Inter Press Service (IPS) notes.

Interviewing a biological oceanography professor at Harvard University, IPS notes that the
world’s oceans are approaching 27 degrees C or warmer during the summer. This increases the
odds of major storms.

• When water reaches such temperatures, more of it evaporates, priming hurricane or

cyclone formation.
• Once born, a hurricane needs only warm water to build and maintain its strength and
intensity.
Furthermore, “as emissions of greenhouse gases continue to trap more and more of the sun’s
energy, that energy has to be dissipated, resulting in stronger storms, more intense precipitation
and higher winds.”

There is abundant evidence of an unprecedented number of severe weather events in the past
decade, [professor of biological oceanography at Harvard University, James] McCarthy says. In
1998, Hurricane Mitch killed nearly 20,000 people in Central America, and more than 4,000
people died during disastrous flooding in China. Bangladesh suffered some of its worst floods
ever the following year, as did Venezuela. Europe was hit with record floods in 2002, and then a
record heat wave in 2003.

More recently, Brazil was struck by the first-ever recorded hurricane in the South Atlantic last
March.

“Weather records are being set all the time now. We’re in an era of unprecedented extreme
weather events,” McCarthy said.

Historical weather patterns are becoming less useful for predicting the future conditions because
global warming is changing ocean and atmospheric conditions.

“In 30 to 50 years’ time, the Earth’s weather generating system will be entirely different,” he
predicted.

— Stephen Leahy, Global Warming May Spawn More Super-Storms, Inter Press Service,
September 20, 2004

Ecosystem Impacts

With global warming on the increase and species’ habitats on the decrease, the chances for
various ecosystems to adapt naturally are diminishing.

Many studies have pointed out that the rates of extinction of animal and plant species, and the
temperature changes around the world since the industrial revolution, have been significantly
different to normal expectations.

An analysis of population trends, climate change, increasing pollution and emerging diseases
found that 40 percent of deaths in the world could be attributed to environmental factors.

Jaan Suurkula, M.D. and chairman of Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Application of
Science and Technology (PSRAST), paints a dire picture, but notes that he is only citing
observations and conclusions from established experts and institutions. Those observations and
conclusions note that global warming will lead to the following situations, amongst others:

• Rapid global heating according to a US National Academy of Science warning;

• Dramatic increase in greenhouse gas emissions;
• Ozone loss aggravated by global warming;
 • Ozone loss likely to aggravate global warming;
• Warming of the oceans leads to increased green house gasses;
• Permafrost thawing will aggravate global warming;
• Oceanic changes observed that may aggravate the situation;
• A vicious circle whereby each problem will exacerbate other problems which will
feedback into each other;
• Massive extinction of species will aggravate the environmental crisis;
• Sudden collapse of biological and ecological systems may occur, but will have a very
slow recovery;
• While effective measures can decrease global warming and other problems the World
community has repeatedly failed to establish cooperation.

The “vicious circle” Suurkula refers to is worth expanding. In his own words, but slightly
reformatted:

The ongoing accumulation of greenhouse gasses causes increasing global warming.

• This causes a more extensive destruction of ozone in the polar regions

because of accentuated stratospheric cooling.
o An increase of ozone destruction increases the UV-radiation that,
combined with higher ocean temperature, causes a reduction of the
gigantic carbon dioxide trapping mechanism of the oceanic phytoplankton
biomass;
o This accentuates the warming process.
• When the warming has reached a certain level, it will release huge
amounts of greenhouse gasses trapped in the permafrost.
o This will enhance the global warming, and the polar destruction of
ozone, and so on.
• The observed decrease of the thermohaline circulation [the various
streams that transport warm and cold waters around the world and therefore has
an important stabilizing effect on world climate] further aggravates the situation.

This is a global self-reinforcing vicious circle accelerating the global warming.

— Jaan Suurkula, World-wide cooperation required to prevent global crisis; Part one—the
problem, Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Application of Science and Technology,
February 6, 2004

Rising Sea Levels

Water expands when heated, and sea levels are expected to rise due to climate change. Rising sea
levels will also result as the polar caps begin to melt.

Rising sea levels is already affecting many small islands.

The WorldWatch Institute reports that “[t]he Earth’s ice cover is melting in more places and at
higher rates than at any time since record keeping began”. (March 6, 2000).

Rising sea levels will impact many coastlines, and a large mass of humanity lives near the coasts
or by major rivers. Analysis by the World Wildlife Fund has found that many cities are
unprepared for climate change effects such as rising sea levels.

Increasing ocean acidification

Ocean Acidification; consumption of carbonate ions impede calcification. Source: Pacific

Marine Environment Laboratory, NOAA

Although it has gained less mainstream media attention, the effects of increasing greenhouse
emissions — in particular carbon dioxide — on the oceans may well be significant.

NOAA Ocean Acidification Demonstration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,

February 26, 2010

As explained by the US agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
the basic chemistry of ocean acidification is well understood.

These are the 3 main concepts:

1. More CO2 in the atmosphere means more CO2 in the ocean;

2. Atmospheric CO2 is dissolved in the ocean, which becomes more acidic; and
3. The resulting changes in the chemistry of the oceans disrupts the ability of plants and
animals in the sea to make shells and skeletons of calcium carbonate, while dissolving
shells already formed.
Short overview of ocean acidification: Ocean Acidification, ABC World News Webcast, June 7,
2008

Scientists have found that oceans are able to absorb some of the excess CO2 released by human
activity. This has helped keep the planet cooler than it otherwise could have been had these gases
remained in the atmosphere.

However, the additional excess CO2 being absorbed is also resulting in the acidification of the
oceans: When CO2 reacts with water it produces a weak acid called carbonic acid, changing the
sea water chemistry. As the Global Biodiversity Outlook report explains, the water is some 30%
more acidic than pre-industrial times, depleting carbonate ions — the building blocks for many
marine organisms.

In addition, “concentrations of carbonate ions are now lower than at any time during the last
800,000 years. The impacts on ocean biological diversity and ecosystem functioning will likely
be severe, though the precise timing and distribution of these impacts are uncertain.” (See p. 58
of the report.)

Although millions of years ago CO2 levels were higher, today’s change is occurring rapidly,
giving many marine organisms too little time to adapt. Some marine creatures are growing
thinner shells or skeletons, for example. Some of these creatures play a crucial role in the food
chain, and in ecosystem biodiversity.

Clay animation by school children: The other CO2 problem, March 23, 2009 (commissioned by
EPOCA)

Some species may benefit from the extra carbon dioxide, and a few years ago scientists and
organizations, such as the European Project on OCean Acidification, formed to try to understand
and assess the impacts further.

One example of recent findings is a tiny sand grain-sized plankton responsible for the
sequestration of 25–50% of the carbon the oceans absorb is affected by increasing ocean
acidification. This tiny plankton plays a major role in keeping atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2)
concentrations at much lower levels than they would be otherwise so large effects on them could
be quite serious.

Other related problems reported by the Inter Press Service include more oceanic dead zones
(areas where there is too little oxygen in the sea to support life) and the decline of important
coastal plants and forests, such as mangrove forests that play an important role in carbon
absorption. This is on top of the already declining ocean biodiversity that has been happening for
a few decades, now.

Increase in Pests and Disease

An increase in pests and disease is also feared.

A report in the journal Science in June 2002 described the alarming increase in the outbreaks and
epidemics of diseases throughout the land and ocean based wildlife due to climate changes.

One of the authors points out that, “Climate change is disrupting natural ecosystems in a way
that is making life better for infectious diseases.”

Failing Agricultural Output; Increase in World Hunger

The Guardian summarizes a United Nations warning that, “One in six countries in the world face
food shortages this year because of severe droughts that could become semi-permanent under
climate change.”

Drought and desertification are starting to spread and intensify in some parts of the world
already.

Agriculture and livelihoods are already being affected

Failing agriculture in the future have long been predicted.

Food and Global Warming, ScienCentral, January 7, 2009

Looking to 2100, scientists who looked at projections of global warming’s impact on the average
temperatures during the growing season fear that rising temperatures will have a significant
impact upon crop yields, most noticeably in the tropics and sub tropics.

While warm weather can often be good for some crops, hotter than average temperatures for the
entire season is often not good for plants.

This would affect at least half the world’s population that either live in the region or rely on food
coming from that region.

IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks), part of the United Nations, has produced a
series of short videos showing how some regions are already being affected by climate change
and are trying to adapt as a result:

• Changing crops
• Melting glaciers
• Worsening floods
• Creeping deserts

Changing crops

One example is farmers in Nepal finding that cultivating rice isn’t as productive as before, and
are changing to other crops as a result:

Swapping Crops — Climate Change, IRIN, June 28, 2009

Melting glaciers

In the Himalayas, melting glaciers means less water for local villages:

Melting Glaciers — Climate Change, IRIN, June 25, 2009

(South Asia in general is also seriously affected by rapidly retreating Himalayan glaciers which
feed the mighty rivers that have created the various South Asian civilizations.)

Worsening floods

In Mozambique, rains are becoming heavier and causing floods, which affect crops and people’s
livelihoods as they are displaced and have to change their way of life quickly.

Flooding Rivers in Mozambique, IRIN, January 21, 2009

It is feared that globally, there will be mass migrations in the future as climate change makes
conditions worse in some regions of the world, and these challenges will play itself out on a
much larger scale, with much more human movement. (And if Western attitudes towards
immigration are negative now, they could be even worse in the future.)

Creeping deserts

In Mauritania, by contrast, there is the problem of increasing desertification, creeping ever closer
to people who have had to change their way of life, focusing more on searching for water.

Creeping Deserts in Mauritania, IRIN, January 21, 2009

In some cases, improved agricultural techniques may help, such as rainwater harvesting and drip
irrigation. Some also believe genetically modified crops may be essential to deal with changing
climates. Yet, there are many other crucial issues that affect agriculture, such as poverty, political
and economic causes of world hunger, global trade policies (which create unequal trade and
affect the poorest countries the most), etc.

See IRIN’s videos on climate change impacts in Africa and Asia for more short clips.

Women face brunt of climate change impacts

It is recognized that poorer nations will suffer the worst from climate change, either because of
geographical reasons, and/or because they will have less resources to cope with a problem
(mostly caused by emissions from rich countries over the past decades).

In addition to poor countries, women are likely to suffer the worst, as the United Nations
Population fund explains:
Women—particularly those in poor countries—will be affected differently than men. They are
among the most vulnerable to climate change, partly because in many countries they make up the
larger share of the agricultural work force and partly because they tend to have access to fewer
income-earning opportunities. Women manage households and care for family members, which
often limits their mobility and increases their vulnerability to sudden weather-related natural
disasters. Drought and erratic rainfall force women to work harder to secure food, water and
energy for their homes. Girls drop out of school to help their mothers with these tasks. This cycle
of deprivation, poverty and inequality undermines the social capital needed to deal effectively
with climate change.

— Facing a changing world: women, population and climate , State of the World’s
Population 2009, UNFPA, November 18, 2009, p.4

The UNFPA also captures this in some videos that accompanied their 2009 report.

Women and Climate Change in Bolivia, UNFPA, November 2009

Women and Climate Change in Vietnam, UNFPA, November 2009

The first one is the above-described effects occurring in rural areas of Bolivia. The second one is
on the impact on women in Vietnam.

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Greenhouse gases and emissions resulting from human

activity
Every few years, leading climate scientists at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) have released major, definitive reports detailing the progress in understanding
climate change. From the outset they have recommended that there be emission reductions. This
body is comprised of hundreds of climate scientists around the world.

At the beginning of January 2007, the IPCC’s fourth major report summarized that they were
even more certain than before of human-induced climate change because of better scientific
understanding:

Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased
markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values
determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years. The global increases in carbon
dioxide concentration are due primarily to fossil fuel use and land-use change, while those of
methane and nitrous oxide are primarily due to agriculture.

… The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved
since the Third Assessment Report (TAR), leading to very high confidence that the globally
averaged net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming.
Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is
very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.

— Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis; Summary for Policymakers , IPCC,
February 5th, 2007 [emphasis is original]

Their definition of “very high confidence” and “very likely” is a 90% chance of being correct.
(Their 2001 report claimed a 66% certainty.)

This report was produced by some 600 authors from 40 countries. Over 620 expert reviewers and
a large number of government reviewers also participated, according to the IPCC’s media
advisory.

As Inter Press Service notes, although the IPCC has become the “gold standard” for global
scientific collaboration, their reports are inherently conservative:

The IPCC operates under the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and does not fund any research itself. It collects,
evaluates and synthesises scientific data. Any U.N. country can be a member of the IPCC and
can challenge the findings in its reports. And consensus is required for every word in the
“Summary for Policy Makers” section included in each report.

It’s an inherently conservative process, with oil-rich countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
always trying to tone down the conclusions and emphasise uncertainties and unknowns, said
Weaver.

— Stephen Leahy, Endless Summer Not As Nice As It Sounds, Inter Press Service, January 25,
2007

Differences in Greenhouse Gas Emission Around the World

As the World Resources Institute highlights there is a huge contrast between

developed/industrialized nations and poorer developing countries in greenhouse emissions, as
well as the reasons for those emissions. For example:

• In terms of historical emissions, industrialized countries account for roughly 80% of

the carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere to date. Since 1950, the U.S. has
emitted a cumulative total of roughly 50.7 billion tons of carbon, while China (4.6 times
more populous) and India (3.5 times more populous) have emitted only 15.7 and 4.2
billion tons respectively (although their numbers will rise).
• Annually, more than 60 percent of global industrial carbon dioxide emissions
originate in industrialized countries, where only about 20 percent of the world’s
population resides.
• Much of the growth in emissions in developing countries results from the provision of
basic human needs for growing populations, while emissions in industrialized
countries contribute to growth in a standard of living that is already far above that of the
 average person worldwide. This is exemplified by the large contrasts in per capita
carbons emissions between industrialized and developing countries. Per capita emissions
of carbon in the U.S. are over 20 times higher than India, 12 times higher than Brazil and
seven times higher than China.

