Antarctic Cooling Down; The Antarctic Ice Sheet is Growing; Hansen Downgrades Warming Threat

by William Yeatman on January 22, 2002

in Science

Antarctic Cooling Down

A forthcoming study in Nature, that has appeared on its website as an “advance online publication,” has found that the Antarctic has been cooling for some time now (www.nature.com). This contradicts the findings of the climate models upon which the case for global warming is built. They predict that the Earths poles will warm more rapidly than the rest of the Earth.

According to the study, “Climate models generally predict amplified warming in the polar regions, as observed in Antarcticas peninsula region over the second half of the 20th century.” The new study finds that “Our spatial analysis of Antarctic meteorological data demonstrates a net cooling on the Antarctic continent between 1966 and 2000, particularly during summer and autumn.” The McMurdo Dry Valleys, for example, have cooled about 0.7 degrees Celsius per decade during this period of time.

The authors conclude that, “Continental Antarctic cooling, especially the seasonality of cooling, poses challenges to models of climate, and ecosystem change.”

The research into the continents temperature record was motivated by the unexpected coldness of the summers, according to lead author Peter Doran with the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois. “Two or three years ago when we were waiting for the big summers, we noticed that they didnt come,” said Doran. We were thinking that warm summers were the norm, and we were saying, Its going to get back to normal, but it never did” (Washington Post, January 14, 2002).

Michael Oppenheimer, chief scientist for Environmental Defense isnt buying it, however. “Id be very careful with this,” he told the Washington Post. “My general view has been that theres simply not enough data to make a broad statement about all of Antarctica.”

Of course, lack of data has never stopped Oppenheimer from making “broad” statements about the whole Earth. In November 2000, Environmental Defense press release he stated, for instance, “The 1990s, likely the hottest decade of the past thousand years, capped decades of shrinking glaciers, thinning Arctic ice, intensifying rainstorms, and rising seas,” and that this means that, “The world must end its dependence on fossil fuels that are too dirty and too expensive. Governments must take action now.”

It seems that the climate models have struck out. Strike one: they cant simulate the current climate. Strike two: they predict greater and more rapid warming in the atmosphere than at the surface. The opposite is happening. Strike three: they predict amplified warming at the poles, which are cooling instead.

The Antarctic Ice Sheet is Growing

A new study appearing in Science (January 18, 2002) concludes that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is thickening, rather than thinning as was previously thought. Earlier studies found that in the Ross Sea Sector, “The grounding line (the point where the ice sheet loses contact with its bed and begins to float) has retreated nearly 1300 km along the western side of the Ross Embayment,” since the last glacial maximum.

This led researchers to predict that the entire WAIS would collapse in 4000 years, implying a sea-level rise of 12.5 to 15 centimeters per century. This was based on a measurement of a loss of ice mass of 20.9 13.7 gigatons per year.

The authors of the new study, Ian Joughin and Slawek Tulaczyk, with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, note, “The ice-discharge estimates of earlier studies relied on relatively sparse in situ measurements of ice-flow velocity. For some ice streams theestimates were based on only one or two velocity measurements.”

The new study used satellite remote sensing to get better measurements. Contrary to earlier studies, the authors found “strong evidence for ice-sheet growth (26.8 14.9 gigatons per year).” They conclude, “The overall positive mass balance may signal an end to the Holocene retreat of these ice streams.”

Hansen Downgrades Warming Threat

James Hansen, the director of NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has published a study in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences (December 18, 2002) that downgrades the magnitude of global warming.

According to his analysis, the growth rate of climate forcing from greenhouse gases peaked in 1980 and has since declined from about 5 watts per square meter (W/m2) per century to about 3 W/m2 per century. When all forcings, both negative and positive, are taken into account total net forcing is about 1.6 1.1 W/m2. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assumes a 4 W/m2 forcing. As the study notes, “Most climate simulations, as summarized by the IPCC, do not include all of the negative forcings; indeed, if they did, and other forcings were unchanged, little global warming would be obtained.”

