http://www.independent.co.uk

Efforts to secure a legally-binding climate change deal failed last week because talks were “held to ransom” by a small number of countries, Gordon Brown said today.

As the UK pointed the finger of blame at China for blocking progress at the UN-sponsored summit in Copenhagen, he called for a new international body to take charge of future negotiations.

Days of chaotic talks between more than 190 countries produced an accord that average world temperature rises should not exceed 2C but without commitments to emissions cuts to achieve it.

There was also agreement on a fund, to reach 100 billion US dollars by 2020, to help poorer countries deal with global warming, but no precise detail on where the money will come from.

The Prime Minister, who spent four days in the Danish capital trying to secure a stronger deal, admitted that he feared the talks could collapse without even those advances.

And, in a webcast to be posted on the Number 10 site, he pledged to continue pressing for a binding deal and demanded action to ensure a minority of countries could not block future efforts.

“The talks in Copenhagen were not easy. and, as they reached conclusion, I did fear the process would collapse and we would have no deal at all,” he said.

“Yet, through strength of common purpose, we were able finally to break the deadlock and – in a breakthrough never seen on this scale before – secure agreement from the international community.”

Calling on the world to “learn lessons” from last week’s frantic scenes, he said: “Never again should we face the deadlock that threatened to pull down those talks; never again should we let a global deal to move towards a greener future be held to ransom by only a handful of countries.

“One of the frustrations for me was the lack of a global body with the sole responsibility for environmental stewardship.

“I believe that in 2010 we will need to look at reforming our international institutions to meet the common challenges we face as a global community.”

Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband earlier accused China of “hijacking” the Copenhagen summit and said Beijing had “vetoed” moves to give legal force to the accord and prevented agreement on 50% global reductions in greenhouse emissions – 80% in the most developed countries – by 2050.

“We did not get an agreement on 50% reductions in global emissions by 2050 or on 80% reductions by developed countries. Both were vetoed by China, despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries,” he wrote in The Guardian.

“Together we will make clear to those countries holding out against a binding legal treaty that we will not allow them to block global progress,” he said.

“The last two weeks at times have presented a farcical picture to the public. We cannot again allow negotiations on real points of substance to be hijacked in this way.

“We will need to have major reform of the UN body overseeing the negotiations and of the way the negotiations are conducted.”

Despite his frustrations, Mr Miliband insisted that Britain was right to sign the limited Copenhagen accord, which he said delivered “real outcomes” on temperature rises and finance.

“We should take heart from the achievements and step up our efforts,” he said.

“The road from Copenhagen will have as many obstacles as the road to it. But this year has proved what can be done, as well as the scale of the challenge we face.”

Oxfam joined the calls for a revamp of the negotiating system to avoid a repeat of what its “global ambassador” Archbishop Desmond Tutu called the “profoundly distressing” failure of the Copenhagen talks to get a binding deal.

The aid charity warned that by the time of the next scheduled round of UN-sponsored talks, in Mexico in December, around 150,000 people would have died and a million been displaced as a result of climate change.

It said a series of ministerial-level meetings should be held before then and the talks given a permanent base – as Geneva serves as a location for world trade talks – and more help given to developing countries.

Oxfam’s climate change adviser Antonio Hill said: “The Copenhagen Accord is hugely disappointing but it also reveals how the traditional approach to international negotiations, based on brinkmanship and national self-interest, is both unfit for pursuing our common destiny and downright dangerous.

“There is too much at stake for this politics-as-usual approach. We must act quickly to address the shortfalls of these negotiations so that we can make up for lost time and tackle climate change with the decisiveness and urgency needed. This cannot happen again.”

Archbishop Tutu said: “The failure of the political process in Copenhagen to achieve a fair, adequate and binding deal on climate change is profoundly distressing.

“A higher purpose was at stake but our political leaders have proven themselves unable to rise to the challenge. We must look to the future. Our leaders must regroup, learn and make good their failure for the sake of humanity’s failure.”

Speaking via videolink to a gathering in London, Mr Brown said reform of the UN decision-making was necessary because the final Copenhagen accord had not represented the level of agreement across the world.