At the 1997 Kyoto Conference, industrialized countries were committed to an overall reduction
of emissions of greenhouse gases to 5.2% below 1990 levels for the period 2008—2012. (The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its 1990 report that a 60% reduction
in emissions was needed…)

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) is an organization — backed by the UN

and various European governments — attempting to compile, build and make a compelling
economics case for the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity.

In a report titled The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for National and International
Policy Makers 2009, TEEB noted different types of carbon emissions as “colors of carbon”:

Brown carbon
Industrial emissions of greenhouse gases that affect the climate.
Green carbon
Carbon stored in terrestrial ecosystems e.g. plant biomass, soils, wetlands and pasture and
increasingly recognized as a key item for negotiation in the UNFCCC.
Blue carbon
Carbon bound in the world’s oceans. An estimated 55% of all carbon in living organisms
is stored in mangroves, marshes, sea grasses, coral reefs and macro-algae.
Black carbon
Formed through incomplete combustion of fuels and may be significantly reduced if
clean burning technologies are employed.

But a mitigation approach needs to consider all these forms of carbon they note, not just one or
two:

Past mitigation efforts concentrated on brown carbon, sometimes leading to land conversion for
biofuel production which inadvertently increased emissions from green carbon. By halting the
loss of green and blue carbon, the world could mitigate as much as 25% of total greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions with co-benefits for biodiversity, food security and livelihoods (IPCC 2007,
Nellemann et al. 2009). This will only be possible if mitigation efforts accommodate all four
carbon colors.

— The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for National and International Policy Makers
2009 , p.18

The United States is the World’s Largest Emitter of Greenhouse Gases Per
Capita
Around 2007, China surpassed the US as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases in terms
of total output. Per person (“per capita”), however, China’s emissions are much smaller.

Until recently, the United States was the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. However, it
remains the largest emitter when measured in terms of emissions per person.

Due to its much longer period of industrialization, the US has emitted far more into the
atmosphere than China (greenhouse gases such as CO2 linger on in the atmosphere for decades).

In addition, the US:

• Accounts for roughly four percent of the world’s population;

• Accounts for approximately 20% of global emissions and some 40% of industrialized
country emissions;

The previously 15-member European Union is also large Emitter

The previously 15 member-nations European Union (E.U.), if considered as a whole (for it is

more comparable to the U.S.):

• Accounts for roughly 3 percent of the world’s population;

• Accounts for around 10% of global emissions and 24% of industrialized countries’ man-
made emissions of the six main gases;
• Recent years have seen a reduction in emissions from those initial 15-member states.
However,
o It is not near the level required;
o For the second consecutive year, in 2003, emissions from EU countries have
actually increased slightly (though still remaining slightly lower than 1990
levels).

Stalling Kyoto Protocol Gets Push by Russia

The Kyoto Protocol was the climate change treaty negotiated in 1997, setting targets for
emissions of greenhouse gases.

In order to be binding under international law, the treaty would need ratification from the
countries responsible for around 55% of the global greenhouse gas emissions of 1990.

The U.S. being the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, pulled out in 2001, leaving treaty
ratification dependent on Russia, responsible for 17% of world emissions. Russia has to cut
emission levels from the Soviet days, and their emissions in the past decade has been far less, so
it should not pose as much of a problem to reduce such emissions.

Noting the above, the BBC commented on this adding that Kyoto was only ever a first step —
now discussions on the next, more stringent, target on greenhouse gas emissions can begin.
Rich nation emissions have been rising

The UNFCCC reported (November 17, 2008) that although industrialized nations have reduced
emissions between 1990 and 2006, in recent years, between 2000 and 2006, greenhouse gas
emissions have generally increased by 2.3% .

Side Note»

The above data excludes emissions/reductions from what is known as Land Use, Land Use
Change, or Forestry sources (LULUCF). LULUCF uses can act as carbon sinks, absorbing and
storing carbon dioxide (e.g. preserving or preventing deforestation), or can be a source of carbon
emissions (e.g. deforestation, forest fires, clearing land, agricultural activities, etc).

If LULUCF emissions/reductions are factored in, the UNFCCC finds that greenhouse emissions
from industrialized nations increased by 1%, less than the increase when excluding LULUCF.

However, as the UNFCCC also notes LULUCF emission reductions are not reliable or a good
indicator for our purposes here: “the main drawback of LULUCF activities is their potential
reversibility and non-permanence of carbon stocks as a result of human activities, (with the
release of GHG into the atmosphere), disturbances (e.g. forest fires or disease), or environmental
change, including climate change.”

This is despite an overall decrease of 4.7% since 1990. However, the more recent period suggests
the rich country emission reductions are not sustainable. Furthermore, it looks worse considering
a large part of this decrease is because of the collapse of the Soviet Union. As transition
economies started to recover around 2000, emissions have started to rise.

Some nations with large reductions are also seeing limits, for example:

• UK (15.1% reduction) benefited by switching from coal to natural gas but that switch is
largely in place now.
• Germany (18.2% reduction) has certainly invested in greenhouse gas emission
reductions, but has been helped in large part because of reunification (East Germany, like
much of eastern Europe and former Soviet states had economic problems, hence less
emissions at the time).
• Other reductions have come in part from relocating manufacturing to other places such as
China, which now claims at least one third of its emissions are because of production for
others.

(See also this Climate Change Performance Index from German Watch and Climate Action
Network Europe, which attempts to rank over 57 nations that account for 90% of the world’s
total greenhouse gas emissions, including industrialized nations and emerging economies.)

Developing Countries Affected Most

It has been known for some time know that developing countries will be affected the most.
Reasons vary from lacking resources to cope, compared to developed nations, immense poverty,
regions that many developing countries are in happen to be the ones where severe weather will
hit the most, small island nations area already seeing sea level rising, and so on.

German Watch published a Global Climate Risk Index in December 2009 that attempted to list
the nations that would be affected the most from climate change based on extreme weather such
as hurricanes and floods.

Between 1990 and 2008 they found these were the most affected nations:

1. Bangladesh
2. Myanmar
3. Honduras
4. Vietnam
5. Nicaragua
6. Haiti
7. India
8. Dominican Republic
9. Philippines
10. China

Back to top

Skepticism on Global Warming or That it can be human-

induced

© Anne Ward Penguin

For a very long time, something of contention and debate in the U.S. had been whether or not a
lot of climate change has in fact been induced by human activities, while many scientists around
the world, Europe especially, have been more convinced that this is the case.
In May 2002, the Bush Administration in the U.S. did admit a link between human activities and
climate change. However, at the same time the administration has continued its controversial
stance of maintaining that it will not participate in the international treaty to limit global
warming, the Kyoto Protocol, due to economic priorities and concerns. (More about the Kyoto
Protocol, U.S. and others’ actions/inactions is discussed in subsequent pages on this section.)

Throughout the 1990s, especially in the United States, but in other countries as well, those who
would try and raise the importance of this issue, and suggest that we are perhaps over-
consuming, or unsustainably using our resources etc, were faced with a lot of criticism and
ridicule. The previous link is to an article by George Monbiot, writing in 1999. In 2004, he notes
a similar issue, whereby media attempts at balance has led to “false balancing” where
disproportionate time is given to more fringe scientists or those with less credibility or with
additional agendas, without noting so, and thus gives the impression that there is more debate in
the scientific community about whether or not climate change is an issue to be concerned about
or not:

Picture a situation in which most of the media, despite the overwhelming weight of medical
opinion, refused to accept that there was a connection between smoking and lung cancer.
Imagine that every time new evidence emerged, they asked someone with no medical
qualifications to write a piece dismissing the evidence and claiming that there was no consensus
on the issue.

Imagine that the BBC, in the interests of “debate”, wheeled out one of the tiny number of
scientists who says that smoking and cancer aren’t linked, or that giving up isn’t worth the
trouble, every time the issue of cancer was raised.

Imagine that, as a result, next to nothing was done about the problem, to the delight of the
tobacco industry and the detriment of millions of smokers. We would surely describe the
newspapers and the BBC as grossly irresponsible.

Now stop imagining it, and take a look at what’s happening. The issue is not smoking, but
climate change. The scientific consensus is just as robust, the misreporting just as widespread,
the consequences even graver.

“The scientific community has reached a consensus,” the [U.K.] government’s chief scientific
adviser, Professor David King, told the House of Lords last month. “I do not believe that
amongst the scientists there is a discussion as to whether global warming is due to anthropogenic
effects.

“It is man-made and it is essentially [caused by] fossil fuel burning, increased methane
production… and so on.” Sir David chose his words carefully. There is a discussion about
whether global warming is due to anthropogenic (man-made) effects. But it is not—or is only
seldom—taking place among scientists. It is taking place in the media, and it seems to consist of
a competition to establish the outer reaches of imbecility.
…

But these [skeptics and illogical points against climate change] are rather less dangerous than the
BBC, and its insistence on “balancing” its coverage of climate change. It appears to be incapable
of running an item on the subject without inviting a sceptic to comment on it.

Usually this is either someone from a corporate-funded thinktank (who is, of course, never
introduced as such) or the professional anti-environmentalist Philip Stott. Professor Stott is a
retired biogeographer. Like almost all the prominent sceptics he has never published a peer-
reviewed paper on climate change. But he has made himself available to dismiss climatologists’
peer-reviewed work as the “lies” of ecofundamentalists.

This wouldn’t be so objectionable if the BBC made it clear that these people are not
climatologists, and the overwhelming majority of qualified scientific opinion is against them.
Instead, it leaves us with the impression that professional opinion is split down the middle. It’s a
bit like continually bringing people on to the programme to suggest that there is no link between
HIV and Aids.

What makes all this so dangerous is that it plays into the hands of corporate lobbyists. A recently
leaked memo written by Frank Luntz, the US Republican and corporate strategist, warned that
“The environment is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general—and President
Bush in particular—are most vulnerable… Should the public come to believe that the scientific
issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you
need… to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue.”

— George Monbiot, Beware the fossil fools, The Guardian, April 27, 2004

Monbiot’s comments above were over 5 years ago (as of writing), and yet some of those
concerns, especially about false balancing, carry on today.

Gary Schmidt is a leading climate researcher working for NASA. He is also a contributor to
RealClimate.org, a blog by climate scientists that attempt to dispel misinformation by climate
skeptics and provide background information often missing in mainstream media. In one of his
posts, he laments at the continual diversion caused by misinformation:

Recently there has been more of a sense that the issues being discussed (in the media or online)
have a bit of a groundhog day quality to them. The same nonsense, the same logical fallacies, the
same confusions – all seem to be endlessly repeated. The same strawmen are being constructed
and demolished as if they were part of a make-work scheme for the building industry attached to
the stimulus proposal.

— Gary Schmidt, Groundhog Day, RealClimate.org, June 8, 2009

However, (and perhaps belatedly) there is growing public acceptance of human-induced climate
change as reports such as the US Global Change Research Program and the UK Met Office
assert things like current climate change happening now and human-induced and that they will
cause many problems.

But, as well as growing acceptance, there is also louder vocal opposition, and the repeated
“nonsense” and “logical fallacies” that Schmidt was concerned about seems to have had an effect
upon the general public — in the US, anyway; fewer Americans believe in global warming (as
the Washington Post headlined it.

Amongst scientists, however, there is less skepticism: 11% of US scientists from any field
disagree with human-induced climate change, while only 1% of US climatologists disagree,
according to the following:

Climate Change: A Consensus Among Scientists?, informationisbeautiful.net, December 23,

2009

Asking who are among the 11% of skeptical scientists amongst all science fields, almost half are
engineers.

For more detailed information, the following sites can be useful:

• Scienceblogs.com provides a summary of the various claims of climate change deniers

• grist.org provides a similar list as ScienceBlogs
 • RealClimate.org is an authoritative blog maintained by some of the world’s leading
climate scientists. They often attempt to explain very technical issues to lay people and
often try to address common myths and other claims
• Skeptical Science is another blog that looks at various claims from skeptics and addresses
them.

Bush Administration Accused of Silencing its own Climate Scientists

As revealed towards the end of January 2006, NASA’s top climate scientist said NASA and the
Bush Administration tried to silence him.

While NASA said this was standard procedure to ensure an orderly flow of information, the
scientist, Dr. James Hansen disagreed, saying that such procedures had already prevented the
public from fully grasping recent findings about climate change that point to risks ahead.

Dr. Hansen, according to the New York Times reporting this, noted that these were “fresh efforts”
to silence him because he had said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing
technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United
States, climate change would eventually leave the earth “a different planet.” (By contrast, the
Bush administration’s policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of
emissions.)

Furthermore, “After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that
2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the
space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen
that there would be ‘dire consequences’ if such statements continued, those officers and Dr.
Hansen said in interviews.”

Earlier, in 2004, Dr. Hansen fell out of favor with the Bush Administration for publicly stating
before the presidential elections that government scientists were being muzzled and that he
planned to vote for John Kerry.

The New York Times also notes that this echoes other recent disputes, whereby “many scientists
who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is
approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is
present or on the phone.”

Furthermore, “Where scientists’ points of view on climate policy align with those of the
administration, however, there are few signs of restrictions on extracurricular lectures or
writing.”

