16th December, 2010

D. Raghunandan

The climate summit in Copenhagen a year ago inspired many catchy nicknames starting with “hopenhagen” to portray early expectations that it would deliver a solution to the climate crisis, and later “nopenhagen” and the famous “flopenhagen” capturing its failure. Given the deeply flawed Copenhagen Accord (CA) and the dynamics at that summit, there were hardly any expectations from the recently concluded 16th Conference of Parties (COP 16) in Cancun, Mexico, and observers would not have been astonished if this summit too had collapsed without further progress. Probably for this reason, many commentators including several progressive groups have been not merely pleasantly surprised that the Cancun summit actually delivered a set of agreed documents collectively termed the Cancun Agreements, but have even broadly welcomed it as a positive development that bodes well for the next Summit at Durban, South Africa in December 2011 when a legally binding Treaty to replace the extant Kyoto Protocol is slated to be finalized.

To be fair, many progressive commentators and activist groups such as Greenpeace and the Tck-tck-tck campaign have qualified their positive assessment by noting that while Cancun may not have delivered the deep emissions cuts required for averting the climate crisis, it appears to have at least laid the foundation for a possible global agreement at Durban and has certainly restored the credibility of the multilateral negotiations process under UN aegis. A frequently heard phrase in commentaries was that the Cancun outcome has saved the UN process, even if has not saved the planet, a glass half full in that sense.

A closer look at what was actually decided at Cancun, and equally important what was not said, would reveal a very different picture. It would show that in fact all the disastrous formulations in the US-driven Copenhagen Accord have been carried through and formalized at Cancun, and will now inevitably form the basis for any new global climate agreement arrived at in Durban next year. Much has been made of the better atmospherics and greater transparency in Cancun compared to Copenhagen, and therefore the big different between the two Summits. But the clear continuity in content has prompted some radical critics to label the recent COP 16 Summit “Cancunhagen.” 

The Kyoto Protocol, with its crucial distinction between developed and developing countries, was critically wounded in Copenhagen and has virtually been buried at Cancun. It is now almost certain that the Kyoto Protocol will be replaced by a single framework for all categories of nations. Binding targets for developed countries decided on the basis of the science regarding sustainable limits for atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations now appear set to be replaced by a pledge-and-review process with highly uncertain outcomes. And even these voluntary emission reduction pledges will be “achieved” mostly through offsets especially reduced deforestation in developing countries, CDM projects and other market-based mechanisms that have clearly failed in the past. Discussions on funding and technology transfer to assist developing countries have advanced in Cancun, but hedged in by numerous conditionalities. Glass three-fourths empty one would say.

End of Kyoto The Copenhagen Accord forged by countries accounting for over three-fourths of current emissions, namely the developed countries and a few large developing countries such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa, and now signed by over 80 nations, followed US prescription very closely.  At Copenhagen, the US pushed hard for a single framework to replace the Kyoto structure of binding emission cuts by developed countries and capability-based mitigation actions by developing countries. CA provided just such a framework in which both developed and large developing countries took on voluntary emission cuts or slowing down of growth rates, and also allowed the US to stick to its miserably low emission cut target of 3 percent below 1990 levels.

CA was simultaneously hailed as a major breakthrough and defensively projected as a temporary multi-lateral agreement, but in reality it dealt a major if not fatal blow to the Kyoto Protocol. By focusing attention on future emissions of contemporary “major emitters”, it glossed over the prime cause of climate change, namely the historical stock of accumulated emissions amounting to around 80 percent of atmospheric greenhouse gases. This diluted the crucial differential between developed and developing countries as regards responsibility for creating the problem, and therefore for its solution. It also gave an excuse to developed countries to avoid compensatory reparations for damages caused, and removed finance and technology transfers from developed to developing countries as a pre-condition for the latter to undertake mitigation actions besides helping them to adapt to climate change. The US and its Northern allies sought to achieve the same ends at Copenhagen also by subverting the negotiations process, by focusing sharply on the Long-term Cooperative Action (LCA) track, which deals mainly with mitigation actions by developing countries and related steps by developed nations,rather than on the Kyoto Protocol (KP) track where binding commitments by developed countries were to be taken up.

All these struck at the roots of the Kyoto Protocol but a fig leaf of adherence to it was maintained at Copenhagen. So too at Cancun, except that it covers very little now.

It is telling that in the Cancun Agreements, the LCA Document is of 30 pages, the one on Forests again mainly in developing countries 9 pages, and the Kyoto Protocol document is just 2 pages long. And most of even this brief document does not prescribe any binding targets but only “takes note of” and goes on to dilute whatever low voluntary commitments have been made in the CA. Most of the meat of the Cancun Agreements is contained in the LCA text and it can safely be predicted that the LCA text will form the “single framework” basis for any agreement that emerges at Durban, and the KP text, which in any case operatively contains only an annexed listing of voluntary pledges as does the LCA document, will be incorporated within it.
There is little doubt that the Kyoto Protocol was killed at Cancun. And what greater irony could there be than Japan itself inflicting the cruelest cut, announcing that it would not sign on to the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

Courtesy: Granma (downloaded from Monthly Review)

Serious climate consequences ahead Much has been made of phraseology in the KP text adopted at Cancun recognizing the IPCC’s recommendation of emission cuts by developed countries in the range of 25-40 percent below 1990 levels, and urging them “to raise the level of ambition of the emission reductions to be achieved by them individually or jointly.” It has been argued that this has resulted from pressure from developing countries and that it opens up the possibility of developed countries raising their CA pledges. That is wishful thinking indeed.

