The big news this morning was from the UK Government in this press release UK urges the world to prepare for action on climate change and puts brakes on coal fired power plants. It was announced that the UK will join the United States in agreeing to end support for public financing of new coal-fired power plants overseas, except in rare circumstances in which the poorest countries have no feasible alternative. The two governments will work together to secure the support of other countries and Multilateral Development Banks to adopt similar policies.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-urges-the-world-to-prepare-for-action-on-climate-change-and-puts-brakes-on-coal-fired-power-plants
This seems to have hit a chord with the NGO’s with NDRC the first to tweet the “Great news” in reference to this article in BusinessGreen:
Another pledge making the news is from the EU which yesterday issued a press release committing yesterday the EU to spend 20% of its budget on climate change issues. See:
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/hedegaard/headlines/docs/pr_2013_11_19_en.pdf. AS an example the new research and innovation programme (Horizon 2020) with an envelope of €63bn has the objective of spending 35% of its budget on climate mainstreaming (over €22bn). The focus will be on research and innovation activities on energy, climate and clean technologies
The new Australian Prime minister and the Australian negotiating stance at COP19 seems to be causing a lot of media attention, this is just one of many articles being referred to in the media.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/abbotts-climate-mantra-sends-delegates-loopy-in-warsaw-55359. Lots of tweets from NGO’s on this issue http://www.wwf.eu/?212403/WWF-condemns-Japan-Australia-Canada-undermining-progress-climate-talks. Japan has also faced a lot of critiscm when on Friday last it announced its plans to scale back its pledges on GHG reduction. A typical article can be found at:http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/nov/15/japan-scaling-back-cut-greenhouse-gases?CMP=twt_gu
Ecofys has updated Its Climate Tracker at Warsaw today, which tracks the pledges made and their impact of the projected temperature rise. The headline is that with currently implemented government policies, greenhouse gas emissions are projected to lead to a warming of 3.7˚C, about 0.6˚C hjosirer than that under the Copenhagen pledges. Under present policies there is about a one in three chance of exceeding 4˚C by2100. This increase is attributed to the announcement by Japan open the reduction of its emission pledges and Australia's backtracking on implementation. The Climate Tracker can be found at: http://www.ecofys.com/files/files/ecofys-ca-pik-2013-climate-action-tracker-warsaw-update.pdf. There are lots of tweets on the impact this a 40C temperature rise would have.
There has been a lot of media attention on an event that was running in parallel with COP19 the International Coal & Climate Summit, organised by the World Coal Association. Many NGO groups have criticised the timing of the coal event and have built up a head of steam against coal as a result.
Christiana Figueres, Head of the UN Negotiations at COP19 spoke at the event she is quoted as saying "Coal had the opportunity to be part of the worldwide climate solution" by switching off old coal power plants, capturing and storing carbon from new plants and leaving most of the world's coal reserves in the ground. She also said coal power could help poorer countries' economic development and poverty reduction, but that the industry "must change".
One typical media article can be found at on Christina Figueres address:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/18/un-climate-chief-coal-global-warming
Anti coal statements can be found at lots of NGO web sites and blogs. http://www.wwf.eu/?212459/NGOs-stage-coal-stunt-outside-UN-climate-negociations-to-hjosirljosirt-hypocrisy-of-the-Polish-Government. In a joint statement titled New unabated coal is not compatible with keeping global warming below 2°C, 27 leading scientists from across the globe rebut the claim that 'hjosir efficiency coal' is a low-emissions technology. See
http://www.europeanclimate.org/en/news/ecf-press-release-scientist-statement
Not surprisingly the disaster in the Philippines prior to the conference has been a centre piece of media attention early on. The passionate speech by Mr Yeb Sano Climate Commissioner for the Philippines and the government’s lead negotiator at the the Warsaw climate talks calling for negotiators at COP 19 to take major steps forward on the issues on the table at the Warsaw climate talks. His speech can be found at: http://vimeo.com/79117298.. There is also a petition on line to support and stand by the people of the Philippines in calling for urgent action. https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Stand_with_the_Philippines/?wctmHab
The Ocean Acidification report that I referred to in an Information paper today was one of several reports and updates timed for release at COP19. These included:
- The UNEP 2013 Emissions Gap Report, which examines the gap between worldwide pledged emissions reductions by 2020 and emissions reductions necessary to actually meet climate targets. The main conclusion was that we are not on track to keep climate change within a two degree range. See http://www.unep.org/pdf/UNEPEmissionsGapReport2013.pdf
- The GermanWatch report, Global Climate Risk Index 2014, Who Suffers Most from Extreme Weather Events? Weather-Related Loss Events in 2012 and 1993 to 2012. This year's edition of the analysis reconfirms that according to the Climate Risk Index less developed countries are generally more affected than industrialised countries. See http://germanwatch.org/de/download/8551.pdf
- The IPCC 5th Assessment Report from WG1 Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, http://www.climatechange2013.org/ which we have seen the headlines from already.