Hansen and his co-author Makiko Sato, with Center for Climate Systems Research at the Columbia University Earth Institute, predict that “Global warming at a rate +0.15 0.05 degrees C per decade will occur over the next several decades.” This is what the so-called skeptics have been saying all along.

Hansen and Sato put an interesting twist on their argument, however. They state that “the slowdown was caused mainly by phase-out of CFCs” (chlorofluorocarbons), which are also greenhouse gases, under the Montreal Protocol. The previous claim that sulfate aerosol emissions are masking the warming is no longer satisfactory since that has been cancelled out by the discovery of an equal but opposite forcing from black carbon.

Despite Hansens latest conclusion that the planet will only warm about 1.5 degrees C over the next century, a miniscule amount, he still argues for international cooperation to stop global warming. He calls for a “cooperative, not punitive” program of technology transfer from developed to developing world to reduce emissions.

News from Australia

Opponents of the Kyoto Protocol in Australia are clearly making progress in their campaign to defeat ratification. The Canberra Times (January 10, 2002) recently published an op-ed by Clive Hamilton of the Australia Institute that attacks the Lavoisier Group in vitriolic terms.

The Lavoisier Group provides the principal intellectual and organizational opposition in Australia to Kyoto and was organized by our colleague, N. Ray Evans of Melbourne. Hamilton accuses the Lavoisier Group of painting the UNs global warming negotiations as “an elaborate conspiracy in which hundreds of climate scientists have twisted their results to support the climate change theory in order to protect their research funding.” Sounds plausible to us.

Global Warming Tied To Sun’s Variability

by William Yeatman on January 15, 2002

in Science

Global warming is apparently normal. Iceberg debris on the floor of the North Atlantic indicates the world has had nine global warmings, followed by nine coolings, in the past 12,000 years. All were apparently caused by a 1500-year cycle in the intensity of the suns radiation. The iceberg data is strongly confirmed by the solar activity record produced from carbon-14 dating of tree rings and beryllium-10 dating of Greenland ice cores.

Dr. Gerard Bond and a research team at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, painstakingly assembled this new evidence that climate variability is natural and global. It was published online November 16 by the prestigious journal Science.

Bond used Atlantic sediment cores to measure the rocky debris picked up by glaciers as they ground their way across Canada, Greenland and Iceland, dropping to the Atlantic ocean floor when the icebergs melted. Bond and his colleagues found the amount of debris increased sharply every 1500 years as ice surged farther out into a temporarily colder Atlantic.

Glacier expert Richard Alley of Penn State University says The Bond data are sufficiently convincing that [solar variability] is now the leading hypothesis to explain the Medieval warming that occurred in the 11th and 12th centuries and the Little Ice Age that followed it in the 17th century.

Bond notes that the correlation between earth climate (as measured by his iceberg debris data) and solar activity (as measured by carbon-dated tree rings and beryllium-dated ice cores) is statistically very high. However, Bond says hes even more impressed by the close match between the peaks and troughs of the climate and solar records.

David Thomson, a time-series analyst soon to be at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, says, Their experiment may be good enough even without statistics. For Bond, thats the scientific equivalent of a touchdown pass.

The Bond study severely undercuts the popular theory of global warming, which holds that greenhouse gases from modern autos and factories are causing a dramatic artificial warming of the earths atmosphere. Current global temperatures are not significantly higher than those of the pre-industrial 1930sor the year 1000. The Medieval warming occurred without autos or factories spewing CO 2, and if it was solar-driven had to be global. It was followed by the Little Ice Age which cannot be attributed to any human cause.

The Bond study indicates we will have to adapt to a gradual increase in world temperatures over the next 200 years or so, because humanity is powerless to alter the sun.

Should we fear the warming? The last global warming is also known to the history books as the Medieval Climate Optimum, the finest weather that humanity can remember, notes climatologist Fred Singer. Singer, who heads the Science and Environmental Policy Project, is also an elected Fellow of the Geophysical Society.

