UN Climate Summit Tasks

TASK 1 

See http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/2014/08/climate-health-jobs/

Answer the following questions.

Watch this video (the first four minutes). Then answer the following questions.

TASK 2

Read the article of "The Guardian” (29 September 2014)

Despite the UN climate summit, fossil fuel firms are still in for the long-term

Either the world is gearing up to tackle climate change, or there are long-term profits for companies exploiting oil, gas and coal reserves. Both propositions can’t be true

More than 300,000 people marched in New York a week ago, with tens of thousands more in cities across the globe. More than 120 heads of state and government convened in New York, renewing their commitment to a global climate deal to be forged next year. France pledged $1bn in climate aid to poor countries, followed by several others. And a group of banks, pension funds and insurers promised investments of $200bn in low-carbon ventures in the next year. But behind the impressive headline figures, the true story of ‘Climate Week’ shows a more complex picture.Barack Obama’s speech was long on rhetoric, but its main new commitment was to take climate change into account in overseas aid spending. China, whose per capita emissions overtook those of Europe last year, repeatedly insisted that it need not take on similar emissions-reduction commitments to those of developed nations.

“China is a developing country,” said Xie Zhenhua, vice-chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission. “[We have] 18m people living in poverty. That is why China has paid equal attention to to growth, mitigation [of emissions] and adaptation [to climate change]. That is similar to other developing countries, and the least developing countries. We are on the same page as these countries.”

That repetition of China’s long-time stance may not bode well for the negotiations in the next year, leading up to a crunch conference in Paris next December, at which world governments are supposed to sign a new agreement on greenhouse gas emissions, to take effect from 2020.

The news from investors, despite the happy headlines, was also mixed.

While $200bn funding for low-carbon projects was pledged by a group of financial institutions, elsewhere fossil fuels were alive and well. Roland Busch, chief executive of the infrastructure sector at Siemens, the industrial multinational, said any notion of pulling out of fossil fuels would be “really long term”, and refused to put a date on when that might be, saying instead that fossil fuels such as coal were still needed as a back-up to renewable energy.

Fossil fuel companies are still in it for the long term. As the Financial Times and Guardian has reported, this year ExxonMobil and Shell both wrote to investors to say that their fossil fuel businesses would stay strong for decades, even if governments take action on climate change.

Investing in fossil fuels not only perpetuates existing high-carbon infrastructure, but it uses up money and attention that could have been directed to low-carbon ends.

Louise Hutchins of Greenpeace said: “The huge amounts of coal burnt by the big energy companies isn’t just damaging our health and climate, it’s also sucking oxygen out of the clean tech sector.”

Often, the same companies – like Siemens, its rivals General Electric, Mitsubishi and others – that are dependent on fossil fuel revenues are the biggest investors in renewable technologies such as wind turbines.

It is hard to see how both propositions can be true: that the world is gearing up to tackle climate change, and that there are long-term profits to be had from exploiting our remaining fossil fuels.

Many political leaders, including the UN climate envoy Mary Robinson, and scientists including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, now accept that much of the world’s stock of fossil fuel must remain in the ground, if we are to avoid pouring so much carbon into the atmosphere that we tip over the crucial 2C threshold. Warming of more than 2C above pre-industrial averages is likely to lead to severe and irreversible effects on the climate, including sea level rises, droughts, floods, heatwaves and extreme weather.

As Graca Machel, the widow of Nelson Mandela, declared in the most rousing speech of the summit, left to the very end: “There is a huge mismatch between the magnitude of the challenge and the response we heard here today. The scale is much more than we have achieved.”

She urged nations to go back to the drawing board, working out how much carbon we can still afford to emit and finding ways to ensure that we do not, cumulatively and collectively, exceed that limit.

For that to happen, fossil fuel investors would have to accept that their future profits are limited, too. There was no sign of that in New York.

Answer the following questions. Afterwards report on it orally

TASK 3

Read the article of "The Guardian” (24 September 2014)

Nelson Mandela's widow calls for urgent climate action at UN

Nelson Mandela’s widow Graça Machel says leaders failed to rise to challenge after day of impassioned speeches at UN

US refuses to commit to climate change aid for poor nations

The widow of Nelson Mandela punctured the self-congratulatory mood of the UN summit on Tuesday, saying world leaders had failed to rise to the challenge of climate change.“There is a huge mismatch between the magnitude of the challenge and the response we heard here today,” Graça Machel told the closing moments of the summit. “The scale is much more than we have achieved.”The gathering of 120 world leaders – the first such meeting on climate change in five years – resulted in a day of impassioned speeches, including a cameo from the actor and UN ambassador Leonardo DiCaprio.Several of the speeches, including that of Barack Obama, mentioned the 300,000 people who turned out for Sunday’s climate march. “Our citizens keep marching. We cannot pretend we do not hear them,” the president said.But, as anticipated, the leaders held back on making new commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions or to give significant climate finance to developing countries, leaving it to business, cities and campaign groups to produce the real action on climate.