It is well known that the voluntary pledges of the CA, which have merely been reiterated at Cancun and will be appended to the KP text, are pitifully low and will definitely not be able to contain global temperature rise within 2 degrees C, the pious goal repeated ad nauseam for some time now cynically and in the full knowledge that it cannot be achieved with currently pledged emission reductions by the developed countries.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released an Emissions Gap Report on the eve of the Cancun Summit, compiled in coordination with 25 climate research institutions worldwide. The Report takes into account all the pledges made at Copenhagen and afterwards by all the developed countries, large developing nations and others together comprising the 85 countries that pledged to reduce emissions or constrain their growth as part of the Copenhagen Accord. The Report estimates that whereas keeping global temperature rise to within 2 degrees C would require that total emissions till 2020 should not exceed 44 billion tonnes or Giga tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e), even if all the CA  pledges were adhered to, total emissions by 2020 would reach 53 GtCO2e leaving an emissions gap of 9 Giga tonnes. The Report further goes on to show that, if slightly more ambitious targets were adopted and if leniency were avoided in offsetting emissions against reduced deforestation or carry-forward of surplus emissions reductions from the first commitment period of Kyoto, then this gap could be reduced to 5 Gt. But even this would be only 60 percent of the requirement for containing temperature rise to 2 degrees C.

Worse, all the “leniency” scenarios feared by the UNEP fire specifically built-in and provided for in the KP text of the Cancun Agreements, showing that developed countries intend to fully exploit these. The Cancun KP text is riddled with qualifiers and escape clauses for developed countries. The text emphasizes that “emissions trading and the project-based mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol… [and] measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to enhance removals resulting from anthropogenic land use, land-use change and forestry activities  shall continue to be available to Annex I Parties as means to meet their quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives.” In other words, Northern countries would pay developing countries like, say, Brazil or Indonesia to reduce deforestation and adjust this against their own emission reduction pledges. It also provides for the “carry-over of units from the first to the second commitment period,” a provision originally intended for adding-on first-period deficits to second commitment period targets, but here clearly intended to permit countries such as UK, Germany and an admittedly few developed countries to deduct excess emissions reductions achieved during the first period from second-period targets!

The much touted REDD (Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) scheme, now certain to be part of any future global arrangement, which has at its heart the correct idea of reducing deforestation and thus increasing the capacity to absorb carbon emissions, has now become the main mode of fund transfer from developed to developing countries, and a means for the former to avoid actual emissions reductions in their own countries. CDM Projects and other project-based financing, again used as offsets, will further reduce actual emissions reductions by developed countries.

Clearly, the emissions reduction pledges under the Copenhagen Accord, which have been endorsed at Cancun and are most likely to be the anchor of any global agreement to emerge from Durban next year, are grossly inadequate and could well see temperature rising around 3 degrees C by 2020 with devastating impact.

Fudging on funding The Cancun Agreements have reiterated the CA idea of fund transfers from developed to developing countries, but it is made clear in many ways that these funds are not to be seen as reparations but as financial assistance. Of course, least Developed Countries and Small Island States are happy that funds are actually beginning to flow, and indeed the US and other developed countries have used funding along with other inducements and threats as powerful levers to coerce these countries into the CA and Cancun frameworks, as the Wikileaks documents have also shown. But in the general sense of relief that some funding commitment has been made, and figures of fast-track funding of $30 billion by 2012 and $100 billion dollars a years by 2020 are being spoken of, the fine print seems to have escaped attention.   

The LCA text reveals the many loopholes for developed countries to slip through, and the many strings tied to these “green funds.” The text makes clear that these supposedly additional funds would include forestry funds for offsets and “investments through international institutions” such as the World Bank which could also be soft loans! The seemingly large fund flows are also a mirage since the commitment is only to “a goal of mobilizing jointly USD 100 billion” which “may come from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources”! And this only if developing countries behave properly, since these funds are conditional upon “meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation,” that is, developing countries should do what they are told and their compliance will be strictly supervised before being rewarded.

So yes, there is some justification to a feeling of relief, after the disappointment of Copenhagen, that at least some global agreement on climate change finally appears to be on the cards. And it is also good that this will be under UN aegis. But the agreement promises to be a poor one from the point of view of the science and what the planet needs, especially the poor in developing countries. Market mechanisms will now clearly dominate how emissions reductions take place, and the planet’s ecology has been fully commodified. And the UN process has been successfully moulded to yield an agreement that meets the requirements of the US and its Northern allies. Some may argue that at least Cancun produced some agreement, and that without this, despondency would have set in and disaster would have loomed around the corner. Some may raise a glass to cheer this so-called achievement, but there is little in the glass to drink from.