And in terms of media manipulation, the Times also revealed that at least one interview (amongst
many others) was canceled because it was with NPR, which the public affairs official responsible
felt was “the most liberal” media outlet in the country. This implies a political bias/propaganda
in terms of how information is released to the public, which should be of serious concern.
At the beginning of June, 2006, the BBC Panorama documentary followed up on this and found
that many scientists felt they were being censored and that various reports had been
systematically suppressed, even altered. In one case, a major climate assessment report was due
out a month before the 2004 presidential elections, but was delayed because it had such a bleak
assessment, and the Bush administration did not want it to be part of the election issues. It was
released shortly after the elections were over.

Panorama also interviewed a pollster who had advised the Bush Administration when they came
into power in 2000 to question global warming, that humans caused it if it existed at all, to hire
skeptical scientists, and play down its impacts. (The advisor has now distanced himself away
from the Bush Administration’s stance today because he felt the science was more certain than it
was in 2000.)

Just weeks before hurricane Katrina devastated parts of Southern United States, Panorama
reported that “Another scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) … had research which established global warming could increase the intensity of
hurricanes. He was due to give an interview about his work but claims he was gagged.” After
Katrina, the “NOAA website said unusual hurricane activity is not related to global warming.”
When a leading scientist was asked why NOAA came out with such a statement, he suggested it
was ideologically driven.

(The BBC Panorama documentary is called Climate chaos: Bush’s climate of fear and as well as
a summary, you can watch the actual documentary online.)

Despite attempts to discredit global warming concerns, the Bush Administration has now
conceded that there is climate change and that humans are contributing to it, but Panorama
reports that a lot of vital time has been lost, and that some scientists fear US policy may be too
slow to carry out.

Almost a year after the story about attempts to silence NASA’s top climate scientist, many media
outlets have reported on a new survey where hundreds of government scientists say they have
perceived or personally experienced pressure from the Bush administration to eliminate phrases
such as “climate change” and “global warming” from their reports and public statements. A US
government hearing in the US is also pursuing this further as the seriousness of climate change is
becoming more accepted.

There has been a similar concern in Australia. At the beginning of 2006, the Australian
Broadcasting Company (ABC) revealed that some business lobby groups have influenced the
Australian government to prevent Australia from reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This lobby
group included interests from the coal, electricity, aluminum (aluminium), petroleum, minerals
and cement industries. The documentary exposing this revealed possible corruption within
government due to extremely close ties with such industries and lobby groups, and alleged
silencing of government climate scientists.

In what would seem to be a twist to suppression of government reports, it was widely claimed
that the US Environmental Protection Agency had “suppressed” a report that was skeptical of
climate change. However, it turns out that while the report was written by an employee on EPA
time, but on his own initiative and not qualified to do so, and so couldn’t be published by the
EPA and therefore was not suppressed. Furthermore, as the previous link finds, the report
contained large pieces of plagiarism. In addition, the report was flawed as RealClimte.org
quickly showed.

The headlines about this episode talked of “suppression” and would likely increase the view
amongst those still skeptical about climate change. Corrections to those headlines have been few,
and less prominent, by comparison.

Back to top

Many Sources Of Greenhouse Gases Being Discovered

Pollution from various industries, the burning of fossil fuels, methane from farm animals, forest
destruction, rotting/dead vegetation etc have led to an increased number of greenhouse gases in
the atmosphere. And, as international trade in its current form continues to expand with little
regard for the environment, the transportation alone, of goods is thought to considerably
contribute to global warming via emissions from planes, ships and other transportation vehicles.
(For more about trade and globalization in its current form and how it affects the environment, as
well as other consequences, visit this web site’s section on Trade, Economy, & Related Issues.)

Photo: full cargo ship. Credit: YP/Flickr

Even sulphur emitted from ships are thought to contribute a fair bit to climate change. (If you
have registered at the journal, Nature, then you can see the report here.) In fact, sulphur based
gas, originating from industry, discovered in 2000 is thought to be the most potent greenhouse
gas measured to date. It is called trifluoromethyl sulphur pentafluoride (SF5CF3).

The Guardian adds that one giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and
asthma-causing chemicals as 50 million cars.

Furthermore, “Confidential data from maritime industry insiders based on engine size and the
quality of fuel typically used by ships and cars shows that just 15 of the world's biggest ships
may now emit as much pollution as all the world’s 760m cars. Low-grade ship bunker fuel (or
fuel oil) has up to 2,000 times the sulphur content of diesel fuel used in US and European
automobiles.”
(Shipping is responsible for 3.5% to 4% of all climate change emissions the Guardian also
notes.)

NewScientist.com reports (December 22, 2003) on a study that suggests soot particles may be
worse than carbon dioxide in contributing to global warming. The soot particles also originate
from industry, and during the industrial revolution, was quite common. While on the positive
side there is less soot these days and perhaps easier to control if needed, alone, as one of the
scientists of the study commented, “It does not change the need to slow down the growth rate of
carbon dioxide and eventually stabilize the atmospheric amount.”

Photo: Peat Bog Western Siberia. Credit: ressaure/Flickr

NewScientist.com and others have also reported (August 2005) that the world’s largest frozen
peat bog is melting, and could unleash billions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas,
into the atmosphere. An area the size of France and Germany combined has been melting in the
last 4 years. In addition, “Western Siberia has warmed faster than almost anywhere else on the
planet, with an increase in average temperatures of some 3°C in the last 40 years.”

A scientist explained a fear that if the bogs dry out as they warm, the methane will oxidise and
escape into the air as carbon dioxide. But if the bogs remain wet, as is the case in western Siberia
today, then the methane will be released straight into the atmosphere. Methane is 20 times as
potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.

Back to top

Warming happening more quickly than predicted

While those denying climate change are reducing in number and there appears to be more effort
to try and tackle the problem, climate scientists are now fearing that climate change is happening
far faster and is having much larger impacts than they ever imagined.

The Arctic plays an incredibly important role in the balance of the earth’s climate. Rapid changes
to it can have knock-on effects to the rest of the planet. Some have described the Arctic as the
canary in the coal mine, referring to how canary birds used to be taken deep down coal mines. If
they died, it implied oxygen levels were low and signaled mine workers to get out.

Satellite observations show the arctic sea ice decreasing, and projections for the rest of the
century predict even more shrinkage:
Image: The decrease of Arctic sea ice, minimum extent in 1982 and 2007, and climate
projections. UNEP/GRID-Arendal, 2007

In terms of biodiversity, “the prospect of ice-free summers in the Arctic Ocean implies the loss
of an entire biome”, the Global Biodiversity Outlook report notes (p. 57).

In addition, “Whole species assemblages are adapted to life on top of or under ice — from the
algae that grow on the underside of multi-year ice, forming up to 25% of the Arctic Ocean’s
primary production, to the invertebrates, birds, fish and marine mammals further up the food
chain.” The iconic polar bear at the top of that food chain is therefore not the only species at risk
even though it may get more media attention.

Note, the ice in the Arctic does thaw and refreeze each year, but it is that pattern which has
changed a lot in recent years as shown by this graph:
The extent of floating sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, as measured at its annual minimum in
September, showed a steady decline between 1980 and 2009.Source: National Snow and Ice
Data Center, graph compiled by Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2010)
Global Biodiversity Outlook 3, May 2010

It is also important to note that loss of sea ice has implications on biodiversity beyond the Arctic,
as the Global Biodiversity Outlook report also summarizes:

• Bright white ice reflects sunlight.

• When it is replaced by darker water, the ocean and the air heat much
faster, a feedback that accelerates ice melt and heating of surface air inland, with
resultant loss of tundra.
• Less sea ice leads to changes in seawater temperature and salinity, leading
to changes in primary productivity and species composition of plankton and fish,
as well as large-scale changes in ocean circulation, affecting biodiversity well
beyond the Arctic.

— Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2010), Global Biodiversity Outlook 3,

May, 2010, p.57

Some scientists fear changes are happening to the Arctic much faster than anticipated. The
previous link mentions that despite computer climate models predicting loss of Arctic sea ice by
2050 to 2080, some scientists fear it could be as soon as 2015. The BBC notes similar concerns
by scientists, with one quoted as saying the sea ice is “so thin that you would have to have an
exceptional sequence of cold winters and cold summers in order for it to rebuild.”
Another BBC article reports scientists now have unambiguous evidence that the warming in the
Arctic is accelerating.

The Arctic reflects much sunlight back into space helping keep earth temperate. More melting
will result in less reflection and even more heat being absorbed by the earth. A chain reaction
could result, such as the Greenland ice sheet melting (which will actually increase sea levels,
whereas the melting of Arctic ice will not because it is sea ice), possibly increasing the melting
of permafrost in Siberia, which will release huge amounts of methane (as noted above), and
rapidly change climate patterns, circulation patterns and jet streams, far quicker than what most
of the environment could adapt to easily.

Older members of the indigenous Inuit people describe how weather patterns have shifted and
changed in recent years, while they also face challenges to their way of life in the form of
increased commercial interest in the arctic region. This combination of environmental and
economic factors put indigenous populations ways at a cross roads as this documentary from
explore.org shows:

Arctic: Change at the Top of the World, Explore.org, September 2007 Follow link for transcript
and more information

Back to top

For decades, scientists and environmentalists have warned that the way we are using Earth’s
resources is not sustainable. Alternative technologies have been called for repeatedly, seemingly
upon deaf ears (or, cynically, upon those who don’t want to make substantial changes as it
challenges their bottom line and takes away from their current profits).

In the past, some companies and industries have pushed back on environmental programs in
order to increase profits or to survive in a tough business world.

It has perhaps taken about a decade or so — and a severe enough global financial crisis that has
hit the heart of this way of thinking — to change this mentality (in which time, more greenhouse
gases have been emitted — inefficiently). Is that too late or will it be okay?

Economists talk of the price signal that is fundamental to capitalism; the ability for prices to
indicate when a resource is becoming scarcer. At such a time, capitalism and the markets will
mobilize automatically to address this by looking for ways to bring down costs. As a result,
resources are supposedly infinite. For example, if energy costs go up, businesses will look for a
way to minimize such costs for themselves, and it is in such a time that alternatives come about
and/or existing resources last longer because they are used more efficiently. “Running out of
resources” should therefore be averted.

However, it has long been argued that prices don’t truly reflect the full cost of things, so either
the signal is incorrect, or comes too late. The price signal also implies the poorest often pay the
heaviest costs. For example, commercially over-fishing a region may mean fish from that area
becomes harder to catch and more expensive, possibly allowing that ecosystem time to recover
(though that is not guaranteed, either). However, while commercial entities can exploit resources
elsewhere, local fishermen will go out of business and the poorer will likely go hungry (as also
detailed on this site’s section on biodiversity). This then has an impact on various local social,
political and economic issues.

In addition to that, other related measurements, such as GNP are therefore flawed, and even
reward unproductive or inefficient behavior (e.g. “Efficiently” producing unhealthy food — and
the unhealthy consumer culture to go with it — may profit the food industry and a private health
sector that has to deal with it, all of which require more use of resources. More examples are
discussed on this site’s section on consumption and consumerism).

Our continued inefficient pumping of greenhouse gases into the environment without factoring
the enormous cost as the climate already begins to change is perhaps an example where price
signals may come too late, or at a time when there is already significant impact to many people.
Resources that could be available more indefinitely, become finite because of our inability or
unwillingness to change.

The subsequent pages on this site look at the political issues around tackling climate change.

Global Warming, Spin and Media

Author and Page information
• by Anup Shah
• This Page Last Updated Monday, September 27, 2010

• This page: http://www.globalissues.org/article/710/global-warming-spin-and-media.

• To print all information e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links, use the print
version:
o http://www.globalissues.org/print/article/710

Consider the following:

 Source:
Matthew Glover, Global Warming – the debate, Renegade Conservatory Guy, July 30, 2010
Despite the strong consensus from climate scientists of man-made global warming, a vast portion
of the mainstream media and public remain skeptical.

How did we get to such a situation? While the exact percentages aren’t as important as the
overall trend that is shown, the answers to this question involve years of politics.

This web page has the following sub-sections:

1. Introduction
2. Changing Business Interests?
3. The US and Climate Change
1. Policy Strategy
1. Step 1: Deny it
2. Step 2: Fight it
3. Step 3: Dilute it
4. Step 4: Delay it
5. Steps 5 and 6: Do it and Market it
2. Bush Administration Accused of Silencing its own Climate Scientists
3. Bush Administration also accused of interfering with UK’s attempts to tackle
global warming
4. US 2007 State of the Union speech on being greener: policy turn or spin?
5. Some US States and businesses defy Bush Administration’s position
6. Putting Climate Change Policy and Science on Public Trial?
7. Suppressed climate dissenter was not suppressed
4. The UK and Climate Change
1. British Governments’s attempts faltering, despite rosy spin?
2. Great Global Warming Swindle Documentary itself a Swindle
5. Some rich countries blame developing countries such as China and India. A diversion
tactic?
6. Media Reporting
1. Criticism and ridicule of Climate Change concerns, initially
2. Media False Balancing Allowed Extreme Views to be Treated Same as Scientific
Consensus
3. Scientists show more certainty of human-induced climate change, media reporting
increases. Will further spin follow?
7. A challenge for the mainstream media

Introduction
Accompanying the concerns of climate change and global warming is the media spin,
propaganda, and special interests. For many years in some countries, scientists and
environmental groups raising concerns about climate change faced stern opposition, and at one
time, ridicule. Initially, many big businesses and countries such as the United States were openly
challenging concerns of climate change. Industry coalitions and lobby groups have also been
accused of misinforming the public or pressuring media into “false balancing.”
In recent years, many large businesses have distanced themselves from those previous positions
and some have even openly accepted climate change and global warming concerns, even asking
for governments to provide regulation and guidance on the matter.

Yet, even into the mid-2000s by which time climate change and global warming had finally been
accepted as real by the most suspicious governments, some such as the then US’s Bush
Administration were accused of silencing those who spoke out about the problem, including
leading government climate scientists who warned of consequences from global warming.