The searing critique of the summit carried additional weight because Machel is one of the Elders, global leaders charged with working for peace and human rights.

She spoke only moments after the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, had declared the gathering a success. “We have delivered,” he said.

But Machel said leaders had failed to offer an adequate response to the hundreds of thousands of people who came out in the streets this week to demand action on climate change – and the millions in poor countries who will suffer its effects.

“Can we genuinely say we are going to preserve their lives, and ensure their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren inherit a planet which is safe and sustainable?” she asked.

Machel appealed to world leaders and business executives who descended on the UN on Tuesday to “go back to the drawing board”. She concluded: “The obligation in my view is to step up the ambition.”

Campaign groups also criticised the result.

But Al Gore, the climate champion and former US vice-president, said the summit – the first such meeting on climate in five years – was still a net positive. “There is no question that a considerable amount of momentum was generated here,” Gore told the Guardian. “I think it was a tremendous boost to the whole movement that is towards the Paris agreement.”

Barack Obama, in the most rousing speech of the day, said the US had done more under his presidency to cut carbon pollution than any other country, and volunteered to help lead the international community to an international agreement to fight climate change at a meeting in Paris at the end of next year.

“There should be no question that the United States is stepping up to the plate,” he told the summit, saying the US recognised its role in causing climate change.

China, which has surpassed the US as the world’s biggest emitter, said it would also do its bit, by curbing emissions “as soon as possible”.Zhang Gaoli, the vice-premier, said China was on track to reduce carbon intensity by 40% from 2005 levels by 2020. “As a responsible major developing country, China will make an even greater effort to address climate change and take on international responsibilities that are commensurate with our national conditions.”The UK prime minister, David Cameron, also touted his government’s environmental policies. “As prime minister I pledged to lead the greenest government ever and I believe we have kept that promise,” he said.And France, which as host country will oversee the final stages of negotiations on a global deal, held out the prospect that dealing with climate change would also bring a new international economic order. “What will come out of Paris is a new economy,” the president, François Hollande, told an investors’ event on the sidelines of the summit.Hollande took a swipe at world leaders who had been voicing their concerns about climate change for decades – without taking decisive actions to cut emissions, or aid poor countries which will bear the brunt of climate change.“We can’t just limit ourselves to words, expressions of regret and exercises in stock-taking,” he told reporters.France went on to commit to providing $1bn to a climate change fund for poor countries – the first significant contribution since Germany threw in $1bn last July. Sweden has also contributed.The Green Climate Fund was founded in 2010 to help poor countries cope with climate change. UN officials and developing country diplomats have said repeatedly it will not be possible to reach a climate deal in Paris, without a significant fund for those countries which did the least to cause climate change but will bear the brunt.

South Korea and Switzerland went on to pledge $100m each, Denmark pledged $70m, Norway pledged $33m and Mexico said it would give $10m.

But the total of $2.3bn pledged for the Green Climate Fund so far fell short of the $10bn to $15bn that UN officials and developing country said was needed to show rich countries were committed to acting on climate change. It also was unclear whether Tuesday’s pledges represented new money.“

The summit did produce other initiatives in addition to the climate cash, but these too were relatively modest, and all relied on partnerships with business and NGOs.

In the headline event at Tuesday’s summit, more than 400 companies from 60 countries all signed on to support putting a price on carbon.

Some of the world’s biggest palm oil and paper producers committed to stop destructive logging by 2030, and restore an area of forest equivalent to the size of India.

Nigel Purvis, the chief executive of the Climate Advisers consultancy which worked to get the deal, said: “This is like if Exxon Mobil and the Koch brothers got together to cut greenhouse gas emissions.”

But Brazil, despite its critical role protecting the Amazon rainforest, said it had been left out of the negotiations. A number of campaign groups did not sign the agreement, saying it did not go far enough to protect the rights of indigenous people who rely on the forest, or to hold the big forestry companies to account.

“I think that it’s impossible to think that you can have a global forest initiative without Brazil on board. It doesn’t make sense,” Izabella Texeira, the Brazilian environment minister, told the Associated Press.We welcome new pledges of money from France and others, but they fall well short of what’s needed. With poor communities around the world already losing their homes and income due to climate change, all rich countries must pledge to the Green Climate Fund and set a clear timeline of when the money will be available,” the campaign group ActionAid said in a statement.

Answer the following questions. Afterwards report on it orally

TASK 4

See http://www.livescience.com/39752-can-the-race-against-climate-change-be-won.html

Answer the following questions.