He points out that during the Medieval warming, crops were more abundant, due to more rainfall and longer growing seasons. The Vikings pastured cattle in Greenland, now frozen tundra. The polar ice cap did not melt, and sea levels did not rise abnormally. The wild species migrated with the weather changes as theyd always donethe animals rapidly and the plant species slowly. Storms were milder, because the temperature difference between poles and the equator was smaller. (The bad storms came during the icy part of the cycle, around 1800.)

Will human activity aggravate the next warming cycle? Singer says human impact on the climate is dwarfed by natural variability from such factors as solar cycles and volcanic eruptions. He expects the next warming to be mild and useful, with the biggest effects felt on winter nights in northern climates. We may plant more grain in Canada and Russia, for example. Slightly higher temperatures for farmers at the equator will be more than offset by the crop growth benefits of higher CO2 levels from human activity.

The Kyoto Protocol, he warns, would radically raise world energy prices, hurting humanitys ability to adapt without significantly reducing any warming trend. He believes the real problems, for society and most wild species, will come during the harsh storms of the next Ice Age. Fortunately, Singer says, thats apparently several hundred, and perhaps several thousand, years away.

It remains hard to figure out exactly how the sun has mattered to [recent] climate, says Alley, and why it has mattered so much. The changes in the suns activity have been too small to change the earths temperature directly, but ocean currents could have amplified them.

An oscillation in the northern Atlantic Ocean currents had been the leading alternative in scientists minds to a solar cause for global climate change. The Bond study indicates the two are linked, with the sun as the hammer and the ocean as the nail.

Europeans Pay More and More

by William Yeatman on January 8, 2002

in Small business

The British government keeps raising taxes on energy, and businesses are feeling the pinch. Industrial gas prices rose 20 percent last year, due in large part to Britains climate change levy. As noted by Reuters (January 7, 2002), higher taxes exacerbate an already turbulent energy market in Britain. “UK prices have doubled over the last two years, partly because the opening of the UK/Belgium interconnector pipeline linked British prices to European gas prices which are indexed to oil prices.”

“Gas demand in Britain,” said Reuters, “has doubled over the last 10 years. Industrial, commercial and domestic use has risen 16 percent but usage in power generation has grown from virtually nil in 1990 to around 30 percent last year.”

Several German utilities have announced hikes in household power prices effective January 1, reflecting higher taxes and fees, reports Reuters (January 3, 2002). Customers served by the utilities will see their monthly power bill increase by about 5 percent, although some will see their rates go up by as much as 10 percent. Two thirds of the rate hikes are due to higher taxes, according to one industry spokesman.

Japan Gets Cold Feet; New Bush Policies this Month?

by William Yeatman on January 8, 2002

in Kyoto Negotiations, Politics

 Japan Gets Cold Feet

Japan, the host of the 1997 negotiations that culminated in the Kyoto Protocol, may now be abandoning the treaty. According to the BBC (January 3, 2001), the Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported: “The Central Environment Council, a government advisory body, has said in a report that, for now, industries will not be given any regulations to follow and, instead, will be allowed to combat gas emissions on a voluntary basis.

“Industry, which is responsible for 40 percent of all emissions,” it said, “will be asked to devise its own methods of control to publicize the amount of greenhouse gases emitted during the first phase of reductions, from 2002 to 2004.”

Putting off mandatory emission cuts may signal that Japan is having second thoughts about ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. Or it may mean that the Japanese government is taking account of the fact that the text of the protocol to be ratified includes no legally binding enforcement provisions. Thus there will be no penalties if Japan misses its 2008-12 reduction target.

“Prospects are that it will be very difficult for Japan to reduce gas emissions by 6 percent from the 1990 level as dictated by the protocol,” noted Yomiuri Shimbun. That would weaken the likelihood of Kyoto ever coming into force.

New Bush Policies this Month?

The Bush Administration has remained characteristically close-mouthed about its plans to announce new global warming policies, but rumors are swirling at an increasing rate. Informed sources on Capitol Hill told Cooler Heads that they expect the administration to announce a package of new policies before the Congress re-convenes on January 23.