20th June, 2010

D. Raghunandan

THE horrific on-going disaster caused by oil spewing out from British Petroleum’s (BP) well in the Gulf of Mexico is going from bad to worse, showing little signs of abating. It is already by far the biggest oil spill in the US and rapidly becoming one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in the US if not the world. The oil slick is spreading by the day and threatening new areas. The federal government has banned fishing in more than 37 per cent of the US part of the Gulf of Mexico, double the area under a fishing ban imposed mid-May.

BP is responding in a manner typical of large multinational corporations (MNCs), especially oil companies, trying to minimise the damage while spending as little money as possible, evading legal liability, and treating the whole episode as primarily a public relations issue. BP is once again showing that Big Oil is the dirtiest of businesses, in more ways than one.

The US administration under President Barack Obama is facing its toughest test yet. Its credibility has come under severe pressure, with the public taking a dim view of the slow and inadequate response of the federal government and what appears to be collusion with BP. Obama is discovering that oratory and rhetoric are assets in a campaign but can boomerang in the face of poor results on the ground. The poor response of the US government under then President George W Bush to Hurricane Katrina came to typify the incompetence, cronyism and lack of caring of the Bush administration. Will the BP oil spill, again affecting the state of Louisiana, prove to be President Obama’s Katrina?

Let us look at what has happened to date.

OIL GUSHER

Normally the term “oil spill” suggests an oil tanker breaking-up or developing a leak. The BP disaster is quite different and should really be called an oil gusher.

On April 20th, an explosion on BP’s “Deepwater Horizon” off-shore oil rig in the US exclusive economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico about 66 km off Louisiana left 17 workers injured and 11 missing, presumed dead. The explosion led to a rupture in the well about 5000 feet below sea level from where oil and gas have been gushing out ever since.

The quantity of oil that has spewed out is still being debated, largely because BP itself has made widely varying statements even while it has prevented independent scientific investigations to estimate the quantum of leakage claiming that this was “not relevant to the response” and that such attempts “might distract from efforts to stem the flow”! Amazingly, the Obama government and even its different scientific agencies such as the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have not insisted on conducting their own assessment, nor have ensured full access to data. Scientists, media personnel and others have been prevented from conducting studies in the spill region not only by BP personnel but also by the US Coast Guard which stated they were “acting under instructions of BP”, lauded BP’s efforts and even conducted joint press briefings, all till June 1 when the Administration decided this cozy relationship was not going down well among the public and announced a track-change putting the onus more sharply on BP.

BP initially estimated that the well was gushing 1000 barrels (160,000 litres) of oil a day. NOAA reached an estimate about 5 times higher at 5000 barrels per day based on early satellite imagery. Under intense media, public and Congressional pressure, a US government team under the US Geological Survey conducted surveys and tentatively estimated a much higher leak rate of 800,000 to 1.8 million gallons (3 to 6.8 million litres) per day. The official Technical Group later put the estimate at a lower 500,000 – 800,000 gallons per day but this was based on merely a 7 minute low-quality undersea video provided by BP showing the oil gushing out, a video feed now being transmitted live by order of Congress. Even at these more conservative figures, 25 to 40 million gallons of oil would have spilled out into the Gulf to date. The previously largest US oil spill, from the Exxon-Valdez tanker in Alaska in 1989, was of 11 million gallons (itself dwarfed by the largest ever spill from a Mexican off-shore rig in 1979 also in the Gulf releasing 140 million gallons of oil).

Worse than the sheer volume of oil, the leak is not on the surface but deep under the sea. Scientists have recently found that large plumes or clouds of oil have formed deep under the sea and are moving quite far. As we go to press, NOAA has reluctantly confirmed that such plumes indeed exist (having earlier joined BP in denying any such phenomena) but claimed they have low concentrations of oil. Several plumes, some as large as 16 km by 4.8 km and 100 metres thick, have been noted, some even 130 km away from the well and sometimes occurring at different depths on top of each other. These plumes comprising oil droplets may cause even more damage to marine life than surface oil because far more species live deeper down and also because oxygen supply would be stifled, one research team estimating it at 30 per cent less than normal. Marine biologists are critical of BP, and of US administration agencies, for not having envisaged and tracked these plumes earlier since their formation after undersea blowouts has been predicted in the scientific literature for years. In the BP oil gusher, chances are that chemical dispersants used to thin out the oil for subsequent clean-up may have actually helped the plumes form, another sign that BP has been fumbling its way along the disaster with no prior preparedness or plan.

TACKLING THE SPILL

There are two broad levels at which the oil spill requires to be tackled. First, to contain the effects of the spill on the surface. Second, to try and stop the leak itself.

Containment measures largely comprise spreading booms or inflatable tubing that float on the surface of the water and physically block the spread of the oil or, in some types of booms, soak it up. Oil will usually stay on top of the water for some time till it gets broken down by the wind, waves and ocean currents., and this oil can be either sucked or skimmed off the top by special ships. So far more than 2 million feet of containment boom and another 2 million feet of absorbent booms have been laid out, and more than 15 million gallons of oil-bearing sea water have been removed.