Increasingly, a number of governments such as those from the US, Australia and elsewhere have
become fearful of greenhouse gas emission reduction targets that they have long been subjected
to (but not ever achieved) if large developing countries such as China and India are not subject to
them as well. Developing countries correctly note that they were not the ones who pumped most
of climate change-inducing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere during the last few decades
and centuries.

As further reports regarding climate change impacts reveal a bleaker future, there are concerns
that there will be accompanying fear-mongering by environmentalists, green washing by some
business interests, and spin by governments to show “reductions” in emissions.

Some feel global warming is one of the biggest frauds of our era, with some even believing it is
designed to harm the US economy and make the UN more powerful. Others feel it is simpler
than that, and instead, climate scientists are able to make a lot of money by using fear as a tool to
earn more research grants.

Such a vast, global conspiracy of scientists, the United Nations and environmental
groups/lobbies does seem a bit far-fetched given that far more resourceful, powerful and
immensely wealthier corporations and governments (with their access to, and influence on, the
media) would surely be able to counter such a tactic (and have indeed been involved in their own
spin/propaganda attempts, which, even with their resources, are failing to hide the reality).

A lot of time appears to have been wasted, and political spin on issues such as describing a
reduced rate of greenhouse emissions as an actual reduction, risks is a false sense of hope and
achievement.

This article, explores these issues further, also drawing in details which have been raised in other
parts of this web site.

Back to top

Changing Business Interests?

Initially, many large businesses, mostly from the energy and transportation sectors, were hostile
to the idea of climate change and therefore against any action to address it.
For many years, talk of climate change led to a lot of skepticism and denial, typically from
corporate-backed interests such as energy companies. For example, just recently, the British
Royal Society, and separately, the Union of Concerned Scientists reported on ExxonMobil
waging a campaign of disinformation on global warming between 1998 and 2005, funding right
wing think-tanks and journals such as the American Enterprise Institute, the George C. Marshall
Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. And “with the help of right-wing media, such
as the Wall Street Journal, … columnists deliberately spread disinformation about climate
change.”

As another example, the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) revealed that some business
lobby groups have influenced the Australian government to prevent Australia from reducing
greenhouse gas emissions. This lobby group included interests from the coal, electricity,
aluminum (aluminium), petroleum, minerals and cement industries. The documentary exposing
this revealed possible corruption within government due to extremely close ties with such
industries and lobby groups, and alleged silencing of government climate scientists.

Often funded by such corporations, many lobby and interest groups tried to undermine reports of
climate change and its impact, for it threatened their position and economic future. For example,
noting the above ExxonMobil case, Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientist’s director of
strategy and policy says, “These groups promote spokespeople who misrepresent peer-reviewed
scientific findings or cherry-pick facts in an attempt to mislead the media and public into
thinking there is vigorous debate in the mainstream scientific community about global warming,
when in fact there is none.”

Professor Matthew Nisbet notes the influence of conservative think tanks in science and
environmental skepticism. Writing in ScienceBlogs he notes “A new study by a team of political
scientists and sociologists at the journal Environmental Politics concludes that 9 out of 10 books
published since 1972 that have disputed the seriousness of environmental problems and
mainstream science can be linked to a conservative think tank.”

Other times, some scientists in earlier years showed skepticism based on science, but as data and
research improved over time, most changed their positions to indicate some sort of concern or
agreement about climate change and human effects/causes.

In more recent years, many large companies that have formed these coalitions or funded such
lobby groups have now distanced themselves from those past positions, either as they accept
climate change is happening or because they see their reputation being damaged by such
association (or both).

Furthermore, some businesses are urging world leaders to tackle climate change. Some are even
asking for regulation to help reduce their economic uncertainty, to provide a level playing field
(so as to try and take measures but not lose out to competition form a rival that may not take such
a view).
In countries such as the United States, that have been openly hostile toward actions on climate
change in the past, local governments, states, and businesses have started to take action, anyway,
showing that buy-in and support from industry is a key to tackling these concerns.

However, some are still trying to undermine climate change action through deception. As the
British paper, the Guardian reports, scientists and economists have been offered a lot of money
to undermine a major climate change report in February 2007, from the IPCC (this report is
mentioned further below). The “American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded
thinktank with close links to the Bush administration” was accused of such practices.

(This site’s article on Reactions to Climate Change Negotiations and Action has more details.)

Back to top

The US and Climate Change

Some countries, of which the US is the most influential and powerful, have been accused of
being counter-productive during climate change negotiations.

When the Kyoto Protocol was written in 1997, it was mainly the US and its business lobby that
vehemently opposed the protocol based on economic concerns.

While the Clinton Administration signed and ratified the protocol, the Republican majority
Congress, was opposed to this. When Bush came to power, he eventually withdrew from the
international agreement.

President Bush cited a number of concerns, along the following themes:

• Economic concerns;
• That the Kyoto protocol was a political document;
• That it is unfair that countries like China and India do not emission reduction targets.

But are these concerns and reasons justified or legitimate?

Policy Strategy

In a June 2000 presentation, the World Resource Institute (WRI) asked what is fair concerning
developing countries and climate change.

WRI noted that there has often been a strong push by big business lobbies and related interests
when environmental regulation is attempted. The resulting environmental policy strategy tends to
have the following steps:

1. Deny it
2. Fight it
3. Dilute it
 4. Delay it
5. Do it
6. Market it

These steps have also applied to climate change discussions:

Step 1: Deny it

With this step, we saw a lot of skepticism initially coming from US-based scientists, many
accused of reporting for big business interests, such as oil and automobile industries.

Step 2: Fight it

With step 2, and with climate change, WRI notes that step 2 has become “blame someone else
for it”, referring to Bush’s attempts to criticize the Protocol for not imposing reductions on
developing countries.

Step 3: Dilute it

With step 3, it is interesting to note that the climate change negotiations that led to the Kyoto
Protocol involved extremely heavy concessions on steps and measures to take, in order to get the
United States in on the agreement. To criticize later the Kyoto Protocol for being a political
document (see below) is a cruel irony.

Step 4: Delay it

With step 4, many have criticized the US and others of delaying effective action or in other ways
attempting to derail effective action.

Steps 5 and 6: Do it and Market it

Steps 5 and 6 still have to unfold for the climate change issue. At the same time, while the Bush
Administration has at least admitted it is not against action on climate change (just that it
opposes the Kyoto Protocol), it is spending money on research and technology.

Yet, combined with delay tactics, this may be a way to ensure the US doesn’t lose its position of
power by implementing climate change measures. If its companies can find ways to be more
efficient and clean, then it can gain clout and prestige and recognition of help save the world.

By going its own way, it is ignoring international issues and concerns, and so this can be seen as
a political move to ensure economic and geopolitical success on this major environmental issue
without consideration of the rest of the world. Unfortunately it is often this “go it alone”
approach that also creates a lot of resentment against the US in the eyes of many around the
world.

Bush Administration Accused of Silencing its own Climate Scientists

As revealed towards the end of January 2006, NASA’s top climate scientist says NASA and the
Bush Administration have tried to silence him.

While NASA said this was standard procedure to ensure an orderly flow of information, the
scientist, Dr. James Hansen disagreed, saying that such procedures had already prevented the
public from fully grasping recent findings about climate change that point to risks ahead.

Dr. Hansen, according to the New York Times reporting this, noted that these were “fresh efforts”
to silence him because he had said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing
technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United
States, climate change would eventually leave the earth “a different planet.” (By contrast, the
Bush administration’s policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of
emissions.)

Furthermore, “After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that
2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the
space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen
that there would be ‘dire consequences’ if such statements continued, those officers and Dr.
Hansen said in interviews.”

Earlier, in 2004, Dr. Hansen fell out of favor with the Bush Administration for publicly stating
before the presidential elections that government scientists were being muzzled and that he
planned to vote for John Kerry.

The New York Times also notes that this echoes other recent disputes, whereby “many scientists
who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is
approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is
present or on the phone.”

Furthermore, “Where scientists’ points of view on climate policy align with those of the
administration, however, there are few signs of restrictions on extracurricular lectures or
writing.”

And in terms of media manipulation, the Times also revealed that at least one interview (amongst
many others) was cancelled because it was with NPR, which the public affairs official
responsible felt was “the most liberal” media outlet in the country. This implies a political
bias/propaganda in terms of how information is released to the public, which should be of serious
concern.

At the beginning of June, 2006, the BBC Panorama documentary followed up on this and found
that many scientists felt they were being censored and that various reports had been
systematically suppressed, even altered. In one case, a major climate assessment report was due
out a month before the 2004 presidential elections, but was delayed because it had such a bleak
assessment, and the Bush administration did not want it to be part of the election issues. It was
released shortly after the elections were over.
Panorama also interviewed a pollster who had advised the Bush Administration when they came
into power in 2000 to question global warming, that humans caused it if it existed at all, to hire
skeptical scientists, and play down its impacts. (The advisor has now distanced himself away
from the Bush Administration’s stance today because he felt the science was more certain than it
was in 2000.)

Just weeks before hurricane Katrina devastated parts of Southern United States, Panorama
reported that “Another scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) … had research which established global warming could increase the intensity of
hurricanes. He was due to give an interview about his work but claims he was gagged.” After
Katrina, the “NOAA website said unusual hurricane activity is not related to global warming.”
When a leading scientist was asked why NOAA came out with such a statement, he suggested it
was ideologically driven.

(The BBC Panorama documentary is called Climate chaos: Bush’s climate of fear and as well as
a summary, you can watch the actual documentary online.)

Despite attempts to discredit global warming concerns, the Bush Administration has now
conceded that there is climate change and that humans are contributing to it, but Panorama
reports that a lot of vital time has been lost, and that some scientists fear US policy may be too
slow to carry out.

Almost a year after the story about attempts to silence NASA’s top climate scientist, many media
outlets have reported on a new survey where hundreds of government scientists say they have
perceived or personally experienced pressure from the Bush administration to eliminate phrases
such as “climate change” and “global warming” from their reports and public statements. A US
government hearing in the US is also pursuing this further as the seriousness of climate change is
becoming more accepted.

Bush Administration also accused of interfering with UK’s attempts to tackle

global warming

The build-up to the 2005 G8 Summit was billed in the United Kingdom as a key moment for
Tony Blair’s leadership on climate change and his “special relationship” with the United States
to bear fruit. Yet, this meeting saw the US’s position on climate change quite clearly, as reported
by the Observer:

Extraordinary efforts by the White House to scupper Britain’s attempts to tackle global warming
have been revealed in leaked US government documents obtained by The Observer.

… The documents [part of the Bush administration’s submission to the 2005 G8 action plan for
the Gleneagles G8 Summit] obtained by The Observer represent an attempt by the Bush
administration to undermine completely the science of climate change and show that the US
position has hardened during the G8 negotiations. They also reveal that the White House has
withdrawn from a crucial United Nations commitment to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions.
The documents show that Washington officials:

• Removed all reference to the fact that climate change is a “serious threat
to human health and to ecosystems”;
• Deleted any suggestion that global warming has already started;
• Expunged any suggestion that human activity was to blame for climate
change.

Among the sentences removed was the following: “Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a
growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural
environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans.”

Another section erased by the White House adds: “Our world is warming. Climate change is a
serious threat that has the potential to affect every part of the globe. And we know that …
mankind’s activities are contributing to this warming. This is an issue we must address urgently.”

Earlier this month, the senior science academies of the G8 nations, including the US National
Academy of Science, issued a statement saying that evidence of climate change was clear
enough to compel their leaders to take action…. It is now clear that this advice has been
completely ignored by Bush and his advisers.

— Mark Townsend, New US move to spoil climate accord, Observer, June 19, 2005

US 2007 State of the Union speech on being greener: policy turn or spin?

In the 2007 State of the Union speech at the beginning of January that year, President Bush
announced various strategies and investment plans for cleaner technology and reduce US
greenhouse gas emissions. Was this part of the steps 5 and 6 mentioned above? Or was there
some spin associated with the announcements?

The Worldwatch Institute and others criticized the proposed measures as being too little.

As the BBC notes, some terminology has been used very misleadingly. For example, claims of
emissions reductions may actually involve emissions rises, but just at a slower rate. Hence,
while scientists talk about emission reduction as actual reductions, politicians talk about future
reductions based on current emissions, which sounds positive, but is misleading compared to the
intents and actual advice of climate scientists.

The BBC correspondent noting this warned,

The publicity from [US Energy Secretary Samuel] Bodman and his benevolent business allies
spoke of reducing emissions… It is a linguistic trick of huge importance to … everyone else who
is likely to be at the sharp end of some climate-related impact in the coming years. We should all
observe its emergence, document its every use, and fear it like the plague.

— Richard Black, The semantics of climate change, BBC, February 3, 2007

Furthermore, while talking about energy conservation, Bush’s speech in this area appeared put
more emphasis on reducing foreign energy dependency (i.e. from the Middle East in particular),
than on addressing climate change (though his administration does now accept that climate
change is happening).

Some US States and businesses defy Bush Administration’s position

Some states, cities and businesses in the US have decided to take action against climate change
even if the federal government will not. For example, in California, the California Global
Warming Solutions Act was agreed to in mid-August, 2006. Hundreds of cities have also
committed to reducing carbon emissions. In the north east of the US, several states have also
committed to greenhouse gas emission reductions, including Connecticut, Delaware, Maine,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Vermont.

Putting Climate Change Policy and Science on Public Trial?

The largest American business federation, the US Chamber of Commerce, a lobby group,
recently called for a public trial on both the US policy decision to regulate CO2 emissions and the
science behind climate change concerns. It would seem to be a spin tactic that reaches out to
popular notions of fairness.