The Prime Minister said: “We have just got to find a way to actually move the process forward, because what Copenhagen disguised in its last day was that the level of agreement between the countries was a great deal higher than was being reflected in the detailed text that was being provided,” the Prime Minister said.

He pledged to work with island states, the African Union and directly-affected countries like Bangladesh among others to develop a “better process where the agreement that we have amongst each other is better reflected in the text”.

Mr Brown also called on the United States and China to show more “ambition”, arguing that it was not enough for the EU to say it was prepared to cut emissions by 30%.

“What we need is not just one part of the world going to higher ranges of ambitions, we need the other parts of the world as well,” Mr Brown said.

“If America and China were able to show that they were doing more, and I believe that they could, then all countries – Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea – all these countries that have got ranges would be prepared to go to their highest level of ambition.”

Describing the decision-making process in the Danish capital as “at best flawed, at worst chaotic”, Mr Brown said: “The United Nations needs to be in a position where we can get agreements with Governments working together without having these last-minute negotiations where threats and fear can actually dominate the proceedings.”

The Prime Minister said he remained committed to achieving a legally-binding deal and would continue to work to achieve it.

He added: “I believe there is sufficient goodwill around the world to want to make this happen, and I can assure you that over the next weeks and months we will press hard not only for a climate treaty but for the means in which the world can come together.”

Tory leader David Cameron described the summit as disappointing.

He said: “We should be thankful for the small things that have been achieved like the 2C limit on temperature rises and the good work on rainforests.

“But it’s disappointing overall because there are no carbon reduction targets, the details on help for poorer countries to tackle global warming is vague and it’s not a legally binding treaty.

“We need now to step up the work to get that done.”

Lessons should be learnt from Copenhagen about how to make the machinery of international talks work better, he added.

“I think we need better and different and more rigorous machinery to get countries together and to get the preliminary work done first,” he said. “We need to get the Sherpas to do more before they get to the summit.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/gordon-brown-small-number-of-countries-held-copenhagen-talks-to-ransom-1846794.html

By John Vidal, Jonathan Watts and Suzanne Goldenberg

http://www.guardian.co.uk

Hopes for a strong deal on climate change appeared slim last night with countries so far failing to agree on fundamental issues and blaming each other for the descent towards a humiliating end.

Last-ditch efforts by the UN to get the 120 world leaders to at least commit to targets on temperature rises, emissions cuts and deadlines to finalise the treaty appeared gloomy, barring a late-night change in positions. With the talks stretching into the evening, some delegates held out the prospect of a weak, political agreement emerging, but on that would fall far short of expectations at the start of the two-week meeting.

The day saw successive versions of a draft agreement circulated with each version becoming less ambitious, until the evening when a slight increase in ambition was detected. Only weak, long-term aspirations for an overall global emissions cut of 50% by 2050 and an 80% cut by 2050 for rich countries appeared to be agreed by all. These commitments, and a pledge to keep temperature rises below 2C, were assumed to be givens at the start of the summit.

Officials suggested Gordon Brown would convene a smaller group of countries and ask them to sign up to a “plan B”. This might include the proposals for a $100bn fund for climate protection which the prime minister had first proposed. There was a “good deal of agreement surrounding it” he said.

An official said a plan B was possible because “there are not thousands of variables in this [negotiation], there are a handful. It is only the 2050 target and the issue of how to verify [emission cuts countries pledge].”

The two most serious stumbling blocks were demands from rich countries that developing countries should peak their emissions within a few years, and that the legally binding Kyoto protocol should be abandoned before a new legal treaty was in place.

By evening, no commitments were being sought for any of the major areas of dispute, such as a mid-term 2020 target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union’s plan to raise its pledge from a 20% cut to 30% cut in emissions by 2020 was being blocked, dashing hopes of prompting a series on increased offers from other nations. One version of the text even dropped a deadline for reaching a legally binding treaty by the end of 2010. At the start of the week Gordon Brown was insisting that six months was the maximum acceptable delay.