Chemical dispersants are also used to break down the oil enabling its biodegradation. About 750,000 gallons of dispersant have been used on the surface and another 300,000 gallons at varying depths. However, this procedure is not without risks especially to marine life and, as we have seen in the Gulf, may even have contributed to formation of plumes below the surface. To the best of one’s knowledge, biological agents have not so far been used in the BP disaster. More than 22,000 personnel have been deployed in these operations. Sand banks have also been prepared along certain stretches of coast to prevent ingress of the slick inland or into coastal wetlands and marshes.

Yet for all that local residents are clearly unhappy with the progress. More than 40 per cent of the incomes of people in coastal belts of Louisiana and neighbouring states come from tourism and fishing, both of which have been badly affected, especially the shrimp catch in shallow coastal waters and marshlands. This region contains 40 per cent of US coastal wetlands. Scientists are worried that these fragile coastal belts and wetlands are likely to suffer considerable damage that cannot yet be determined. Water samples all along the Louisiana coast have shown oil and, in some places, the booms near the shore seem to be keeping the oil in by blocking tidal flows as much as they are keeping oil out!

At the time of the rig explosion, the plan had been to plug the well with a cemented cap for later production. The same basic idea was pursued after the well burst but with several variants all of which essentially failed to plug the leak. First a “top hat” procedure --- where a massive concrete dome was lowered over the blow-out preventer (BOP) that had failed to engage as it should have after the explosion --- was tried but did not succeed. Then a special mud was forced down at high pressure, to be followed by cement once it had kept the oil down and settled, but the procedure could not overcome the upward pressure of the oil and gas. Then a so-called “junk fill” was tried replacing the mud with assorted materials. Lastly the well’s riser pipe was cut and a cap forced on to it with a pipe leading up to the surface where the recovered oil is being stored, with BP now proposing to flare it. One ship on the surface is currently handling the oil being pumped up and another one is expected to join soon to help augment processing capacity.

However, because the cut in the pipe is rough and the cap fits poorly, only a portion of the oil gushing out is being collected in this manner. BP started with the claim that it was tapping off around 10,000 barrels or 260,000 gallons per day then upped the claim to about 300,000-600,000 gallons per day which would mean that around half the total oil gushing out from the well is still leaking out into the Gulf.

BP and federal government officials have repeatedly said that all these are only intermediate palliative measures, and that the only real solution to the problem is to drill a relief well besides the ruptured one so that the oil rises up the new well rather than the old one. This is perhaps correct, but the very fact raises a host of questions about how much BP and the US government knew about the blow-out, damage likely to be caused and steps that could have been taken to prevent it or to tackle the problem once it had arisen.

UNSAFE WITH OFFICIAL SANCTION

It has been clear from the very beginning that BP was not only complacent and ill-prepared for the disaster, but had also knowingly cut corners, circumvented safety measures and ignored safety procedures in active connivance with the governmental regulator, the Minerals Management Service (MMS).

The most glaring avoidance of safety precautions was the decision by BP not to install an automatic shut-off valve which should have shut down the flow of oil from the well into the riser pipe immediately after the explosion on the rig. Such cut-off valves are mandatory and standard equipment on European off-shore drilling rigs as British Petroleum well knew. Yet the MMS went along, and also gave exemption to BP from conducting an experimental site analysis because the chances of an oil spill were “minimal or non-existent.”

Since the explosion, BP executives have been repeatedly pointing to the difficulties of operations at depths of around 5000 feet below the sea even though these were well known and should have been anticipated. Yet the fumbling and ad hocism of BP measures since the disaster as described earlier have shown that it had no emergency plans and no equipment on stand-by to deal with a problem if it happened, like a high-rise building with no fire escape and no fire extinguishers. BP chairman Tony Hayward coolly admitted that "what is undoubtedly true is that we did not have the tools you would want in your tool kit" to deal with this kind of well blow-out even though these are familiar and not uncommon in the oil industry.

Incredibly, the MMS has approved 27 new offshore drilling operations since the April 20 explosion, exempting all but one of them from environmental review. To add insult to injury, two of the new operations approved were submitted by BP, which made the same assertions on drilling safety as it had for Deepwater Horizon despite all that had happened since!

President Obama has belatedly said that he would end the “scandalously close relationship” between regulators and the companies they oversee. The MMS chief Elizabeth Birnbaum has since resigned, but people are wondering why Obama had not noticed the deep conflict of interest built into the very structure and role of MMS before. MMS is responsible for leasing off-shore drilling rights, permitting and overseeing operations and collecting royalties, all of which make it develop vested interests in the commencement, continuation and profitability of off-shore drilling rather than a prime responsibility for workers’ safety and environmental protection.

It has also not gone unnoticed that Obama, in March this year, had proposed to allow expanded drilling for oil in the Gulf, the Atlantic and the Arctic, the very things he had criticised his rival Republican candidate John McCain for during the presidential campaign. Obama now wants to appear tougher against BP and other oil giants, and is making a big noise about making BP pay every penny required, and “kicking a**”! But will the bluster actually translate into action?

The Obama administration is said to be working on a new law to raise the limit on liability claims from $10 billion to $75 billion but with the US government having already spent an estimated $20 billion, this may still be far below the actually costs. More importantly, will Obama show the guts to take on Big Oil, and can he muster the legislative support required? Many Senators and Representatives are already towing BP’s line, trying to minimize the damage and shifting blame. Federal agencies such as NOAA, MMS and the Coast guard seem to be acting in collusion with BP although of late at least putting on an appearance of trying to distance themselves. Evidence suggests that Obama is unable or unwilling to exert real pressure on BP, not able even to secure accurate data about the spill whose quantum will of course be critical in determining the extent of damages BP is likely to pay out. Big Oil clearly has longer arms than the law in the US.

