Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Hello, web! I said HELLO, WEB!

Sorry - this is the first time I've posted since the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ adopted this new wide blog format, and I'm just not used to all the extra room for words to echo around in.

What should we do with it? Write longer sentences, with sub-clauses, parenthetically inclined, by the dozen to embellish, decoratively, the empty white aisles? Provide more pictures and video clips and graphs to underpin and overlay the essential themes?

Or perhaps we could introduce a marking system based on variable emoticons, where the shape of a cartoon mouth would indicate in real time the prevailing character of the feedback flux from readers on various elements of the blog?

On the other hand... perhaps I'll just get on with writing the entry while those questions simmer at the back of the brain somewhere (I do like the emoticon idea, though... one for the tech boffins perhaps).

It's been a busy few days on climate science and politics. As I've suggested in previous posts, the buy-in of major developing countries is going to be crucial if negotiators from the EU and US want to achieve their self-declared aim of tying up a new global deal on climate change at the in December... and the two biggest, China and India, have each just made their feelings a little clearer.

At a conference in Washington DC, countries importing goods from China should be responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions associated with those products.

suggests energy expended by Chinese businesses making goods for export to the US accounts for perhaps one-sixth of its greenhouse gas emissions.

China has reaped heavy criticism, not least from the US, for its rising emissions (now the largest of any country) - yet a big chunk of that rise comes from making goods to satisfy US consumers;so should they count as Chinese or US emissions?

A corollary is that "", as it's called - the exporting of polluting industries to developing countries that do not have emissions caps - can raise the total volume of humanity's greenhouse gas emissions, because the developing country's factories may be less regulated.

Mr Li's suggestion is a non-starter as it stands - not least because, as EU negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger pointed out, if Western nations assumed responsibility for these emissions, they would demand the tools to control them, which would clearly impinge on Chinese sovereignty and so be politically impossible.

But the wider point stands; it is pointless cutting back high-carbon production at home if all that does is stimulate more high-carbon consumption from overseas. There is some scope, perhaps, for looking at this through carbon trading.

And of course, Mr Li's comments direct the issue politically back at the developed, high-consuming world, which is politically astute.

Meanwhile in Delhi, India's climate envoy Shyam Saran Western nations for trying to tie funding for carbon cuts to the freeing of markets. "Once we start going in that direction, it means we start going for protectionism under green label," he said.

Mr Saran's words reverberated across the defile that exists between the developed and developing worlds over how much money the West should provide to help poorer nations green their economies and protect against climate impacts.

Developing countries want rich nations to cough up on on the basis that they have caused the problem - period. But some Western politicians are willing to commit sizeable funds only if developing countries agree to emissions curbs.

What should we make of these rumblings?

I think one key point is the timing. Within the next three months, a small team of officials must draft text to go into the sequence of UN meetings leading up to Copenhagen.

The begins in less than two weeks. I think we can expect more opening gambits to be deployed between now and then.

Organisers of last week's in Copenhagen will be hoping that the draft text pays some attention to the - that trends are advancing at or beyond the worst projections of the (IPCC), and therefore meaningful political action needs to come swiftly.

We've discussed this on previous posts, of course - and if you haven't seen it, I would point you to in our series this week, where he argues that the "main message" represents the views of only a handful of people, and certainly not the broader mass of delegates.

But I concluded last time by asking if anyone would like to help scan the for interesting presentations. Several of you did - for which many thanks - and while I won't dwell on all the things you pointed up, there are a couple of things I wanted to comment on.

So londonjimi, you looked at cities, which are generally warmer than the surrounding region - meaning that if temperatures rise generally, city-dwellers are going to be feeling that on top of the urban heat island effect.

There are some ideas around about planning cities more thoughtfully in order to reduce the heat. Planting trees in streets, painting roofs white, rooftop gardens, smart buildings, cycling... the local possibilities are several.

But what about local funding? While in many countries you can get grants for installing renewable energy equipment, is there any city that's awarding financial incentives to plant urban trees or whiten roofs? Should there be?

If anyone has any examples they'd like to point up, please do.

simon-swede, you picked out [pdf link] on potential synergies between measures to improve human health and curb climate change, which I also thought was really interesting.

The last UN climate conference in Poland that improving the stoves that many of the world's poorest families use for cooking could yield significant climate and health benefits at very low cost - and that's one of the ideas that researcher Kirk Smith draws out.

The most radical, though, is improving access to contraception. Helping women in the poorest developing countries to choose their family size and the age at which they start giving birth could, he suggests, be a win-win idea, reducing population growth (and by extension, long-term carbon emissions) and improving the health of mothers and children.

I wonder whether it's yet arisen in discussions in various UN climate processes, such as the ?

Just as I'm preparing to put this post to sleep comes news of the from Yvo de Boer, the UN's top climate official.

Put the credit crunch to one side, he warns European leaders, and stand by the financing commitments you made to developing countries at the Bali UN conference more than a year ago - otherwise there may be no deal at the end of this year.

Didn't I suggest there'd be more jockeying for position in the next few days? Now where's my smiley gone...

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?