After a break of two months in which ANPED went through a institutional transition and a relocation towards Brussels, we are now ready for a fresh start. Time to pick up our monthly newsletter The Switch from where we left of in September.
It’s a fitting time also, with the many challenges that the world faces, just before Copenhagen. In these last days before the start of the COP15, we can see how the media are almost submerged in a flood of warnings by academics, ngo’s and politicians. Let’s hope that world leaders will be incited by the necessary sense of urgency.
The Switch is a monthly newsletter distributed by the Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED) on initiatives that are making the switch to a sustainable society. The Switch covers various campaigns, new book releases, academic papers, policy processes and more. It takes a holistic and progressive approach to the sustainability debate and does not shy away from addressing controversial topics. The Switch also keeps you updated on upcoming conferences and events.
The Switch is open for your news, events and articles as well. So please send them to us !!
If you have any other recommendations or comments, don’t hesitate to contact the new editor of The Switch, Koen Stuyck, koenstuyck[at]gmail.com
Hundreds of passengers travelled to Copenhagen climate conference on CO2-free Climate Express train
More than 400 climate change negotiators, business leaders, environmental activists and journalists boarded the CO2-free Climate Express train on 5 December to the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen. They were hosted by Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, Director General of the International Union of Railways (UIC) and the initiator of this special train, along with Achim Steiner, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme and James P. Leape, Director General of WWF. The passengers were also joined by the British Council's Young Climate Champions from all five continents on their trip to the Copenhagen conference, which kicks off on 7 December.
Kyoto-successor
The aim of the journey was to support and encourage decision-makers to deliver a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the first international effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Its purpose was also to send out the message that the next-generation climate agreement and its supporting policies and procedures need to address the transport sector's growing emissions. Also boarding the Climate Express train was the Climate Expert Team, which started the symbolic train journey 3 weeks ago in Kyoto - the birthplace of the current Climate Change Protocol. The journey took them among others along the Trans-Siberian route, organized by Russian Railways (RZD), with Copenhagen as their final destination. The Team brought a special message from the rail community: a global position paper entitled "Keeping Climate Change Solutions on Track: The Role of Rail".
Transport sector
During their journey to Copenhagen via Cologne and Hamburg, the passengers took part in a wide range of activities on the train, including high level discussions aiming to raise awareness of the transport sector's influence on climate change. Achim Steiner, James Leape and Pr. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) take took part in a panel discussion on 'Updating Climate Science: What is at stake?'
On board the train, the workshops and round-table discussions on the various aspects of sustainable mobility and how it can be addressed in a post-2012 agreement were a key opportunity for passengers on board to discuss the crucial climate talks ahead. The journey was a totally CO2-free journey, as the power drawn for the locomotive came entirely from renewable sources of energy. If the same group of people would have flown to Copenhagen, they would produce 115kg of CO2 per person.
The Climate Express were welcomed upon arrival in Copenhagen by Connie Hedegaard, the Minister for the UN Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen and Commissioner for Climate Action, Søren Eriksen, CEO of the Danish Railways (DSB), and Kim Carstensen, Leader of WWF International's Global Climate Initiative.
http://en.cop15.dk
Euro barometer: Climate change the second most serious problem faced by the world today
Margot Wallström, Vice-President of the European Commission, said: "The message of the European citizens is clear: the fight against climate change must remain a top priority of EU action. It confirms our belief that tackling climate change and overcoming the economic recession do not exclude each other."
Climate change is a very serious problem
63% of citizens consider climate change as a very serious problem and 24% a fairly serious problem. Only 10% consider it is not a serious problem and 3% do not know. 47% of respondents consider climate change to be one of the two most serious problems facing the world today. Only poverty scores higher, being placed in the top two by 69%. Most Europeans (62%) believe it is not unstoppable.
A large majority believes climate change can boost economic growth in the EU
According to the survey, almost two-thirds of citizens think that fighting climate change can have a positive impact on the European economy. In total, 63% of respondents say it is the case, compared to 56% in March-April 2008. 66% also agree that "the protection of the environment can boost economic growth in the European Union."
Call for more action
A majority of Europeans consider that industry, citizens themselves, national and local governments as well as EU are not doing enough to fight climate change. Only 19% think that corporations and industry are doing about the right amount to fight climate change against 30% in the case of the EU. Although those results indicate a positive evolution compared to March-April 2008, majorities from 55% to 72% think that not enough is done to fight climate change at these levels. 63% of Europeans confirm that they have taken some kind of action against climate change themselves against 31% who have not.
