[Nothing less than deep mandatory cuts in GHG emissions, here and now, by the Developed world; binding commitments by the developing countries not to follow the destructive path traversed by the Developed countries - particularly by the major ones amongst them; free flow of relevant technologies across the world; and substantive financial supports for the poorer ones by the rich to make a meaningful change-over would do. The disaster is too real. We're too close to the precipice as it seems. The smaller island nations are the first to go under. The tropical countries are already facing the heat, rather literally. And the humanity remains seized with a compulsive death wish!] I/III. http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/enviornment/fresh-attempts-to-res... Fresh attempts to rescue Copenhagen climate summit (Third Lead) December 17th, 2009 - 8:09 pm ICT by IANS   - By Joydeep Gupta Copenhagen, Dec 17 (IANS) A fresh attempt to rescue the collapsed climate summit in this Danish capital started Thursday, after the host Denmark gave up its insistence on pushing a Copenhagen Agreement it had drafted. The agreement drafted by 192 countries together will now form the basis of discussions. Grave doubts remained on whether negotiators would be able to come up with a meaningful draft accord that the heads of state meeting over dinner here could consider, but the restart of the process after it had collapsed was heralded as progress by Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN _frame_work Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Now two “contact groups” had been formed in an attempt to sort out the many crucial differences remaining in the drafts, de Boer informed, while warning that the groups had less than seven hours before they had to report success or failure. “People made it clear that they are not looking forward to texts from the sky,” de Boer said, and the rescue attempt could start only after Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen agreed that the two drafts prepared under the aegis of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol would form the only _base_s for negotiations. Before this development, the summit, purportedly meant to save the world from climate change effects had collapsed, as Denmark had insisted on pushing its own “political declaration”, ignoring the pleas of the poor nations. India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had said: “The blame game will now start, but the developing countries are not to be blamed.” But even when the negotiations restarted, the impasse continued over the text of the political accord expected to be signed Friday. “We tried our best to make the Copenhagen summit a success, but the process is deeply flawed and there’s a huge trust deficit. There has been no sincere effort by the Danish government,” Ramesh said. “We’ve repeatedly asked the Danes for the draft (political accord). They have repeatedly promised to give it to us, but the promise has not been fulfilled. We’ve worked in good faith, but they are working to delay because they want to present it directly to the heads of state,” Ramesh said. Condemning this “confusion and lack of clarity”, Ramesh said: “We want negotiations to continue. We don’t want a blame game. The text (for a draft treaty) can be finalised within two months. We’ve approached the US and other rich countries; we’re working with them. “We’re also working very closely within the BASIC group (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) which is now a reality. And of course we are coordinating with China on an hourly basis,” he said. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will reach late Thursday evening and may or may not be in time for the gala dinner for heads of state, where the draft of the accord may be presented. Most ministers and delegates gathered here no longer expect anything more than a weak wishy-washy political accord, which will do little to help tackle climate change that is already affecting people worldwide. Manmohan Singh’s statement before he left for Copenhagen made it clear that India would stick to its stand that the Kyoto Protocol - the current global treaty to tackle climate change - must continue, though many rich countries want it buried. “Climate change cannot be addressed by perpetuating the poverty of the developing countries,” the prime minister’s statement said. Manmohan Singh offered that India could do more to move to a greener economy “provided there are credible arrangements to provide both additional financial support as well as technological transfers from developed to developing countries”. While there may be some progress over the technology transfer issue, financing has been stuck in the talks here. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to get that moving with an offer of raising $100 billion a year from around the world by 2020 to fight climate change, but left all details unsaid, thus failing to enthuse most delegates. Ramesh informed that the prime minister would hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao Friday. While most developing countries are together on climate negotiations, there are divisions that became clearer during the collapse Thursday. The Alliance of Small Island States want stronger action to fight climate change which has started to drown their countries, and are unhappy that emerging economies have not given more support to their stand. Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed told the media: “It is difficult to maintain political groupings that were formed in a different context”, referring to the Group of 77 countries that, together with China, negotiate at the climate talks as a bloc. II. http://www.countercurrents.org/nazareth161209.htm The Acidification Of Oceans By Marianne de Nazareth 16 December, 2009 Countercurrents.org Immediate and substantial reductions in green house gas emissions are needed to reduce the impacts of climate change on the oceans.. These impacts including warming ocean temperatures sea level rise, ocean acidification and changing ocean currents will lead to major shifts in the diversity abundance and distribution of life in the ocean. Globally, millions of people are already being impacted by these physical and biological changes through shifts in fisheries, increased coastal flooding , erosion from storms and loss of livelihoods dependant on the oceans. Most critically coastal and small island communities are home to many of the worlds most vulnerable communities and these people are being impacted most severely. The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity released a major study, Scientific Synthesis of the Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Marine Biological Diversity. The launch of the study, which was prepared in collaboration with the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), is a major event to mark Oceans Day during the current climate change negotiations in Copenhagen and highlights the direct _link_ between climate change, ocean health, and human well-being. According to the study, seas and oceans absorb approximately one quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and other human activities. As more and more carbon dioxide (CO2) has been emitted into the atmosphere, the oceans have absorbed greater amounts at increasingly rapid rates. Without this level of absorption by the oceans, atmospheric CO2 levels would be significantly higher than at present and the effects of global climate change would be more marked. However, the absorption of atmospheric CO2 has resulted in changes to the chemical balance of the oceans, causing them to become more acidic. It is predicted that by 2050, ocean acidity could increase by 150%. This dramatic increase is 100 times faster than any change in acidity experienced in the marine environment over the last 20 million years, giving little time for evolutionary adaptation within biological systems. “Ocean acidification is irreversible on timescales of at least tens of thousands of years, and substantial damage to ocean ecosystems can only be avoided by urgent and rapid reductions in global emissions of CO2. Attention must be given for integration of this critical issue at the global climate change debate in Copenhagen,” said Mr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention. “This CBD study provides a valuable synthesis of scientific information on the impacts of ocean acidification, _base_d on the analysis of more than 300 scientific literatures, and it describes an alarming picture of possible ecological scenarios and adverse impacts of ocean acidification on marine biodiversity,” he added. Among other findings, the study shows that increasing ocean acidification will mean that by 2100 some 70% of cold water corals, a key refuge and feeding ground for commercial fish species, will be exposed to corrosive waters. In addition, given the current emission rates, it is predicted that the surface water of the highly productive Arctic Ocean will become under-saturated with respect to essential carbonate minerals by the year 2032, and the Southern Ocean by 2050 with disruptions to large components of the marine food source, in particular those calcifying species, such as, mussels, oysters, shrimps, crabs and lobsters, which rely on calcium to grow and mature. An emerging body of research suggests that many of the effects of ocean acidification on marine organisms and ecosystems will be variable and complex and will affect different species in different ways. Evidence from naturally acidified locations confirms, however, that although some species may benefit, biological communities under acidified seawater conditions are less diverse and calcifying species absent. Many questions remain regarding the biological and biogeochemical consequences of ocean acidification for marine biodiversity and ecosystems, and the impacts of these changes on oceanic ecosystems and the services they provide, for example, in fisheries, coastal protection, tourism, carbon sequestration and climate regulation. The Earths oceans have absorbed 30% of global anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions + 50% more than terrestrial systems. The oceans have also absorbed 80% of the excess heat caused by climate change. The writer is a fellow with the UNFCCC III. http://www.countercurrents.org/hari161209.htm It's The Protesters Who Offer The Best Hope For Our Planet By Johann Hari 16 December, 2009 The Independent At first glance, the Copenhagen climate summit seems like a Salvador Dali dreamscape. I just saw Archbishop Desmond Tutu being followed by a swarm of Japanese students who were dressed as aliens and carrying signs saying Take Me To Your Leader and Is Your Species Crazy? . Before that, a group of angry black-clad teenage protesters who were carrying spray cans started quoting statistics to me about how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere can safely absorb. (It's 350 parts per million they pointed out, before sucking their teeth.) Before that, I saw a couple in a pantomime cow costume being attacked by the police, who accused them of throwing stones with their hooves. But the surrealism runs deeper and darker than this. Inside the Bella Centre, the rich world's leaders are defiantly ignoring their scientists and refusing to sign a deal that will prevent our climate from being dramatically destabilised. The scientific consensus shows the rich world needs to cut 40 per cent of our emissions of warming gases from 1990 levels by 2020 if we're going to have even a 50-50 chance of staying this side of the Point of No Return, when the Earth's natural processes start to break down and warming becomes unstoppable. Yet the scientists at Climate Analytics calculate our governments are offering a dismal 8-12 per cent cut – and once you factor in all the loopholes and accounting tricks, it becomes a net increase of four per cent. Privately, government negotiators admit there's no way the negotiations will end with the deal scientists say is necessary for our safety. Indeed, it looks possible that this conference won't deepen and broaden the Kyoto _frame_work, but cripple it. Kyoto established a legally binding international _frame_work to measure and reduce emissions. The cuts it required were too small, and the sanctions for breaking it were pitifully weak – but it was a start. Kyoto's current phase expires in 2012, but the treaty's authors believed its architecture would be retained and intensified after that. The developing countries assumed that's what they were here to do. But the US is proposing to simply ditch the Kyoto infrastructure – won over decades of long negotiations – and replace it with an even weaker voluntary deal. In their proposal, every country will announce cuts and stick to them out of the goodness of their hearts. No penalties, no enforcement. So at the centre of this summit is a proposition stranger than any number of arrested cows or Nasa-quoting hoodies: we're playing Russian roulette with the climate, and our most powerful governments are filling the barrels with extra bullets, one by one. Yet this conflagration here in Copenhagen is heartbreaking and heartwarming all at once. Our governments are showing their moral bankruptcy – but a genuinely global democratic movement is swelling to make them change course. Mass democratic agitation is the only force that has ever made governments moral before; it will have to do it again. An army of dedicated campaigners is gathering here, and they are prepared to take real risks to oppose this sham-deal. The protest march on Saturday here must have been the most genuinely global demonstration in history. Under banners saying There Is No Planet B , Nature Doesn't Do Bailouts and Change the Politics, Not the Climate , there seemed to be people from every nation on earth. Lawrence Muli from Kenya's youth delegation told me: We are having the worst drought in memory in Kenya. The seasons have changed in ways we don't understand. My family can't grow crops any more, so they are going hungry. I am here to say we won't die quietly. Next to him was Bhuwan Sambhu from Nepal, who has seen his glaciers retreat dramatically in his short lifetime. Just behind them was Manuel Wiechers from Mexico City, who said his hometown has been devastated by the worst rains on record. At his side was Utte Richter, a 76-year-old German woman who said: It would be immoral to stay at home when these decisions were being made, with everything they mean for the world. This system is near the end of the road, and we must change to a new way. The same arguments are heard in the corridors of the Bella Centre, where the representatives of the poor countries are refusing to sign up to a deal that will dry out or drown much of their land. The government of Tuvalu – the low-lying island that is already being drowned by rising seas – has calmly, with great dignity, interrupted meetings that presume we can carry on emitting carbon, pointing out this means we will die . Lumumba Di-Aping, the chief negotiator for the G77 block of developing countries, wept as he explained: The more you defer action, the more you condemn millions of people to immeasurable suffering. He said our governments are acting like climate sceptics. If they really believed global warming was happening, how could they do this? Today, these two strands of protest – inside the conference, and outside – will combine. Some of the delegates are expected to walk out of the Bella Centre talks in disgust. At the same time, brave young protesters supporting their message will be trying to break in, to express their revulsion at the betrayal of us all going on there. Of course, the parts of the global media that serve the interests of the polluting rich will be keen to shift the story on to vandals and violent protest . There may be a minuscule minority of protesters who behave unacceptably. But in reality, there are two forms of vandalism about to happen in this city. There is the cutting of a few fences as part of an act of mass civil disobedience. It is an attempt to symbolically resist the much bigger act of vandalism – the trashing of our own habitat, by leaders too short-sighted and too money-addled to listen to the science. Isn't it violent to knowingly condemn whole countries to drown? Isn't it vandalism to knowingly let the world's most crucial farming land crust over, its most precious rivers run dry, and its hurricanes become super-charged? Isn't that immeasurably worse than breaking a fence and cutting a cordon? Couldn't resistance to this destruction-machine justify this tiny act of destruction? The young protesters who will do this have proved themselves, so far, the sanest force in town. They have ensured that the corporate lobbyists punching holes in the deal are followed and shamed wherever they meet. They chant: It's not your business – it's our climate. When I hear the activists, I remember something Farley Mowat, the Canadian conservationist, wrote in the 1990s: The last three decades of this century have witnessed the ignition of the most significant internal conflict ever to engage the human species. It is not the struggle between capitalism and communism or between any other set of 'isms'. It is the conflict between those who possess the means and will to exploit the living world to destruction, and those who are banding together in a desperate and last-ditch attempt to prevent the New Juggernaut from trashing our small planet. This week, the small band of the sane got a little bit bigger and a lot more global. For today, it is vastly outgunned by the forces of ecological destruction, and it will certainly not be able to ensure a sane deal in Copenhagen. But think of all the other movements that were small at first and held up impossible dreams. They called him Martin Loser King ; they said civil rights would never come; now everyone says he was right and there's a black President (although alas not a green one). As Archbishop Desmond Tutu pointed out here, they said the Berlin Wall would never fall, and they said apartheid would never die; now they say we cannot make the transition from an economy powered by coal and oil to one powered by the sun, the wind and the waves. But unlike previous protest movements, we can't wait for it to accumulate speed over generations. Each tonne of carbon brings us closer to climatic – and climactic – tipping points. This is a leap human beings must make in one generation. We know it can be done. We have the knowledge and the science. If we refuse to do it – out of inertia and denial and so a few fossil fuel corporations can carrying on raking in profit and bribing our politicians – that will be this summit's most surreal scene of all. Johann Hari is a columnist for the London Independent. He has reported from Iraq, Israel/Palestine, the Congo, the Central African Republic, Venezuela, Peru and the US, and his journalism has appeared in publications all over the world.