image: greghardwick.com.au

Anyone who has attended meetings will know — the greater the number of people, the less chance there is of obtaining an outcome.

Therefore the outcome of Copenhagen should come as no surprise. Governments from wealthy countries know that voters are easily swayed by economic arguments. Poorer countries want more for their people. While we all argue about money, man-made climate change will worsen.

As our planet’s human population increases we face a growing problem. The wealthier we all become, the more we want and the more we consume. More people consuming more of the earth’s finite ‘resources’ leads to only one outcome – less for everyone.

The science of climate change has taught us two things. Firstly, we need to be smarter, be prepared for change and focus upon cleaner, renewable energy sources. Our very short love affair with fossil fuels is over and is not worth one tear.

Secondly — many people do not like change, they use denial to avoid serious problems and know that many of us are swayed by fear. Radical politicians will seize on this and increasingly make promises they cannot deliver on.

The way forward is not something we are going to be given by our politicians. We are going to have to show our politicians what we are capable of. Great social changes have always been peaceful and well supported by the population. However, we will need to constantly remind our governments, and those seeking to be in government, that they serve us, and deceitful behaviour for the sake of claiming or clinging to power, will not be tolerated.

Now is not the time for blaming others for our woes or arguing whose way is best. It’s all too easy to point out the wrongs of someone from a distant nation or from a group who you do not associate with. Throwing stones over the fence is easy when you don’t see your victim, but stand face to face and it becomes so much harder.

In 2010 we need to stand face to face and unite everyone who wants a fairer, cleaner future. It is possible, if only we dare to try.

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Do yourself a favour this Christmas. Turn the air conditioner off, put the mobile phone away and get outside and talk to someone new. See you at the Woodford Folk Festival!

Wishing you all the best over the Christmas break and we look forward to bringing you more eco news in 2010. Eco online will take a short break, before returning in mid-January.

Keep safe and look after one another.

Excitement and nervous energy turned to frustration and angst as thousands waited outside the Bella Centre, with NGOs, IGOs, media and official party delegates all swarming around the centre to get to work. With the heads of state of 192 countries arriving this week, security has been tightened and any forms of unrest are quickly suppressed.

Over 100,000 protesters fill the streets of Copenhagen with life, colour and noise. “A large, colourful and beautiful showing of humanity, of people’s desire for climate justice,” says Brianna Cotter spokesperson for the AVAAZ Action Factory.

After a weekend of cultural activities galore including the Flood Copenhagen march of over 100,000 people through the city’s heart, climate concerts, film festivals and flash actions filling the city with a new energy. Snow began to fall across the city yesterday, but just as the temperature drops, things are just starting to heat up inside the Bella Centre.

Inside the centre, the Australian Youth Delegation met with Penny Wong in Australia’s head office, with a warm and encouraging reception by the Climate Change Minister. They asked how the government planned to protect vulnerable communities against climate catastrophe, and whether Australia would be ready to take a leading role — the Minister answered carefully while giving little away. The Minister took a more realistic line, “these are negotiations, not a supermarket”, and indicating compromises were inevitable.

Minister Wong did recognise the time had come for “more actions than words”, and said the government was conscious of viewing climate change “through the prism of disadvantage”, inflicted on the most vulnerable Australians and Pacific Islanders.

The Australian Youth Delegation tell leaders to “wake up”, in their bed-in action outside the plenary hall on the anniversary of John Lennon’s death singing, “all we are saying is cut greenhouse gas, all we are saying is give youth a chance”.

The youth presence has been reduced this week however, with numbers being restricted to 15,000 for “security reasons”. While last week saw hundreds of spot actions including a Sleep-In, Candle Vigil with Desmond Tutu, Freeze Protest, songs and chants and other creative actions, the Bella Centre this week has been flooded again with suits, laptops and rich foreign  accents.

Outside the centre, ‘climateers’ are continuing their fight and raising their voice louder. With anti-riot powers under new Danish legislation in full force, police say they will not make unnecessary arrests but warn protesters to engage in peaceful activities as much as possible.

The vibe in Copenhagen changes constantly. From hopeful optimism in the lead-up to unyielding resilience in the days following, to gradual disenchantment — people are now hoping the arrival of the heads of state this week will see some serious moving and shaking in the negotiation chambers. The intensified security levels certainly suggest something big is coming.

