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Indian Parliament Discusses Climate Change

Byoliveridley

India stresses on Kyoto standards-India-The Times of India

The discussion on global warming in Parliament will end with the statement of environment minister A Raja, possibly on Monday. He is bound to restate the country’s position on climate change in the international arena — that countries must bear “a common but differentiated responsibility” for climate change, a phrase that is the central pin of the Kyoto Protocol.

De-jargonised, it means, while every country is adding to the problem, there are some that are more responsible than others, and should, therefore, bear the burden and costs of cleaning up more than the smaller culprits

More highlights…

The US, between 1950-2003, emitted 10 times more carbon dioxide than India did. Europe emitted 8.5 times more. Yet US and Australia, two of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (which asks developed countries to reduce their emissions) on the pretext that developing countries like India and China are not undertaking emission cuts.

Worse still, if one looks at per capita emissions from different countries, which is a more equitable way of calculating emissions if one was to go by the principle that each person has as much right to the atmosphere as another, then India ranks a mere 120 compared to US which ranks 6 and Australia 10 on the culprits’ list. This is taking the emission levels of 2003.

Well, they are right, and they are wrong too. The developed world has a lot to more to cut back on and should make the bulk of the cuts. But India and China also need to grow using current state of the art knowledge, not using the 1950s coal intensive, energy inefficient model of increasing supply without paying attention to demand. We have also come to realize that IPCC reports, due to their consensual nature, are conservative. So, they will tend to understate the effects of climate change and overstate the costs. It may not be as expensive in India and China as long as attention is being paid to hw the infrastructure is being developed.

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  • Organic, Schmorganic, who cares!

    Byoliveridley

    That’s what the USDA is saying, anyway.

    USDA may relax standards for organic foods – Los Angeles Times

    With the “USDA organic” seal stamped on its label, Anheuser-Busch calls its Wild Hop Lager “the perfect organic experience.” “In today’s world of artificial flavors, preservatives and factory farming, knowing what goes into what you eat and drink can just about drive you crazy,” the Wild Hop website says. “That’s why we have decided to go back to basics and do things the way they were meant to be … naturally.” But many beer drinkers may not know that Anheuser-Busch has the organic blessing from federal regulators even though Wild Hop Lager uses hops grown with chemical fertilizers and sprayed with pesticides. A deadline of midnight Friday to come up with a new list of nonorganic ingredients allowed in USDA-certified organic products passed without action from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, leaving uncertain whether some foods currently labeled “USDA organic” would continue to be produced.

    Whatever you think about the virtues of organic food, this amounts to dilution of the label, misleading labeling, almost amounting to adulteration favoring the big boys at Anheuser-Busch and General Mills, ADM, etc. Knowing fully well that the average consumer has no time to read every frigging label behind every food item, knowing that they would see the “organic” label and assume that the whole thing is organic.

    The USDA rules come with what appears to be an important consumer
    protection: Manufacturers can use nonorganic ingredients only if
    organic versions are not “commercially available.”

    But food makers have found a way around this barrier, in part because
    the USDA doesn’t enforce the rule directly. Instead, it depends on its
    certifying agents — 96 licensed organizations in the U.S. and overseas
    — to decide for themselves what it means for a product to be available
    in organic form.

    Despite years of discussion, the USDA has yet to provide certifiers with standardized guidelines for enforcing this rule.

    Ah, good old ill-defined “voluntary enforcement” mechanisms, we all know how that works!
    Why not have a second label “mostly organic”!! How about “I can’t believe this is organic!!”.

    I think “mostly organic” food is still better than conventional factory food, but it should be labeled as such so the consumer can understand why General Mills “organic cereal” is 2 bucks  less expensive than your average small organic manufacturer’s cereal. Absent honesty in labeling, the average customer is apt to assume that the factory approach is always superior because it produces the same goods at lower prices, instead of coming to the correct conclusion that the factory producers constantly rig the game to their benefit.

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    Climate Change Adaptation

    Byoliveridley

    I read a peripherally related blog post on a book about experiencing local climate change and that set me thinking a bit.

    One of the book’s biggest ideas is simply to emphasize what Seidl calls “true-to-life actions” (p.82), actions that discourage one’s habit of living without engagement with the people and the nonhuman around us, individually and in communities

    I like this sentiment a lot, and agree wholeheartedly. The book (I haven’t read it) appears to talk about local ecosystem adaptation, which got me thinking about adaptation in general. When we talk about climate change adaptation, we need to be very specific on who/what can/will adapt, and what community engagement will entail. Of course, I believe mitigation, or minimisng the causes comes first, but this post is primarily about adaptation.

    Species will adapt, so will ecosystems, and so will many humans. The Earth will, as well. It will just be a different world. Those of us living in affluent countries will feel the pain peripherally and will have enough buffer to change our ways of life. Some of us may even find ways to profit.

