Debate: Will Copenhagen result in a meaningful climate change agreement?

 

Yes: Caroline Lucas MEP; No: Roger Helmer MEP

 

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Yes, says Green Party leader and MEP Caroline Lucas, the Copenhagen climate summit has the potential to provide the world's nations with a clear plan of action. No, says Conservative MEP Roger Helmer, all we'll get is a lot of breast-beating

 

 

 

 

Caroline Lucas says...Yes

 

As we head towards the crucial UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the disappointment of previous climate talks - most recently in Bangkok - weighs heavily on our expectations. Given the failure of the 190 countries involved in the deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol to agree on action to tackle climate change, the fear that we won't see much in the way of progress at Copenhagen is well-founded.

 

After all, global summits are often as much about photo opportunities and showboating by politicians eager for positive column inches at home as securing any meaningful policy commitments.

 

And despite President Obama's enthusiastic rhetoric on the need to reach a deal to reduce climate emissions, the US now seems to be backing away from the idea that a global agreement could be achieved this year. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown's recent efforts at the Major Economies Forum to demand action from the 17 countries responsible for 80 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions felt like too-little-too-late posturing by a failed leader who has done precious little to cut emissions in his own country.

 

However, the Copenhagen climate summit does have the potential to provide the world's nations with a clear plan of action for tackling runaway climate change - but it will take more than polite talk, handshakes for the cameras and empty promises. Climate change is a national security issue, and our governments must put themselves on something akin to a war footing if they are to adequately respond to the threat and protect their people.

 

The real risk at present is that the key principles of the Kyoto Protocol will either be forgotten or substantially weakened. It is crucial that any new agreement is based on those principles: binding targets, uniform accounting rules, strong compliance mechanisms and common but differentiated responsibility - which recognises different historical contributions to environmental degradation and thus holds industrialised countries fully accountable for their past actions.

 

Ultimately, if we are to stay in line with the scientific advice to keep the global temperature rise below two degrees centigrade - the threshold of dangerous climate change - we need urgent, binding targets to reduce emissions now. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the industrialised countries would need to reduce their emissions by 25- 40 per cent by 2020, based on 1990 levels, to ensure that we have even a 50-50 chance of keeping warming below the 2C level.

 

The Green Party says, in reality, we need to cut emissions by 90 per cent by 2030, but sadly, this figure is clearly beyond what is on the agenda. So at the least, we are calling for EU countries to meet their responsibilities by reducing emissions at the top end of the 25-40 per cent scale - 40 per cent at the absolute minimum. Crucially, these reductions must be made on the EU's own territory and not outsourced to poorer countries to be offset while we maintain business-as-usual at home.

 

Since we are currently some way off even the 40 per cent target, I hope that politicians will show much greater ambition at Copenhagen. EU leaders have so far agreed only to a binding reduction target of 20 per cent by 2020, or 30 per cent following the conclusion of an international climate agreement. Now is the time to step up this commitment, particularly since Japan has already indicated its willingness to set targets beyond those proposed by the EU.

 

Secondly, leaders must agree to urgently establish a fund for climate mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. The European Commission has so far completely underestimated the scale of financing that we need for
this purpose, suggesting €56bn for mitigation and €10-24bn for adaptation - a total of €66-80bn per annum. The leading NGOs have argued coherently that a conservative estimate for the required financing for developing countries amounts to more like $150bn a year (or around €110bn). Top UN economists recently called for even higher amounts to be dedicated to climate fi nancing, describing current commitments as "woefully inadequate".

 

Thirdly, governments need to commit to the fundamental message that alternatives to polluting, finite fossil fuels - renewable energy generation and energy efficiency measures - can massively benefit the wider economy as well as the environment. For example, a strategy to subsidise and promote schemes to insulate homes can create many jobs and reduce energy bills, in addition to the environmental benefits. It is the responsibility of our politicians to show people why an economic model which respects human beings and the environment is better for everyone - and to make it easier for everyone to live more sustainably.