The AVAAZ Action Factory is looking at increasing the level of large, colourful and vibrant actions to keep leaders on their toes.

“This week we are focusing on drawing attention to vulnerable communities and developing countries, by way of rapid-response creative actions,” says Brianna Cotter, media spokesperson.

“We want to provide some translation between policy and humanity”, she said, by focusing on the humanitarian aspects of the crisis, of the stakes if a fair, ambitious and binding agreement is not reached this week.

So what should we expect to see this week? Well, we can await the media frenzy that will come with the arrival of political celebrities including Kevin Rudd, and Barack Obama. The most important meeting of humanity this century? Quite possibly.

All seem to recognise a need to prevent or correct an irreversible climate crises. An effective meeting of the minds by humanity’s leaders? Only time will tell. As Penny Wong says, we must await for this exchange of words to be followed by concrete actions by states.

I overheard a quote in passing yesterday, “nature cannot negotiate, we must negotiate on its behalf”.  And today (Dec14), the games officially begin. Let us hope that amid the power-play and media frenzy of it all, it is nature who wins at the end of the day.

Other Copenhagen related news

Local action starts as Copenhagen talks continue

Copenhagen: delegates urged to be visionary, courageous

What Rudd and Wong should take to Copenhagen

Climate change deniers have their heads in the sand. Illustration: Julie Fiedler www.studiojdesign.com.au

When faced with tragedy, atrocities or grief we humans, it appears, have a wonderful way of dealing with it. Denial.

In his book States of Denial, Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering, sociologist Stanley Cohen writes: “One common thread runs through many different stories of denial: people, organisations, governments or whole societies are presented with information that is too disturbing … the information is therefore somehow repressed, disavowed, pushed aside or misinterpreted”.

The information, including its implications, is totally avoided in a kind of self preservation tactic as we “bury our head in the sand”.  However the only legitimate use of the term denial, writes Cohen, is when someone is firstly aware of something, and then deliberately ignores it. To know and at the same time, not to know. Or, as he goes on to state: “information is selected to fit existing perceptual frames and information which is too threatening is shut out altogether”.

George Marshall, founder and director of projects at the UK’s Climate Outreach and Information Network believes Cohen’s research can be applied directly to climate change. As far back as 2001 Marshall wrote of our knowledge and awareness of climate change and “yet, at another level, we clearly refuse to recognise the implications of that knowledge”.

According to Marshall there are many valuable lessons to be learnt from psychoanalytical theory. Such as the way we can angrily deny there is a problem at all. Scan the online comments section of any article on climate change and you will certainly see the level of aggressive denial. Be that an outright denial of man-made climate change, or denial of particular facts and trends.

Another reaction is to blame others, to cast the responsibility onto someone else. An example might be the comments from the new British high commissioner to Australia, Baroness Valerie Amos. She expressed surprise about there being a debate on man-made climate change in Australia. “In the UK there is a degree of political consensus about what in broad terms needs to be done,” she said. In a sense, she is telling us that all is well in the UK and the problem only exists ‘over here’.

As Clive Hamilton and Tim Kasser stated in their paper, Psychological Adaptation to the Threats and Stresses of a Four Degree World, which they presented to the Four Degrees and Beyond conference, held at Oxford University in September this year, this behaviour is a “maladaptive coping strategy”.

“Blame-shifting is a form of moral disengagement whereby people disavow their responsibility for the problem or the solution. Denial of guilt is the first step to shifting blame onto others and is reflected in narratives such as ‘it’s not my fault because my country is small’ and my carbon footprint is smaller than others”.

But the reality is very different. As was reported in Issue 13 of Eco news a Cardiff University survey found 20 per cent of Britons are “hardline sceptics” while 40 per cent believe there are serious questions about the evidence. Growing levels of scepticism and denial it seems, are a global problem not confined to any one country.

So what about examples of denial closer to home?

The Rudd government calls it “the great moral issue of our time”, yet baulks at making the changes suggested by the scientists and encourages the continuation of coal. This, at a time when even big business believes those changes could be viewed as a form of risk management.

Even on an economic level the government appears to be following Cohen’s suggested patterns of denial.

