
This is an ongoing compilation of material and developments related to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), COP 17 (Conference of the Parties), annual Climate Change Summit, held in Durban, South Africa, Nov. 28 – Dec. 11, 2011, and its aftermath. (Also see: Compilation: Canada’s betrayal of life)
Our interest is less about conference details and more about the broad stroke realities of international climate negotiations in general. For nuances and Canada-specific info, check out the resources at the bottom of this post (to be followed by a Canada-focused compilation and more as soon as we can).
The embedded videos (above), linked articles, blog posts, reports and resources are what we feel are the most succinct, relevant and useful pieces that convey the most urgency with the least BS.
Yet picky as we try to be, almost all of this linked material and public statements made by most involved — whether representatives of rich governments, politicians, banks, corporations, lobbyists, deniers, media, science academies or ENGOs (Environmental Non-governmental Organizations), and however deliberate, or despite best intentions — contain dated, inaccurate references, often grand understatement and / or flat out misinformation.
Given the DIRE EMERGENCY of the climate crisis, we consider this to be a dangerous betrayal of public trust, and of all life.
COP17 Durban UN Climate Summit 2011 – Post mortem (selected)
(Scroll to bottom for many more links / resources)
- Q & A – Why Durban is different from past climate agreements, F. Harvey, J. Vidal, Guardian
- Article – Resistance and hope at a time of climate emergency, Nick Buxton, Common Dreams
- Article – Dangerous decade: What follows Durban climate deal? F. Pearce, New Scientist
- Statement – Disastrous “Durban Package” accelerates onset of climate catastrophe, FOEI
- Video interview – Pablo Solon: Climate apartheid, the lost decade to 2020, Democracy NOW!
- Release – Durban climate talks a spectacular failure, M. Worthy, World Development Movement
- Opinion – Climate summit was a pathetic exercise in deceit, T. Homer-Dixon, Globe and Mail
- Post – Climate deal guarantees our children will be worse off than us, D. Carrington, Guardian
- Post – COP17 succumbs to climate apartheid, Global Justice Ecology Project
- Article – NGOs slam climate talks’ resolutions, Times Live
- Post – Last thoughts on Durban package, Elizabeth May, Green Party of Canada
- Statement – Durban climate summit saves face at expense of future generations, CYD COP17
- Release – Governments fail on ambition, courage at UN climate change talks, WWF
- Release – First reaction to Durban climate talks, Friends of the Earth Int’l
- Post – Showdown at the Durban disaster: Challenging the ‘big green’ patriarchy, Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project
- Post – Politicians listen to the polluters at climate talks, Greenpeace Int’l
- Release – Immediate reaction from Alden Meyer, Union of Concerned Scientists
- Post – 3 sleepless nights in a global emergency, Bill Blakemore, ABC
- Post – Top 5 take aways from Durban climate talks, David Roberts, Grist
- Article – Suicide pact at Durban, Gwynne Dyer
- Article – UN climate conference approves landmark deal? Arthur Max, AP
- Article – Durban deal will not avert catastrophic climate change, F. Harvey, J. Vidal, Guardian
- Article – Climate deal salvaged after marathon talks in Durban, J. Vidal, F. Harvey, Guardian
4 important quotes
“The planet has already warmed about a degree Celsius (+0.8C); it’s clearly going to go well past two degrees (+2C).” … “…the endless talks underway in Durban should be more important than ever — they should be the focus of a planetary population desperate to figure out how it’s going to survive the century.” ~ The most important news story of the day / millennium, Bill McKibben, 350.org, Dec. 5, 2011
“Two degrees (+2C) is not enough – we should be thinking of +1.5C. If we are not headed to +1.5C we are in big, big trouble.” … “The argument I am making is not about feasibility but an argument of social justice. We can’t have as our goal something that we already know does not guarantee the survival of low-lying states and sub-Saharan Africa. If we already know that, in my book there is no way we can stick to the goal we know is completely unacceptable to the most exposed [countries].” ~ UN Chief, Christina Figueres, challenges world to agree tougher target for climate change +1.5C, not +2C, Fiona Harvey, The Guardian, June 1, 2011
“…at today’s level of carbon dioxide, and not much above the current temperature, the world has experienced sea-levels 5 to 25 metres higher than at present! … It is hard to argue that anything above the Holocene maximum (of around +0.5C above the pre-industrial temperature) can preserve a safe climate, and that we have not already gone too far. The notion that +1.5C is a safe target is out the window, and even +1C looks like an unacceptably high risk.” ~ Re-thinking a “safe climate”: Have we already gone too far? David Spratt, Climate Code Red, interprets James Hansen research, Jan. 23, 2011
“…to be honest, nobody over here is paying any attention to science.” … “…most of the discussions that are taking place over here are really focusing narrowly on short term politics…very narrow interests…” ~ Video: Interview with Rajendra Pachauri, Head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Democracy NOW! Dec. 7, 2011
The betrayal of Life in 10 need-to-know bullets
- RIGHT NOW, our shared atmosphere is on an accelerating course to reach a state of potentially unsurvivable, runaway climate extremes during the lives of today’s children — ecoSanity Compilation: +4C by 2060s or sooner (catastrophic and incompatible with organized civilization).