Agreement to pay more for greener energy
49% of citizens polled say they would be prepared to pay more for energy produced from sources that emit less greenhouse gases while 27% would not. 24% did not respond. Among those ready to pay more, half would not be prepared to pay more than 5% extra. The full report is available at
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/index_en.htm
What counts in Copenhagen, Steve Sawyer’s view
After years of talk, about 25,000 people including presidents, prime ministers, negotiators, journalists and observers of all stripes will descend upon Copenhagen next week for the Big Climate Show. The collective representation of human civilization will arrive in this small Nordic land to determine if and how we will work together for the sake of future generations.
We’ve already been forewarned that we should not expect governments to fulfill the promises they made to each other two years ago in Bali, or indeed, four years ago in Montreal. But the UNFCCC’s COP 15 has become, just like the American banks, too big to fail. So while we can be reasonably certain that Copenhagen will be deemed a success by the main players, by what standards should we judge the outcome?
Two fundamental points for success
One, do the nations of the world agree to commit to hold each other accountable in the only way they know how by agreeing legally binding emissions reductions obligations for the rich countries, and concrete actions by the aspiring rich? And do they agree to do so by a time certain during 2010? And most importantly, do they agree to do so in a way that preserves the chance for future COPs to take decisions that will keep us on a path which can avoid the worst ravages of climate change?
Secondly, do the rich countries agree to come up with significant sums for helping their poorer neighbors to adapt to the impacts of climate change caused by our use of fossil fuels over the past century and a half? And will they at the same time pay for the development and technology which will allow them to rise rapidly out of poverty in a world with a rapidly changing and unstable climate?
I think these are the standards by which historians of the future (if there are any) will judge this COP. I think we should too.
How to Get an Agreement at Copenhagen
Elizabeth Malone wrote a book called Debating Climate Change: Pathways through Argument to Agreement. It deals with ways to move the debate forward. In an interesting comment, she gave some background and a relevant example of how the method of the book might be used at Copenhagen: “One understudied aspect of climate change is the talk about it – the many-voiced, confusing, technical, ethical, political, economic, even religious debate. Analyses of various positions on what a Copenhagen agreement might or should look like are plentiful. But how to make sense of all of the positions together? Once we move from understanding the differences among them and winners/losers, we – from negotiators to advocacy groups to the rest of us who are interested and may be affected – lack understanding about how to sort out where there may be good potential for agreement.”
Productive talk
The problem with talking, for many, is that it sometimes stands in for action. The world’s peoples have been talking, arguing, debating about climate change for decades now, and still we are not doing very much. Not doing much about reducing emissions, despite some brave talk and thousands of small efforts. Not doing much about adaptation either, despite a general acknowledgement that it will be necessary. So we’re in for more talk. Malone tries to figure out how to make that talk more productive.
“Here’s a simplified example that uses my book’s techniques: The position of the United States is now that all large emitters, including developing countries like China (especially China!), India, and Brazil, must sign on to emissions reduction targets. Those developing countries, as well articulated by India and China, take the position that they are under no obligation to do so (as laid out in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) and that the vast majority of the human-generated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have come from developed countries. Given these hard positions, are we stuck? Of course not. The rest of both positions look, in fact, remarkably similar:
- Both arguments are made by sovereign countries with the capacities to undertake both missions reduction and adaptation.
- Both positions accept the reality of climate change and the contribution societies are making to climate change in forms of greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, land use change, and so on.
- Both accept scientific evidence about causes and impacts of climate change.
- Both positions recognize not only that something needs to be done but also that countries have a responsibility to act.”
Diminish the space for disagreements
Malone asks herself if this isn’t enough to have in common. She wants everybody to look at the debate through the lens of things-in-common, thereby helping to diminish the space of disagreement. In her book she analyzes 100 documents, grouped into ‘families’ of arguments and separated into elements in order to identify points of agreement. But even if there’s a good deal of agreement, we persist in disagreeing. One reason for this is the partial nature of our analyses, says Malone:
- Political analyses explore where parties are strong or weak, how one can dictate to or lean on others, how alliances can be built and opponents isolated and defeated. Result: we see how wins and losses might add up to various muddles. This is not a criticism of political analyses. Politics, after all, is about power relationships, which are a part of all negotiations. But power relationships are not everything.