Referring to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, Dr Richard Denniss from the Australia Institute wrote: “There is no economic case for the billions of taxpayers’ dollars that are to be given to the polluters and arguments about the need to protect our polluters are inconsistent with our longstanding strategy of lowering our trade protection to encourage other countries to follow suit”.

Family First Senator, Steve Fielding, recently called for a Royal Commission into whether climate change is man-made. This is known as a “denial of our agency” according to Marshall (a type of ‘I didn’t do it … did I?).

Yet, there is an overwhelming scientific consensus — about 97 percent of climate scientists, worldwide.  Recent reports such as The Copenhagen Diagnosis, written by 26 scientists, have warned that the 2007 IPCC predictions may be grossly understating the problem. Without significant mitigation, according to the report, global mean warming could reach as high as 7 degrees Celsius by 2100.

John Cook, a former physicist majoring in solar physics at the University of Queensland believes the reasons for denying the problem exists, or the unwillingness to make adequate changes, are varied.

“Some people don’t like the “big government” solution of cap and trade. Some are worried a global agreement to regulate carbon dioxide will lead to a one-world government,” he said.

“Basically, people don’t want to change their lifestyles. And as we get closer to actual laws regulating carbon dioxide, the opposition is intensifying.”

This is a trend we have witnessed before according to David McWilliams, an Irish economist, journalist, and presenter of the recent ABC TV documentary series, Addicted To Money.

Speaking with Phillip Adams on his long-running ABC radio program Late Night Live, McWilliams believes there are parallels with the financial crisis. Despite the warnings, we tend to wait for the crisis to appear. We appear “pathologically, almost terminally, unable to act until there is a crisis,” he said.  All this at a time “when the insatiable demands of six billion people are going to crash into the limits of our natural resources. When we have not just peak oil, but peak everything.”

He believes we travel through a general set of three stages when faced with immense problems. The first is ridicule and denial of the problem. Those who ring alarm bells are often ridiculed and dismissed. ‘Extreme greens’, ‘climate fanatics’, the ‘new religion of environmentalism’ and ‘climate fraud’ are terms constantly appearing in writings from those who deny the science of climate change.

The second is a violent or aggressive opposition, such as the East Anglia email theft, or “climategate” as many would call it. Criminals stealing personal information and publishing it, in what appeared to be a somewhat desperate attempt to expose climate change as a ‘fraud’ prior to Copenhagen. A similar form of desperate opposition appeared two years ago when the Bush administration used pressure to limit the use of the words “global warming” or “climate change” according to a 2007 Union of Concerned Scientists and the Government Accountability Project report.

Thirdly, said McWilliams, we have universal acceptance, often after the crisis has arrived, such as when the financial crisis finally hit. Governments around the world, instead of implementing preventative actions before a crisis, are forced into reactionary responses.

So do we have a way forward through the fog of denial before it’s too late?

Speaking on the same program, Tony Kevin, visiting Fellow at the Australian National University and author of the book Crunch Time, which argues that a renewable energy based economy is the urgent and only option we now have, believes we need to move beyond the question of economic and market-based solutions.

Basically, we need to view the issue of climate change through the prism of morality. It was morality, he said, that drove William Wilberforce to help end the horrendous transatlantic slave trade — known at the time as “black gold”. By the late 18th century, 80 per cent of Britain’s foreign income was related to the slave trade. Two decades later, after years of ridicule and claims that its abolition would lead to economic collapse, the British slave trade was finally ended.

According to Tony Kevin we need to work “within the resource and waste disposal limitations of the planet”. We don’t need a single “Wilberforce’ type figure to emerge to champion climate change mitigation. Instead, those who understand and trust the science must unite and not argue about which form of renewable energy is best or whether taxes are better than cap-and-trade schemes, and so on. While we argue, he said, “the coal lobby smiles smugly above the fray”.

“Doing what we are is poisoning the atmosphere of our planet and it is therefore morally wrong for the future,” he said.  “We cannot base our prosperity on cheating our children and grandchildren”.

Associate Professor Peter Waterman from the University of the Sunshine Coast

The climate was on everybody’s mind as low clouds created hot and humid conditions on the Sunshine Coast today. But it wasn’t only local weather patterns being discussed. As the Copenhagen climate conference enters its second week, thousands of Australians took to the streets around the country for the 5th annual walk against warming.