    Now some investors are taking another approach. Working under the assumption that climate change is inevitable, they’re investing in businesses that will profit as the planet gets hotter. Their strategies include buying water treatment companies, brokering deals for Australian farmland…

    Climate Change Vulnerability by region: White means low vulnerability (Ha!) – via http://www.careclimatechange.org/

    Adaptation is not a choice for the majority of humans on this planet that live in poor, coastal and vulnerable areas. They do not have the money to adapt, the effects on their ecosystems are bigger and faster, and we will not let them move to safer countries like Canada. They will lose land, resource, and when they have to fight to survive, their wars will be treated as caused by their virtue or ethnicity rather than being caused by our past and present consumption. Much of the resources that could mitigate effects may already be controlled by those who can profit from the resources. 

    Humans will have to adapt, and use any and all strategies, but there’s no “we” in climate change adaptation, there’s the vulnerable and the not-so vulnerable. So, it is insufficient to only think locally. We aren’t the first humans who will be forced to move because of abrupt climate change. But those needing to move this time will face closed borders and hostile states. We have seen time and again, resource stress increases racism and xenophobia, and decreases trust.

    What can affluent states do? For starters.

    1. Decarbonize. WIth intention, haste and unilaterally. 
    2. Help less affluent countries increase wealth, quickly.
    3. Help less affluent countries decarbonize, if less quickly because 2 is more important.
    4. Think long and hard about their borders, because current projections call for millions of environmental migrants.

    We are, of course seeing the opposite. Carbon infrastructure in US and Canada is being expanded. Resources in less affluent countries are being developed for the use of the affluent (not always from affluent states). Trade wars being fought to protect affluent interests over cheap expansion of non-carbon infrastructure. Of course, race-based immigration policy, while not officially stated as such any more, is still operational.

    We have a long way to go as a species to help everyone adapt to climate change. Humans are generally in a better place to take the necessary steps than we’ve been in the past, but the work should have started 20 years ago.

     

  • E.P.A. to Regulate greenhouse gases

    Byoliveridley

    The Environmental Protection Agency has moved to declare that greenhouse gases are pollutants that pose a danger to the public’s health and welfare. That determination, once made final, will pave the way for federal regulation of carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.

    via NY Times

    Of course, this action was required by a US Supreme Court decision on greenhouse gases last year and provides the regulatory side to the push that must come from congress.

    There have been recent rumblings that the US Congress would shelve climate change for 2010. While this would please some Americans in the short term, the idea of the US going into the Copenhagen climate change conference without a GHG reduction plan out on the table leaves me very dispirited. The timing of the EPA’s announcement suggests that there might be some pressure from the EPA to get Congress to act. It is clear that the EPA does not have breadth of scope to pull of climate change regulation using a rule making process. Maybe if it starts trying, American politicians may get their act together.

    Clutching at straws…

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    Methane Leakage, again

    Byoliveridley

    In a sane world, we would be very concerned about measuring, reporting and closely regulating methane releases during its extraction and processing, especially if we claim that it is clean energy. This is nothing I, or other people haven’t said before, but here’s more research summarized in the very respectable Nature Journal indicating that measurable leak rates of methane can vary widely.

    Preliminary results from a field study in the Uinta Basin of Utah suggesting even higher rates of methane leakage — an eye-popping 9% of the total production. That figure is nearly double the cumulative loss rates estimated from industry data — which are already higher in Utah than in Colorado

    via Methane leaks erode green credentials of natural gas : Nature News & Comment.

    10% is a large number. I’ve posted this picture from Wigley (2011) previously. At any leakage rate other than zero, which no one claims, the benefits of switching from coal to methane are very modest.

    It's all about Methane leakage
    It’s all about Methane leakage
    We absolutely need to measure, control and regulate fugitive methane emissions from every BC site, and need to have solid regulation in place before we keep expanding natural gas infrastructure. We need our political leaders to start talking seriously about capturing methane leaks when they talk about BC’s natural gas “play”.

  • Another Reason to Fear Hog Factories

    Byoliveridley

    Buried in this abstract from the Environmental Science and Technology Journal is a little titbit about the origin and fate of 90% of all natural estrogens found in water bodies.

    Fate, Transport, and Biodegradation of Natural Estrogens in the Environment and Engineered Systems

    Another major source, which accounts for 90% of the estrogen load, is animal manure from concentrated animal-feeding operations (CAFOs). Manure is not required to be treated in the United States as long as it is not discharged directly into water bodies. Thus, there is an urgent need to study the fate of animal-borne estrogens from these facilities into the environment. A number of studies have reported the feminization of male aquatic species in water bodies receiving the effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) or surface runoff from fields amended with livestock manure and municipal biosolids.

    I am not a big fan of hog factories. Clean them up!