21st May 2010

D. Raghunandan

THE climate crisis and efforts to tackle it have witnessed unprecedented mobilisation of popular movements, NGOs, think tanks, experts, intellectuals and activists, as was evident at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen last December. Of course, this “civil society” activism has embraced a very wide spectrum of opinion. Amongst the most vociferous, at various gatherings as well as on the internet, have been those who may be termed climate radicals for want of a better term. Over the past few years, there has been a quite dramatic “green-red” convergence of anti-capitalist, radical environmentalist and anarchist or at least non-organised movements. The position of this tendency was best captured by the slogan of “system change, not climate change”. At first glance, the idea that climate change cannot be combated unless and until its systemic causes are overturned may appear unexceptionable. On the other hand, most progressive movements believe that, given the advanced state of runaway climate change, it may not be possible to wait for system change before tackling the crisis and that the problem needs a multi-pronged approach.  However climate radicalism, which is of course not monolithic, has come to adopt many such extreme positions.

Events and pronouncements at and around the recently held World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth held on April 20-22 near Cochabamba in Bolivia bear this out. But first, some background.

BACKDROP

The Copenhagen Summit failed to reach an internationally binding agreement within the Kyoto framework. Ostensibly to save the Conference from ending in a total blank, a so-called Copenhagen Accord, driven by the US, was arrived at by a group of high-emission nations including both developed and developing countries such as China, Brazil and India. The Accord was not endorsed by the Summit, both because of its content (widely seen as undermining the Kyoto Protocol) and due to the way it was arrived at (behind closed doors by a select few countries and totally by-passing the UNFCCC Working Groups process).

Opinion has been deeply divided on the Copenhagen Accord which has nevertheless, and in the absence of any other agreement, been signed by 110 countries so far. As of now, the US and some of its allies are pushing to give the Accord de jure status while there are definite signs that India, China and other large developing countries are pulling back from their earlier support for the Accord. Several countries, notably Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Cuba (from the ALBA grouping of countries), Sudan and some small island states have expressed their total opposition to the Accord. President Evo Morales of Bolivia denounced the Accord’s terms and the non-transparent process that produced it. He also hailed the activists massed and holding parallel discussions outside the Conference venue for moving more meaningfully towards tackling the root causes of climate change, which he identified as capitalism, over-consumption and the destruction of a holistic relationship with nature. President Morales later announced that he would be convening a Conference in Bolivia to take these ideas and alliances forward.

Climate radicals not only rejected the Accord outright but also the entire UN process as part of the global capitalist system which caused the climate crisis. Such groups favour an alternative grassroots process aimed at both formulating alternative solutions and shaping a new social system. This tendency welcomed Bolivia’s call for a Conference.     

The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba was attended by over 30,000 people with around 9,250 from outside Bolivia from 142 countries. Most of these latter were climate radicals, possibly with the exception of some groupings such as 350.org (a network calling for GHG stabilization at 350 parts per million rather than 425 ppm as called for by IPCC) which was labeled “liberal” by radicals.

A “Peoples Agreement” was arrived at and announced on April 22 which had been declared International Mother Earth Day by the UN last year at the instance of President Morales. The Bolivian government also made a separate formal submission to the UNFCCC in the form of a draft for the two Working Groups, attaching the Peoples Agreement and incorporating many of its points, but with significant changes in language.

Despite this apparent coming together of progressive Latin American governments and climate radicals, events and statements issued at Cochabamba, and discussions on the internet both before and after, bring out sharp differences and also pose many issues for other progressive movements and climate campaigns to ponder.

CLIMATE ISSUES

The declaration of the Peoples Assembly (http://pwccc.wordpress.com) calls for a global agreement to “return the concentrations of GHGs to 300 ppm [and] therefore the increase in the average world temperature to a maximum of one degree Celsius.” This position had been taken earlier too by several developing countries especially in Africa, the Caribbean and some island states but its basis has never been clear, nor has the IPCC agreed.

Of course, a 2 degree rise of temperature would mean huge damaging impact especially in poorer countries. But at the same time, there is almost universal agreement among scientists that average temperatures in the world are already at almost 1 degree C above pre-industrial levels and, even if drastic steps are taken immediately, temperature rise of 2 degrees C is virtually inevitable. GHG concentrations of pre-industrial 300 ppm levels and temperature rise of 1 degree C are simply wishful thinking, impossible to achieve even in the medium term (although actions over several decades involving sucking up huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere are remotely conceivable in the long term) and provide no practical guide to national or global emissions control regimes.

