A Greenpeace activist dressed in a polar bear costume hugs a globe in sweltering heat outside the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Nusa Dua, Bali island December 3, 2007. REUTERS/Supri
A view the opening ceremony of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Nusa Dua, Bali, December 3, 2007. REUTERS/Murdani Usman
An armed Indonesian policeman stands guard in front of a U.N. Climate Change Conference billboard in Nusa Dua, Bali island December 2, 2007. Delegates from about 190 nations gathered in Bali on Sunday to try to build on a fragile understanding that the fight against global warming needs to be expanded to all nations with a deal in 2009.Photograph by : Reuters
Heat on Rudd ahead of visit to Bali climate talks
Marian Wilkinson and Mark Forbes, Nusa Dua, Bali
December 6, 2007
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The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, signalled his support for developed countries, including Australia, agreeing to making deep cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions in the next 12 years.
In a significant move last night the Australian delegation to the UN climate talks stated it "fully supports" the proposal that developed countries need to cut their greenhouse gas emission by 25 to 40% by 2020.
The public statement came after China and Indonesia demanded at the UN climate change talks in Bali yesterday that developed nations who have ratified the Kyoto Protocol stick to this understanding reached earlier this year.
Last night Australia publicly aligned itself with the nations under the Kyoto Protocol that have agreed to consider these cuts, distancing the new Rudd Government further from the US position. Saying Australia "fully supports" the position, the delegation said Australia was, "happy to proceed on this basis".
http://www.theage.com.au/news/climate-watch/heat-on-rudd-ahead-of-visit-to-bali-climate-talks/2007/12/05/1196812829394.html
Scientists issue declaration at Bali
International researchers put their names to a proposal for emissions cuts.
Narelle Towie
More than 200 international climate scientists issued a declaration today urging politicians at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali to agree on strong targets for tackling climate change.
Global greenhouse-gas emissions need to be reduced by at least 50% below 1990 levels by 2050, the declaration says. For comparison, the Kyoto Protocol aims for a reduction in developed nations of at least 5% below 1990 levels by 2012.
They declare that the goal "must be to limit global warming to no more than 2 ºC above the pre-industrial temperature". Many countries have already taken this limit as a benchmark figure for attempting to avoid dangerous levels of climate change, which would put millions of people around the world at risk from extreme-weather events.
Drawing on data from the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, they note that to achieve this, greenhouse-gas concentrations need to be stabilized at a level well below 450 parts per million of CO2 equivalents. This could mean peaking at 475 p.p.m. and then going down to 400 p.p.m. over the next 15 years, says co-signatory Matthew England of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
Even aiming for a stable level of 400 p.p.m. means that "we are only giving ourselves a three-quarter chance" of guaranteeing a less than 2 °C rise, says England.
These numbers have all been discussed before (see for example Dangerous climate change). There is still significant uncertainty when it comes to understanding what level of greenhouse-gas cuts would lead to what level of climate change, and scientists concede that there are no guarantees that the targets in this declaration will be sufficient to avoid dangerous consequences.
Some researchers have recently questioned the wisdom of setting firm targets for greenhouse-gas levels, saying it would be more useful to continually adjust targets as time passes and the consequences of our cuts become apparent (see Climate sensitivity inherently unpredictable).
Watch for ongoing news from the UN Climate Conference in Bali in our special .
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071206/full/news.2007.361.html
‘Climate refugees’ seek help in Bali
Inquirer
Last updated 03:10am (Mla time) 12/05/2007
BALI, INDONESIA -- As scientists warn of rising seas from global warming, more and more reports of flooding from unprecedented high tides are coming in from villages like the one on Papua New Guinea’s New Britain island. It’s happening not only to low-lying atolls, but to shorelines from Alaska to India.
This week, by boat, bus and jetliner, a handful of villagers are converging on Bali to seek help from the more than 180 nations gathered at the United Nations’ climate conference. The coastal dwellers’ plight -- once theoretical -- appears all too real in 2007, and is spreading and worsening.
Scientists project that seas expanding from warmth and from the runoff of melting land ice may displace millions of coastal inhabitants worldwide in this century if heat-trapping industrial emissions are not sharply curtailed.
A Europe-based research group, the Global Governance Project, will propose at the two-week Bali meeting that an international fund be established to resettle “climate refugees.”
Summarizing the plight of islanders from Papua New Guinea, Ursula Rakova said: “We don’t have vehicles, an airport. We’re merely victims of what is happening with the industrialized nations emitting ‘greenhouse gases.”’
The sands of Rakova’s islands, the Carteret atoll northeast of Bougainville island, have been giving way to the sea for 20 years. The saltwater has ruined the villagers’ taro gardens, a food staple, and has contaminated their wells and flooded homesteads. The remote islands now suffer from chronic hunger.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view_article.php?article_id=104930