On the other hand, there has been some press speculation, in Inside EPA and elsewhere, that President Bush will talk about global warming in his State of the Union address, scheduled for January 29.

The content of any possible announcement is an even greater mystery. Administration sources have talked vaguely in private about creating a mandatory registry for greenhouse gas emissions plus some sort of voluntary trading program for emission credits. It is not clear what would give value to owning, and hence purchasing, such credits unless the program were mandatory or offered some possibility of profit through future mandatory controls or federal payments or tax credits.

Administration decisions may be affected by the current media flap over contacts between the Bush White House and Enron Corporation, whose December 2 bankruptcy is one of the most spectacular in history. Enron was a founding member of the Pew Center on Global Climate Changes Business Leadership Council.

It is known that one of Enrons chief lobbying objectives during the waning years of the Clinton-Gore Administration was ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and adoption of mandatory carbon dioxide regulations in the U. S. Enron Chairman and CEO Ken Lay was reported to be the source of language in the 2000 Bush campaigns energy plan that advocated regulating CO2 emissions by electric utilities.

Enron would profit from mandatory cuts in CO2 emissions as a natural gas producer, pipeline operator, and trader in both energy and emission quota markets. Other major corporations have also been privately lobbying the Bush Administration to create a market for emission quotas (that is, to assign value to not producing or using fossil fuel energy). It is not known whether any of these corporations are doing this in order to forestall collapse.

Uncertainty Still Reigns; 2001 Slightly Warmer Than Average

by William Yeatman on January 8, 2002

in Science

Uncertainty Still Reigns

A new paper in Science (January 4, 2001) attempts to quantify uncertainties in the climate system. Due to its vast complexity, it is difficult for scientists to extract the anthropogenic signal from background noise to determine the most likely future scenarios.

The researchers attempted this by running an “intermediate-complexity model” so that they could make hundreds of runs of the climate for the period 1860 to 1995. They then compared their results to actual temperature changes at the surface, upper atmosphere and deep ocean.

They limited themselves to three variables that they could adjust to determine which range of values would lead to the closest match with actual data: climate sensitivity to a change in greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean heat transfer, and the effects of aerosols that offset warming. According to a news article accompanying the study, the researchers adjusted the variables “over a range of values, ran the model under a large number of setting combinations, and then compared the simulated climate trends with the three observed temperature records.”

“By their own concession,” the researchers had “varied success pinning down the key parameters of the climate system.” They especially had difficulty with ocean heat transfer. What they concluded, however, was that there is a 90 percent chance that the temperature would increase from between 1.4 degrees Celsius and 7.7 degrees C with a doubling of CO2 concentrations. The upper end of the range is much higher than the IPCCs range of 4.5 degrees C.

The really surprising finding, however, is that the net effect of aerosols was to reflect a mere 0.30 to 0.95 watts per square meter of solar power back into space as opposed to the IPCCs scenario of zero to 4 watts per square meter.

What this means, but seems to have escaped the studys researchers, is that there are still serious problems with the existing climate models. In the early 1990s, the climate models predicted far more warming than actually occurred.

To solve the problem, climate modelers hypothesized that anthropogenic emissions of sulfate aerosols, primarily from burning coal, were masking the warming that the models said should be occurring due to rising greenhouse gases. By adding aerosols to the equation, modelers were able to get results closer to reality. But if the cooling effect of aerosols is not as large as thought, as found in the study, then the models are still deficient.

2001 Slightly Warmer Than Average

The year 2001 was only slightly warmer than “average,” according to global climate data gathered by NOAA satellites. The composite global temperature for 2001 was 0.06 degrees Celsius (about 0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the 20-year (1979-to-1998) average, said Dr. John Christy, a professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Compared to other years, 2001 was the ninth warmest (and the 15th coolest) since satellite instruments started gathering global climate data in 1979.

As part of an ongoing joint project between UAH, NOAA and NASA, Christy and Dr. Roy Spencer, also with UAH, use data gathered by NOAA satellites to get accurate temperature readings for most regions of the Earth, including remote areas for which reliable climate data are not otherwise available.