However, as science and technology site Ars Technica argues, putting climate change on trial is a
terrible idea because, “The sort of arguments that make for good courtroom statements tend to
obscure the details of science, and the specific example proposed by the Chamber clearly
indicates that they do nothing for the public’s understanding of science.”

The lobby group’s hostility to climate change science and action has got to the point that a
number of high-profile multinational companies have pulled out of the US Chamber of
Commerce as they have become uncomfortable with the organzation’s hard-line opposition to
measures tackling climate change. Big names include Nike and Johnson & Johnson amongst
others.

“Suppressed” climate dissenter was not suppressed

In what would seem to be a twist to suppression of government reports, it was widely claimed
around the end of June 2009, that the US Environmental Protection Agency had “suppressed” a
report that was skeptical of climate change.

However, it turns out that while the report was written by an employee on EPA time, it was on
his own initiative and not solicited to do so by the agency, and so couldn’t be published by the
EPA and therefore was not suppressed.

Furthermore, as the previous link finds, the report contained large pieces of plagiarism. In
addition, the report was flawed as RealClimte.org, a blog maintained by well-regarded climate
scientists, quickly showed, ending with this:
Finally, they end up with the oddest claim in the submission: That because human welfare has
increased over the twentieth century at a time when CO2 was increasing, this somehow implies
that no amount of CO2 increases can ever cause a danger to human society. This is just
boneheadly stupid.

So in summary, what we have is a ragbag collection of un-peer reviewed web pages, an

unhealthy dose of sunstroke, a dash of astrology and more cherries than you can poke a cocktail
stick at. Seriously, if that’s the best they can do, the EPA’s ruling is on pretty safe ground.

— Gary Schmidt, Bubkes, RealClimate.org, June 26, 2009

The headlines about this episode talked of “suppression” and would likely increase the view
amongst those still skeptical about climate change. Corrections to those headlines have been few,
and less prominent, by comparison.

Back to top

The UK and Climate Change

British Governments’s attempts faltering, despite rosy spin?

On March 5, 2007 the UK’s Channel 4 broadcast their Dispatches documentary. This one was
about greenwashing and climate change and how the British government’s attempts to tackle
climate change are faltering once you look through the spin.

George Monbiot, a writer on various global issues, and Channel 4’s Dispatches commissioned a
team of environmental scientists at University College, London to conduct a peer-reviewed audit
of the government’s planned greenhouse gas reductions. “The results are staggering,” Monbiot
noted in his blog entry, Just a lot of hot air.

The audit revealed that:

• The government’s assessment of its own policies is wildly optimistic

• Instead of a 29-31% cut by 2020, it is currently on course to deliver a reduction of
between 12% and 17%
• At this rate the UK won’t meet its 2020 milestone until 2050.

How has this happened? Monbiot asks. “You don’t have to look very far to find out. In almost
every sector, government programs have been characterized by voluntarism, vacillation and
surrender to industrial lobby groups.”

In transportation for example, they found that

• There was an understating of the expected rise of flights (while not counting international
flights at all, which will account for an estimated 97% of flights in the UK)
 • A voluntary agreement with car makers in 1998 (who promised they would bring the
average emissions from new cars down from 188 grams per kilometer to 140 in ten years)
was way off target: The deadline is 2008 by which they will miss their target by half: the
real figure is likely to be 164 grams per kilometre.
• Vehicle taxes supposed to discourage “gas guzzlers” are hopelessly cheap for those who
can afford such thirsty vehicles. (And furthermore, there are currently no cars (at time of
the broadcast) in the UK that fit into the tax-free band they have created!)

The shift to biofuels (diesel or alcohol made from plants), which the US, Europe and some others
have embraced is also hugely controversial, as Monbiot explained:

Beyond a certain point the production of fuel begins to compete directly with the production of
food. A study conducted last year by Sarasin, the Swiss bank, placed “the present limit for the
environmentally and socially responsible use of biofuels at roughly 5% of current petrol and
diesel consumption in the EU and US.”

… the new market has stimulated a massive expansion of destructive plantations, especially of
oil palm. Palm oil planting is the major cause of tropical deforestation in both Malaysia and
Indonesia. As the forests are cut down, the carbon in both the trees and the peat they grow on
turns into carbon dioxide. A study by the Dutch scientific consultancy Delft Hydraulics found
that the production of every tonne of palm oil causes 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. This
makes oil palm 10 times worse than petroleum.

— George Monbiot, Just a lot of hot air, March 5, 2007 [Emphasis added]

The limited use of biofuels is in sharp contrast to the amount of attention it has received in the
mainstream as a viable alternative.

And it was not just in transportation that these problems were found. “In every sector the audit
found similar oversights, elisions, and deceptions.”

And the often-used double accounting trick has appeared in climate change related estimates too
(though it is not clear if it is deliberate or a genuine mistake). “The government claims that Phase
2 of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (which allows power companies to buy and sell
permits to pollute) will cut carbon emissions by 8 million tonnes against 1990 levels. [The audit]
found that the cut appears to be not a reduction in absolute emissions, but a reduction in future
gases which might have been released if the scheme did not exist.”

Monbiot’s final warning on the seriousness of the implications is also of interest:

And even if the official aim—of a 60% carbon cut by 2050—were met, it would, I believe, be
too little, too late. Climate scientists warn us that if global temperatures rise by two degrees or
more above their pre-industrial levels, the warming is likely to trigger runaway feedback. We are
already beginning to see some signs of this. In parts of the West Siberian peat bog, the
permafrost has begun to melt, releasing methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. The more methane
escapes, the more the planet warms, so the more methane escapes. The West Siberian bog alone
is believed to contain 70 billion tonnes of the gas whose liberation would equate to 73 years of
current manmade CO2 emissions.

If runaway feedback sets in on a large enough scale, the biosphere takes over from human beings
as the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions. At that point the problem is snatched from
our hands—there is nothing more we can do.

— George Monbiot, Just a lot of hot air, March 5, 2007 [Emphasis added]

(Channel 4 also published the audit report on their web site.)

Great Global Warming Swindle Documentary itself a Swindle

Just two days after the above documentary, Channel 4 then aired The Great Global Warming
Swindle, a documentary to show the scientific consensus that anthropogenic greenhouse gases
are primarily responsible for climate change was a lie.

The documentary interviewed prominent scientists who challenged the notion that humans may
be to blame for climate change. Key issues included that the sun was the cause of climate
change, that models were notoriously error prone and reflected only what the modeller put in as
variables, that climate change was only popular because of enormous funding available, and that
all environmentalists wanted to deny the poor countries a chance to develop.

The documentary sounded very plausible on initial reaction. However, it employed some
techniques that were questionable for a documentary about scientific issues, such as making the
situation seem black and white (e.g. “all” environmentalists wanted to deny the poor countries a
chance to develop, all environmentalists were hostile to anyone that denied climate change),
using smear and polemic (e.g. “you are being told lies”) and so on.

Given the IPCC report (written by some of the leading climate scientists) feels there is some 90%
certainty of human-induced climate change, and that the vast majority of climate scientists feel
this to be the case, it would seem important for such a documentary to include their views.

For example, on the counter argument that the sun is to blame (a common point from skeptics),
the documentary did not mention research to the contrary or that the research by some of the
scientists presented were actually proven incorrect later. For example, the science journal,
Nature, published a paper in September 2006 in which researchers reviewed existing evidence
and found that known variations in the sun’s total energy output could not explain recent global
warming. In addition, observations about the sun affecting many planets is also inconclusive as it
may be coincidence and some planets and moons may be warming due to other localized
reasons.

Side Note»
Some documentaries have tried to scare people into doing something about climate change and
themselves have used propaganda techniques. That too should be frowned upon. That does not
excuse this documentary to ignore the goal of invoking debate, and aim for politicization instead.

The next morning, many British newspapers were taken in by the documentary commenting that
this was a major story.

It turns out, however, that much of the documentary itself was a swindle, or, as media watchdog,
Media Lens described, “Pure Propaganda.” For example,

• Some theories had long been discredited

• At least one scientist was misled about the nature of the documentary and his views were
edited to suit the message of the documentary
• Misleading graphs

Why Channel 4, often known for its good documentaries, would air such a flawed film, is
unclear. It also turns out that the producer has been found to mislead other interviewees about the
purpose of the documentary. Channel 4 was asked to apologize then and yet continued to air
another of his films without, it seems, much scrutiny. A summary from The Independent noted,

one of the most distinguished scientists that it featured said his views had been “grossly
distorted” by the film, and made it clear that he believed human pollution did warm the climate.

Professor Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology said he had been “completely misrepresented” by the program, and “totally misled”
on its content. He added that he is considering making a formal complaint.

A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The film was a polemic that drew together the well-documented
views of a number of respected scientists to reach the same conclusions. This is a controversial
film but we feel that it is important that all sides of the debate are aired. If one of the contributors
has concerns about his contribution we will look into that.”

— Geoffrey Lean, Climate change: An inconvenient truth… for C4, The Independent, March 11,
2007 [C4 is often the short name used for Channel 4]

Given that two days earlier it reported on the British government’s spin on the issue, perhaps
Channel 4 thought this was an example of balancing? It may be an honest mistake given that
many other journalists writing the next day were also taken in by the documentary. But it is also
an example of “false balancing.”

As the philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote, “If a man is offered a fact which goes against
his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse
to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in
accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence.” (Roads to Freedom)
In that regards, many who naturally hope that global warming is not going to happen may want
to believe this documentary. Indeed, from the personal accounts experienced shortly after the
documentary, that is happening for many people.

Furthermore, as mentioned later on this page, there is another fear that some claims of climate
change effects are fear-mongering, exaggerating or being used as part of some spin, which are
also dangerous. Channel 4 therefore has responsibility to ensure that any critical documentary is
of decent quality. This is not saying that the voice of deniers should not be censored. On the
contrary, their voices should be heard. On this topic, being scientific in nature, and coming from
an extremely minority point of view, the documentary clearly needed to further balance out the
views with responses and findings from the mainstream scientific consensus.

Side Note»

An interesting side note about censorship is that the documentary made points that deniers were
all being silenced, that all environmentalists were hostile to their views, etc. It is probably an
unfortunate reality that there will be some (maybe many) who will be very cynical of counter
views, and will be hostile. Yet, as George Monbiot notes (see link below), it seems criticism is
being confused with silencing: “This is the best example of manufactured victimhood I have ever
come across. If you demonstrate that someone is wrong, you are now deemed to be silencing
him.”

For more details, see the following:

• Pure Propaganda: The Great Global Warming Swindle is a short, yet detailed look by
MediaLens, including many links explaining some of the above issues further.
• Channel 4’s Problem with Science by George Monbiot, provides a number of examples
about how discredited theories were being used to present the case, and this was not
noted to the public.
• Swindled! from RealClimate.org (a site by climate scientists) looks at some of the false
arguments made.
• The Great Global Warming Swindle, a critique by Sir John Houghton, former chair of
Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), looks at
most of the issues in the documentary and criticizes the points made.
• Facts and fictions about climate change from the Royal Society, which serves as the
academy of sciences in the UK, addresses key criticisms from climate change skeptics in
general. (This is also written by Sir John Houghton.)

One other area of interest that this documentary noted was the impact on developing countries:
The documentary tried to claim that it is only the deniers of anthropogenic climate change that
have the interests of the poor countries at heart. But this was more propaganda and spin:

• For years (and many years before climate change was accepted in the mainstream media
at all), environmentalists and others spoke of the importance of climate justice (that
developing countries should be allowed to develop for it is not the fault of all humans)
 • That the basis of international agreements had “common but differentiated
responsibilities” at its core

As this site has also argued for many years, Western mainstream talk of climate change has
indeed ignored the impact of developing countries. This has made made spin by Bush, Blair and
others that China and India must be subject to emission targets more easily accepted, without
knowing the context. However, this is not the position of all environmentalists and climate
scientists, as the documentary made it out to be. Furthermore, there seem to be more political and
economic agendas behind such a position and this is discussed further below.

Back to top

Some rich countries blame developing countries such as

China and India. A diversion tactic?
Politically, it has long been established and agreed that it is the industrialized nations that are
responsible for the anthropogenic aspect of climate change and that developing nations have only
recently entered industrialization phases. Therefore, it was internationally agreed that there
would be “common but differentiated responsibilities” and that industrialized nations would need
to reduce their emissions, while developing countries should continue down the path of
development but avoid the polluting route of today’s industrialized countries.

However, a combination of lack of action by richer nations (who have been increasing
emissions) with the realization that the climate is already changing has at least created a sense of
urgency amongst some richer nations. But the additional line coming from governments of
countries such as the US, Australia, and even the UK (where climate change is accepted and
recognized as something that needs urgent addressing) is that little can be achieved without large
developing countries such as India and China being part of the solution.

As larger developing countries are clearly industrializing and using more and more resources,
they will be increasing their greenhouse gas emissions. However, as detailed further on this site’s
section on global warming and population, given their late entry into the industrialization phase,
such countries’ emissions (and per person) are far lower than industrialized nations and they
have not been the primary cause of climate change. Politically then, such countries will find it
hard to accept emission caps without the industrialized countries showing some progress.

Another concern is not so much with those developing countries themselves, but that large
polluting industries from the West may be encouraged to move to countries that are not subject
to emission reduction targets. The complication here, at least from the developing world’s
perspective would be that targets for emission reductions because of this reason may be unfair as
their entire nation would be penalized for a problem caused by the rich countries and their
corporations. It is perhaps one of the many weaknesses of the Kyoto Protocol then, that
businesses themselves aren’t specifically targeted, but only countries.
From the perspective of developing countries, it may appear that the rich countries are
attempting to minimize the changes they have to make, even though they are the primary cause
of climate change, and then getting the developing countries to make a larger set of changes than
they otherwise would have had to. After all, the world has known for over two decades (even
three) that changes are needed, and instead, most of the rich world has only managed to slow
down its rate of emission increase, not actually reduce them. These perspectives are rarely
mentioned in western mainstream media, whereas the concerns of population growth, China and
India’s rise, are.

