Deforestation deal could brighten Copenhagen gloom
Jonathon Porritt, 20th November 2009, Climate change, Forum founders
Things just seem to be getting more and more gloomy in the run-up to the Copenhagen Conference. On Tuesday, the Independent front page, shouted out the following dire prediction: “World on course for catastrophic six degree centigrade rise”. Six degrees centigrade isn’t just a lot worse than 4 degrees, let alone infinitely worse than 2 degrees centigrade (which scientists believe to be the threshold above which average temperatures must not be allowed to rise). It represents game-over for human civilization.
So it was a welcome relief to be present yesterday at a seminar organised by the Prince of Wales’s Rainforest Project. Plenty of grim reminders of worsening trends all around the world, but balancing that out with some truly inspirational stuff – from the President of Guyana (which, together with Costa Rica, has done more than any other country to pioneer the idea of development for its people by keeping its rainforest intact), the President of Gabon and senior politicians from Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The simple reality is this: an interim financing mechanism of around 20 billion euros would reduce levels of deforestation by 25% by 2015. And that would mean a net saving of 23 billion tonnes of CO2 through to 2020.
It’s still just possible that Copenhagen will do a deal on that (as part of the REDD discussions – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), even if it doesn’t do the whole deal in terms of a new legally binding agreement as a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
If the REDD deal is done, the role of the Prince of Wales in setting up his Rainforest Project, in persuading an incredible bunch of corporate sponsors and celebrities to get behind the campaign, in convening world leaders during the G20 meeting earlier this year, in twisting arms in the World Bank and in the UK Government itself, will, I hope, be properly recognised. This is a notoriously difficult area in which to make much progress, but the establishment of the Informal Working Group for Interim Funding really has moved things forward, with the United States pledging $275 million yesterday to an emergency scheme.
As with every other aspect of the Copenhagen Conference, there’s still so much to be done between now and the middle of December. The urgency couldn’t be greater. As speakers confirmed so eloquently yesterday, if we make a start on the REDD agenda next year, more than three times as much CO2 would be abated by 2020 if we delay any start by 2015.
This could therefore be the defining decision. As the Prince of Wales keeps pointing out to people, “if we lose the battle against tropical deforestation, we lose the battle against climate change”. Exactly.
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Comments
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Comments on Independent article
Th text below was posted as a comment on last week's independent article (referred to above) in response to the usual swarm of "Climate Change is a fraud" deniers who were mobilised to rubbish the article.
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Thursday, 26 November 2009 at 12:20 am (UTC)
Real science, like history, is evidence-based
It's probably a waste of my time but I will nonetheless point out a few fairly obvious facts.
1. There is ample evidence of positive feedback in the global warming cycle. This is based on both scientific data and on simple observation which anyone with a basic Secondary School (High School to most of you) education in physics, biology, geography and economics can make for themselves. The release of vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, deforestation, the destabilisation of seabed methane deposits, the thawing of the tundra (causing yet more carbon and methane release), the disappearance of glaciers (observable by anyone who goes near some mountain ranges) which feed river systems vital to agriculture and the progressive thinning and melting of the polar/Greenland ice-caps (raising sea levels and increasing absorption of sunlight) are all facts supported by overwhelming evidence.
2. Actual measurements (which anyone with a thermometer and litmus paper can make) have shown that the acidity and temperature of sea water is increasing. This appears to doom the majority of the world's coral reefs and the ecosystems, species and geographical features they support. Rising temperatures and acidity will also kill off or severely reduce many other species. While some marine species may adapt by moving to different latitudes this is unlikely to stop us losing a huge number of marine species, and, when combined with over-fishing, destroying another major part of the food-chain which supports us.
3. Fresh water sources (from glaciers, rivers, aquifers or natural, or man-made, surface reservoirs) are under enormous pressure and this will increase as demand for water increases while supply seems likely (based on observable evidence, not just computer modelling) to diminish. Already there are several regions (Iberia and Chile to name just two) where extraction from aquifers to support irrigation and towns and cities, far exceeds the rate of replenishment. Several major rivers (the Jordan, the Colorado and the Volga for example) are virtually, or actually, drained dry before they run their course. In the case of the Colorado this has already destroyed the agricultural economy of the area around its former mouth - but that only impoverishes poor Mexicans so who cares about them as long as wealthy US retirees in Arizona and hotel-casinos in Nevada can have swimming pools?
All these facts are supported by a wealth of evidence, not just speculation. Computer modelling of future climate change may not be perfect but it is unnecessary to rely on this to deduce that we are entering a period of major changes which seem likely to have catastrophic implications for our species unless we do something drastic pretty bloody fast. This is not alarmism - this is a sober and thought-out assessment of the great bulk of the available evidence.
Any good historian will tell you that there is no such thing as a "historical fact" unless there is hard evidence from a variety of primary sources to support it. This is because there are many reasons (from deliberate falsification to misinterpretation of patchy evidence) why historians make errors and the pressure on them to claim certainty, especially in popular books, is very great. Modern scientists have similar pressures on them - people demand certainty when this is simply not possible or reasonable.
We do not know for certain what the weather, or the temperature, will be in twenty, thirty, fifty or seventy years. What we can say is that the evidence of massive and detrimental changes, probably caused or greatly exacerbated by man-made carbon emissions and other human effects on the global ecosystem, is so overwhelming that inaction (or grossly inadequate action - which is what we have now and what seems likely to continue after Copenhagen) is a suicidally stupid option.
The world will go on and nature will eventually adapt to these changes and restore a balance to the planet. However, there is no law of nature that says that this new balance will be compatible with the relatively narrow band of conditions in which mammals like us can survive and thrive.