On the Sunshine Coast almost 200 residents not only demanded government action at Copenhagen, they also showed the value of local businesses and environment groups coming together.

The Sunshine Coast Environment Council, solar business, Ingenero and Maleny Credit Union used the day to launch the Sunshine Coast 10,000 Solar Roofs Project. Injecting an estimated $20 million into the local economy, as well as creating over 100 jobs, the project will install 10,000 solar-power systems without any upfront costs.

Sunshine Coast Regional Council environment portfolio chair, Cr Keryn Jones said the Sunshine Coast ranks as one of the most popular areas in Australia for solar-power installation.

“The Sunshine Coast now has one of the highest per capita installation areas for solar power in Australia and the new 10,000 Solar Roofs Project will keep us in the forefront,” she said.

Associate Professor Peter Waterman, who teaches climate-change adaptation at the University of the Sunshine Coast believes we need to keep focused on locally-based action.

“It is great to be aware of the bigger picture but we have to do things in our region, our homes, our workplaces and our lives. We have to think about adapting — we have to climate proof,” he said.

Copenhagen - Day 1. Image: Penelope Ward

Despite reports surfacing yesterday afternoon, Copenhagen time, of a “furious reaction” from developing nations over a leaked ‘secret draft agreement‘, there was hope on day 1 of the Copenhagen conference. Update: for a deeper and more thorough analysis of the leaked document – Bunkering down at Copenhagen.

Penelope Ward reports from Copenhagen

The first day of COP15 opened with a notable buzz in the air of Copenhagen city, as delegates flooded in from all corners of the globe.

The conference was officially opened with an elaborate ceremony with statements from Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen.

“For the two weeks Copenhagen will be transformed into Hopenhagen,” said Prime Minister Rasmussen. He urged delegates to be ambitious, visionary and courageous.

The UNFCCC’s executive director Yvo de Boer then issued a plea to delegates: “The time for formal statements is over, the time for restating well-known positions is past. The time has come to reach out to each other — deliver, reach for success.”

A series of workshops, panel sessions and unofficial proceedings took off following the ceremony, with delegates young and old navigating their way around the giant Bella Centre. Many languages could be heard as delegates exchanged views and experiences in the more informal settings around the centre.

Various spot actions took place the streets of Copenhagen, the Bella Centre entrance being constantly surrounded by protesters, rugged up against strong winds. A Greenpeace action group from Australia held blow up kangaroos and could be found chanting “come on aussie come on”, enchanting passers-by.

At the end of the day, all delegates were warmly welcomed at the Town Hall, and spectators enjoyed a live concert in the city’s main square. Everyone seems to be talking of hope, climate and Obama, who recently announced he would be attending the conference in the final week.

About the author: Penelope Ward is an Equality Director/ Environmental Campaigner from the Melbourne University Law Students’ Society

What should Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong bring with them to Copenhagen?

illustration by Alex Mankiewicz

There’s a new emissions plan in the wind for Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong to take to Copenhagen.

A water-tight commitment to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent by 2020 – much better than the pitiful 5 per cent – which will appeal to the Tony Abbott-led conservative (and sceptical) Coalition, as well as a deal to get the Greens on board.

This is does not involve magic – we keep being reminded that there is no silver bullet – or extreme engineering, science or technology.

It is a simple and easy to understand formula – 5 times 5 equals 25 – to deal with emissions from five main sectors of the economy which account for a more or less proportionate amount of the nation’s emissions. Some of the actions contributing to this plan are already occurring, but for some reason Government has not looked at – or told it – quite like this.
Through this approach, each sector is able to bring to the table a 5 per cent emissions reduction towards the total, to provide an overall 25 per cent achievement.

It is easy to mix metaphors here, but let’s think of this as constructing a five winged plane which will fly!

It looks something like a modern version of a Tiger Moth bi-plane, with two wings each side and bracketed, along with a wing in the tail to stabilise things. Each wing has a crucial role to play and all together they make it air worthy.

Here are the wings, what they are made up of and here’s how each one will make our emissions transporter fly. If it is too difficult to relate to the aircraft wings analogy, think of it as a big pie with five generous slices.