A financial package intended to raise billions of dollars to help poor countries to adapt to climate change and develop green technology was also in doubt as rich countries declined to guarantee the money, simply affirming that they “supported a goal of mobilising $100bn by 2020″.

The lack of ambition and near total absence of commitment from the leaders is a bitter disappointment for the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, and the UK government which has led worldwide efforts to forge an ambitious, legally binding global agreement to stop the rise in carbon emissions by 2020 and reduce them dramatically in the following 30 years.

Negotiators will now continue to work on individual agreements like deforestation, technology, finance but without strong political leadership it could take years to complete.

Hopes that Barack Obama would deploy his authority as the leader of the world’s largest economy — and his political charisma — to try to broker a last-minute deal were also frustrated. A visibly angry Obama told world leaders that it was past time for them to come to an agreement. “The time for talk is over,” he said.

But Obama did not offer any new pledges of action — either in increased emissions cuts or clarity on America’s contributions to a climate fund for poor countries. He also held the line against China, saying America would not yield on the vexed issue of measuring and verifying emissions cuts promised by developing countries.

“I don’t know how you have an international agreement where you don’t share information and ensure we are meeting our commitments,” he said. “That doesn’t make sense. That would be a hollow victory.”

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao was said to be very offended by Obama’s speech, in which the president made a point of reminding the delegates that America was the only second largest polluter – after China.

Wen told the summit that developed nations had failed to live up to their Kyoto protocol promises and have now set new emissions targets that fall considerably short of the expectations of the international community.

“It is important to honour the commitments already made and take real action,” he said in a defiant speech. “One action is more useful than a dozen programmes. We should give people hope by taking credible actions.” However, late in the evening Obama and Wen were expected to talk again.

The dismal mood inside the conference centre reflected the failure to deliver the strong political deal promised by leaders. Yesterday was originally the deadline for a legally binding treaty. Hopes of that vanished months ago, but reaching political agreement in all the major areas in Copenhagen was seen as essential.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/18/copenhagen-treaty-failure

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8412483.stm

By Richard Black

http://news.bbc.co.uk

Negotiations at the UN climate summit have been suspended after developing countries withdrew their co-operation. Delegations were angry at what they saw as moves by the Danish host government to sideline talks on more emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol.

As news spread around the conference centre, activists chanted “We stand with Africa – Kyoto targets now”.

But talks between the parties were expected to resume in the afternoon and informal discussions continue.

The countries that have suspended co-operation are those which make up the G77-China bloc of 130 nations. These range from wealthy countries such as South Korea, to some of the poorest states in the world.

The G77-China bloc speaks for developing countries in the climate change negotiation process.

Blocs representing poor countries vulnerable to climate change have been adamant that rich nations must commit to emission cuts beyond 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol.

But the EU and the developed world in general has promoted the idea of an entirely new agreement, replacing the protocol.

Developing countries fear they would lose many of the gains they made when the Kyoto agreement was signed in 1997.

They point out that the Kyoto Protocol is the only international legally binding instrument that has curbed carbon emissions, and also that it contains functioning mechanisms for bringing development benefits to poor countries such as money for investment in clean energy projects.

Previously during this meeting – formally called the Conference of the Parties (COP) 15 – developing countries have accused the Danish chairs of ignoring their concerns.

G77-China chief negotiator Lumumba Di-Aping explained why the bloc had taken the decision to withdraw its co-operation.

“It has become clear that the Danish presidency – in the most undemocratic fashion – is advancing the interests of the developed countries at the expense of the balance of obligations between developed and developing countries,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One programme.

“The mistake they are doing now has reached levels that cannot be acceptable from a president who is supposed to be acting and shepherding the process on behalf of all parties.”

Last week, the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu forced a suspension after insisting that proposals to amend the UN climate convention and Kyoto Protocol be debated in full.

‘Losing time’

At a news conference earlier in the day, UK Climate Secretary Ed Miliband said that for the developed world to commit to further cuts under the Kyoto Protocol would be “irresponsible for the climate”.

He said it would leave some of the world’s biggest emitters without targets for cutting emissions.