- Economic analyses give us widely varying accounts of the costs of emissions reductions and adaptation. Of course, each analysis is strongly dependent on assumptions. These analyses are used by negotiators and debates pretty much as we might expect. Those advocating strong actions estimate low costs or great offsetting benefits. Those opposing action use the high cost estimates. Result: a deepening of divides. No much help in coming to agreement from economics. This is not a criticism of economics. Economics, after all, is about costs, which are a part of the debate. But costs are not everything.
- Ethical analyses clarify the deep disagreements between market-based, individualistic utilitarian’s and human-rights-based egalitarians. Result: clarification of divisions but not much basis for joint action. Not a criticism of ethics. Ethics, too, has a different aim than coming to agreement, and ethics are not the only consideration.
“No wonder we’re not getting anywhere – we aren’t asking the productive questions, such as where do we agree? And how can we build on that agreement? In the case of the two positions sketched out, let’s ask, what are countries willing to do? China and India may refuse to take targets, but, between them, they have announced serious efforts in reforestation, energy efficiency, solar and wind power. Can we find ways to make these efforts equivalent with developed country efforts without actual emissions targets? How about process commitments rather than targets? Just an example of reframing the debate as pathways to agreement.“
Regional Implementation Meetings to CSD
The UN Regional Commissions, in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Commission on Sustainable Development (UNDSD), organized Regional Implementation Meetings (RIMs) in order to contribute to the work of CSD during the implementation cycle focused on transport, chemicals, waste management, mining, 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production. The RIMs are held in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (JPOI).
The Regional Implementation Meetings take place before the CSD-18 review session, and should: contribute to advancing the implementation of Agenda 21, the Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21 and JPOI; focus on the thematic cluster of issues to be addressed in the ongoing implementation cycle; provide inputs to the Secretary-General’s reports and contribute to the 18th session of CSD (those inputs may include identification of region-specific obstacles and constraints, new challenges and opportunities, and sharing of lessons learned and best practices); provide for contributions from major groups. Look on the official website of the UN and inform yourself on the topics and the papers. http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/csd/csd_csd18_rims.shtml
This CSD-cycle there will be the review of the 10-year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production, the so called Marrakesh Process (UNEP). http://esa.un.org/marrakechprocess/
ANPED, together with partner networks Consumers International (CI) and Institute of Security Studies (ISS) are for this cycle the co-organising partners, to ensure NGO participation in the CSD and UNEP-processes. More info: http://sdin-ngo.net/
EU falls short in Eco-standards for buildings
The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) is disappointed with the final conclusions of a meeting at the European Commission regarding the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), which saw many concessions and exemptions made. In a sector which accounts for 40% of EU final energy use and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions, clear and determined efforts to improve the building stock is an essential contributor for reaching the climate targets of the EU.
“In this agreement, we have lost the heart of the ambition shown by the European Parliament in its first reading, which called for the necessary urgency, minimum requirements, financial mechanisms and enforcement.” Said Catherine Pearce, EEB’s Climate Policy Officer. “In that respect we have missed a valuable, open opportunity to ensure the building sector contributes to the EU fight on climate change, reduces unnecessary energy wastage and offers significant job creation.”
The revision of the 2002 EPBD initiated by the European Commission in November 2008 is now in its final stages. The final trialogue negotiation concluded with political agreement on the remaining outstanding issues. Final agreement on the revised directive is expected at the Energy Council on 7 December. Pearce continued: “This revised Directive takes our new building stock to nearly zero energy in 2020, with new public buildings to be nearly zero by 2018, which is too late in our opinion to contribute to meeting our 2020 emission reduction targets.”
EEB wants to ensure that Member States do not attempt to further weaken the Directive during any additional committee hearings but rather that they put in place strong national plans to secure full, swift implementation across Europe. The Directive also establishes minimum requirements to improve our existing buildings and all their elements.
Oil: future world shortages are being drastically underplayed, say experts
According to the guardian (UK), a leading academic institute has urged European governments to review global oil supplies for themselves because of the "politicization" of the International Energy Agency's figures. Uppsala University in Sweden published a scathing assessment of the IEA's annual World Energy Outlook, saying some assumptions drastically underplayed the scale of future oil shortages.