The satellite instruments look at microwaves emitted by oxygen molecules in the atmosphere. These microwave emissions vary according to temperature, giving precise indications of temperatures over broad regions of the atmosphere (http://unisci.com/).

Etc.

One of the areas of the planet that is supposed to warm most due to greenhouse gas emissions is the coldest regions of Russia. Moreover, most of the warming is supposed to occur in the winter. Well, this winter Russians are having serious doubts about the validity of the global warming hypothesis as temperatures plummet. Central Europe is also experiencing difficulties due to severe winter weather.

Reuters (January 3, 2002) reports the following:

“Plunging temperatures killed 10 people in Moscow overnight into Thursday in a cold spell that even saw snow fall on palm trees along Russia’s sub-tropical Black Sea coast

“Central Europe meanwhile dug its way out of snowdrifts from the worst blizzards in 15 years and road and rail travel remained hazardous. Avalanche warnings were posted in mountain resorts.

“The international aid agency Medecins Sans Frontiers said 250 people had died in the [Russian] capital this winter. News reports said power cuts had left whole districts in the world’s largest country without light or heat, including the coal mining town of Dzhebariki-Khaya in far northern Yakutia, where temperatures were a seasonal minus 40 degrees Celsius.”

For a list of news stories about record winter weather, see www.john-daly.com.

UK Must Drastically Cut CO2; Chinas Emissions Trends

by William Yeatman on December 26, 2001

in Blog

UK Must Drastically Cut CO2

A report on the United Kingdoms future energy outlook, commissioned by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has been leaked to the media. The report argues that there is “a strong likelihood that the UK, with other developed countries will need to make very large carbon reductions over the next century,” and that the key task for future energy policy would be “addressing carbon dioxide emissions.”

The Cabinet Offices Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) compiled the report to consider the energy implications of a previous report by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. The Royal Commission argues that the UK must reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 60 percent by 2050, stating that, “Credible scenarios for 2050 can deliver a 60 percent cut in CO2 emissions, but large changes would be needed both in the energy system and in society.”

The PIU report also recommends that the UK use “economic instruments” such as emission permits and taxes, increase energy efficiency, and expand the use of renewable energy sources to reach a 60 percent reduction. Even if the electricity sector were to achieve zero CO2 emissions, however, it would still be necessary to substantially shift away from oil in the transportation sector, according to the report (BBC, December 13, 2001).

Chinas Emissions Trends

According to an article in Science (November 30, 2001), Chinas greenhouse gas emissions have fallen since 1996. The article states, “The prevailing wisdom about Chinas greenhouse gas emissions is that they are increasing steadily, because of the large quantities of coal being used to fuel a fast-growing industrial economy, and most projections show Chinas greenhouse gas emissions continuing to grow in the coming decades.”

The articles authors claim, however, that, “we find that Chinas CO2 emissions declined by 7.3 percent between 1996 (the peak year) and 2000, and CH4 [methane] emissions declined by 2.2 percent between 1997 (the peak year) and 2000.”

One of the reasons given by the Bush Administration for its rejection of the Kyoto Protocol is that it does not require commitments from developing countries, especially large emitters like China, India, and Mexico, putting U.S. industry at a competitive disadvantage with foreign industry. Many who favor U.S. ratification of the Kyoto Protocol may claim that this data proves that exempt developing countries are actively pursuing greenhouse gas reductions and that the U.S. should proceed with Kyoto participation.

But the reasons for Chinas greenhouse gas reductions, assuming the data is accurate, give pause to such claims. According to the article, the reductions resulted from, “the closing of small, inefficient industrial plants; improved efficiency of energy end use; improved coal quality; the switching of many residential fuel users from coal to gas and electricity; technological progress in the energy-intensive sectors; and the opening up of coal and electricity markets.” Also, “A slowdown in economic growth contributed to the decline in energy use.”

In other words, the elimination of the vast inefficiencies usually associated with communist regimes and an economic slowdown were the reasons for the alleged downward trend in greenhouse gas emissions.