 

I have to admit I have my doubts about whether this can be achieved in December, but I also take heart from the millions of people campaigning for their governments to act urgently. It is crucial that people mobilise and coordinate against the forces wreaking environmental and economic havoc on our planet; getting people out onto the streets and lobbying their elected representatives can make all the difference. I sincerely hope that the politicians attending the climate talks will listen to these voices, and ensure that the Copenhagen summit fulfils its potential to produce positive change and provide a muchneeded road map towards a more sustainable future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roger Helmer says...No

 

As former US Vice-President Dan Quayle famously said: "Forecasting is difficult - especially about the future." So I can't tell you for sure what will happen at Copenhagen in December. But I can hazard a pretty good guess.

 

There will be a lot of breastbeating about the importance of action against climate change. Maybe some cosmetic, aspirational targets. And a firm commitment to keep talking. Don't expect anything substantive. Already Australia has failed to pass a cap'n'trade bill. President Obama talks the talk, but won't get cap'n'trade through the Senate. India and China will offer vague assurances; they will try to get Western countries to pay for their "legacy emissions".

 

But they'll do nothing to threaten economic growth, and they'll keep building all the coal-fired power stations they need.

 

It's been a bad time for climate alarmists. Reality defies their computer models. The world has generally cooled since 1998. The Arctic has not melted. The Antarctic is cooling. Polar bear numbers have increased substantially in recent decades. Sea level is rising no faster than it has for centuries.

 

Across the world, scientists are increasingly questioning the theory of man-made global warming. Two hundred German scientists wrote to Angela Merkel to plead with her to reconsider her position on mitigation. A similar number of Australian scientists wrote to senators in Canberra, possibly influencing the cap'n'trade vote. In the US, both the American Chemical Society and the American Physical Society are up in arms as members protest against the climate alarmism of their leaders.

 

And scepticism is becoming mainstream. In the last month, that bastion of climate hysteria the BBC has published an article entitled 'Whatever happened to Global Warming?'. The Sunday Times ran a big story under the headline 'Everything you thought you knew about Climate Change is Wrong'. The Sunday Telegraph business news led with the headline: 'Targets on climate are 'delusional''. At last, there's the prospect of a real debate. And we need it. Consider the facts:

 

1. The slight warming in the last hundred years (+0.70 C) is entirely consistent with well-established, long term, natural climate cycles. It is by no means an exceptional rate of warming compared to other periods in climate history.

 

2. The hottest year in living memory was 1998 - more than ten years ago. Since then, mean global temperatures have been flat or declining. The reduction in the last couple of years has reversed much of the 1975/1998 rise.

 

3. NASA reports that during the modest terrestrial warming over 1975 to 1998, there were also clear signs of warming on the planet Mars, and on the moons of Jupiter - pointing to a solar or astronomical cause.

 

4. The 'fingerprint' or 'signature' of the observed warming, in terms of latitude and altitude, is quite different from that predicted by the computer models on which the government, and the IPCC, depend.

 

5. There is no scientific consensus. Thousands of qualified scientists, including a number from the IPCC panel, fundamentally disagree that human activity is changing the climate. Contrary to the general view, the IPCC does not represent a "scientific consensus". It is largely driven by bureaucrats, civil servants, scientists from nonclimate
disciplines and outright climate zealots.

 

6. Detailed records from ice cores over the last 600,000 years show a strong correlation between temperature, and atmospheric CO2 concentration. But they also show that the temperature curve leads the climate curve by around 800 to 1,000 years, clearly implying that temperature drives CO2, not vice versa.

 

7. The climate forcing effect of CO2 is undeniable. But it is governed by a negative logarithmic equation, a law of diminishing returns. We are now so far up the curve that future increases in CO2 will have only a marginal effect.

 

 

The Stern Report says that the cost of inaction exceeds the cost of mitigation. But Stern is an outlier among economic analyses. Most find the opposite: that costs exceed benefits even if you believe the Great Carbon Myth. If you don't, we are wasting unimaginable sums of money, and beggaring our nations for generations to come, all for nothing.

 

How could Stern get it so wrong? Briefly, by accepting the IPCC position without question, by looking at the downsides of warming but not the upsides, and by using an absurdly inappropriate discount rate.

 

But shouldn't we at least reduce energy consumption to ensure energy security? Yes, we should. We should pursue energy efficiency, and use any renewables that make economic sense (which excludes wind). And we should reduce our dependence on imported fossil fuels by switching to coal and nuclear - fast.

 

 

Roger Helmer is a Conservative MEP for the East Midlands