- The threat of imminent climate tipping points that would lead to irreversible, runaway global catastrophe are the reason survival is a race against time / a rapidly closing window of opportunity and one-time chance to reverse course at EMERGENCY speed RIGHT NOW.
- The key tipping point threshold is not +2C as the international climate negotiations decree, and as the world’s foremost climatologist, Dr. James Hansen stated in 2008 would be “a recipe for disaster, not salvation“. Nor is it +1.5C as ‘developing’ countries propose. The key tipping point threshold is, in fact, RIGHT NOW, at less than +1C, because deadly global impacts have already decreased arctic ice volume by 3/4; already threaten widespread fresh water scarcity (more here); already threaten food/agricultural production; already threaten multi-regional security; and already DISPLACE MILLIONS and KILL HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of the world’s most vulnerable, least culpable people EVERY YEAR. The last time it was this hot, sea levels became 5 – 25 metres higher than they are today. Also see: Skeptical Science and The Grist.
- There’s a 30 to 40-year latent heat lag, many of the most credible scientists now fear that +2C is no longer avoidable, and a major scientific update to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (IPCC) that all international climate negotiations are based on AND limited by — the Scientific Congress on Climate Change Synthesis Report (March, 2009) — concluded that an increase of +2C to +2.4C is already locked in (page 18).
- International climate negotiations are a corporate corrupted, growth-focused and market mechanism-biased charade based on the now very dated and dangerously underestimated scientific conclusions of the 2007 IPCC Report that the richest, most powerful, most morally culpable governments of the world continue to resist / deny in order to justify their negligent, uniformly inadequate responses (see interactive graph a little further down). For instance, the 2007 IPCC did not include the threat of mass methane release from permafrost and ocean shelf melt (way more powerful heat influence than CO2) or ocean acidification (the threat to base life upon which all other life including us depend for our very existence). And present, unequivocal trends now track at or beyond outdated, WORST-CASE SCENARIOS.
- The climate crisis is an EMERGENCY — RIGHT NOW — that can only be addressed with EMERGENCY ACTION on a massive scale — RIGHT NOW. Many conservative entities and other supposed authorities have stated that by 2020 or 2017 or 2015, irreversible, runaway tipping points will be locked in. This arrogance of certainty is based on outdated science and leaps to presume that we can predict with such accuracy the epic complexities and geological variables of the fragile global climate balance that evolved over thousands / hundreds of thousands / millions of years. If we are lucky, there *may* still be a brief, RAPIDLY CLOSING window of opportunity to prevent the worst outcomes, but only quick, bold, EMERGENCY ACTION can buy time in order to maximize the potential possibilities of whatever hail Marys might be implemented to help slow and reverse the epic process we have set in motion.
- The Arctic ice cap (the Earth’s key cooling and climate balance regulator) MUST NOT MELT because it would tip the balance of everything else, AND because it would ensure the release of those huge stores of methane we mentioned that have begun to leak from their safe, dormant states beneath the permafrost and ocean shelves. But a consequence of local feedback mechanisms and global heat circulation from the equator to the poles via the atmosphere and global ocean (only one, all connected) is that the Arctic region heats / has heated 2 x faster than anywhere else on Earth. It has ALREADY LOST 3/4 OF ITS VOLUME over the last few decades to a record low in 2011, and record 2010 emissions will further ACCELERATE this unprecedented DEATH SPIRAL.