The authors admit that, “In the last few years, Chinas energy data have become more prone to error and uncertainty than they were in the early 1990s,” which, “has caused some skepticism about the reduction in energy use.” But they still maintain, “Our analysis suggests that the reductions are real, but not as great as previously believed.”

An energy expert with long experience of the Chinese utility industry told Cooler Heads that the apparent reduction in emissions was primarily due to a simple change in coal production. Under communism, coal mines had to meet quotas based on tons of coal mined. This meant that miners would increase their production by including wet coal and dirt on the edge of seams. Now under semi-capitalism, utilities will not buy coal below a certain quality. This means that coal production figures have declined, while the amount of coal actually burned has not declined at all.

Bush Administration Searches for Alternatives to Kyoto

by William Yeatman on December 26, 2001

in Politics

The Bush Administration is actively seeking an alternative strategy to the rejected Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases, according to the Financial Times (December 14, 2001). A leading proposal is an emissions trading program that would involve the Canada, the United States, and Mexico. In a December 4 article, FT reported that President Bush “in July called for joint action on greenhouse gases in North America.”

John Graham, head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has also endorsed “market-based” programs. The December 19 issue of FT reports, “He is also considering an expanded program of pollution trading which might include the swap of emissions permits for the release of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide mercury and the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.”

On November 30, the Commission for Environmental Co-operation under the North American Free Trade Agreement held the first of two meetings to discuss the establishment of such a system. There are several obstacles to overcome, including the fact that Canada is still committed to the Kyoto Protocol and that Mexico is exempt from Kyoto commitments (FT, December 14).

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change, an industry front group that has heavily lobbied the administration to regulate greenhouse gases, argues that, “Most companies think something is going to come down” (from the regulators), says Pew spokeswoman, Katie Mandes. “Some think legislation is inevitable and want to get out in front.” The 37 companies that make up Pews membership hope to profit from government regulation of greenhouse gases.

Annie Petsonk of Environmental Defense, which has set up its own corporate lobby for greenhouse regulation “predicts that the Bush Administration will balk at setting up a cap for emission trading. The most she expects is a voluntary Nafta-based program, under which companies would trade credits,” reports FT. A voluntary scheme would increase industry support for a cap since emission permits would be worthless otherwise.

Michael Marvin, president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, says his group “only wants three things from government. To tell us where to go (by establishing caps), when to get there and to get the hell out of the way.”

Major Northern Hemispheric Carbon Sink Discovered

by William Yeatman on December 26, 2001

in Science

Using satellite data researchers have determined that the forests in the U.S., Europe, and Russia soak up at least 700 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to 12 percent of annual global emissions, according to a study appearing in the December 18 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. U.S. forests, according to the study, soak up about 140 million tons of carbon per year or about 11 percent of U.S. total emissions.

“This is only a piece of the total carbon sink in the north which may be as large as 2 billion tons,” said Compton Tucker of NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, one of the studies authors. Other northern carbon sinks, such as soils, are also suggested.

Some forests, such as the Canadian boreal forest, are losing carbon. It is not clear why, however. “This means that we do not know whether these forests will continue to store carbon in the future or release it at some point. That is why we need to monitor them both from space.”

The WTO and Kyoto; Triumph at Marrakesh?; Whither Japan, Australia, Canada?

by William Yeatman on November 13, 2001

in Politics

The WTO and Kyoto

While Kyoto watchers have been focused on the proceedings in Marrakesh, Morocco, trade negotiators meeting in Doha, Qatar agreed on several Kyoto-relevant issues. The members of the World Trade Organization re-iterated their commitment to sustainable development in the draft Ministerial Declaration.

In the Trade and Environment section, WTO members agree to negotiations on “the relationship between existing WTO rules and specific trade obligations set out in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs).” The negotiations will be limited to the “applicability of such existing WTO rules as among parties to the MEA in question.”