So maybe one should view this only as a tactical slogan to push developed countries to a more achievable target. The declaration’s demand that developed countries should reduce their emissions by 50 per cent without offsets during 2012-17 should also perhaps be seen the same way, since the IPCC only recommends 40 per cent reduction by 2020 and even the EU has offered only 20-30 per cent by 2020, both with offsets. All indications are, however, that radical groups are not really engaged with the UNFCCC global negotiations and view them with a jaundiced eye. At Cochabamba, as one sympathetic correspondent noted, “when UN representative Alicia Barcena took the podium…, she was met with a chorus of hisses and boos.” So these maximalist demands need to be taken at face value and any compromise would doubtless be seen as surrender.

The Declaration even asserts that the current discourse on climate change has been shaped “in complicity with a segment of the scientific community” as “a problem limited to the rise in temperature without questioning the cause, which is the capitalist system.” While much analysis may not identify capitalism as such or use the term, the IPCC Reports representing the broad consensus of the scientific community and endorsed by over 180 governments, elaborate in some detail various social-structural factors such as patterns of industrialisation and industrial agriculture, use of fossil fuels in private transportation, lifestyles especially in developed countries and, overall, the escalation of the climate crisis since the commencement of industrialisation around 1750.

Progressive groups and campaigns around the world mobilise and pressure national governments and the negotiations process on the understanding that these are indeed consequences of the capitalist path of development and that systemic changes will indeed be required if emissions reduction targets are to be achieved, in the full knowledge that not all these demands will be met. As with other movements, there is an ultimate goal and various stages in between. For climate radicals, though, nothing short of an immediate system overthrow is acceptable or worth pursuing. So what kind of system change do the climate radicals want, what alternatives do they have in mind?

SOCIALISM EQUALS STATISM? 

The alternatives as articulated at Cochabamba, and in the debates on the internet, have a few notable strands.

Both Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales in their speeches clearly stated that the alternative to capitalism is socialism. But the word “socialism” is itself conspicuously absent in the Peoples Agreement, not due to the sensitivities of moderates but rather to the deep-seated suspicion of the term among the radicals. In fact, tensions between the climate radicals and the progressive Latin American governments were visible throughout the conference. The Cochabamba conference was attended by a very few government leaders, from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Ecuador besides Bolivia, with Hugo Chavez being the only visiting head of state. Yet the suspicion of even these governments was such that some radical groups and indigenous peoples movements from Bolivia and nearby regions set up a parallel conference venue: the Peoples Assembly had 17 discussion tents on as many themes but “Mesa 18” saw sharp criticism of the Bolivian and other governments present and at one point police observers were posted near it!

Tadzio Mueller of Climate Justice Action grudgingly admitted that “while ten years ago the alter-globalisation movement had a very strong critique of institutions such as… governments” today they had decided that Bolivia for instance was “not permeated by neo-liberalism and was an actor they could work with” (quoted in Huffington Post, 29 April 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-s-eshelman/from-cochabamba-to-cancun_b_557293.html). Many other radicals strongly disagreed.

Edith Piaff commented in one e-mail exchange that the “conference was itself something of a legitimisation exercise for… President Morales. Talks about resistance to mega-projects such as dams and the exploitation of mineral resources in Bolivia were marginalised from the conference. Bolivia's socialist project has caused problems for many indigenous peoples through a development model that departs from traditional, more sustainable ways of life and marginalises people who have mineral resources under their lands.” In response to a criticism of her stance citing Evo Morales’ call for “communitarian socialism” she reiterated that “capitalism is just one problem of the general problem of domination.” Another prolific blogger, adding a sharper critique of the Bolivian government, said that “whatever Evo’s thinking, ultimately victory will come not from him but from the grassroots, including other anti-capitalist types from within the pink-tide states, the de-colonial left… against the rising pink tide and neoliberalism,” the phrase “pink tide” being an oft-repeated and rather derogatory reference to the new leftist governments in Latin America.

OTHER ALTERNATIVES

The alternatives envisaged have other dimensions too even if all are not fully articulated. The concept of Mother Earth Rights has many connotations for the radicals, whatever President Morales’ conception.

Any system that replaces capitalism should of course have equality between people and also ecological sustainability or, as the declaration has it, “harmony with nature”. But the formulation goes considerably further and speaks of “the right [of Mother Earth] to regenerate its bio-capacity and to continue its vital cycles and processes free of human alteration” (emphasis added). The idea is elaborated by stressing the need to embrace and promote sustenance-based farming methods and other “ancestral models and practices” of indigenous peoples and rural farming peoples. There is much talk of “food sovereignty” but no discussion of how sustenance-level farming will produce surpluses to meet the food security of vast populations who today live and work away from the food production base. The nature-level production systems of indigenous or tribal peoples are clearly central, and also to some extent explain the radicals’ disappointment with Evo Morales Ayma, the world’s only indigenous head of state, who was roundly criticised for his support for mining and other policies of an “extractive state”.  One delegate was quoted as saying “both socialism and capitalism are resource exploitative ideologies that put the human before the earth. An indigenous perspective avoids this pitfall.”

There is a curious distinction between the Bolivian government’s formal submission and the speech of the Cuban vice-president on the one hand, and the Peoples Assembly Declaration on the other. The former talks of damage caused to the planet and the threat to human life, while the latter repeatedly speaks of the threat to Mother Earth itself and even calls for reparations to Mother Earth for the damage done to her. The planet has existed in different eras, much before the advent of human beings, at different levels of equilibrium, and will doubtless continue to do so even if humanity dies out due to climate change.