- We must transform our suicidal, ecocidal, biocidal, pro-genocidal (future generations), fossil fuel-based, greenhouse gas-intensive global economy into one grounded in clean, ZERO carbon, everlasting (wind, solar, geothermal, tidal) energy and conservation AS SOON AND AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.
- We have geoengineered (polluted / heated / ‘occupied’) the atmosphere for 200 years — The radiative forcing of CO2 that humans have put in the air equals 1 million Hiroshima bombs EVERY DAY, Mike Sandiford, Director of the Melbourne Energy Institute, Climate Progress. But now we have to figure out how to somehow REMOVE huge amounts of greenhouse gasses from the air that we’ve already emitted because rapid reductions alone are not enough to reverse our course and restore the ‘safe climate’ balance we — and most other species — evolved in / are dependant upon for reasonable, organized civilization / mass survival.
- Only EMERGENCY international action at EMERGENCY speed *may be* proportional enough to confront the scale, scope and urgency of what is already the greatest crime against humanity, most life and most future life EVER — Climate Change Human Impact Report 2009.
Some frames of reference
In the 2009 article, Perfect storm of environmental and economic collapse closer than you think, Jonathon Porritt, made the argument that a confluence of factors are anticipated to build over the next few years and mount into “world upheavals”, perhaps as soon as 2020.
Yet in 2011, international negotiations led to a further delay of action until 2015, 2018, 2020. But what we do NOW — on a grand scale, and FAST — is our only chance to avoid those tipping points we mentioned.
The biggest, most immediate and urgent impact of the climate crisis EMERGENCY is the threat it poses to water (more here) and food security because it leads to the entire range of undesired consequences like famine, disease proliferation, multi-regional instability, conflict, resource wars, failed states (the number of countries at high risk of disintegration has doubled from 7 to 15 since 2005), mass migration and die-offs.
The neighborhood of +6C global average temperature increase beyond pre-industrial (1900) levels is considered unlivable for most life. A rise of +3C would assure the catastrophic collapse of agriculture worldwide. In vulnerable climates like Africa, this tip would begin at +1C and occur through the lead up to +2C (billions hungry or starved to death).
On our ‘business as usual’ emissions path, the UK Met Office warns that +4C by 2055 (catastrophic and incompatable with organized civilization) is very plausible. It has been suggested that only 10% of humanity could survive. And not pleasantly. And not for long because +4C leads to +5C, then +6C (see bullet points below).
Decades sooner there would be drastic compromise to water and food security worldwide. As mentioned above, in many ways and places, there already is.
3 key concerns:
- The unpredictability of positive feedback loops, which most climate models and the all-important 2007 IPCC report do NOT incorporate, will multiply and accelerate impacts.
- The degree of risk associated with the likelihood of non-linear decline, tipping points beyond which ‘runaway‘ momentum becomes irreversible, and the potential in various climate systems for sudden, abrupt change is NOT calculated. Potential sudden climate system flip — +2C to +4C in as brief as a 3 year period of time. The record is +6C in 1–3 years, +10-12C over 50 years (Steffensen, 2008). See: Dramatic climate change is unpredictable, Science Daily
- The inertia of latent heat that’s already in the system but has not yet been felt (there’s a 30 to 40-year lag) already assures global average temperature rise to at least +1.4C (from 1900). Many of the most credible scientists now fear that +2C is no longer avoidable. And a major scientific update to the 2007 IPCC report — the Scientific Congress on Climate Change Synthesis Report (March, 2009) — concluded that an increase of +2C to +2.4C is already locked in (page 18).
Former World Bank chief economist and author of the 2006 Stern Review, Nicholas Stern, concluded that climate breakdown threatens to be the greatest market failure ever because the costs of fossil fuel emissions are not incorporated into free market accounting and polluters are not forced to pay for the social / environmental costs / impacts of their pollution.
In 2009, he warned of “severe risks” if global average temperature rises by the predicted +4C to +7C by 2100.
Agriculture would be destroyed and life would be impossible over much of the planet.
The last time the Earth was that hot was 30 – 50 million years ago.
