Cheers! Irish Ideas and Scottish Schemes Gain Global Attention

The Environment Council in Luxembourg has been told how setting tough emissions reduction targets in Scotland is providing the stability for additional investment in low carbon industries. While the Irish Times points out that phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies, of which at least 82 billion Euros goes to oil companies and other producers, could be the very source of funds needed to compensate developing countries for taking action on climate change.

If this could be switched to where it’s needed most, the world would take a quantum leap in the right direction.

UK Public Service Report (14 June 2010):

Scotland’s action to transform to a low carbon economy has been highlighted to Europe as a leading example of climate change.

The Environment Council in Luxembourg has been told how setting tough emissions reduction targets in Scotland is providing the stability for additional investment in low carbon industries.

Climate Change Minister Stewart Stevenson met Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Chris Huhne to agree on the economic case for setting a Europe wide 30 per cent greenhouse gas reduction target. They also discussed carbon capture and storage and the forthcoming UK Energy Bill.

In a meeting with Ms Lykke Friis, Danish Minister for the Climate, Energy and Equal Rights, Mr Stevenson discussed co-operation opportunities with Denmark in offshore renewables, environmental planning and wind energy. The Scottish European Green Energy Centre in Aberdeen will follow up these discussions up with Danish counterparts.

Stewart Stevenson said: “Scotland’s ambition is already setting an example internationally to cut emissions and it is important to take every opportunity to reinforce the message that a low-carbon Europe is feasible, affordable – and ultimately unavoidable. The Environment Council has today heard our case that moving beyond the current 20 per cent emissions reduction target for 2020 is fundamental for European leadership in this area.

“We are working closely with the UK government and others in Europe to put the case that investment in low carbon technologies and industries can bring new opportunities for economic growth.”

UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne said: “This is a new start, with the UK Government and Scottish Government working together in making the economic case for going low carbon, including cutting EU emissions by 30 per cent.”

Source: www.publicservice.co.uk

The Irish Times (14 June 2010):

IT WAS never going to be easy for the representatives of 184 countries meeting in Bonn last week to deal with the debris left scattered after the inconclusive result of last December’s UN climate change summit in Copenhagen.

The drafting of its rather non-committal “accord” by the chosen few and its presentation at the eleventh hour on a take-it-or-leave-it basis generated enormous mistrust, especially among developing countries, and even threatened to undermine the United Nations itself as the appropriate forum for negotiating measures aimed at mitigating the impacts of global warming.

Against that unpromising backdrop, the Bonn talks were surprisingly constructive. As outgoing UN climate chief Yvo de Boer noted, countries were “talking to each other rather than at each other” with a view to laying the groundwork for this year’s climate summit in Cancún, Mexico.

Although nothing concrete was agreed, delegates will meet in Bonn again in August and there will be a further week-long round of talks, probably in October – six weeks before they are due to reconvene for the 16th annual Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or Cop 16.

One of the lessons learned from the Copenhagen fiasco is that a more inclusive approach must be adopted – something that “did not happen” at Cop 15, certainly not during the last few chaotic days of high-level negotiations in the Danish capital.

The truth is that the UN is the only international organisation where every country sits at the table as an equal. The UNFCCC has its drawbacks, in that all decisions must be adopted by consensus, but it is the only valid way to proceed. That said, it is quite deplorable that Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries, including leftist Venezuela, used this consensus rule last week to block a perfectly reasonable request by vulnerable small island states for an update on the latest scientific evidence for global warming.

Given that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is not due to complete its fifth assessment until 2014 and that doubts have been cast on some elements of its fourth assessment, published in 2007, any solid peer-reviewed scientific work should be put in the public domain to guide the negotiations.

One of the most pressing matters is to “operationalise” (in UNFCCC jargon) the US$30 billion (€24.7 billion) pledged in “fast-start” aid to help developing countries cope with climate change, from now to 2012. This is a mere token of what is to come; by 2020, according to promises made in Copenhagen, it should rise to $100 billion (€82.5 billion) a year.

In these difficult times, one might well ask where such sums will be found. But there is one very obvious source. Coincidentally, the OECD last week called for the phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies worth €459 billion a year, of which at least €82.5 billion goes to oil companies and other producers.

If this could be switched to where it’s needed most, the world would take a quantum leap in the right direction.

Source: www.irishtimes.com