How the Australian Coal lobby joined the U.S. oil lobby to manipulate COP Climate Change talks

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Once again the annual COP Conference on Climate Change makes its ritualistic appearance this time in Copenhagen. The COP 15 jamboree to be organised in the 2nd week of December is the 15th conference on Climate change held under the framework convention of the UNFCC. Though the hoopla around the Copenhagen conference is bigger than before with disastrous after effects being already witnessed from Arctic to Maldives, it is highly unlikely that there will be any agreement on the issues involved amongst the nations of the world.

The Kyoto pact of 1997 introduced binding targets for greenhouse gas GHG emissions in all the 37 industrialised nations from 2008 to 2012 with an objective of 4 % reduction by 2012. As per the UNFCC the data from the previous years look not too encouraging and it is clear by now that none of these emission reduction targets set at Kyoto for the industrialised nations will be ever met..

GHG Emissions of G7 rose from 2000-2007 said a recent UNFCC report released from Bonn in Oct 2009 . http://bit.ly/5DoKX
The report shows a 1 % rise in GHG emissions during the year 2006-2007 and over 3 % rise during the 2000-2007 period The countries who contributed most to this rise in emissions by the industrial nations are none other than Australia and U.S. who steadfastly opposed the Kyoto pact and the concept of reduction of GHG by the rich nations in a time bound schedule.

Not surprisingly these two nations are the home to the world biggest coal industry and oil industry and have the highest emission rates over the past few decades. Australia always a runaway leader in the pollutions race uses its unique isolated geographic location and low population to drive some of the most high emission operations in mining, animal farming, and metal processing all using coal energy which it produces and exports in abundance outpacing all other countries by a mile. It therefore does not come as a surprise to note that there has been a 42% rise in Co2 emissions between 1990-2007 in Australia alone as per UNFCC data on Co2 emissions. http://bit.ly/4AgTL6

As per UN data the Co2 emission values of Australia jumped from 277, 803 GGh in 1990 to an all time high of 390, 463 Ggh in the year 2007

Incidentally Australia is one of the largest exporters of Coal, and its Coal lobby influences the climate change policy initiatives the Government takes. It is at their behest that Australia mooted the proposal of doing away with the Kyoto proposal which emphasis on reduction of Carbon emissions in a time bound period by the 37 industrial nations. Instead they proposed a new emissions cap for all the nations in the UNFCC including the developing and the poor nations which naturally created a huge uproar as over 90% of the emissions are due to the industrial nations having less than 10% of the worlds population.

Under the Australian proposal the focus would move away from coal and carbon which Australia generates in abundance to GHG which could mean anything and everything. The new proposal would bring all the GHG gasses under one ambit. Though the GHG gasses currently identified by the UNFCC are few today they could open a huge Pandora’s box of 600,000 HFCs and toxic pollutants that the process industries of the world produce . Capping Emission by penalties is not possible. We need positive technology solutions to develop clean energy http://bit.ly/4kzzIz

Fluorocarbons including HFCs are chemical products that are used in refrigeration, air conditioning, and insulation, and other process industries derivatives from mercury and arsenic to ammonia and methane. If you have to track, monitor and stop them individually it will become a wild goose chase of enormous magnitude, diverting the attention from the principle offender “carbon from coal”

Besides the Australian proposal has another ace up its sleeve. The Kyoto pact was unsuccessful largely because a few of the major polluting nations like U.S. and Australia ( last moment ratification) did not ratify it or heed it. Thus despite the fact that emissions reduced in Europe, the overall emission rate of the 37 industrialised nations in the last decade has been rising. Now the Australian proposal not only wants to increase the number of gas emissions to be monitored to unrealistic numbers, but also increase the number of disagreements by trying to rope in all the members of the UNFCC from the developing and the underdeveloped world.

In short it is a sure shot methodology to derail whatever agreement and progress that has taken place in the climate change discussions over the last 15 years. No wonder the U.S. whose oil lobby has been at the forefront of manipulating politicians to keep out clean energy joined forces with Australia quickly and created an atmosphere of confrontaton between the developed andthe developing world before the Copenhagen conference of December 2009