Filed under: Environment
Oil refinery in Qatar
Speaking at a meeting of its Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation at Istanbul in November, Bangladeshi president Zillur Rahman called on the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to take a lead in combating climate change and in supporting countries like Bangladesh that are fighting the consequences of global warming, even though they make little contribution to its causes. Up to now, however, the OIC’s record on this has been poor.
A 2007 study concluded that the rich Arab states in the OIC had been reluctant to take a lead on addressing climate change: “… efforts by wealthier Muslim states are imbalanced with many of them doing very little and not acknowledging the urgency of the issue. Saudi Arabia, who holds most of the purse strings of the OIC, has long been a sceptic of climate change.” Indeed, the response of Saudi Arabia’s lead climate change negotiator at Copenhagen, Mohammad Al-Sabban, to the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit was: “It appears from the details of the scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change.”
Looking at annual CO2 emissions per capita in the Gulf states (International Energy Agency figures for 2007), it is immediately apparent that the figures are much worse than even for the United States, which is usually seen as the villain of the piece. For example, Qatar’s annual emissions stand at 58.01 tonnes per capita, the United Arab Emirates’ at 29.91 tonnes, Bahrain’s at 28.23 tonnes and Kuwait’s at 25.09 tonnes, whereas the figure for USA is 19.10 tonnes. These emissions are even more astonishing when compared with the figure for Bangladesh, which stands at 0.25 tonnes per capita. It does make you wonder what is being done in these rich Arab Gulf states to produce such huge CO2 emissions.
As for discussions on climate change amongst the Arab states, here again the problem is the reluctance of the ruling elites in oil-rich countries to support any measures that might reduce demand for oil and petrol. This despite the fact that the Middle East is particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures, with vast areas of agricultural land between Egypt and Iraq expected to lose fertility as a result of global warming.
In November, at the launch of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) report on climate change in Cairo, UNFPA officials pointed out that 15% of people in the Arab world already have limited or no access to potable water and that water scarcity induced by climate change was expected to cut food production in the region by half. They called for more cooperation between the Arab League, UNFPA, and Arab NGOs to help governments draw up appropriate policies.
A report released in November by the Lebanon-based Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED) criticised the near complete lack of research data on climate change in Arab countries and called on Arab nations to immediately draw up adaptation and mitigation plans. One of the authors stated that “we have no data about the effects the greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere will have on our coastal zones, even though we know they are very vulnerable”, adding that this makes creating plans to reduce risks from climate change difficult.
Not surprisingly, we have come to expect very little from the OIC in such global environmental summits as we are seeing in Copenhagen this week, where the negotiations on behalf of the developing world are undertaken by the G77 plus China. We hear much talk about the importance of the ummah as the basis for international unity among Muslims, but the oil-rich states have so far shown little sense of unity with their co-religionists over such a critical issue for mankind as climate change and global warming.
In addition to the conference of the parties reaching an agreement on limiting global warming to 2C over pre-industrial levels, the other bone of contention at the Copenhagen Summit is clearly money. That is, how much wealthy countries will be paying poor ones to help them deal with climate change. Given the huge sovereign funds that many of the oil-rich Muslim-majority states are sitting on, derived essentially from the sale of hydrocarbons, and given that the burning of these fuels makes a major contribution to greenhouse gases, you might think the oil producers would feel some moral obligation to the nations who suffer the consequences of global warming.
Moreover, at present the huge funds that the oil-producers possess are usually invested into property and assets in the developed world, when investment in the developing world in green industries and the low carbon economy could well give them better returns and certainly a better conscience. Now that would be a grand idea for all those funds standing idle in bank accounts in the world’s major cities. In the meantime, some zakat to those on the front line of climate change in countries like the Maldives and Bangladesh is surely not too much to ask.
Published in the Jakarta Globe, 16 February 2010
December 17, 2009
Last week the London Assembly Environment Committee and Oxfam jointly organised a Climate Hearing at City Hall, where we heard for the first time from London’s traditional and diaspora communities about the impact that climate change has had on their lives both here and in their ancestral homes. We also heard from experts what cities can do to limit our combined carbon footprints and saw a production by the Blue Elephant youth theatre on the impact of climate change in South Asia. That’s all before we concluded with a panel discussion on the issues brought up during the evening.
This event took place against the background of a raging debate over the alleged manipulation of the time series on increasing global temperatures produced by the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. In a radio interview on LBC following the Climate Hearing, I came to the defence of UEA’s Prof Phil Jones by simply asking: why all of a sudden have 13-year-old emails been given such prominence? It’s not difficult to work out that it must have something to do with the Copenhagen Summit next month and some people’s attempts to undermine it! In fact the UEA time series tallies with that of NASA, and I don’t hear anyone accusing them of manipulating the evidence. In any case, it is not just these time series that show the world is warming but a range of sources including other indicators like sea level rises, glacier retreats and the reduction in Arctic sea ice.
On top of this, the previous week we had the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) suggesting that family planning, reproductive health care and gender relations could influence the course of climate change and affect how humanity adapts to rising sea levels, worsening storms and severe droughts. The spin put on this by the media was that population growth in the developing countries is a major threat to the future of the planet.