Back to top

Media Reporting
The types of issues raised above have an impact on the media reporting. More recently, the
mainstream media has generally been looking more and more at climate change, its effects, and
what people are doing. The measures and tactics employed by businesses and governments in the
past may not be as successful in the future, potentially. Is this a positive turn, or could there be
other forms of spin and “green washing”?

Criticism and ridicule of Climate Change concerns, initially

Throughout the 1990s, especially in the United States, but in other countries as well, those who
would try and raise the importance of climate change, and suggest that we are perhaps over-
consuming, or unsustainably using our resources etc, were faced with a lot of criticism and
ridicule. The previous link is to an article by George Monbiot, writing in 1999.

Media False Balancing Allowed Extreme Views to be Treated Same as Scientific

Consensus

In 2004, Monbiot notes a similar issue to the above, where media attempts at balance has led to
“false balancing.” Disproportionate time is given to more fringe scientists or those with less
credibility or with additional agendas, without noting so, and thus gives the impression that there
is more debate in the scientific community about whether or not climate change is an issue to be
concerned about or not:

Picture a situation in which most of the media, despite the overwhelming weight of medical
opinion, refused to accept that there was a connection between smoking and lung cancer.
Imagine that every time new evidence emerged, they asked someone with no medical
qualifications to write a piece dismissing the evidence and claiming that there was no consensus
on the issue.

Imagine that the BBC, in the interests of “debate”, wheeled out one of the tiny number of
scientists who says that smoking and cancer aren’t linked, or that giving up isn’t worth the
trouble, every time the issue of cancer was raised.
Imagine that, as a result, next to nothing was done about the problem, to the delight of the
tobacco industry and the detriment of millions of smokers. We would surely describe the
newspapers and the BBC as grossly irresponsible.

Now stop imagining it, and take a look at what’s happening. The issue is not smoking, but
climate change. The scientific consensus is just as robust, the misreporting just as widespread,
the consequences even graver.

“The scientific community has reached a consensus,” the [U.K.] government’s chief scientific
adviser, Professor David King, told the House of Lords last month. “I do not believe that
amongst the scientists there is a discussion as to whether global warming is due to anthropogenic
effects.

“It is man-made and it is essentially [caused by] fossil fuel burning, increased methane
production… and so on.” Sir David chose his words carefully. There is a discussion about
whether global warming is due to anthropogenic (man-made) effects. But it is not — or is only
seldom — taking place among scientists. It is taking place in the media, and it seems to consist
of a competition to establish the outer reaches of imbecility.

But these [skeptical and illogical points against climate change] are rather less dangerous than
the BBC, and its insistence on “balancing” its coverage of climate change. It appears to be
incapable of running an item on the subject without inviting a skeptic to comment on it.

Usually this is either someone from a corporate-funded thinktank (who is, of course, never
introduced as such) or the professional anti-environmentalist Philip Stott. Professor Stott is a
retired biogeographer. Like almost all the prominent skeptics he has never published a peer-
reviewed paper on climate change. But he has made himself available to dismiss climatologists’
peer-reviewed work as the “lies” of ecofundamentalists.

This wouldn’t be so objectionable if the BBC made it clear that these people are not
climatologists, and the overwhelming majority of qualified scientific opinion is against them.
Instead, it leaves us with the impression that professional opinion is split down the middle. It’s a
bit like continually bringing people on to the program to suggest that there is no link between
HIV and Aids.

What makes all this so dangerous is that it plays into the hands of corporate lobbyists. A recently
leaked memo written by Frank Luntz, the US Republican and corporate strategist, warned that
“The environment is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general—and President
Bush in particular—are most vulnerable… Should the public come to believe that the scientific
issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you
need… to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue.”
— George Monbiot, Beware the fossil fools, The Guardian, April 27, 2004

Eric A. Davidson notes similar things about false balancing and is also worth quoting at length:

The media likes to present both sides of any issue as if they were boxers of equal stature and
strength, and so scientists with opposing points of view are interviewed as if they held equal
stature and respect within the scientific community. In terms of strength of argument and
credibility, the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change created by the United
Nations] scientific consensus about the importance of global warming is a heavyweight
compared to the bantam weight of the handful of dissenting scientists. Unfortunately, the well-
funded and ideologically and financially motivated bantams are running circles around the
pensive, cautious, lumbering heavyweight, and the impact of the bantams’ clever program of
misinformation far exceeds their numbers or their scientific credentials. Their strategy has been
to find little chinks in the armor of the global warming evidence, draw attention to these minor
points, blow them out of proportion, and thereby gain publicity in the popular press that cases
doubt on the strong mainstream scientific consensus on global warming. When subsequently
debated in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, these issues are usually put to rest, but by then,
the damage has already been done in the popular press, and the global warming naysayers
achieve their goals of undermining confidence in the science behind the global warming
consensus.

— Eric A. Davisdon, You Can’t Eat GNP: Economics as if Ecology Mattered, (Perseus
Publishing, 2001), pp. 110 - 111

If these issues had been mostly recognized and the media and public discourse had moved on,
then that would be fine. However, this has not really been the case.

Gary Schmidt is a leading climate researcher working for NASA. He is also a contributor to
RealClimate.org, a blog by climate scientists that attempt to dispel misinformation by climate
skeptics and provide background information often missing in mainstream media. In one of his
posts, he laments at the continual diversion caused by misinformation:

Recently there has been more of a sense that the issues being discussed (in the media or online)
have a bit of a groundhog day quality to them. The same nonsense, the same logical fallacies, the
same confusions – all seem to be endlessly repeated. The same strawmen are being constructed
and demolished as if they were part of a make-work scheme for the building industry attached to
the stimulus proposal.

— Gary Schmidt, Groundhog Day, RealClimate.org, June 8, 2009

For many, many years, then, organizations with political agendas to stifle climate change action
(who also claim that there is a vast global conspiracy perpetrated by climate change scientists
with a goal to get more funding!) have diverted time and effort from action to inaction.
Furthermore, as subsequent pages mention, at major UN meetings on climate change in the
recent past, the mainstream media often failed to report on it, or placed it much lower in priority
than other stories, with even celebrities getting more media coverage at times.

This isn’t just a media/propaganda issue, it is a time issue; the warnings from scientists since
even the 1980s was that urgent action was needed. It is not “humanity” proving once again that
we cannot come together and deal with issues, it is powerful interests proving a historical
pattern.

Scientists show more certainty of human-induced climate change, media

reporting increases. Will further spin follow?

Leading climate scientists at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have
released major, definitive reports detailing the progress in understanding climate change. From
the outset they have recommended that there be emission reductions. This body is comprised of
hundreds of climate scientists around the world.

At the beginning of January 2007, the IPCC’s fourth major report summarized that they were
even more certain of human-induced climate change than before. They were 90% certain that
warming since industrialization had been due to human activity.

In recent months, it is noticeable how much climate change related concerns are entering
mainstream discourse as this realization is becoming more widespread. Governments,
businesses, public sector and others are all talking about it in some way or another, it seems.

Even in the US, perhaps the most vocal about questioning climate change consensus, most major
media outlets have been accepting it and quickly moving on to discussing ways forward.
Columbia Journalism Review notes,

And the media are, despite Huggins’s criticisms, slowly but surely eliminating false balance
when addressing human activity’s role in global warming. According to Boykoff’s more recent
work (pdf), “balanced” coverage of the anthropogenic contribution to climate change tapered off
from 2003 to 2006 in the five largest American papers in favor of stories that depicted it as
undeniably significant. Furthermore, stories that depict man’s contribution to warming as
negligible have all but disappeared from news pages. Regional papers seem to be improving as
well. According to Krosnick, though, misunderstanding persists due to the early problems.

“Our research suggests that there’s actually kind of a carry-over, that people don’t forget that
quickly,” he said. “… Americans heard a lot skeptics in a lot of news stories for a lot years, and
the impact of those skeptics doesn’t disappear simply because the skeptics aren’t being
mentioned any more.”

— Curtis Brainard, Public Opinion and Climate: Part II; Where’s the consensus, and where
does it end?, Columbia Journalism Review, August 27, 2008
And, Inter Press Service (IPS) reports that environmentalists are warning of more spin on
climate change action, that “with the stark realisation that global warming is transforming our
world, there will be [a] crazy new era of ‘greenwashing’, desperate ‘geo-engineering’ schemes,
‘grandfathering’ of newly-built coal power plants and carbon-credit ‘profiteering’.”

“Geo-engineering” schemes are large-scale attempts to manipulate the environment to produce

environmental change, such as

• Injecting chemicals into the atmosphere;

• Putting reflectors into orbit to deflect some of the sunlight away from the earth;
• Dumping tons of iron into the oceans in the hope that phytoplankton will boom and
absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

“There’s a little bit of panic brewing, governments are taking these wacky ideas seriously,” says
Pat Mooney of the Canadian-based NGO, the ETC Group. “The U.S. government has been
lobbying the IPCC to include geo-engineering in the third part of its report to be released in May
on ways to mitigate the impacts of climate change” adds IPS.

Some recent studies found geoengineering would be fraught with unintended and unexpected
consequences.

As another example, “Knowing the green tide is rising, there is a major rush in the US to build
new coal-fired power plants before any carbon emissions caps are passed into law, says David
Archer, a climatologist at the University of Chicago.”IPS adds that “Once built, such power
plants can operate for 50 or more years. In the past, whenever tougher new pollution rules came
into place, existing plants were usually ‘grandfathered’, meaning they were exempted from
having to comply with the new regulations. And that is a major concern.” Some 150-160 such
plants are being proposed to meet US energy demands.

In Europe, a carbon trading scheme has received a lot of attention, but as IPS also reports, the
ETC Group, a Canadian-based non-governmental organization, says that the it is a “failure”
because it “simply slows down the pace” of emissions.

In relation to that, as already mentioned above, the intentional misuse of the phrase “emission
reduction” to mean reducing the rate of emission increase, rather than an actual reduction, may
also lead to a false sense of hope.

The above-mentioned IPS article notes other ways that spin and dirty fuels will still likely be
employed.

Media critics at Media Lens noted a questionable mix of a news story on climate change
accompanied by advertisements for car essentials and cheap holidays abroad at the UK’s
Independent newspaper. In addition, as their main story, the Independent’s on Sunday
Supplement even had a report by a journalist suggesting that, “Alarmed by global warming,
shocked by the imminent mass extinction of species and distraught at the environmental damage
wreaked by mass tourism, I have decided to act before it is too late. Yes, carbon-neutral travel
can wait. I’m off to see polar bears, tigers and low-lying Pacific atolls while they’re still there”.

Media Lens found this objectionable given that the World Health Organization had estimated
150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year from global warming, and wrote in asking
“Given this extraordinary and rising level of suffering, what is the moral justification for today’s
front cover?”

Their initial article, the response from the Independent together with Media Len’s response to
that is worth taking into account in regards to media reporting of climate change.

As more companies attempt to become “carbon neutral”, some will attempt to become so by
offering to plant trees or contribute to forest schemes. This sounds green and useful, but
environmentalists are concerned that this may not lead to actual (or substantial) reductions in
emissions. Furthermore, these “carbon sinks” are controversial, for while they can soak up
excess carbon dioxide, they can also burn (if, for example, global warming contributes to more
forest fires). This aspect has been a concern for many years, and still not discussed in length in
many mainstream outlets (or at least certainly not contributing to prime time news/headlines).
See this site’s sections on Flexibility Mechanisms and Carbon Sinks, Forests and Climate
Change for more details.

Back to top

A challenge for the mainstream media

Some time ago, the NGO PANOS wrote:

Climate change is, in theory, the perfect topic for an international environmental agreement. All
countries are affected by, and contribute to, the build up of greenhouse gases, and should be
willing to join in the effort to stop it. However, it is far from easy to agree what to do, and how to
do it….

— Just a Lot of Hot Air?, A close look at the Climate Change Convention, PANOS, November
2000

Similarly, it is a “safer” political topic for the media to cover than many other issues.

It is promising that recent mainstream attention seems to have turned towards actions and
solutions, but can a mostly corporate-funded mainstream media be part of the solution, or will
some of the more business-impacting measures be likely toned down? Will consumers be willing
to change their life style if technology and industry cannot find some quick energy-related
solution?

At the same time, will the developing world once again face the blames for the world’s
problems? Will China, India, and others allow themselves to be easy targets for time-wasting
diversion, or will they have the ability to pursue a more sustainable path to development
compared to what they are doing now?

Media manipulation and fake news has hit many media outlets in recent times on various issues,
including in countries such as the US and UK—often perceived to have a good quality
mainstream media. The pressure to satisfy advertisers while media companies are downsizing
and increasing “operating efficiency” in reality has often meant less independent and diverse
journalism, as detailed further on this site’s mainstream media section.

And what of media reporting? Some fear that too much reporting of climate change in headlines
will lead to a kind of climate fatigue whereby people are desensitized to the issue. Yet, just as it
is common to have a sports segment in many broadcasts, why not more topical issues? Granted,
with pressures to reduce news time and coverage it would not be easily, but if the headlines at
the time of writing this managed to include a celebrity with a drug problem, surely a small note
about global issues such as climate change or poverty could be added more regularly?