Many developing countries have been arguing for a “twin track” approach, whereby countries with existing targets under the Kyoto Protocol (all developed nations except the US) stay under that umbrella, with the US and major developing economies making their carbon pledges under a new protocol.

Kim Carstensen, director of the global climate initiative with environment group WWF, said that much more movement was needed on the Kyoto Protocol negotiations here.

“The point is being made very loudly that African countries and the wider G77 bloc will not accept non-action on the Kyoto Protocol, and they’re really afraid that a deal has been stitched up behind their backs,” he told BBC News.

While understanding the G77 position, he said the suspension could affect progress towards a deal.

“We’re losing time, and that’s a serious matter; because for every minute we lose on one issue, the chances of getting to the bottom of the next issue diminish.”

The Danish government has yet to make any formal response; but Australian Climate Minister Penny Wong described the suspension as “regrettable”.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN climate change convention, predicted that the negotiations would get back on track in the early afternoon.

“The vast majority of countries here want to see the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol,” he said.

“I’m not aware that any countries are trying to block anything.”

An African bloc walkout during prepatory talks in Barcelona in November proved unpopular with other developing countries, in particular some small island nations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8411898.stm

By Michael McCarthy

http://www.independent.co.uk

Global warming scientists join attack on email theft as Copenhagen summit begins.

It has been billed as the most important meeting for half a century, and yesterday, with 15,000 people in attendance, the Copenhagen Climate Conference opened with a robust and angry defence of the science of global warming by two of the world’s leading climate science figures.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the Nobel-Prize winning head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC), and Dr Jonathan Pershing, the head of the US delegation to the conference, both hit out at the theft of emails from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, which has been used by climate sceptics in Britain, the US and elsewhere to allege that global warming is not man-made.

There has been widespread speculation that the timing of the theft represented a specific attempt to destabilise the conference, in which the world community will attempt to construct a new treaty to cut back on the emissions of carbon dioxide causing the atmosphere to warm.

But yesterday Dr Pershing said that all the incident had done was to “release a barrage of further information which makes clear the robustness of the science.” He said it was “shameful” how some of the scientists involved were now being pilloried.

Dr Pachauri told the conference opening ceremony, presided over by the Danish Prime Minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, that some people clearly found it “inconvenient” to accept the inevitability of the changes that would have to be made in the face of the climate change threat.

“The recent incident of stealing the emails of scientists at the University of East Anglia shows that some would go to the extent of carrying out illegal acts perhaps in an attempt to discredit the IPCC,” he said. “But the panel has a record of transparent and objective assessment stretching back over 21 years, performed by tens of thousands of dedicated scientists from all corners of the globe.”

The conference, being held at the giant Bella Centre in Copenhagen’s southern suburbs, is bringing together 192 countries, all of whom accept the verdict of the IPCC’s most recent report, published in 2007, that the warming of the climate system is “unequivocal” and that there is a better than nine out of 10 chance that it is being caused by human actions – principally the emissions of carbon dioxide from industry, transport and deforestation, which retain the Sun’s heat in the atmosphere.

The 2007 report said that if CO2 emissions continued without being checked, the Earth’s temperature would be likely to rise by between 1.8C and 4C over the coming century – with an outside chance that it could hit 6C, which would be disastrous for the natural world and human society. But more recent scientific assessments have suggested that emissions are now rising so fast that the Earth is firmly on track to hit the 6C rise if action is not taken.

Dr Pachauri listed for the conference – and for the world – some of the consequences global warming would lead to if it were left unchecked. They included widespread increases in droughts and floods, greater stress on water resources, increases in tropical cyclone intensity, more extinctions of wild species and the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which would cause sea levels around the world to rise by more than 20 feet.

Cutting back on the emissions responsible was now the urgent task of the “historically important meeting”, he said. But it will not be a matter just for the thousands of delegates. Mr Rasmussen announced that the number of world leaders who would be attending the finale of the conference at the end of next week had now reached 110. He said: “Their presence reflects an unprecedented mobilisation of political determination to combat climate change. It represents a huge opportunity – an opportunity the world cannot afford to miss.”