1) Industry emissions reductions
This includes industrial production, manufacturing, mining and energy production. Let’s say this accounts for 20 per cent of our total emissions now (it is close to that depending on what you include or exclude).

These are the big emitters, or polluters, if you like. And they are the major industries that are targeted by the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Many observers realise that with all the concessions and allowances already proposed for up to 1000 major corporations, it is unlikely to achieve a significant reduction in emissions.

But with the stick and carrot approach, along with putting a price on carbon through an emissions trading scheme, it is very realistic to expect that this major economic sector could achieve the 5 per cent reduction in emissions required (based on 2000 levels) by 2020.

Is this really possible? As various industry groups are on their own already taking steps to reduce emissions, it is an achieveable target.

The cement industry – one of the world’s biggest emitters – has already said it could reduce its emissions by 3 per cent by 2010. What more could it do by 2020?

BHP has stated in its latest sustainability report that its target is for a 6 per cent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions per unit of production across the board.

2) Buildings and energy efficiency
Existing buildings account for around 20 per cent of the nation’s emissions, primarily through use of energy, energy waste and inefficiencies. New buildings, which can achieve a high 6 star rating from the Green Building Council of Australia, are designed to use less energy and thereby reduce emissions.

The big challenge is to deal with existing buildings – offices, homes, shops and factories – and this involves taking steps to reduce the energy used in every area.

In some cases, this will involve major retrofitting, but for many, particularly in the home, this can be achieved by better management of the electricity we use, smart metering, cutting wastage, as well as taking advantage of the Government insulation package. It might also mean lower settings for air conditioning and heating units.

Power management systems are readily available for businesses. A power management study for one Australian University, for example, found that by having an automatic cut off after hours for its 30,000 computers it could reduce electricity use by 52 per cent and save $1.74 million a year.

Dealing with standby power used on household appliances could save 10 per cent on an average household’s energy use.

There’s a new product coming onto the Australian market (from South Korea) which guarantees to reduce electricity use by 5 per cent by cutting power wastage. It has been known to provide energy savings of up to 20 per cent.

So gaining a 5 per cent reduction overall through energy efficiency measures alone would not be difficult to achieve, particularly if Government promoted the right sort of incentives and interest free Green loans.

3) Switching energy production to renewables
Australia already has in place a renewable energy target to get 20 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. There is already considerable investment going into solar, wind, wave, geothermal, as well as to enhance what we’re already getting from hydro sources.

Even though the Government has not set out a detailed renewable energy strategy, even  a breakdown of the ideal mix of renewables, or provided much in the way of incentives, it is happening all the same. There is even evidence that Wilson Tuckey has been advocating the use of tidal power in Western Australia!

There are large scale projects in the wind (and from the sun) as well as a groundswell of desire by the population at large to fit solar panels to the roofs of their homes. Think of how much more could be done to utilise all the wasted roof space on our airport terminals, factories and shopping centres.

In California, energy supply companies are paying to rent all available roof spaces so they can fit thousands of solar photo voltaic panels to generate power for the grid.

For homeowners and businesses, it would really help them make the switch to solar energy if all state governments would provide a gross feed in tariff to give a realistic return for producing additional energy for the grid. In Germany this applies to all and works very well. In New South Wales and ACT, this is now applicable to householders only.

We shouldn’t belittle the genuine efforts of people to clean up their energy act, particularly through paying extra for Green Power or buying into voluntary offsets to reduce their carbon footprints. Government recognition for this is proposed in the CPRS legislation, but it would be wise for authorities (as well as energy providers) to act sooner to acknowledge and reward the worthy citizens.

There are many other ways to reduce our dependence on coal fired power, including a switch to natural gas (which we also have plenty of and it emits far less CO2) and by incorporating effective ceramic fuel cells in our homes and businesses.

So achieving a 5 per cent reduction in emissions from energy by switching to renewable sources should be very easy to achieve. If the country does better than that by 2020 that’s a bonus.

4) Land use, farming and forestry
Even without incorporating agriculture in an emissions trading scheme, by encouraging (and rewarding) farmers to be more productive in their use of land and utilise “carbon farming” can achieve a significant reduction in emissions from this sector. Agriculture is a big emitter, so this needs to be approached in a positive, constructive way.

