The following article was initially published on ^CanDoBetter.net 20091218 by Tigerquoll.

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Copenhagen was a deadline without a plan.

Like Vikings, they rushed in. Too many issues, too many causes, too many delegates, too much reading, too many options and yet forced to deliver a global consensus solution in just 2 weeks!

Copenhagen’s approach ought to have been pragmatic. It needed to come down from the stratosphere in idealistic thinking to have focused on what could be the fastest means to offer the greatest reduction in greenhouse gases commencing in 2010.

Money is the obvious facilitator. The G11 response to the Global Financial Crisis ‘Mark I’ demonstrated the sheer scale of quick cash available from developed nations. Since developing nations need the cash, therein lies an obvious negotiating connector.

Try this scenario… rank countries on the basis of their aggregate carbon emissions and also carbon emissions per capita.  The size of reduction responses and the amount of funding for carbon reduction programmes should be proportional on both bases.  That is, the worst emitting developed nations pay more, and the worst emitting/deforesting developing nations get compensated more not to log.

Pay compensation to countries to stop deforestation is simply a matter of money and there is certainly enough of that around it seems. This should start by Christmas – calculate the forest area, calculate the compensation value, sign the agreement, developing countries contribute to a trust account, transfer the funds electronically to the host country of the forests, send in UN monitors to enforce the agreement to make sure no trees fall.  If Copenhagen just did that, it would have achieve a significant inroad – 20% reduction in one year or something in that order.

News of the pledge by US based Climate Progress of US$1 billion over three years towards decreasing deforestation is an excellent outcome. The funding will go to developing countries that develop REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) programs.

But horse trading in emissions is pure problem avoidance.  Perhaps a less patriarchal culture may have helped too. Perhaps less Viking patriarchal culture and perhaps a more matriarchal approach to negotiation would have achieved better. The alpha male approach has clearly failed.

‘COP15’ was also a silly name. It just meant the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference. Rather than the meaningless ‘COP15’ (‘Conference of Parties’ #15) , such a vital global forum series deserves a more accessible and meaningful name in order to better engage with ordinary folk.

Perhaps instead a better name should be ‘Greenhouse 2009’, then work towards ‘Greenhouse 2010’, ‘Greenhouse 2011’ – for each year, setting and achieving a distinct global reduction outcome by legal treaty. Such numbering and annual frequency would better convey the sense of urgency.

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This is Malaysia

Don’t holiday in Malaysia. Don’t fly Malaysian Airlines.

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Article by Tigerquoll initially posted on CanDoBetter.net on 20090226:

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The Fire was nearly out..so why was it abandoned by bushfire management?

The 2009 Wilsons Promontory bushfire was reportedly sparked by lightning striking the remote Cathedral Range on the east coast just north of Sealers Cove on Sunday 8th February 2009.

Witnesses say that by the following Friday 13th, the fire was still localised on the Range and all but out. This is confirmed by the following satellite photo taken by NASA’s MODIS Rapid Response Team on the 13th. The satellite takes high-resolution images of visible, shortwave and near-infrared light of Victoria twice daily.

Wilsons Promontory on 13th Feb 2009

showing scattered cloud over the Prom and on the east coast (right side) a small red (burnt) patch with only a single column of smoke noticeable.

© NASA 13-Feb-09

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Daily updates of this fire can be found at the following URL:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/world/australiafire_20090223.html

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The Prom was left to burn

Over the subsequent days the fire continued to burn then the winds increased. Now, more than two weeks later most of the northern half of ‘the Prom’ has been burnt. The vegetation has gone. The Victorian Country Fire Authority (CFA) website today reports 23,800 hectares burnt out. The Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) website shows the following map of the burn (shaded area below).

© DSE Wilsons Promontory Media Map 24 Feb 09 12:30pm

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The fire has burnt the Cathedral Range, along the east coastline right across and along the Corner Inlet shoreline to Millers Landing. Affected sites are Vereker Creek, Whiskey Bay, Tongue Point, Monkey Point, Three Mile Point, Mt Roundback, Three Mile Beach, Mt Margaret, Lighthouse Point Lighthouse, Mt Hunter and parts of Darby Swamp. Wilsons Promontory National Park is just one of the many important natural and wilderness areas of Victoria devastated by these current bushfires.

Wilsons Promontory where thousands of hectares have been burnt

© Photo. John Woudstra 18-Feb-09

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Frequent Fire History

In the case of the Prom, this is the second time in four years that fire has burnt through this northern region. On 21 March 2005, a twenty hectare prescribed burn was lit east of Tidal River. It escaped three times over a period of twelve days and burnt out 6,000 hectares of native bushland in the National Park.