The climate radicals also display deep distrust of human social organisation, including of progressive governments, except for some idyllic past or a utopian non-state. Even the declaration’s call for climate debt reparations by developed countries to developing nations prompted considerable debate (correspondence April 26-30 in climate09-int.lists.riseup.net). Why should developing country governments, mostly representing the richer classes in these nations, receive these funds? Why should the poor in developed countries be forced to pay through taxation? Is not the “real contradiction between the poor and the rich of the world, some of whom live in the global South”, rather than between developed and developing nations? Imperialism and States, both vanish in this discourse.

It is therefore not surprising that the call went out in Cochabamba for “global greenhouse emissions to peak by 2015 latest and decline thereafter”. A global peaking year, whatever the date, in the absence of detailed carbon budgets spelling out emission levels for developed countries, has been repeatedly rejected by China, India and many other developing countries because this will only mean a cap on development for countries of the South while maintaining the obscene differential in living standards between North and South.

The Cochabamba Conference, bringing together several progressive Latin American governments and climate radical activists and groups has made an important contribution to the debates on climate change. Yet given the narrow range of opinions represented there, its impact on the international negotiations is likely to be limited. Further, the perspectives of “green-red” radicals appear to be getting more extreme, deviating even further away from those of other progressive movements. Perhaps the alliance witnessed in Cochabamba may not last as long, or be as effective, as those working towards the broadest possible alliance of progressive forces would hope for.

14th April, 2010

D. Raghunandan


Earlier articles in these columns have shown how the odd careless remark, a few errors in judgment, a lapse in scientific rigour and peer review procedures, as happened over the clearly erroneous prediction that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, are pounced upon by climate skeptics and corporate lobbies to undermine the scientific understanding of societally induced climate change and hence undercut efforts to bring about policy changes to avert the impending crisis. This despite massive and mounting amounts of evidence to show that, if anything, the problem is even more serious than the extant scientific consensus says it is. For instance, many recent studies on polar ice have tended to show that ice cover at both poles is shrinking faster, and that consequently sea levels would rise even more, and more quickly, than previously thought.

Diminishing ice cover is often referred to as clear evidence of global warming. Further, since the large quantity of terrestrial ice is known to play an important role not only with regard to sea level but also to regulating global and regional climate, changes in ice cover are closely watched and carefully studied.  For many years, satellites have been mapping the area covered by ice and this data has formed the basis of much prediction on the extent and impact of global warming. For instance, the Fourth (and latest) Assessment Report of the IPCC (IPCC/AR4) in 2007 noted that “satellite data since 1978 show that annual average Arctic sea-ice extent has shrunk by 2.7% per decade” and based on that projected a rise in sea levels  by 28-43 cm (centimetres) by 2100. But a subsequent authoritative report titled Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment released in 2009 by the highly regarded Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research projected a significantly higher sea-level rise of 1.4 metres by the next century!

Reduction in polar ice cover is most dramatically seen in the Arctic and especially around Greenland. Since 2000, the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by ice in the summer has reduced drastically, with September 2007 recording the minimum and 2008 and 2009 being similar. (see satellite images below)

There is thus little doubt that ice cover is shrinking. The real question is how much? So far we have been talking only about the area covered by ice, not about the total volume or quantity of ice. To get from area to volume, one needs to measure the thickness of the ice. The Cryosat-2 satellite (so named because it seeks to study the cryosphere or parts of the earth covered by ice) was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) on April 8 last week to do precisely this at a total mission cost of $180 million (Rs.870 crores).

Problem and Challenge Much of the solar radiation reaching the earth’s surface is reflected back to the atmosphere and to outer space. Permanent ice sheets, especially when covered by snow, have high ‘albedo’ (literally whiteness or more accurately reflectivity) and reflect around 80 percent of sunlight. This helps the ice to stay frozen and plays an important role in maintaining the heat balance of our planet. However, when ice cover begins to melt, the albedo effect gets diminished, thus reducing the proportion of solar radiation reflected back and hence increased absorption of heat by the ice, leading in turn to what is termed ‘positive feedback’ that is, increased ice melt and greater warming of the earth. Under normal seasonal variation, vast amounts of ice melt every summer and freeze again in the winter but, with global warming, melt rates are getting higher while the re-freezing is slowing down.

Polar ice is of two types, ice that covers land (ice-caps, defined as less than 50,000 sq.km in area, or ice-sheets, larger than that, although the former term is commonly used to describe both) and sea ice (formed by freezing sea water). These two forms of ice behave differently, have differing impact on climate and will affect the planet in diverse ways as they melt due to global warming and pose distinctive challenges for measuring their thickness.
Seasonal changes of sea ice are known to have a significant influence on ocean circulation patterns called “thermohaline circulation”. When ice melts, fresh water enters into the surrounding ocean reducing its salinity and therefore its density. In reverse, as seawater cools and sea ice forms, the salinity and density increases, causing the surface waters to sink down. Continuous such action drives deep ocean currents towards the equator and away from the polar regions, in response to which a return flow of warmer and less dense water is drawn towards the poles from higher latitudes towards the equator. These ocean currents have a profound influence on climate and weather. One of the more important such warm water currents is the Gulf Stream from the Gulf of Mexico towards the Arctic which keeps Britain several degrees warmer than other northern European countries. With climate change and rise in average temperatures globally, and volumes of sea-ice declining, the Gulf Stream would become significantly weaker, leading to much colder conditions in regions on both sides of the northern Atlantic (thus showing that “global warming” can be a misleading term!). There are even apprehensions that at some particular point, the mechanism governing these important ocean currents could get “switched off” leading to catastrophe, the subject of a recent Hollywood movie!