The last time it was even +3C warmer was 3 million years ago, a reality that we are on course to reach again LONG BEFORE 2100.
When conservative bodies like the International Energy Agency (IEA) warn that irreversible climate change will be locked in within 5 years, or when the outdated 2007 IPCC report underestimates state that global emissions must peak by 2015 then rapidly decrease, we always try to keep the big picture in mind — that amount of heat-trapping CO2 in the atmosphere is already higher than at any time over the last 2 MILLION YEARS, and that humanity is only 200,000 years young.
Given these epic time scales, isn’t it a little hard to believe that we can determine the year — or even decade — by which action must be taken in order to avert irreversible, runaway climate tipping points?
And don’t you find arguments to delay action for any amount of time nonsensical when, based on the interactive graph from climateinteractive.org (embedded above) of the supposed gap between national commitments if implemented vs. what would be required just to achieve supposed necessary targets, global average temperature increases would become so extreme within just a few decades (+3C, +4C), that they would be incompatible with organized civilization and threaten the ability of most life to survive?
But you sure don’t hear nasty little details like these very often, do you?
We’ve already gone way too far
The first comprehensive study focused on the adverse effects of climate change on human society (2009) revealed that:
- Hundreds of millions around the globe are suffering the consequences of climate change impacts NOW – their lives lost or livelihoods undermined or destroyed — and 4 billion (60% of the world’s population!) are vulnerable
- Developing countries bear more than 90% of burden, but are least responsible for causes
- 99% of deaths linked to climate change occur in developing countries
- Current adaptation efforts NEED TO BE SCALED UP 100 TIMES
- The findings are very conservative, true human impact will be FAR MORE SEVERE
Bottom line
- RIGHT NOW, our shared atmosphere is on an accelerating course to reach a state of potentially unsurvivable, runaway climate extremes during the lives of today’s children — ecoSanity Compilation: +4C by 2060s or sooner
- Only EMERGENCY international action at EMERGENCY speed *may be* proportional enough to confront the scale, scope and urgency of what is already the greatest crime against humanity, most life and most future life EVER — Climate Change Human Impact Report 2009
Much of the social and economic critique given voice by the Occupy movement applies to the international climate negotiation process, dynamic and inequitable balance of power.
In their current form, the talks are a charade dominated by the systemic corruption of global politics and economics by rich, corporate lobbied (controlled), deadly fossil fuel-based and greenhouse gas-intensive energy addicted nations that threaten our fragile, finite world with their suicidal, ecocidal, biocidal, pro-genocidal (future generations) pathologies of endless growth and consumerism. (See video: Urgent call to unite toward ‘a whole different economic, trade and development model’, Maude Barlow)
If the umbrella crisis of climate breakdown / disruption / destabilization is not tackled fast, its impacts — severe threats to fresh water scarcity, global agriculture and multi-regional insecurity and instability — will make it impossible for us to address ALL other global issues and causes, let alone to thrive or survive.
The leaders of rich nations and the economic and other entities they aim to appease must alter humanity’s current, ‘business as usual’ course.
Instead, they must take the choice and moral imperative to value, prioritize, preserve and defend life — and all that is necessary in nature to sustain it — over short-term politics, narrow interests, consumption, growth, wars and profit NOW, FAST, TODAY, before it’s too late.
In future posts, we’ll expand further on our thoughts about what we consider to be the betrayal of all life, even by many who are devoted to defend it. Meanwhile…
Get informed. Get inspired. Get involved and help to motivate bold, new, transformative approaches and just, resilient, EMERGENCY RESPONSES to the climate crisis FAST.
MORE
COP17 Durban UN Climate Summit 2011 – Selected articles, blog posts, releases, reports
- Post mortem
- Q & A – Why Durban is different from past climate agreements, F. Harvey, J. Vidal, Guardian
- Article – Resistance and hope at a time of climate emergency, Nick Buxton, Common Dreams
- Article – Dangerous decade: What follows Durban climate deal? F. Pearce, New Scientist
- Statement – Disastrous “Durban Package” accelerates onset of climate catastrophe, FOEI
- Video interview – Pablo Solon: Climate apartheid, the lost decade to 2020, Democracy NOW!