Developing countries remain adamantly opposed to linking environmental or labor standards to trade, but agreed to include the environmental linkage issue in the new round of trade talks as the price for getting the European Union to agree to include reducing agricultural subsidies on the agenda. A CBS News story (November 14, 2001) immediately picked up on the connection with Kyoto: “In return [for putting agricultural subsidies on the table], other countries were willing to accept EU demands that the new talks should take consideration of some environmental issues, negotiators said. For example, the EU wants to clarify how agreements like the Kyoto accord on global warming relate to the WTO, and whose rules would take precedence in case of conflict.”

Triumph at Marrakesh?

Once again, the seventh Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change finished the Kyoto Protocol at the conclusion of its meeting in Marrakesh on October 10. The agreement included agreeing that all remaining unresolved issues will be resolved at the next COP after the protocol is ratified and goes into force. COP-8 is scheduled for late October 2002, possibly in India.

The talks dragged on twelve hours beyond their scheduled close as Umbrella Group members (including Japan, Australia, Canada, and Russia) demanded and won more and more concessions from the European Union. Russia was granted 33 million metric tons of credits a year for carbon sequestration in its vast forests, which doubled the figure agreed at Bonn last July, plus significant relaxation of several rules. This includes not having to submit carbon sink inventories or verification in order to claim these credits.

Japan also won key concessions, including postponement of adopting the precise terms of compliance and enforcement until after the protocol goes into force. Final language on the use of several of the mechanisms, such as the Clean Development Mechanism, was also put off until next year.

The enforcement provisions agreed last July in Bonn at the continuation of COP-6 have been described as legally binding, but it remains unclear what this means. It was agreed that parties to the protocol that failed to reach their emissions targets in the first compliance period (2008-12) would have to make up the shortfall in the second compliance period plus a 30 percent penalty. However, no second compliance period or emissions targets for that period have been negotiated, so the agreed enforcement provision would seem to have little effect. The agreement in Marrakesh to postpone spelling out what constitutes compliance and how it will be enforced adds to the uncertainty.

Reaction from environmental pressure groups was mildly negative. A November 12 Reuters story quoted Bill Hare of Greenpeace: “Government may be congratulating themselves now, but what have they really achieved?” Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a well-funded industry-front group of corporations that hope to make money from limiting hydrocarbon use, told the Washington Post (November 11), “Without U. S. participation and with credits being granted for business as usual, I think the reductions you get off the baseline are very small.”

The United States delegation, true to its word, largely remained on the sidelines as an observer to the COP-7 negotiations. The Marrakesh talks and their triumphant conclusion attracted little media attention.

Kyotos main backers now hope that the protocol will be ratified in time to be celebrated at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September 2002. If the protocol is ratified before COP-8 in October 2002, then that conference will become the first Meeting of the Parties (or MOP-1). Once the protocol goes into force, any further changes to the protocol, such as those noted above, must then be agreed to formally as amendments.

Whither Japan, Australia, Canada?

With the conclusion of COP-7, attention now turns to ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Ratification requires 55 nations and in addition these must include nations that comprised at least 55 percent of Annex I greenhouse gas emissions in 1990. Over forty nations have already ratified the protocol, but only Romania among Annex I nations has officially submitted its ratification. So reaching 55 percent of Annex I emissions is the only challenge. The major question marks are Japan, Australia, and Canada.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi signaled his governments intention to proceed with ratification at a meeting with his governments Global Warming Prevention Headquarters staff on November 12, according to a Kyodo News Service story. The Prevention Headquarters released a statement laying out the steps it will take to prepare for ratification. Included in the statement was this exhortation: “[I]t is vital that each and every person in Japan changes his or her lifestyle in order to prevent global warming….”

Kyodo also reported on November 13 that Environment Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi had asked to meet with Keidanrenthe Federation of Economic Organizationsto seek support from business and industry. Yomiuri Shimbun reported the same day that industry remained opposed to ratification because higher energy costs would damage Japans international competitiveness. Industry leaders are not proposing, however, that Japan withdraw from the protocol. Instead, “We need to step up our efforts to urge Washington to return to the Protocol,” Yotaro Kobayishi, chairman of Japans Association of Corporation Executives, told the newspaper.