This morning the negotiations proper get under way, with the aim being an agreement in which the industrialised countries such as the US and Britain make strong commitments to cut back their CO2 by up to 40 per cent by 2020, with the leading developing countries such as China and India making firm pledges to move away from “business as usual” in terms of their emissions growth.

Underpinning the deal will have to be a major new financial agreement which provides the developing nations with billions of dollars from the rich world in new climate aid, to help them cut their emissions and also adapt to climate change which is now probably unavoidable, such as widely increased flooding.

Day One: The highlights

*UN Climate Conference, two years in preparation, opens in Copenhagen with 15,000 delegates, observers and media personnel in attendance.

*United Nations climate chief and head of American delegation attack climate sceptics and defend science behind global warming.

*110 heads of state and government, including US President Barack Obama, now preparing to attend conference finale next week.

*European Union says it wants stronger commitments from the US and China to cut CO2 before raising its own ambitions.

*South Africa is final big developing country to announce a climate target.

*Danish Prime Minister apologises to delegates for lack of Little Mermaid figurine in their conference kits.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/we-wont-let-sceptics-hijack-climate-talks-1836029.html

by Roger Harrabin

http://news.bbc.co.uk

This year will be one of the top five warmest years globally since records began 150 years ago, according to figures compiled by the Met Office.

The UK’s weather service projects that, unless there is an exceptionally cold spell before the end of the year, temperatures will be up on last year.

Climate sceptics had pointed out that the temperature rise appeared to have stalled in the last decade or so.

That was caused in part by the Pacific La Nina current, which cools the Earth.

But the influence of La Nina declined in the spring and the Met Office project that, barring a very cold December, this year will be the fifth warmest on record.

Other sources say it could even be the third warmest.

The last ten years have been in the top 15 warmest on record. And this summer the UK enjoyed temperatures higher than the long-term average.

Although the Met Office was pilloried after forecasting a “barbecue summer”, it was their rainfall forecast, not the projected temperatures, that was wrong.

Next year we will see the influence of the warming El Nino current, and the Met Office says there is a 50% chance that global temperatures will hit an all-time high.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8377128.stm

by Richard Black

http://news.bbc.co.uk

Average temperatures across the world are on course to rise by up to 6C without urgent action to curb CO2 emissions, according a new analysis.

Emissions rose by 29% between 2000 and 2008, says the Global Carbon Project.

All of that growth came in developing countries, but a quarter of it came through production of goods for consumption in industrialised nations.

The study comes against a backdrop of mixed messages on the chances of a new deal at next month’s UN climate summit.

According to lead scientist Corinne Le Quere, the new findings should add urgency to the political discussions.

“Based on our knowledge of recent trends and the time it takes to change energy infrastructure, I think that the Copenhagen conference next month is our last chance to stabilise at 2C in a smooth and organised way,” she told BBC News.

“If the agreement is too weak or if the commitments are not respected, it’s not two and a half or three degrees that we will get, it’s five or six – that’s the path that we are on right now.”

Professor Le Quere, who holds posts at the UK’s University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey, is lead author on the study that is published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Rising sinks

The Global Carbon Project (GCP) is a network of scientists in academic institutions around the world.

It uses just about every source of data available, from atmospheric observations to business inventories, to build up a detailed picture of carbon dioxide emissions, carbon sinks, and trends.

Before about 2002, global emissions grew by about 1% per year.

Then the rate increased to about 3% per year, the change coming mainly from a ramping up in China’s economic output, before falling slightly in 2008 as the global economy dipped towards recession.

Endorsing similar projections from the International Energy Agency, the GCP suggests emissions will fall by about 3% during 2009 before resuming their rise as the recession ends.

Concentrations in the atmosphere also show an upward trend – as monitored at stations such as Mauna Loa in Hawaii – but at a lower rate.

The team believes that carbon sinks – the oceans and plants – are probably absorbing a slightly lower proportion of the carbon dioxide from fossil fuel emissions than they were 50 years ago, although researchers admit that uncertainty about the behaviour of sinks remains high.

Industrial emissions have climbed, but those from land use change have remains constant.

