Photo: COP-15
Just out from a speech by Al Gore, where he delivered a call to action to deliver a good outcome from the Conference over the next 3 days. He knows that a binding legal agreement won’t come from Copenhagen, but for one to follow then Copenhagen must be a success. He pointed out that today the world has emitted another 90m tonnes of carbon dioxide, 25m of it ending up in the oceans and causing a more acidic sea. He also reflected that global emissions are up 40% on 1990 levels, and that the rate of increase has also gone up by 40% – all this despite the existence of the Kyoto Protocol which has seen reductions, for example in the European Union.
Gore called for two key date actions. Firstly that the US Congress make sure the climate change legislation which has passed through the House of Representatives makes its way through the Senate and out of Congress by 22 April 2010 – the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Secondly he called for COP-16, the next annual round of talks, to be brought forward to July 2010 and that this should see a binding agreement reached on emissions levels. On the numbers involved, Gore said that whilst we are already at 388 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, this compares to 280 ppm in pre-industrial times, and that the target should be to stabilise emissions at 350ppm.
Finally Gore argued that future generations should not be able to ask us why the arguments going on in the Conference rooms in Copenhagen were more important than reaching a solution, and that they wouldn’t care what the arguments were anyway if the Conference did not deliver.
Elsewhere this afternoon I managed to gatecrash a meeting between ocean climate scientists from Stanford University and a “staffer” from the House of Representatives- they talked about how more American politicians could be persuaded to see the acidification of the oceans, and sea level rise, as issues that needed to be addressed. They seemed quite happy to draw some comparisons with Scotland, as they have academic contacts there, and seemed to know a lot about Oban and East Kilbride.
Patrick Harvie MSP managed to get through the crowds and into the talks, whilst the other MSPs in the party, Cathy Peattie and Rob Gibson, attended meetings in the city centre relating to climate change and the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee inquiry into active travel. Patrick and I met a Finnish activist from a group seeking to protect the Boreal Forest in Finland and beyond. They knew some people from Reforesting Scotland, and their website is my interesting one of the day (just in case I can’t blog again).
We’ve just heard a new draft text for the overall agreement from the Conference will be released in a few minutes so I think I’ll hang about for that then head into the Copenhagen evening.