As also seen with other global issues, and discussed elsewhere on this site, another problem is
what makes climate change a headline-worthy item: if a major report or a world leader says
something about an issue, or if it is sensational enough, then it seems to make news headlines. If
they do not, then it seems not to be newsworthy. In other cases, if a particular country faces a
heat wave or other extreme weather, then climate change may be discussed in that context, but
what when that is gone, and we continue spewing out greenhouse gases? This is a generalization
for sure, but it is hard to see issues like climate change or global poverty and third world debt
covered at other times in immense depth.

Yet, as some scientists have warned to the BBC, there is a fear of “overplaying” the global
warming message which risks confusing the public about the threat. Reactionary documentaries
on the other side, as described above in the UK section (about the supposed “swindle”) shows
that the public may be further confused if sensationalism on all sides wins over proper debate
and understanding.

As well as overplaying, there is also concern that some media may be understating the impact of
climate change.

No doubt that many media outlets are responding to this, as the above-mentioned Australian
Broadcasting Company exposé of corruption and lobbying of the Australian government shows.
Newspapers, with more pages to cover such topics, for example are also writing more about
these issues than before. However, television news is still (for now) the major source of
information about the world for most people. Yet, if history is any indicator, even at (or perhaps
because of) such challenging times, propaganda, spin and misdirection will perhaps be the norm
unless democracies can become more democratic and the mainstream media reports issues more
thoroughly.

COP16—Cancún Climate Conference

Author and Page information
• by Anup Shah
• This Page Created Tuesday, January 04, 2011

• This page: http://www.globalissues.org/article/791/cop16-cancun-climate-conference.

• To print all information e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links, use the print
version:
o http://www.globalissues.org/print/article/791

November 29 – December 10, 2010, Cancún, Mexico was the venue

for the 16th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as the 15th
Conference of the Parties — or COP 16.

This conference came a year after the Copenhagen conference which promised so much but
offered so little. It also came in the wake of WikiLeaks’ revelations of how the US in particular
tried to cajole various countries to support an accord that served US interests rather than the
world’s.

What resulted was an agreement that seems much watered down, even an almost reversal, from
original aims and spirit of climate change mitigation. In effect, the main polluters (the
industrialized nations) who should have borne the brunt of any emission reduction targets, have
managed to reduce their commitments while increasing those of the developing countries; a great
“global warming swindle” if any!

This web page has the following sub-sections:

1. WikiLeaks revelations provides context for Cancún outcome

2. Cancún delivers but was it any good?
3. Inaction in 2009 alone adds $1 trillion to reaching climate change goals
4. Common but Differentiated Responsibility Principle Sidelined Again
5. Trillions for Wall Street, Pennies for Earth
6. Does tackling climate change have to mean lowering living standards?
7. Will we ever agree on a common course of action?
8. More Information
WikiLeaks revelations provides context for Cancún outcome
After the failure of COP15, there was more hope and pressure on this meeting to deliver. Yet,
COP15 as well as more recent WikiLeaks’ revelations perhaps dampened expectations.

As summarized by The Guardian, WikiLeaks cables revealed how the US manipulated climate
accord with embassy dispatches showing America used various tactics to get support for a
weakened Copenhagen accord, including:

• Spying
• Threats, and
• Promises of aid

Why would the US be interested in an accord when historically it has typically been against
climate treaties discussed at the UN? Some say that Obama’s views are quite different to his
predecessor George Bush, and so we’d expect the US to engage more. Beneath those rosy views,
however, the Guardian reveals some realpolitik:

The accord turns the UN’s top-down, unanimous approach upside down, with each nation
choosing palatable targets for greenhouse gas cuts. It presents a far easier way to bind in China
and other rapidly growing countries than the UN process. But the [Copenhagen] accord cannot
guarantee the global greenhouse gas cuts needed to avoid dangerous warming. Furthermore,
it threatens to circumvent the UN’s negotiations on extending the Kyoto protocol, in which rich
nations have binding obligations. Those objections have led many countries — particularly the
poorest and most vulnerable — to vehemently oppose the accord.

Getting as many countries as possible to associate themselves with the accord strongly served US
interests, by boosting the likelihood it would be officially adopted. A diplomatic offensive was
launched. Diplomatic cables flew thick and fast between the end of Copenhagen in December
2009 and late February 2010, when the leaked cables end.

— Damian Carrington, WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord, The
Guardian, December 3, 2010 (Emphasis added)

But most countries are in it for the money, so to speak: Saudi Arabia, usually doubting human-
induced climate change at all, cables also reveal, has “two faces” to their climate change
negotiations: they want a way to gracefully step down from their previously hostile positions,
while they want to also tap into climate adaptation funds as means to help diversify their
economy away from fossil fuels.

The Maldives, Carrington noted in the above article, was quite easy to tempt into supporting the
Copenhagen accord with promises of financial aid.

As recent years have shown, the European Union also seems to be interested in supporting the
US position. But there may be rifts in the EU, too, with the current EU president predicting
failure at Cancún and being disappointed at being snubbed by the US and China in Copenhagen,
delivering a blow to the EU’s self-acclaimed pioneering position on climate change talks.

Although China had thus far been against the Copenhagen accord, one aspect they are interested
in is the opening up of technology transfer, as it will help their economy. Another cable also
suggests that US presidential overtures to Brazil may be needed to get their support, as they are
currently siding with India and China.

Carrington also summarizes a diplomatic exchange between the US and Ethiopia:

On 2 February 2009, a cable from Addis Ababa reports a meeting between the US undersecretary
of state Maria Otero and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, who leads the African
Union’s climate change negotiations.

The confidential cable records a blunt US threat to Zenawi: sign the accord or discussion ends
now. Zenawi responds that Ethiopia will support the accord, but has a concern of his own: that a
personal assurance from Barack Obama on delivering the promised aid finance is not being
honored.

— Damian Carrington, WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord, The
Guardian, December 3, 2010

Another approach discussed between the US and EU was how to handle some of the leading
developing nations:

US determination to seek allies against its most powerful adversaries – the rising economic
giants of Brazil, South Africa, India, China (Basic) – is set out in another cable from Brussels on
17 February reporting a meeting between the [US] deputy national security adviser, Michael
Froman, [EU climate action commissioner, Connie] Hedegaard and other EU officials.

Froman said the EU needed to learn from Basic’s skill at impeding US and EU initiatives and
playing them off against each in order “to better handle third country obstructionism and avoid
future train wrecks on climate [as well as WTO meetings and financial regulatory reform
discussions]”.

Hedegaard is keen to reassure Froman of EU support, revealing a difference between

public and private statements. “She hoped the US noted the EU was muting its criticism of the
US, to be constructive,” the cable said. Hedegaard and Froman discuss the need to “neutralize,
co-opt or marginalize unhelpful countries” [including Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba,
Ecuador], before Hedegaard again links financial aid to support for the accord, noting “the irony
that the EU is a big donor to these countries”. Later, in April, the US cut aid to Bolivia and
Ecuador, citing opposition to the accord.

— Damian Carrington, WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord, The
Guardian, December 3, 2010 (Emphasis added)
Some 140 nations have indicated support of the accord (roughly 75% of the countries that are
party to the UN climate change convention which is in the range that the US have been targeting.

In a way, none of this is really surprising: it is how politics works. It perhaps comes more of a
surprise because we never hear the details, or suspicions of these actions being confirmed.
Certainly politician’s claims of sincerity to fight climate change for everyone’s interests and
benefits etc should be met with cynicism, as each wants to maximize their own interests.

Furthermore, stances by say the US, and increasingly Europe, to blame China, India, and others
for lack of progress, for example, should also be met with some cynicism and realization that this
is part of a diplomatic and propaganda agenda. It is easy to vilify the growing economies that are
clearly emitting a lot more greenhouse gases, but packaging this in a way that ignored historical
burdens (detailed further below) is not honest, either.

All these revelations came during the conference. Although it seems to have had little impact on
the final outcome, it should give some context to understanding what happened at Cancún.

Back to top

Cancún “delivers” but was it any good?

We saved the [climate negotiation] system but the climate and people were sacrificed.

— A senior developing country negotiator leaving Cancun, quoted by Martin Khor, Cancún
meeting used WTO-type methods to reach outcome, Third World Network, December 17, 2010
(Emphasis added)

When the Cancún meeting ended, a UN press release described it as delivering a “balanced
package of decisions” that “restores faith in multilateral process”.

However, given the WikiLeaks context above, and the additional details that follow, that
description seems almost Orwellian!

Some of the agreement points include

• Both industrialized and developing nations agreeing to reduce emissions

• Raise $30 billion in funds (already mentioned the year before) for a fast start up, with the
intention for $100 billion by 2020
• Design a Green Climate Fund with a board with “equal” representation from developed
and developing countries
• Increase technology cooperation

That same press release reported that UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said,
“Nations have shown they can work together under a common roof, to reach consensus on a
common cause. They have shown that consensus in a transparent and inclusive process can
create opportunity for all.”
Yet, as Martin Khor, Executive Director of the South Centre, an inter-governmental think tank
for a number of developing country notes, almost the opposite happened:

• Technically there was no consensus

• WTO-style negotiations took place (typically non-transparent, including only a few select
countries meeting together behind closed doors, etc)
• The apparent openness/consensus comes after these closed room meetings where the
arm-twisting and deals are done and decisions are made
• The level of ambition to do anything has been remarkably low
• The conference has helped pass the burden of climate mitigation onto developing
countries.

The “equal” representation from developed and developing countries for a green climate fund
seems unequal. Of course, the funds will largely come from developed countries, but they
represent a small percentage of world population, and as the WikiLeaks cables reveal, the US
were not happy with Ethiopia’s suggestion of an panel to monitor international financial
contributions and pledges under the accord. This implies that the “equality” will likely be a false
balancing.

Although on the surface the meeting outcome seems rosy, the details of course reveal reason to
worry. Martin Khor describes the terrible negotiating process that took place in Cancún, and
while only a summary is cited here, it is worth looking at his original article:

Although most delegates were either relieved or glad that multilateralism had been revived at
Cancun, many negotiators from developing countries were privately expressing disappointment
and concern that the final texts did not reflect a balanced outcome, that in fact the developing
countries had made major concessions and that the developed countries had largely got their
way.

Moreover, there was serious concern that from a climate-environmental point of view, the texts
fell far short, or had even gone backwards, in terms of controlling the Greenhouse Gas emissions
that cause climate change.

— Martin Khor, Cancún meeting used WTO-type methods to reach outcome, Third World
Network, December 17, 2010

Khor also describes Japan’s resistance to continuing the Kyoto Protocol into a second period
(which is what was agreed initially — the first period was up to 2012, with 2009 being the target
year to define details for the next period, which many rich countries have long resisted, and have
not even reached their own promised/legally binding 2012 targets for emission reductions).

The developing countries had made it their main demand, that the figures for the Kyoto
Protocol’s second period be finalised in Cancun, or at least that a clear road map be drawn up for
the finalisation in 2011. However, this goal was rudely swept aside by Japan’s aggressive stand
on Day 1 and the conference never recovered from that blow.
The final text failed to ensure the survival of the Protocol, though it sets some terms of reference
for continuing the talks next year. The Cancun meeting in fact made it more likely for the
developed countries to shift away from the Kyoto Protocol and its binding regime of emission
reduction commitments, to a voluntary system in which each country only makes pledges on
how much it will reduce its emissions.

— Martin Khor, Cancún meeting used WTO-type methods to reach outcome, Third World
Network, December 17, 2010

As well as Japan, there were also fears of Russia, Canada and Australia rejecting a second
commitment period, with Russia confirming they would not renew the Kyoto Protocol.

The previous article also notes Japan’s negotiator Akira Yamada saying a renewal of Kyoto was
“not an appropriate way or an effective way or a fair way to tackle climate change”. The use of
“fair” can be overloaded, as detailed further below on the principle of “common but
differentiated responsibilities” where it is fair that nations like Japan reduce their emissions more
than developing nations, because of the total accumulated greenhouse gases over the past
decades.

Targets agreed to are much weaker than the original Kyoto Protocol had defined:

In the Kyoto Protocol (KP) system agreed to for the second period, a top-down aggregate
reduction figure based on what science requires (taken to be the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change report’s 25-40%, and taken by developing countries to be a more ambitious 40-
50%) would first be agreed on, and then developed countries would have to make their
commitments (comparable with one another) and these would have to add up to the aggregate.

In the voluntary pledge system, there would not be an agreed prior aggregate figure, and no
system of ensuring comparability of efforts or that the sum of pledges is ambitious enough to
meet the scientific requirement.

The Cancun text also recognised the emission reduction targets that developed countries listed
under the Copenhagen Accord.

But these are overall such poor targets that a recent UN Environment Programme report warned
that the developed countries by 2020 may decrease their emissions by only a little (16%) in the
best scenario, or even increase their level (by 6%) in a bad scenario. The world would be on
track for temperature rise of 3 to 5 degrees by century’s end, which would be catastrophic.

The text … is weaker than the KP’s binding system, and the [ad-hoc working group on long-term
cooperative action]’s obligation for non-KP developed countries to do a comparable effort.

— Martin Khor, Cancún meeting used WTO-type methods to reach outcome, Third World
Network, December 17, 2010 (Emphasis added)
In other words, for the developing nations, the Kyoto Protocol is the only legal agreement that
binds rich countries to emission cuts. Without it, fears of rich countries opting for weaker
measures are slowly coming true.

And so, as John Vidal reported, the “Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (Alba) group of nine
Latin American countries — who claim they are backed by African, Arab countries and other
developing nations — said they were not prepared to see an end to the treaty that legally requires
all of its signatories to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) received a lot of
backing. While curbing deforestation is important, using it in a carbon exchange mechanism of
some sort is controversial, because carbon stored in forests is not as permanent (dying vegetation
releases that stored carbon). Also, rich countries help finance forest-saving actions in developing
countries, they will get credits (to pollute) while poorer countries will be left with more
expensive things to deal with (forest-saving actions being low-hanging fruit, so to speak).
Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International, adds:

REDD+ “is attracting both rich countries and countries with forests” to some form of “carbon
exchange,” because, said Bassey, “rich countries can keep polluting, and countries with forests
believe they can get some money through the REDD mechanism.”