Kjell Aleklett, professor of physics at Uppsala and co-author of a new report "The Peak of the Oil Age", claims oil production is more likely to be 75m barrels a day by 2030 than the "unrealistic" 105m used by the IEA in its recently published World Energy Outlook 2009. The academic, who runs a Global Energy unit at Uppsala, described the IEA's report as a "political document" developed for consuming countries with a vested interest in low prices. The report from Aleklett and others, including Simon Snowden from the University of Liverpool, says: "We find the production outlook made by the IEA to be problematic in the light of historical experience and production patterns. The IEA is expecting the oil to be extracted at a pace never previously seen without any justification for this assumption."
Tar sands
There is particular concern about high future production rates from "unconventional" sources such as tar sands, with the Uppsala report saying there is a lack of information about the figures in the 2008 Outlook and largely repeated in the latest one. "We must therefore regard the IEA production figure as somewhat dubious until it is explained more fully," added the Swedish report, which is to be published in the journal Energy Policy.
IEA Whistleblowers
The Uppsala findings come days after the Guardian reported that IEA whistleblowers had expressed deep misgivings about the way energy statistics were being collected and interpreted at the Paris-based organization. Insiders questioned whether US influence and fears of stock market "panic" were encouraging the IEA to downplay the potential for future oil scarcity. Aleklett, whose latest work was funded by the state-owned Swedish Energy Agency, said he had experience of similar internal worries about the IEA: "The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) gave me the task of writing the report, Peak Oil and the Evolving Strategies of Oil Importing and Exporting Countries. This report was one of those discussed at a round-table meeting that was held in the IEA's conference room in Paris. At that opportunity, in November 2007, I had a number of private conversations with officers of the IEA. The revelations now reported in the Guardian were revealed to me then under the promise that I not name the source. I had earlier heard the same thing from another officer from Norway who, at the time he spoke of the pressure being applied by the USA, was working for the IEA."
The energy agency dismissed the suggestions of political influence on its analysis as "groundless". It said the annual document was reviewed by 200 different and independent experts. The IEA was always trying to find ways to make its estimates even stronger, a spokeswoman said: "We would be happy to see any initiative to improve the data quality on reserves and decline rates. We believe our World Energy Outlook 2008 opened an important door to have more field data and transparency and would very much welcome similar efforts to help improve transparency in the oil sector."
British complacency
Meanwhile, Steve Sorrell, author of a recent oil supply report for the UK Energy Research Centre, which also warned of British government complacency on the issue, said the Uppsala paper was a "useful contribution" to the debate on "peak oil" – the period at which maximum levels of crude output is reached after which there will be terminal decline. "The IEA has taken some useful steps in recent years to give more information about how it is arriving at certain conclusions and that is to be welcomed. But its [oil supply/demand] scenarios have also changed radically and that deserves greater explanation. We still need greater access to the data that provides these assumptions," he said. Aleklett added: "I am a scientist, not an economist or a politician. I believe in the facts and if someone can prove me wrong I will happily change my mind."
Growth in Transition - International Conference, 28 – 29 January 2010
Prosperity and quality of life call for economic strategies that are soundly financed, equitably allocated, that deal responsibly with the world’s resources, while taking into account the material and immaterial needs of mankind. Such a positive future scenario cannot be put on the same level with a permanent or even exponential increase of the economic production (GDP).
We can achieve this goal though, by taking specific measures to alter the incentive systems and regulations of our national economies. While this is the responsibility of governments, the design of those measures must be the result of a wide public debate. The international conference in Vienna aims to start such a wide debate on ‘Growth in Transition’ with various stakeholders and to contemplate first approaches.
Discussion
The main topics will be discussed in key note speeches, discussions and nine (partly parallel) sessions. A detailed conference program is available at www.growthintransition.eu. Everyone’s invited to discuss the topics and questions in the run-up to the conference at http://www.growthintransition.eu/discussion-forum
Growth in Transition will be discussed at the conference on the basis of the following themes:
- Money and the Financial System
- Growth and Resource Use
- Social Justice and Poverty
- Sustainable Production and Consumption
- Regional Aspects
- Macroeconomics for Sustainability
- Quality of Life and Measurement of Prosperity
- Work
- Governance
- Sustainable Management
Practical’s:
The conference takes place in: Aula der Wissenschaften, Wollzeile 27a, 1010 Vienna
Conference Language: German and English with simultaneous translation English/German
Registration: www.growthintransition.eu - Deadline: 15.01.2010
Fees all in: 100,- EUR
reduction for students: 50,– EUR
Refunding due to cancellation is not possible.