A key investigative report was undertaken by Commissioner, Emergency Services, Bruce Esplin, (the Esplin 2005 Report) into a number of fires over previous years. In the case of this DSE prescribed burn in the Prom, the investigations found that the prescribed burn was poorly planned and after ignition, was not patrolled properly.

A notable finding of the report was that: “There remains considerable community uncertainty about the effectiveness of the prescribed burning program, and what changes, if any have occurred in the amount of prescribed burning undertaken since 2003”.( para 33)

Yet prescribed burning continues each year across Australia, not in the small mosaics, but on a grand scale and with a record of frequently getting out of control. On top of the 6,000 hectares four years ago, just a few days ago we hear of over 23,000 hectares of the Prom has now been burnt. Fires in the Prom also occurred in 2001.

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Impacts on Flora and Fauna

The Prom has diverse vegetation communities including warm temperate and cool temperate rainforest, tall open forests, woodlands, heathlands, and swamp and coastal communities. There are rare stands of White Mangrove, being the most southerly stands of mangroves in the world.

The Prom is rich its diversity of native mammals with over thirty species having been recorded, many of which are either rare or threatened. These include the Long-nosed Potoroo, Swamp Antechinus, White-footed Dunnart, Broad-toothed Rat, Feather-tailed Glider and Eastern Pygmy-possum. “One of the most significant habitats of the New Holland Mouse also occurs within the park, and a number of species of whale have been sighted in the waters off its coastline.” The Prom also provides habitat to populations of Eastern Grey Kangaroos, koalas, wombats and emus.

The heathlands, influenced by the frequency and intensity of fire, are rich in species and provide habitats for a variety of fauna, including many threatened species. [Source: Parks Victoria website]

However, bushfire research across Australia has shown that while some native flora are fire tolerant and/or can recover and in some case thrive in the immediate years following a fire, other species have not adapted and so they become displaced and can die out. (DSE website).

While the Victorian Royal Commission is focusing on the fire management measures to protect life and private and public property associated with the 2009 Victorian Bushfires, the impacts on flora and fauna seem to have been overlooked. Some species may not survive if fires are too frequent, as the plants are unable to reach maturity and produce sufficient seed before the next fire episode. (DSE website).

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Threatening Process

Little is known about the recovery of fauna diversity as a consequence of such widespread bushfires, be they caused by lightning, intentionally or otherwise. But given the scale of these current fires across the Prom crossing from shore to shore, it is probable than many native animals, as in many other parts of Victoria, will have been burnt alive in the fires and that their already rare populations will now have declined substantially and be at risk of local extinction.

In respect to Australia’s fauna, given that there we now have a fraction of the intact native habitat compared with pre-1788, how can anyone argue that allowing bushfires to get out of control is not a threatening process?

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Originally posted February 23rd, 2009 by Tigerquoll on CanDoBetter.net

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In Victoria in 1992, some bureaucrat got the idea of changing the name (and focus) of the Department of Conservation and Environment to a Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, then in 1996 to a Department of Natural Resources and Environment, then in 2003 a split to (1) a Victorian Department of Primary Industries and (2) a Department of Sustainability and Environment.

[Source: http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/asaw/biogs/A002037b.htm – Note: this link has subsequently been altered by the University of Melbourne to protect its petty government funding and disclosing its forestry bias]

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Currently this government department is known by an obscure acronym: ‘DSE‘.  But those out in the ‘tree face’ genuinely caring for old growth forests of Victoria, discard this acronym to mean either…’Don’t Support Environment‘ or simply the ‘Department of Sparks and Embers‘.  The reason in empirical.  The DSE has a reputation for Forestry Logging bias – facilitating old growth logging, habitat deforestation and related bush arson.

Meanwhile, across the border in NSW, in 2007, the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) was changed to the Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC) so as to make it look like the NSW Labor Government publicly cared about climate change by delegating a name change.

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While pandering to ‘climate change’ populism, the fundamental concept of ‘conservation’ has been dismissed by government.

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All the DEC business cards and logos were changed to DECC at what impact on climate change?  At what cost this extra ‘C‘?  The cost has been to remove the Conservation imperative!

Rather than forming a dedicated research and response organisation to focus on climate change, the conservation was dropped from the existing department. Cynically, including ‘climate change’ as a name of one of its departments, government must feel cosy sending a message it is addressing climate change. For a while the department was headed up by The NSW Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water – a bucket of outdoor type activities that sounded good together.

Across the border in South Australia, they have the Department for the Environment and Heritage (DEH), which sounds borrowed from the federal Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (another collective bucket). It is hard to see how with so many diverse portfolios, a minister can dedicate any leadership to making genuine improvements to what’s left of Australia’s intact natural environment and its desperate need for conservation.

With all the money spent on names changing, the tens of thousands could have gone into on-ground conservation activities like fox control programmes.