It is not true conservation, but rather a way of reducing emissions, according to the Nigerian
expert. When a forest is included in the mechanism, it will prevent the local communities from
utilising it as they have for their livelihood, “because whoever is in the forest will have to assure
that the carbon stock would be retained.”

— Diana Cariboni, Climate Change: Summit Ends Without Solving Emissions Puzzle, Inter
Press Service, December 11, 2010

Another Inter Press Service article also adds that “many Indigenous and civil society groups
reject REDD outright if it allows developed countries to avoid real emission reductions by
offsetting their emissions.”

Ultimately, the developing nations gave up a lot more compared to industrialized nations who
have hardly done anything in the past decade or more in terms of meaningful emissions
reductions:

The developing countries made a lot of concessions and sacrifices in Cancun, while the
developed countries managed to have their obligations reduced or downgraded.

Cancun may be remembered in future as the place where the UNFCCC’s climate regime was
changed significantly, with developed countries being treated more and more leniently, reaching
a level like that of developing countries, while the developing countries are asked to increase
their obligations to be more and more like developed countries.
— Martin Khor, Cancún meeting used WTO-type methods to reach outcome, Third World
Network, December 17, 2010

And while mainstream media reporting may give the opposite impression, as Khor noted above,
and Sunita Narain from the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment further explains,
developing countries have given up a lot with little in return:

Over the past three years — since the meeting held in Bali — much has changed in the
negotiations and much will change in Cancun. In the past years developing countries have done
all they can to break the deadlock; they have budged from their held positions, they have been
proactive in international negotiations and they have developed a domestic agenda for climate
change mitigation. But each forward shift in the position of the emerging world has only meant a
backward slide and hardening of position of the rich countries. Worse, there has been aggressive
and often clandestine movement to shift the very nature of the global climate agreement to suit
the US. This is the endgame of Cancun.

— Sunita Narain, The endgame at Cancun, Centre for Science and Environment, December 16,
2010

The various other agreements, Khor notes, are also vague and unclear in how they will be
realized.

The final consensus reached was also controversial as Khor outlines:

The Cancun conference was also marked by a questionable method of work, quite similar to the
WTO but not used in the United Nations, in which the host country, Mexico, organized meetings
in small groups led by itself and a few Ministers which it selected, who discussed texts on the
various issues.

The final document was produced not through the usual process of negotiations among
delegations, but compiled by the Mexicans as the Chair of the meeting, and given to the
delegates for only a few hours to consider, on a take-it-or-leave-it basis (no amendments are
allowed).

At the final plenary, Bolivia rejected the text, and its Ambassador, Pablo Solon, made a number
of statements giving detailed reasons why. Bolivia could not accept a text that changed the nature
of developed countries’ commitments to a voluntary system of pledges, nor to accept the low
pledges they had made, which would lead to a disastrous degree of global warming, which its
President had termed ecocide. It could also not accept an undemocratic process through which its
proposals (on mitigation, the use of market mechanisms, and on the need to address IPRs) had
been swept aside.

Bolivia made clear it could not adopt the text and that there was thus no consensus. The Mexican
foreign minister said that Bolivia’s views would be recorded, that one country could not prevent
a consensus, and declared the text was adopted.
The Mexican way of organizing the writing and later the adoption of the Cancun text raises
questions about the future of UN negotiating procedures, practices and decision-making.

The importation of WTO-style methods may in the immediate period lead to the “efficiency” of
producing an outcome, but also carries the risk of conferences collapsing in disarray (as has
happened in several WTO ministerial meetings) and in biases in the text, which usually have
been in favor of developed countries.

— Martin Khor, Cancún meeting used WTO-type methods to reach outcome, Third World
Network, December 17, 2010

For more on how the various WTO meetings have been conducted and collapsed, see this site’s
section on WTO Doha “Development” Trade Round Collapse, 2006

Sunita Narain is quite scathing of some of the implications of the final outcome:

[The final outcome] endorses an arrangement that emission reduction commitments of

industrialized countries will be decided on the voluntary pledge they make. They will tell us how
much they can cut and by when. The US, which has been instrumental in getting the deal at
Cancun, is the biggest winner. If its target to reduce emissions were based on its historical and
current contribution to the problem, the country would have to cut 40 per cent by 2020, over the
1990 levels. Now it has pledged that it will cut zero percentage points in this period. The Cancun
deal legitimizes its right to pollute.

But surely nobody can agree that the burden of the transition should shift to the developing
world. But this is what has happened at Cancun. … A curious fact emerges. While the total
amount the rich will cut comes to 0.8-1.8 billion tonnes of CO2e, poor developing countries have
agreed to cut 2.3 billion tonnes of CO2e by 2020. In other words, emission reductions
promised by the industrialized world is pathetic. And the principle of equity in burden-
sharing has been completely done away with.

… This is not the worst.… the pledges will add up to practically nothing in terms of averting the
worst of climate change. With the Cancun deal in force, the world is in for a 3-4°C temperature
rise.

— Sunita Narain, Deal won, stakes lost, Centre for Science and Environment, December 31,
2010

Probably with tongue in cheek, Stephen Leahy perhaps did find a way to see how this meeting
could be regarded as a success:

If success is measured by delaying difficult decisions, then the Cancún climate meeting
succeeded by deferring crucial issues over financing and new targets to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions to the next Conference of the Parties meeting a year from now in Durban, South
Africa.

— Stephen Leahy, Climate Change: Emissions Punted to Durban, Breakthrough Seen on

Forests, Inter Press Service, December 11, 2010

Back to top

Inaction in 2009 alone adds $1 trillion to reaching climate

change goals
Ars Technica summarized an International Energy Agency (IEA) report noting that

• Globally, we’re subsidizing fossil fuel use to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars
(over $300bn in 2009)
• Fossil fuel subsidies are over 5 times the subsidies going to renewable energy ($57bn in
2009)
• Inaction on climate goals has added $1 trillion onto the cost of reaching them—in 2009
alone.

Governments will have to act fast to have any chance of getting us to the 450ppm goal that they
claim to support. Due to the inaction that dominated the past year, the IEA estimates that it will
take a trillion dollars more to stabilize the atmosphere at 450ppm if we start now than it would
have if we’d started a year earlier. Any further delay would make matters worse, so much so that
the report seems to conclude that it simply won’t happen.

— John Timmer, IEA: last year’s inaction on climate goals cost us $1 trillion, Ars Technica,
November 9, 2010 (Emphasis added)

This is a lot of money, but the pledges at Cancún seem far less ambitious. But trillions were
quickly made available to tackle the global financial crisis as mentioned further below.

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Why do these meetings seem to get so bogged down in stalemates? Is it not clear that India,
China, US and a few others need to agree to cut their emissions? These questions are quite
common but also reveals a simplicity that perhaps politicians and mainstream media should take
partial blame for.

The rest of this article is a repeat of what was written a year ago on the COP 15 page on this site,
and that it needs to be repeated here is another blow to credible mainstream reporting and
politician rhetoric:
Common but Differentiated Responsibility Principle
Sidelined Again
As Inter Press Service (IPS) summarized:

What is abundantly clear is the enormous divide between the rich and poor countries. Poor
countries want deep cuts in emissions by the industrialized world, and the latter continue to resist
significant cuts and legally binding targets.

— Stephen Leahy, Climate Change: History Was Not Made, Inter Press Service, December 19,
2009

This site’s section on climate justice has long gone into some detail about

• How the “Common but Differentiated Responsibility” acknowledges that rich nations
have emitted most of the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change, that
developing countries’ emissions are likely to rise on their path to industrialization and
trying to meet basic social and development needs; and that therefore while the goals are
the same, the means to tackle climate change will be different.
• Year after year at climate summits, it seems this principle is often ignored by some rich
nations and their media.
• It has therefore been easier in public to blame nations like China and India for reacting
negatively and being uncooperative when faced with pressure to submit to emission
reduction targets (before many rich nations demonstrate they can do the same).

Greenhouse gases tend to remain in the atmosphere for many decades so historical emissions are
an important consideration.

The following shows that the rich nations (known as “Annex I countries” in UN climate change
speak) have historically emitted more than the rest of the world combined, even though China,
India and others have been growing recently. This is why the “common but differentiated
responsibilities” principle was recognized. (The blip in the 1990s is when the Soviet Union
collapsed).

Historical accumulation of carbon dioxide emissions from 1800 comparing Annex I countries
(i.e. rich world) with rest of the world.

(Click on the Play button to see the data animate over time).See prepared data with all countries,
and raw sources, compiled by Gap Minder.

The US and others have characterized the campaign for climate justice and equality to the
atmosphere as a way to claim climate “reparations”; that it is unfair to make the industrialized
nations pay for climate emissions into the past century or more at a time when they didn’t know
it would cause more harm.
That seems reasonable. However, one of the implications of that any agreement that is
subsequently drawn up will, in effect, put disproportionately more burden on the poorer
countries to tackle a problem they did not largely cause. The poor are less likely to have the
resources to do so, which also means that tackling climate change is less likely to be successful.

This is why rich nations are being asked to seriously think about the type and way they use
energy in addition to helping the poorer nations (not necessarily “reparations” but through
meaningful technology and adaptation assistance — which would be far less costly than the
bailouts readily handed to people that did cause a major problem).

In addition, there is little fairness in asking China, India and others to be subject to emission
targets when many rich countries didn’t achieve the watered down Kyoto targets themselves.

Some emerging nations are in a grey area — India, China, Brazil, etc are rapidly developing and
although they have enormous social and development problems outstanding, some of their
wealthy are as wealthy (some more so) as those in industrialized nations. As such, wealthier
developing nations aren’t necessarily the target (nor asking) for such adaptation funds.

It is certainly more complex than a few sentences on this page can provide, but the simplification
offered by rich country leaders and their media hides this complexity year after year. (See
climate justice from this web site for more details on this.)

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Trillions for Wall Street, Pennies for Earth

Perhaps a indictment of humanity (or at least its leaders) was the contrast in how we can deal
with a global financial crisis and a global warming crisis: wealthy bankers fail the world and get
trillions as a reward bailout through just a few negotiations.

By contrast, it is mostly the emissions from wealthy countries that fail the world with climate
change, yet many manage (for years, not just up to Copenhagen) to put equal blame on China,
India and other emerging nations and take decades to come up with very little.

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Does tackling climate change have to mean lowering living

standards?
Some fear climate change negotiations amount to asking industrialized nations to lower their
standard of living. Yet, this need not have to be.

For example, almost two decades ago, J.W. Smith of the Institute for Economic Democracy
calculated that half the American economy alone was wasteful and unnecessary, with the same
standard of living achievable with much less wasted effort. Of course, the implications are
staggering (mass unemployment for example) as well as interesting (share the remaining
productive jobs by reducing the work week), and perhaps idealistic (no country could try this
alone in today’s globalized world). But recognizing the problem is an important first step. (See
this site’s consumption section for more details.)

Most world governments have barely encouraged their industries to look for affordable
alternatives to fossil fuel, yet, already many businesses (especially in America) are already
innovating in this area. With enough political will, just fractions of the amount of funding and
subsidies given to the fossil fuel industries could be channeled into alternatives yet still be a
massive scale of investment. Side Note 1» Side Note 2»

In addition, as the authors of Natural Capitalism wrote over a decade ago, adjusting production
processes to factor the entire production-to-use-to-dispose cycle to include recycling or
eliminating waste and internalizing all the usually externalized costs could see enormous
productivity and economic benefits, while significantly reducing resource usage.

Gross National Product measures typically do not count environmental costs or measure human
well-being very well, and when those factors are measured, what may have seemed inefficient in
the past is shown to not be so viable.

Volumes could be written on how we could in theory solve this so easily. Reality of course is so
much harder in part due to power, greed, politics, etc. Yet, for richer nations afraid of losing out
economically to China and India (for that really seems to be the concern), they may already lose
out if China’s increasingly heavy investment into alternatives pays off.

It may be quite difficult for leaders of some Western nations to convince their public amidst lots
of negative PR that these investments into alternatives could be incredibly beneficial,
economically and even politically (see the above side note, for example). Yet, in combination
with the global financial crisis and the questioning of the economic ideologies that allowed this
to happen, this “perfect storm” perhaps also means that these crises are an opportunity; now is
the time to try and make meaningful changes and make our systems work with nature rather than
constantly fighting it.

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Will we ever agree on a common course of action?

Despite all the optimism that these problems can be solved, the concerns have been raised by
many for decades.

Ultimately, it seems, we are showing our future generations that once again power, greed,
selfishness and other negative qualities of human nature can easily usurp any positive traits such
as cooperation.
For climate negotiations, many now hope the follow-up meeting in Mexico in 2010 will be the
place where concrete agreements are made. Many scientists say greenhouse emissions need to
peak sooner rather than later, so each year seems like wasted time.

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More Information
Some useful links for further details and insights:

• Climate Change coverage from Inter Press Service (IPS). (This web site carries an IPS
feed.)
• UNFCCC
• UNFCCC’s COP-16 web site
• Cancún meeting’s official web site
• Third World Network
• Centre for Science and Environment and their COP-16 section
• The Guardian’s environment section
• Climate Justice and Equity from this web site looks at the issue of Common but
Differentiated Responsibilities as well as providing graphs and charts on what fairer
emission allocations might look like.
• Climate Change Links for more Information from this web site