Environment Business Australia has put together a coalition of carbon farming organisations. Soil carbon and biochar are not pies in the sky but practical means of retaining (or restoring) carbon dioxide in the soil and thereby improving its productivity. Malcolm Turnbull latched onto this some time ago. Professor Tim Flannery sings its praises. Some ingenious work by Tony Lovell and Ken Bellamy in Queensland shows that it works effectively.

By combining effective land use – less land clearing – with carbon farming and undertaking more tree-planting will easily achieve a 5 per cent reduction in emissions from this sector.

Forestry is a big sub-sector which could make an even bigger contribution to emissions reductions on its own, particularly when you see the size of investments by the likes of Origin Energy and BP in tree planting through the Western Australian business of Carbon Conscious.

Retaining as much as possible of the country’s old growth forests and rainforests will continue to provide a major carbon sink. Just as we’re conscious of plans to invest in “avoided deforestation” in places like the Amazon and Indonesia, we need to ensure we protect and retain our own trees as a means to keep our emissions in check.

Remember too, that it was through a major cut back  in land clearing in Queensland a few years back which gave Australia a distinct advantage, enabling it to meet it Kyoto commitments (even before it ratified the international agreement).

5) Transportation comes clean
Private and public transport could easily account for 20 per cent of a nation’s emissions of green-house gases. So a switch to cleaner and more energy efficient transport – natural gas powered buses, electric or hybrid cars, taking more freight by rail than road – could all go towards achieving a 5 per cent reduction in this important sector’s contribution.

Getting more of the population to use public transport, walk or ride bicycles would all help, particularly if our cities become less congested and polluted by cars. Instead of giving disproportionate tax incentives (and subsidised parking) for people to buy and drive cars to work, Government (and employers) should be finding ways to incentivise those of us who take public transport or use our own energy to move about.

We often hear talk about achieving emissions reduction through some means or other which results in “taking so many cars off the road”. If we look at the transportation sector constructively, this can be done by taking more of the polluting or petrol powered vehicles off the road and replacing them with hybrid, electric, biodiesel or ethanol machines.

Electric vehicle infrastructure is one very obvious way to go and other countries – notably France, Denmark and Israel – have taken giants steps in this direction.

Australia has made a move with its Green Car Fund and has already got Better Place (the innovative electric vehicle infrastructure company) looking at what’s required to help Canberra go electric on the road.

Even though most of our electricity comes from coal fired power stations, electric cars are much more efficient (less polluting) users of energy. Also there is no reason why we cannot exploit to a greater extent renewable energy for the transport sector.
At a recent Electric Vehicle conference in Brisbane, delegates were told that one standard wind turbine can produce sufficient electricity to charge and power 1200 electric cars.

Shipping and air transport is also coming in for a lot of energy efficient/renewable energy attention. Jet bio fuels are being developed – and there is even an opportunity for Australia to get in on the ground-floor for this development, using plants and algae. MBD has trial plants around the country for biosequestration, using CO2 to feed algae to produce clean fuel and feedstock.

It is all really too simple. But unfortunately Government has not effectively communicated these or similar solutions to show how it is possible to attain an overall 25 per cent reduction in the nation’s emissions.

By pre-occupying itself with an emissions trading scheme – the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme – and failing to get it passed into law, the Government has also failed to address all these others measures which have the chance to contribute significantly to reduce Australia’s emissions.

But it is not too late. If it is smart, our Copenhagen-bound team can get in a huddle and bundle all the emissions producing sectors together and come up with a plan that shows it is feasible – even achieveable – to commit to a target of reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases  by 25 per cent (on 2000 levels) by 2020.

It is possible to get that mathematical and mythical five winged clean energy plane to fly.

Ken Hickson is the author of “The ABC of Carbon: Issues and opportunities in the global climate change environment”, published this year by his own consulting/publishing business ABC Carbon . He also produces a weekly e-newsletter abc carbon express. Trained as a journalist and with many years as a corporate communication consultant, he is currently in the process of setting up a new non-governmental organisation (NGO) called Green Earth Communicators Organisation (GECO). He is also a Governor of WWF Australia.