Now you can imagine how neo-Malthusian outfits like the Optimum Population Trust jumped at this opportunity to peddle their half-truths. What they do not want to admit is that the fertility rate of half the world is now 2.1 or less, the magic number consistent with stable population, and that it’s expected to fall below this level between 2020 and 2050. (See the recent article in the Economist.) That’s not surprising as poor countries are going through the same demographic transitions that rich ones went through, but at an earlier stage in their development and much more quickly.
As for environmental damage, the poorest people in the world like the Bangladeshis are producing at most 0.3 tonnes of CO2 emissions per capita annually, whereas a US citizen produces 20 tonnes. So, while it’s clear that if the poor countries recreate the same consumption patterns as the US we will certainly have some problems to deal with in the future, at present that is a distant prospect. It is the environmental damage caused by the developed countries that is the immediate challenge.
More recently we have also seen “climate change sceptics” like Melanie Phillips and Nick Griffin coming together in a de facto alliance to question the basis of the Copenhagen Summit. So it’s all too apparent what the political forces are behind the questioning of the science. In fact, if you were genuinely sceptical, as they make out they are, would you not at least adopt the precautionary principle and act now in order to avoid even the possibility of future environmental disaster? Alas that is not their thinking. The Mad Mels and Nick Griffins are not really sceptics but rather climate change deniers who are ideologically committed to rejecting the science, although of course neither would admit that publicly.
We can expect more of this nonsense all the way through to the Summit and during it as well. I am just glad we had the opportunity to hold a Climate Hearing here in City Hall, when London called for a global shout for climate justice.
As for my wish list for the Copenhagen Summit, I would like to see the following: a cap on the developed world’s emissions, a global deal on aviation emissions and the Tobin Tax to fund the climate change adaptation and mitigation required in the developing world. I trust this is not too much to expect!
December 1, 2009
Oops – another environment report fails to appear on time
Last week my office was informed that the Mayor’s draft Waste Management Strategy will not now be available for consultation till the 18th of December, when we had been expecting it to be released at the beginning of the week and it had originally been scheduled for publication back in the Summer. In this instance I’m told it’s the lawyers who have stopped the release of the document, suggesting something must have gone badly wrong for them to get involved so late in the day.
Unfortunately, this delay is par for the course with the Mayor’s environmental strategies and consultations. Boris’s Environment Direction of Travel statement was due in the Spring but was not published till July, while his draft Water Strategy which was also due in the Spring was not published till August. Boris’s draft Climate Change Adaptation Strategy was another publication due in the Spring but it has yet to see the light of day. His draft Air Quality Strategy was due in the Summer but was not published till October, while his Climate Change Mitigation and Energy Strategy was due in the Autumn but has still not been published.
What does this say about the ability of the Mayor’s office to progress environmental concerns? Not much at all is the short answer, but this is perhaps to be expected from an administration that has cut its environment team from 41 posts to 24 and now relies on outside consultants to do most of the work.
As I have remarked before on this blog, no amount of charm, bluster and hot air from Boris on green issues can substitute for making an impact and a real difference to the environment. The Mayor’s credibility has already been seriously undermined here. So much for voting blue and going green.
Summary table of delays
November 23, 2009
Over the past few years Maida Vale residents have suffered a spate of flooding in the W9 area. At the last Maida Vale Area Forum held in Paddington Academy on the evening of the 11th of November, residents were told by Thames Water representatives that the water industry regulator OFWAT will determine whether TW can make the long term investment necessary to sort this issue out once and for all. (For the background and subsequent developments see coverage in the West End Extra.)
Now I was very surprised to hear that OFWAT micro-managed Thames Water’s investment programmes so tightly, given that OFWAT’s role is to protect consumers. Yes, major projects like investment in the Thames Tideway Tunnel would require OFWAT consent, I thought, but surely not some localised investment. However, I was later told that 90 per cent of Thames Water’s investment programme had indeed been approved by OFWAT. So the question now is: why wasn’t the investment required in Maida Vale included in TW’s approved investment programme? I have written to David Owen, the CEO of Thames Water, to that effect and await his response
November 22, 2009
On the doorstep we often find that when climate change issues are brought up it goes over most people’s heads and they respond with glazed eyes. So it was with keenness that I went along to the Beethoven Centre in the heart of Queen’s Park for a evening entitled “Save Money, Save the Planet” on Wednesday evening.
There, to a full house, I saw a very a different approach to these issues and one that many of those in the audience responded to very well. Residents received energy saving advice, found out how to take advantage of the local car sharing club and learnt how others are making environmentally friendly life changes such as taking up composting. This while being entertained by the Paddington Academy’s Eco Team and marvelling at the Queen’s Park children’s play on “Thinking global, acting local”.
While the next few weeks are going to be dominated by nations negotiating at the Copenhagen Summit over targets for CO2 emissions and in all probability not getting very far, it’s worth reminding ourselves what the campaign against climate change means on the doorstep of homes in wards like Queen’s Park.
So well done to the Queen’s Park Forum.
November 20, 2009
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