Tiempo Climate Newswatch

United Nations Climate Change Conference 07 is a "make or break" opportunity to reach agreement on long-term international action on the climate problem, according to Yvo de Boer, head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat. Failure would result in a "loss of faith in the United Nations process being capable of delivering," he said in an interview with IPS. While he does not expect the meeting to agree on targets and finalize a regime, he does hope that Bali will "result in a first step on a long road to really come to grips with climate change."

de Boer calls on nations such as India "not to be as wasteful as the West" while recognizing that developing nations do not wish to "constrain their economic growth to solve the problem that somebody else has caused." In the run-up to the Bali meeting, Brazil has reiterated its opposition to targets being imposed on developing nations. "The principal responsibility lies with the industrialized countries," said Everton Vargas from Brazil's Ministry of External Relations. "Our offer is to adopt verifiable policies at a national level to combat climate change - we have our own targets," he continued.

The latest Human Development Report, from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), warns that the world is drifting towards a "tipping point" that could lock the poorest countries and their poorest citizens in a downward spiral, leaving hundreds of millions facing malnutrition, water scarcity, ecological threats and a loss of livelihoods. "Ultimately, climate change is a threat to humanity as a whole. But it is the poor, a constituency with no responsibility for the ecological debt we are running up, who face the immediate and most severe human costs," concludes UNDP head Kemal Dervis.

The report calls on the industrialized nations to take a lead in cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 per cent of 1990 levels by the year 2050, through a mix of carbon taxation, more stringent cap-and-trade programmes, energy regulation and international cooperation on financing low-carbon technology transfer. It also calls on these nations to put adaptation at the centre of international partnerships on poverty reduction. "We are issuing a call to action, not providing a counsel of despair," said lead author Kevin Watkins. "Working together with resolve, we can win the battle against climate change. Allowing the window of opportunity to close would represent a moral and political failure without precedent in human history." The report's proposal for a 20 per cent cut in emissions below 1990 levels by developing nations by the year 2050 met with a strong rebuttal from India. The report "does not address the key issues of equality and equity," according to Montek Singh Ahluwalia of India's Planning Commission.

American consumers are using the savings from greater energy efficiency to buy more and bigger appliances and vehicles, hence consuming even more energy, according to a study of the "efficiency paradox" conducted by CIBC World Markets. "While seemingly perverse, improvements in energy efficiency result in more of the good being consumed - not less," says Jeff Rubin at CIBC World Markets. The study concludes that improvements in energy efficiency are essential. But, Rubin recommends, "in order for efficiency to actually curb energy usage, as opposed to energy intensity, consumers must be kept from reaping the benefits of those initiatives in ever-greater energy consumption."

Cost still limits access to solar power on the part of the 1.6 billion people in the world without electricity, concludes a report from the InterAcademy Council. A silicon cell manufacturing boom may, however, make solar technology available even to the rural poor. "Very inexpensive solar cells could be used by off-grid people to charge appliances that don't use a lot of power [such as radios, mobile phones, water purifiers and light emitting diodes] but make a world of difference," said lead author Steven Chu from the University of California, Berkeley. The report concludes that it is a "moral and social imperative," to be pursued with all means available, that the poorest people on this planet should be supplied with basic, modern energy services. The study was commissioned by the governments of Brazil and China.