Although the Japanese economy appears headed for depression after a decade of recessions, it is hard to see how Japan can meet its Kyoto target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 without severe economic pain. Japan reacted to the OPEC oil boycott in the 1970s by forcing energy efficiency and conservation measures. Thus there is little “low-hanging fruit” to be picked. Emissions increases since 1990 have come almost entirely from transportation and households. Manufacturing emissions have gone up only one percent since 1990.

In Australia, the Liberal-National coalitions narrow election victory on November 10 returns Prime Minister John Howards government to office for a third term. Although Australia was given major concessions in Marrakesh, first indications are that Howard remains unlikely to move forward with ratification as long as the United States stays on the sidelines.

The Canadian government of Prime Minister Jean Chretien has been a major booster of the protocol throughout the negotiations, but this enthusiasm conceals two obstacles to ratification. First, as the head of a major economic forecasting institute told Cooler Heads, “It will be economic suicide if Canada ratifies Kyoto without the U. S. And there must be some people in the government who understand that.” Second, although the national government can ratify, under Canadas highly devolved federal system implementation will be impossible without the co-operation and support of the provincial governments. The government of Alberta has so far been most unco-operative and indeed hostile to regulating carbon dioxide emissions. Not co-incidentally, Alberta holds vast hydrocarbon reserves, far larger than the other provinces combined.

Richard Paton, president of the Canadian Chemical Producers Association told the Financial Post (November 12) that the Canadian government was engaged in “wishful thinking” if it believed that Canada can meet its emissions target. Paton spoke on behalf of a broad coalition of Canadian businesses. The coalition estimates that Canada will be 25 percent over its Kyoto target by 2010.

U.S. Emissions Soar in 2000; New Hampshire Special Interests Agree on Multi-pollutant Bill

by William Yeatman on November 13, 2001

in Kyoto Negotiations

U.S. Emissions Soar in 2000

A new report by the Department of Energys Energy Information Administration shows that U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases increased by 2.5 percent over 1999 levels in 2000. That is a significant increase from the average yearly increase of 1.3 percent from 1990 to 2000. EIA attributes the increase “to strong growth in carbon dioxide emissions [3.1 percent] due to more normal weather, decreased hydroelectric power generation that was replaced by fossil-fuel power generation, and strong economic growth (a 4.1-percent increase in gross domestic product).”

Overall, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2000 were about 14 percent higher than in 1990, the baseline year used in the Kyoto Protocol. The U.S. emission reduction target under Kyoto is 7 percent below 1990 levels. According to the EIA study, “Since 1990, U.S. emissions have increased slightly faster than the average annual growth in population (1.2 percent) but more slowly than the growth in energy consumption (1.6 percent), electric power generation (2.3 percent), or gross domestic product (3.2 percent),” indicating continued improvements in energy efficiency.

The growth rate in carbon dioxide emissions in 2000 was the second highest of the last decade with 1996 seeing a 3.4 percent increase. The study notes, “Although short-term changes in carbon dioxide emissions can result from temporary variations in weather, power generation fuel mixes, and the economy, in the longer term their growth is driven by population, energy use, and income, as well as the carbon intensity of energy use (carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy consumed).”

The study can be found at www.eia.doe.gov.

New Hampshire Special Interests Agree on Multi-pollutant Bill

New Hampshires utilities, conservation groups, and government leaders have reached a compromise on new legislation that will force its three fossil-fuel power plants to further cut the emissions of three pollutantssulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercuryplus carbon dioxide.

“This amendment is a common-sense approach to the problem of pollution coming from older, fossil-fuel burning plants that have been grandfathered under federal law,” said New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen. “The revised Clean Power Act employs proven national market-based strategies for cost-effectively reducing pollution and sets aggressive targets for reducing that pollution.”

Shaheen also stated that New Hampshire will continue to work with other states to pressure the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force other power plants in the country, particularly those in the Midwest, to reduce emissions, which she claims affect her state. “Thats why Congress needs to pass a rigorous national law on this issue,” Shaheen said (Union Leader, November 7, 2001).

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