It must be remembered, though, that melting of sea-ice has no impact on sea levels since the ice is already floating in water.
Unlike sea ice which is only a few metres thick, ice caps or ice sheets over land, such as those that blanket Antarctica or Greenland, are several kilometers thick. Till recently it was thought that ice caps were relatively stable, certainly in their interiors, but evidence now appears to have dashed this fond hope. Ice caps both in Antarctica and in Greenland are now known to be melting, especially from their base, due to the effect of warming oceans. When this huge quantity of ice melts, the water released into the oceans will undoubtedly contribute significantly to a rise in sea levels.
However, to better understand and make predictions about these and related phenomena, scientists need to know much more about the total volume of ice which in turn needs measurement of its thickness.  

Sea ice being thin, its thickness can be measured directly, such as by drilling into it from above, but this method can only provide localized information over a small area. Thickness of ice caps, on the other hand, needs to be estimated by measuring the height of its surface relative to the land below, not an easy task by any means.     

Cryosat-2 ESA’s     Cryosat-2 is the second attempt at undertaking this task, the first mission in October 2005 having failed right at launch due to a software problem affecting the rocket. This time, ESA used Russia’s Dnepr launcher from the usual Soviet-era Baikonur station in Kazakhstan. The launcher was shot off the pad by a high-explosive charge with, unusually, its upper stage flying backwards pulling the satellite up rather than pushing it from below, the new configuration expected to enable greater accuracy in injecting the satellite into its designated orbit.

The spacecraft orbit is the steepest hitherto, taking it as close to the poles as possible. NASA’s ICEsat, with a laser altimeter, flew in a high inclination orbit of 86 degrees but Cryosat2 goes even better with an orbital path of 88 degrees north and south on each orbit, covering most of the Arctic and Greenland coastline of which only 10 percent is covered by current satellites. This clearly non sun-synchronous orbit requires that the spacecraft’s solar panels are tilted so that it can receive maximum possible sunlight and also that it carries newly-designed high capacity batteries.

The satellite (see image below) carries as its primary payload an advanced SAR- Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL). SAR stands for Synthetic Aperture Radar which provides high-resolution and simulated 3-D images even with small antennae by creating a rapid sequence of images while in motion which are then computationally put together. (See PD, May 3, 2009 for a more detailed explanation). To complement the altimeter, the payload includes a radio receiver called DORIS (Doppler Orbit and Radio Positioning Integration by Satellite) and a laser retro-reflector. The International Laser Ranging Service or ILRS, a global network of laser ranging stations, will support the mission. To provide the datum or reference position of the satellite itself against which all other positional readings are read to obtain absolute data, the satellite relies on the oldest navigational method, namely the position of stars which it continuously monitors through three star-trackers. 

The spacecraft’s instrumentation provide accurate data on sea-ice ‘freeboard’ or height of floating ice above sea level, and on the elevation of ice sheets. The SAR technique enables high resolution data in the direction of movement of the satellite. In conventional radar altimeters, distance to the top of the ice would be measured by the radar echo off the nearest point on the surface, but on sloping surfaces such as on land and on the edges of ice caps, there is no reference point to indicate where on the slope this nearest point is. The SAR’s series of multiple images taken at 10 times quicker intervals than conventional radars enables determination of the position and height of the surface in the along-track direction while left and right echo positions are provided by the SAR-interferometry mode which provides the angle of the returning echo, thus all together giving a three dimensional picture and accurate measurement of the thickness of the ice.

September 1980

As with all remote sensing, error correction and calibration has to be done through comparison with ground data both before and after launch. Arctic and Antarctic expeditions are already measuring snow density and behaviour relative to the ice below. After the launch, ground-truthing will be done to validate the radar data obtained and enable more accurate interpretation of the satellite data through the rest of the mission expected to last 3 years.

The Mission goal is to measure changes in ice thickness within 10% of the expected inter-annual variation which works out to a required accuracy of about 7mm per year averaging out variations between sea-ice and ice sheets. Data obtained so far shows that this goal will be met quite comfortably. Cryosat-2 will undoubtedly yield invaluable data on polar ice and considerably advance scientific knowledge of climate change and its impact, and also put at rest much speculative debate and scepticism.

September 2007

An interesting sidelight is that the launcher that put Cryosat-2 into orbit is a modified Soviet-era SS-II ballistic missile only slightly modified for commercial use. And earlier in the week, NASA also launched a modified Global Hawk, the US Air Force’s most potent Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) spycraft that can fly at high altitudes of over 60,000 feet for a very long time, to monitor sea-ice and ice sheets. If countries so decide, all knowledge and technology can indeed be harnessed for the collective benefit of humankind.  Talk about turning swords into ploughshares.