- Release – Durban climate talks a spectacular failure, M. Worthy, World Development Movement
- Opinion – Climate summit was a pathetic exercise in deceit, T. Homer-Dixon, Globe and Mail
- Post – Climate deal guarantees our children will be worse off than us, D. Carrington, Guardian
- Post – COP17 succumbs to climate apartheid, Global Justice Ecology Project
- Article – NGOs slam climate talks’ resolutions, Times Live
- Post – Last thoughts on Durban package, Elizabeth May, Green Party of Canada
- Statement – Durban climate summit saves face at expense of future generations, CYD COP17
- Release – Governments fail on ambition, courage at UN climate change talks, WWF
- Release – First reaction to Durban climate talks, Friends of the Earth Int’l
- Post – Showdown at the Durban disaster: Challenging the ‘big green’ patriarchy, Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project
- Post – Politicians listen to the polluters at climate talks, Greenpeace Int’l
- Release – Immediate reaction from Alden Meyer, Union of Concerned Scientists
- Post – 3 sleepless nights in a global emergency, Bill Blakemore, ABC
- Post – Top 5 take aways from Durban climate talks, David Roberts, Grist
- Article – Suicide pact at Durban, Gwynne Dyer
- Article – UN climate conference approves landmark deal? Arthur Max, AP
- Article – Durban deal will not avert catastrophic climate change, F. Harvey, J. Vidal, Guardian
- Article – Climate deal salvaged after marathon talks in Durban, J. Vidal, F. Harvey, Guardian
- Week 2
- Post – What’s behind the Durban blame game? The near-universal pursuit of economic growth, Richard Heinberg, Energy Bulletin
- Article – The U.S. is the biggest present and past impediment to climate negotiation progress and global survival, Jamie Henn, 350.org, YES! Magazine
- Post – America’s position on climate ‘a tragedy’, Bill Blakemore, ABC
- Post – U.S. and Canada (last 5 yrs) share ‘Colossal Fossil’ award, CAN International
- Post – Top 8 climate disasters during the Durban climate talks, Brad Johnson, TP
- Post/video – Durban Climate Hero Abigail Borah: “I Am Speaking On Behalf Of The USA Because My Negotiators Cannot”, Brad Johnson, Think Progress, Video courtesy Democracy NOW!
- Post – Amazing Grace, Mardi Tindal
- Op-ed – Standing up for the planet, The 6 Canadian Youth Delegation members who protested Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent’s speech (and Canada’s betrayal of life) at the COP17 Durban UN Climate Summit 2011 explain why, Matthew Chisholm, Sonia Grant, Brigette DePape, Meghan McCarthy, James Hutt and Karen Rooney, Toronto Star
- Release – Canadian youth who stood for people over polluters ejected from COP17, CYD
- Post – Durban: The great escape (by rich nations), Pablo Solon, Climate & Capitalism
- Post – A dirty deal coming down in Durban (UN estimates that at +2C, 90% of Africa’s current agricultural output would cease), Patrick Bond, Climate & Capitalism
- Post – The most important news story of the day / millennium, Bill McKibben, Daily KOS, HP
- Week 1
- Article – 10,000 march for climate justice in Durban, Tim McSorley, Montreal Media Co-op
- Article – Obama is days away from killing talks on a climate deal? Joss Garmen, Greenpeace UK
- Article – Former UN climate chief blames world leaders for failing to guide talks, A. Max, AP
- Post – Capitalism the cause of the climate change? Chris Bisson, Canadian Youth Delegation
- Article – U.S. inaction on climate is “criminal”, activists say, Kanya D’Almeida, IPS
- Article – Climate fund talks in disarray as US refuses to sign deal, K. Rawlinson, Independent
- Article – Riot police block most affected by climate change from entering climate conference, Alexander Joe, Marlowe Hood, AFP
- Post – Stepping outside the COP box, Toby Davine, Canadian Youth Delegation to COP17
- Article – UN climate talks see ‘delayer countries’ throwaway 2C goal, M. Jacobs, The Guardian
- Article – Climate deal pushed by poorest nations, Richard Black, BBC
- Article – Why Durban is the Kyoto Protocol’s last chance, Amy Goodman, Huffington Post
- Declaration – Declaration of the Indigenous
climateye’s most essential EMERGENCY info