Which organization has the most delegates in Poland? The US or UK government? Japan or China? WWF or Greenpeace? No, it’s the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA).
IETA has 256 people walking the corridors in Poznan, including representatives from Eon, the company behind Kingsnorth power station. They are hosting 51 events, supported by sponsors such as BP, Shell and Clifford Chance.
Fossil fuel companies need emissions trading to allow them to keep emitting; finance companies need it to make money out of the trading of carbon credits.
The supply of carbon credits was under discussion on Wednesday morning in the review of the Clean Development Mechanism, the scheme which generates carbon credits in developing countries for sale as offset permits to rich countries and companies.
Research has shown that most carbon credits do not create reductions in emissions; the projects they are supposedly funding would have happened anyway. But companies have come here with an agenda that the Clean Development Mechanism should have even less regulation in the future.
Citing concerns that the supply of carbon credits could dry up, in this morning’s meeting the IETA, with their allies the World Bank, were pushing for the removal of “barriers to CDM growth”. Less regulation = more carbon credits, more money, more emissions. Tonight they will continue pushing this message in an exclusive private dinner with the officials who regulate the Clean Development Mechanism. (At the Delicja Restaurant - apparently "Poznań fine dining doesn’t get better than this")
Any adequate global deal to tackle climate change will require an end to carbon offsetting. But that means overcoming these powerful vested interests and corporate lobbying.
Showing posts with label climate conference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climate conference. Show all posts
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
Friday, 28 November 2008
Sixteen years
Governments from around the world are gathering in Poznań, Poland, as part of negotiations on an international agreement for tackling climate change.
They meet at a time when the world is in financial turmoil and old assumptions about how the world should work are being challenged.
They meet after a new US President has been elected but is not yet in power.
And they meet as climate change continues to impact communities around the world, from the Philippines to Peru, Australia to the Arctic, the Maldives to Malawi.
Just one year is left until an agreement needs to be reached in Copenhagen in December 2009. For hundreds of millions of the poorest people around the world, this is their last chance.
Back in 1992, 164 countries, including the US, UK and other EU member states, signed the United Nations framework convention on climate change, stating, “human activities have been substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, these increases enhance the natural greenhouse effect and this will result on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and may adversely affect natural ecosystems and humankind”.
They also said “developed country parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof”.
I was in primary school when the UN agreement was reached. I remember learning about the greenhouse effect, the impact of burning coal, oil and gas, and the warming the world could see.
Sixteen years later the UK’s contribution to climate change is just 6 per cent less than in 1992. Europe’s carbon emissions have risen by 10 per cent, the US’s by nearly 20 per cent.
So far we have failed. But we do not have to keep on failing. I am off to Poznan to see what needs to be done now and in the next year. And to see what hope there is for climate justice for hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people.
They meet at a time when the world is in financial turmoil and old assumptions about how the world should work are being challenged.
They meet after a new US President has been elected but is not yet in power.
And they meet as climate change continues to impact communities around the world, from the Philippines to Peru, Australia to the Arctic, the Maldives to Malawi.
Just one year is left until an agreement needs to be reached in Copenhagen in December 2009. For hundreds of millions of the poorest people around the world, this is their last chance.
Back in 1992, 164 countries, including the US, UK and other EU member states, signed the United Nations framework convention on climate change, stating, “human activities have been substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, these increases enhance the natural greenhouse effect and this will result on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and may adversely affect natural ecosystems and humankind”.
They also said “developed country parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof”.
I was in primary school when the UN agreement was reached. I remember learning about the greenhouse effect, the impact of burning coal, oil and gas, and the warming the world could see.
Sixteen years later the UK’s contribution to climate change is just 6 per cent less than in 1992. Europe’s carbon emissions have risen by 10 per cent, the US’s by nearly 20 per cent.
So far we have failed. But we do not have to keep on failing. I am off to Poznan to see what needs to be done now and in the next year. And to see what hope there is for climate justice for hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Poznan climate conference
This year Tim Jones from the World Development Movement will be blogging from the United Nations Climate Conference which is being held in Poznan, Poland.
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