Coal, cars and climate. Photo by Marcin Wichery.

This week delegates from more than 190 countries will meet in Poland to discuss climate change and a successor treaty for the expiring Kyoto Protocol.

In a sign of the challenges associated with forging any international agreement about how to act, they will find a country – and a region – that are torn by internal quibbles over climate change policies.

The Poznan meeting has been organized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and takes place in preparation for a planned climate change conference in Copenhagen in 2009.  At the Copenhagen meeting, a new international climate change treaty may be ratified to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.  

Bridging the differences of opinion about how to respond to climate change, however, could take at least another year or longer.

On the eve of next week’s Poznan conference, The New York Times’ blog Green Inc. has reported a squabble in Poland over the economic costs of implementing an emissions permitting system proposed for the European Union.  

The tiff began with the release of a September report that argued the permitting system would curb the country’s economic growth.  

Along with Italy, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk campaigned at a EU meeting in October against a new package of climate change policies, including the more stringent permitting platform.

This month, though, another report was released that found the proposed changes in climate policy could result in economic gains for Poland.  The new report’s findings, according to Green Inc., have been rejected by a number of Polish politicians, but embraced by The Polish Climate Coalition, an organization of environmental groups.

Meanwhile, the battle over climate policy literally spilled onto the streets of Poznan last week, as miners and Greenpeace activists scuffled near a bulldozer used for coal transport, according to Softpedia.

At the EU’s October meeting to discuss climate policies, criticism from Poland and Italy led the regional body to delay a final decision on the proposed 2020 goals for emissions reductions until the union’s next meeting in December.    

Unlike many other EU member states, Poland depends heavily on coal, using it to meet more than 90 percent of its energy needs.   

Poland, of course, is not the only EU country with industries that could lose out in a new climate change policy regime.  Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria all joined Poland’s campaign against the EU’s 2020 goals at the October meeting.

And, just last week, Germany began its own dissent, demonstrating that policy arguments about climate change defy any clean split between old and new, or wealthy and less wealthy, EU members.

Although Germany has traditionally been one of the EU’s economic powerhouses, its automobile industry would be hit hard by the proposed “polluter pay” principle.  Unlike in France or Italy, which manufacture compact cars, Germany’s carmakers are saddled with production lines that are geared to build larger vehicles.

All of these different positions – between Polish report writers, miners and Greenpeace activists on the one hand and between EU members on the other – are illustrative of what awaits delegates in both Poznan and Copenhagen.

As developed and developing nations endeavor to draft a new international treaty with binding emissions commitments, they will have to confront how their differing policy positions reflect the different challenges they each face in a competitive world market.     

It’s been another busy week for pronouncements and announcements about climate change.  Indeed, it seems with each passing day since Senator Barack Obama was declared President-elect, the Google alert lists for ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ grow longer.

At the start of the week, President-elect Obama signaled that climate change is a priority issue for his administration by addressing via video message an international conference on global warming hosted by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. 

In his message, Obama reiterated his plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and pave the way for deeper reductions by 2050 with investments in clean energy. 

According to The Boston Globe, Obama said in his message:

“Few challenges facing America – and the world – are more urgent than combating climate change,” he said in the video. “Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security.”

Obama continued that “too often, Washington has failed to show the same kind of leadership. That will change when I take office. My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process.”

He also told the conference participants he has asked members of Congress to attend the upcoming meeting of world leaders in Poland to discuss a new climate-change treaty and report back to him. 

Meanwhile, five major U.S. companies – Nike, Starbucks, Levi Strauss, Sun Microsystems and Timberland – called for congressional action on climate and energy policies in 2009.  The companies are working in partnership with Ceres, a national network of investors and environmental organizations. 

With the Ceres network, they have launched a new business coalition to lobby for clean energy legislation, according to The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch. 

To top it all off, on the same day that the U.S. Senate said farewell to its longest serving Republican, and oil industry favorite, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, a shakeup in the power structure of the U.S. House of Representatives took place that could speed passage of such legislation. 

In the shakeup, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) wrested the committee chairmanship position for the House Energy and Commerce Commitee from long-time chairman Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), who has frequently stalled action on climate change in the past.  For background on Rep. Dingell’s actions in the House, check out Frank O’Donnell’s post on Grist.

The groups involved include the Environmental Defense Fund, the League of Conservation Voters, the National Audubon Society, and the National Wildlife Federation, among others.

According to the groups, the policy changes proposed are necessary to stem increases in the earth’s average surface temperature to 2 degrees Fahrenheit, a threshold that many scientists think it would be dangerous to cross.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that temperatures can likely be held below a 2-degree rise if developed countries cut their emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, and by 80 percent by 2050.

The green group’s recommendations follow:

1. Work with Congress to pass legislation in 2009 that revitalizes our economy and delivers energy and climate security –

• Set mandatory limits that reduce US global warming pollution consistent with keeping further warming below 2° F, including ambitious domestic reductions targets for 2020 and 2050, a cap and auction program and other policies to make additional reductions at home and abroad, and a prompt science-based review to accelerate reductions if necessary.

• Auction the carbon permits and use the revenue for investing in a massive clean energy transition, creating green jobs, protecting vulnerable communities and natural resources, and providing consumer relief, especially to those most in need.

• Move America towards a 100% clean electricity future by maximizing energy efficiency, modernizing the grid, and greatly expanding power generation from renewable energy resources.

• Get America moving by investing in clean transportation infrastructure that cuts global warming pollution.

2. Tackle global warming using the executive branch’s powers under existing laws –

• Grant the California waiver, allowing California and 13 other states to enforce their standards for global warming pollution from vehicles.

