Photo credit: america.gov

The 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen, which many have said was our last chance to take action against “the greatest threat the world has ever faced”, ended in a failure.

For over 15 years delegates and politicians from around the world have discussed, debated and negotiated the questions of dealing with manmade climate change in various COP (Conference of the Parties) summits. So why haven’t they made any real progress yet?

That is a big question that covers a whole range of topics and issues that I won’t go into. Instead I will try to focus on the actual politics and tactics used at the COP summits. I will try to see if uneven development and inequality plays any part in how the actual negotiations plays out, how the delegates attending perceive climate justice and fairness, and if all this combined somehow sabotages the efforts to secure a climate deal.

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Photo credit: cmaccubbin

Tomorrow President Barack Obama will visit Denmark to try to raise support for Chicago’s Olympic bid for the 2016 summer games. First lady Michelle Obama arrived in Denmark earlier and will, with the support of Oprah Winfrey, also try to help out with the lobbying.

“President Barack Obama, who initially planned to let First Lady Michelle Obama represent the United States in Copenhagen this week, when the International Olympic Committee chooses a site for the 2016 summer games, plans to travel there too.”

Besides Obama, the Brazilian President Lula di Silva and Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama will also visit Copenhagen tomorrow and pitch their home countries as the perfect host for the Olympic summer games in 2016. The event will take place at the International Olympic Committee summit tomorrow which just happens to be the same venue where the UN climate change summit will be held in December.

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What is equality and development? And what kind of influence has the environment on both of these relations? For me, environmentalism has always been about caring about the well-state and equality of everyone and everything. Al Gore said, during the annual World Economic Forum Meeting in 2008, that you can’t solve climate change or poverty in the developing world “without dealing with the other”:

“Earlier this year, Bono and I spoke about the intersection between the extreme poverty in the developing world – especially in Africa – and the climate crisis. It is impossible to solve one of these issues without dealing with the other (Gore, 2008)”.

So if we are to solve the equality in the world, our uneven development and environmental problems we just can’t work on one of them. They are all connected and thus we have to deal with all of them at once.

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On this day, 63 years ago, USA dropped the nuclear bomb “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, USA dropped a second nuclear bomb over Nagasaki in Japan. The bombs killed as many as 240 000 people. Thousands more died from injuries or illness attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bombs. In both cities, the overwhelming majority of the dead were civilians.

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Japanese police have arrested two Greenpeace activists, Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, for exposing a whale meat scandal in Japans government-sponsored whaling programme last month. According to the police the activists are “being investigated for allegedly stealing a box of whale meat which they presented as evidence.”

Junichi Sato is a well-known anti-whaling blogger in Japan and Greenpeace claims that this was, on the eve of the International Whaling Commission meeting, “an intimidation tactic by the government agencies responsible for whaling.” The Japanese media are, according to Brian from Making Waves, saying that this arrest is “a warning to other activist groups that as the G8 approaches, voices of dissent in Japan will not be tolerated.”

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Well, that’s a maybe. The Australian government is hoping that a new proposal from them will be able to cover up a loophole that let’s Japan conduct whaling for “scientific reasons”.

The Australian environmental minister Peter Garett said today that Australia will present their proposal next week in London during an International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting.

If Australia’s proposal gets accepted whaling for “scientific reasons” must be conducted according to the commission’s rules.

But this will not be an end to whaling. Several countries like Norway, Iceland and Greenland will still continue to brutally slaughter whales for “commercial” and “cultural” purposes.

It is a fact that more than 1000 whales and dolphins are killed every year by whalehunters, who make some endangered species head torwards extinction.

Mainly Japan, with support from Norway and Iceland, refuses to obey the rules of the moratorium set in 1986, from the Worldwide Whalehunting Commitee, which had as a goal to let the whale population increase, after it’s dramatic drop between the years 1925-1975.

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Since Greenpeace left the Antarctic, due to low fuel, the Japanese whalers began their slaughter of whales. Australia who is strongly condemning the whale slaughter is still following the Japanese whalers. And yesterday they could release images and videos of the Japan whaling fleets slaughter of a whale mother and her calf (video after the jump).

Peter Garrett, Australian environment minister, said that “it is explicitly clear from these images that this is indiscriminate killing of whales, where you have a whale and its calf killed in this way. And to claim that this is in any way scientific is to continue the charade that has surrounded this issue from day one.”

Mr Morimoto, japanese whalers ICR Director, said to the whalers defence that “it is necessary to conduct random sampling of the Antarctic minke population to obtain accurate statistical data.”

I wonder how “random” a “sampling” of 900 minke whales and 50 fin whales really is?

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With the Australian government, Greenpeace and Sea Shephard watching and tracking the two Japanese whaling vessels it seems all the whales are gone. But when the Japanese whalers can’t harpoon any whales they take hostages and make illegal fuel stops instead.

Now an article has appeared in Shukan Toyo Keizai, one of Japan’s leading newspapers, were they encourage Japan to “re-examine the whaling issue”.

Being one of the few issues on which Japan has made a stand against the United States and European countries, the stance of whaling hardliners could also be a vent for narrow-minded nationalism. In the end, that could easily be detrimental to national interests. Perhaps the Japanese people need to take this opportunity to re-examine the whaling issue for themselves.

Making Waves has the full translation here.

This is the final part of Climate Emergency and Sustainability Emergency, a two part article.

A few days ago at a social function I was asked by a top US atmosphere scientist – in Australia to work with top Australian atmospheric scientists – what would I do NOW. My answer in short was as follows: Australia has 50 Gigawatt (50 billion watt) electricity generating capacity (85% fossil fuel-driven at present); it currently spends about A$10 billion pa on fossil fuel subsidies; the installation cost for large-scale wind farms is about A$2 per watt of installed capacity; simply diverting this unconscionable fossil fuel subsidy to wind farm installation would yield A$10 billion pa /A$2 per watt = 5 billion watt capacity pa = 50 billion watt (50 Gigawatt) wind power electricity capacity in a mere 10 years, i.e. by 2017.

As detailed below, stated and committed Rudd Government policy means that it will INCREASE Australia’s fossil annual fuel-derived per capita CO2 pollution (already over 10 times higher than the world average if you include our fossil fuel exports) by about 50% by 2050. Every year is important. We must act urgently NOW. “Waiting for Godot” or, with the utmost respect, “waiting for Garnaut” is not an option.

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