Target Group: Politics, science, civil society, public administration, business.
In case of questions please contact: regina.weber@lebensministerium.at
Tourism and Poverty Reduction: Pathways to Prosperity
Encouraging tourism in poor countries is, surprisingly often, an effective way of achieving poverty reduction through inclusive economic growth. But not always. Sometimes international tourism development does little for the local economy and the livelihoods of the poor. Our understanding of how tourism affects the poor is often based on partial and shallow analysis. Researchers from different disciplines and practitioners with different objectives generally work in splendid isolation from each other and from the mainstream of development economics. Rhetoric, based on unsubstantiated facts, abounds. Detailed economic analysis remains buried and is rarely challenged for policy implications, let alone poverty implications.
This book provides an overview and synthesis of a broad array of analyses of how tourism affects poverty. First, it pulls these together to identify three main pathways by which impacts on poverty can be delivered. Second, it reviews the empirical evidence on the scale and significance of impact of each pathway, exploring where comparisons can be made and where they cannot. Finally, it considers the different methods used to gather and collect data.
Tourism and Poverty Reduction draws on international evidence throughout, but provides particular insights into Africa and other less developed countries. The key aims are to enhance understanding of how tourism can affect poverty; the conditions under which poverty reduction can be achieved and the type of data and analysis policy-makers need in order to do this. It makes a major contribution to a more coherent, cross-disciplinary and sensitive approach to the tourism-poverty debate.
Order this book: Earthscan Publications Ltd. (18 December 2009)
The Protection of Biodiversity and Traditional Knowledge in International Law of Intellectual Property
The misappropriation of biodiversity and related traditional knowledge in view of the marketing of profitable patent- protected products is popularly defined as 'biopiracy'. This book describes and interprets the international law obligations incumbent upon States to foster a fair use of biodiversity and traditional knowledge, and an equitable benefit sharing thereof.
The relationships between international intellectual property treaties, the United Nations international environmental treaties (first and foremost the Convention on Biological Diversity), the relevant customary norms and soft law form a complex network of obligations that sometimes conflict with each other. The first set of treaties creates private rights while the latter affirms the sovereignty rights of States over genetic resources and related knowledge and creates international regimes of exploitation of the same. Jonathan Curci proposes solutions to the conflicts between treaties through the concept of 'mutual supportiveness', including the construction of a national-access and benefit-sharing regime, mandatory contractual provisions in relevant international contracts, a defensive protection when genetic resource-related traditional knowledge is unjustly patented through the analysis of the concepts of 'ordre public and morality', 'certificate of origin' in the patent application and 'novelty-destroying prior art' and positive protection through existing and sui generis intellectual property rights and misappropriation regimes.
Order this book: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (January 31, 2010)
Computing Our Way to Paradise?
The Role of Internet and Communication Technologies in Sustainable Consumption and Globalization
Computing Our Way to Paradise? challenges key assumptions concerning the role of Internet and communication technologies in globalization processes. While globalization is predicated upon a strong, extensive, and interconnected network of products, processes, and services, the real environmental and health benefits remain far from certain.
Order this book: AltaMira Press (January 28, 2010)
Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy
Implementing Architectures for Agreement.
The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements is a global, multi-disciplinary effort intended to help identify the key design elements of a scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic post-2012 international policy architecture for addressing the threat of climate change. It has commissioned leading scholars to examine a uniquely wide range of core issues that must be addressed if the world is to reach an effective agreement on a successor regime to the Kyoto Protocol. The purpose of the project is not to become an advocate for any single policy but to present the best possible information and analysis on the full range of options concerning mitigation, adaptation, technology, and finance. The detailed findings of the Harvard Project are reported in this volume, which contains twenty-seven specially commissioned chapters. A companion volume summarizing the main findings of this research is published separately as Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy: Summary for Policymakers.
Order this book: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (January 31, 2010)
Alliances for Sustainable Development: Business and NGO Partnerships
This book is a lively and hands-on exploration of corporate-NGO alliances. It offers original insight to understand why alliances exist and to what end. It also looks into the asymmetries between partners and dwells on three crucial aspects of alliances management: alliance capacity development, stakeholder involvement and alliance metrics.
Order this book: Palgrave Macmillan (January 5, 2010)