• Use the Clean Air Act to declare that global warming pollution endangers public health and welfare and to set standards for power plants, vehicles, and fuels.

• Use our energy laws to strengthen fuel economy and appliance efficiency standards.

• Order every agency to consider global warming in its actions affecting energy use and managing natural resources and to develop a coordinated, interagency natural resources adaptation strategy.

3. Restore America’s global leadership on global warming –

• Demonstrate US action by setting mandatory limits on our own global warming pollution through new legislation and implementation of existing laws.

• Work with other nations to reach a new climate treaty that keeps further warming below 2° F at the Copenhagen climate summit at the end of 2009.

• Lead a worldwide effort to finance clean energy deployment, forest conservation, and adaptation to unavoidable climate impacts.

“The global financial crisis is most immediate; the more existential is climate change. The urgency of the first is no excuse for neglecting the second. To the contrary, it is an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone,” reads the op-ed written by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

At the same time, Philippines President Gloria Macapapagal-Arroyo issued an independent call for a new climate change summit later this month.

The summit – The Carbon Cutting Congress versus Climate Change – will bring together 350 stake holders from throughout the Philippines. The group is expected to draft a declaration representing the country’s position on how to respond to climate change.

“Global warming and climate change perhaps is the most engaging and the most dangerous problem of the human community today,” a presidential advisor told a news conference at the Palace.

The declaration created at the summit will then be carried by a Philippine delegation to the next United Nations climate change conference, which is scheduled to take place in Poland in December.

The December conference is expected to bring together around 8,000 representatives from all over the world to discuss an international response to global warming.

After two long years of electioneering, the American political climate seemed to change in a moment on Tuesday night when Barack Obama became the next president-elect of the United States. 

And although he won’t officially take the reins until January, world leaders are already calling for him to act fast on climate change. 

On Wednesday, The Globe and Mail reported that Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is “proposing to strike a joint climate-change pact” with Obama.  Such a pact could establish common standards for carbon emissions trading systems, and meet some of U.S. energy demand with supplies from oil sands in Ottawa. 

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Germany’s Foreign Minister called for Obama to work closely with Europe to tackle climate change at a conference today. 

http://envirovote.us/

While international cooperation will be critical to deal with climate change, cooperation between the White House and Congress, as well as with state-level officials across the country, will be equally important.

So, now that America will soon have a president who is likely to act on climate change, will it have a Congress and state leaders who are ready to do the same?

It’s not a question with an easy answer.  But a new Web site, Envirovote, takes a first step toward assessing what the new political climate will mean for the world’s natural climate. 

The site is tracking gubernatorial and U.S. congressional races across the nation, and as the results continue to come in from Tuesday’s votes, rating what they mean for the environment on a “green meter.”

It’s the work of two journalism students – Ryan Mark and Brian Boyer – at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.  To create the meter, which currently tabulates that 248 of Tuesday’s 458 winners have green credentials, the pair tallied how many of the winning candidates were endorsed by environmental groups. 

Then, they compared the numbers of greenies elected to previous election years.  Currently, it sits at an 18 percent increase over the last election cycle, with 23 races still outstanding. 

The site also has a stand-alone green meter for each of the states, and highlights the results for a few key races. 

All in all, it’s a great way to aggregate the environmental impact of the election. 

This is so HOT. 

And I almost missed it.  But I took a minute to visit SolveClimate, an excellent blog about climate change, earlier tonight and found a notice about the new PBS documentary “HEAT” just in time to tune in. 

The full program, which was produced by the Frontline producer Martin Smith, is available to watch for free on the PBS Web site. 

“I have reported on the Cold War, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the rise of Al Qaeda, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Smith. “But nothing matches climate change in scope and severity.”

The report, split into four chapters, investigates how governments and major companies, such as Exxon Mobil and General Motors, are responding to the threat of climate change. 

It starts with a brief introduction about climate-change impacts that are already being witnessed, and then continues to China and India, where development is expected to send the world’s carbon dioxide emissions skyrocketing over the next few decades. 

And from there the central question has been posed: if developing countries currently plan on using coal and other fossil fuels to bring a higher living standard to their populations, what are developed countries doing to demonstrate another way?

To answer the question, Smith presses the auto and coal industries for information about their efforts to develop electric cars and “clean coal.”  Pairing the two industries was a wise journalistic choice. 

Besides the fact that cars and coal are the largest sources of CO2 emissions, by setting the two side-by-side Smith is also able to draw a comparison between the ways that cleaner technologies have been pursued by both industries.  At the same time, he is able to pull in how the United States government has contributed to these pursuits, or non-pursuits. 

What emerges is not a reassuring picture.

While the electric car actually made it to market, it was “killed” by the Big Three automakers, and the U.S. government failed to intervene.  And, though “clean coal” is dependent on the controversial process of storing CO2 below ground, the U.S. government has invested huge sums in its development. 

In fact, Smith gets David Ratcliffe, the CEO of the utility Southern Company, which is one of the world’s largest emitters, to admit:

“We haven’t even come close to defining what are the legal liabilities and what are the permitting requirements” for removing carbon from coal and sequestering it underground. 

Along with the full program, the Web site features individual interviews with many of the key players that weighed in during “Heat.”  T. Boone Pickens – the oil billionaire who has been much in the news as of late for his efforts to develop wind energy and snatch up water rights – is in the lineup.  New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Warner, and Jeffrey Sachs are also included, along with some 11 others. 

The Web site also provides information about how much venture capitalists are investing into various alternative energy sources (solar and biofuels are the big winners).  And there is a breakdown of the presidential candidates’ positions on climate change and energy policies.