For United Nations credibility, Cancun had to be better than the Copenhagen shemozzle.  Remember when US President Obama’s last minute token promise failed because he hadn’t secured a US  Congress mandate.

A memorandum of understanding between the ‘have’ nations and the ‘have not’ nations seems to be a follow-the leader approach to dealing with human-caused climate change – aka ‘pollution’ rebranded.  Problem is the responsible leader, the United States is AWOL, delusional that its 20th Century economics can restore its capital prowess in our 21st Century society.

Assuming global warming is real and being caused by human carbon emissions, the overarching aim of the United Nations is to reduce carbon emissions and so minimise global warming and its consequential problems of sea-level rise, mass extinctions and associated climate catastrophes – droughts, floods, heatwaves, massive storms and exponential human misery.

Toward this ideal, COP16 has been the 16th annual Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) and the 6th Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP). This year COP16 was hosted in Cancun, Mexico.

So what was the outcome of the conference this time around?

Well, according a summary by The Climate Institute the delegate at COP16 broadly accepted the ‘Cancun Agreement‘ on 14th December 2010. Three important areas of achievement should be noted:

1. Anchoring of national mitigation commitments: formal recognition and ‘anchoring’ of existing pollution targets and commitments from all major polluting countries, covering around 80 per cent of global emissions. This is the first time pollution commitments from US, China and all other major economies (both developed and developing) have been captured in a formal UN agreement.
2. New ‘Green Climate Fund’: agreement to establish a new fund to help mobilise US$100 billion a year by 2020 to support low pollution economic development; protecting tropical forests and helping the world’s most vulnerable people build resilience to change impacts. However, there was no decision on how to raise the public and private money for this fund.
3. Improved transparency: measures to improve transparency and verification of domestic efforts to reduce pollution, including a process for international review of countries’ actions by technical experts.

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According to Greenpeace, “the talks did not deliver a global climate deal but have placed the building blocks for that strong deal to be created.” There are acknowledgements of the gap between commitments on emissions cuts and scientific evidence, the establishment of a climate fund and an agreement on REDD [United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries].

However, we are still missing the actual commitments on lower emissions, a way to deliver that climate fund and some critical parts of the REDD agreement to make it a strong one. Now we must continue to demand our leaders redouble their efforts to drive change at home.

So in other words, nations are gradually coming around to the climate change problem, but still a bit slow working out what to do.  They’re getting there.

There are positive signs of progress, and moreso than the token promises by the United States like at Copenhagen.  For instance, there is at least now general agreement that greater pollution reduction effort is required.  There are sources of financing by the World Bank to make this happen. There are now common accounting rules, and a legal framework.

Tangible promises have also been committed by Mexico, the host nation of this year’s conference, including a promise to reduce 51 million tons of CO₂ in 2012, securing a US$500 million loan with the World Bank to finance technological assistance and increase scientific knowledge in relation with current sources of emissions and carbon sinks.  Mexico has also promised to ensure that in 2012, 26% of the electricity produced will come from renewable sources.  Mexico will also receive US$15 million from the Norwegian government to reduce emissions through soil conservation and reforestation.

While the worst polluter and most conspicuous carbon consumer, the United States, has been AWOL and navel-gazing; this time China has promised to cut 45% of its greenhouse gases by 2020.

However, the conference has not been without its criticism.  The editor of the Sydney Morning Herald makes the following observations:

“There are no binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the world is not on course yet to avoid the worst climate change scenarios. Developed and developing countries still cannot agree to concerted action, developing countries arguing they should not have to bear an equal burden, because they have not had polluting industries as long, or on the same scale, as the developed world.

The US and China are still circling each other warily, and (President) Obama is now forced to negotiate any agreement through a Congress that, following the midterm elections, will contain significantly increased numbers of climate-change sceptics and Sinophobes.”

[Source: ‘ Back on course after Cancun‘, Sydney Morning Herald, editorial, 14-Dec-2010, page 10, ]

It’s all happening one year at a time.  Next year’s conference will be in Durban, South Africa.

In between, some individual countries are already moving unilaterally.  May be the United States could show some leadership next round; dare this mean Republican warmongers pulling back from high carbon- intensive imperial war games in Afghanistan and Korea!

The U.S.S. George Washington has left its home port and is sailing to the Korean Peninsula. (Please not again)

The Aircraft Carrier, with 75 fighter aircraft and 6000 Sailors and Marines will be participating in exercises in the region.  What will be the carbon footprint of this ego?  Meanwhile, North Korea said on Friday it would strike again at the South if a live-fire drill by Seoul on a disputed island went ahead, with an even stronger response than last month’s shelling that killed four people.  The North had said its November shelling was a response to South Korean “provocations” after an artillery battery on the island fired in what Seoul said was a routine drill.

How delinquent?  So 20th Century imperial!