As a consequence, the proportion of global emissions coming from deforestation has fallen – about 12% now compared with 20% in the 1990s.

“One implication of this low fraction is that there is only limited scope for rich nations to offset emissions by supporting avoidance of deforestation in tropical countries like Indonesia and Brazil,” observed Michael Rapauch from the Australian government research agency CSIRO and co-chair of the GCP.

A mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) is due to be concluded at next month’s summit.

Future plans

Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the UK Met Office and an author on the chapter of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report dealing with the effects of a changing atmosphere, suggested the report ought to be of interest to policymakers in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit.

“It’s an important step towards understanding what we’re doing to the world’s carbon budget,” he said.

However, he questioned the conclusion that society is necessarily on a trajectory leading towards 6C.

The IPCC plots out a number of “scenarios” – visions of how society might develop in terms of the size of the human population, economic growth and energy use – each of which comes with projected ranges of temperature rise.

Although the GCP study suggests society is on one of the high emission (and therefore high temperature rise) pathways, Dr Betts cautioned that it was too soon to discern a long-term trend.

“Year-to-year changes in the global economy have quite an effect, and it’s too early to discern longer term, robust changes,” he said.

“However, if we continue to let emissions rise without mitigation, there’s a strong chance we’ll hit 4C and beyond.

“If we want to be staying below 2C then it’s true to say we’ve only got a few years to curb emissions.”

These temperature rises – measured against a 19th Century baseline – would be expected to occur around the end of this century or the middle of next century, said Professor Le Quere.

Border controls

One of the most intriguing findings from the study is the difference between the emissions produced directly by a given nation and the emissions generated through production of the goods and services consumed by its citizens.

Emissions from within the UK’s borders, for example, fell by 5% between 1992 and 2004, says the GCP analysis.

However, emissions from goods and services consumed in the UK rose by 12% over the same period.

“The developed world has exported to the developing world the emissions it would have produced had it met its growing appetite for consumer goods itself for the last two decades,” said CSIRO’s John Finnegan.

“In one sense, the developed world owns a large fraction of the developing world’s emissions.”

Another of the analyses shows that per-capita emissions across the globe are rising.

On average, each human now consumes goods and services “worth” 1.3 tonnes of carbon – up from 1.1 tonnes in 2000.

The GCP analysis suggests that constraining the global temperature rise to 2C would entail reducing per-capita emissions to 0.3 tonnes by 2050.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8364926.stm

by Leo Hickman

http://www.guardian.co.uk

Scaring kids might not be the best approach, but we shouldn’t avoid talking about ’scary’ subjects with children altogether.

During the four decades since its inception, Sesame Street has introduced some pretty challenging subjects to its young audience – death, AIDS, adoption. It has even recently talked about the impact of the ongoing recession on family life.

But there’s one topic that will not be raised, according to Rosemarie Truglio, vice president of research and education at Sesame Workshop, the New York-based charity that produces Sesame Street – and that’s global warming. It’s just “too scary” for kids, apparently.

At a press conference earlier this week to announce the launch of a two-year, environmental “curriculum” on the show called My World is Green and Growing, Truglio said:

“Global warming and deforestation – those are really adult concepts, and it’s just too scary for children … The place we’re coming from is, ‘Let’s love and care for the Earth, because it’s so beautiful, and we appreciate its awe and wonder, and we’re going to respect it … When you love something, you want to take care of it.”

As I wrote earlier this year, I’ve long been intrigued to know what the right age is to start introducing the difficult subject of climate change to children. Sesame Street is aimed at three- to five-year-olds and, personally, I think Truglio has got it about right. With children at such a tender age, it’s probably best to start off by getting them interested in the natural world around them and to elicit a basic sense of respect, rather than wade in straight away with the heavy stuff about greenhouse gases and the like.

But I also think we need to be wary about believing that some subjects are just “too scary” to tell children about. My reasoning for not introducing climate change to children is more based on the fact that it is conceptually quite a complex subject to take in – for most adults, let alone three-year-olds.

And as Frank Carson says: “It’s the way you tell ‘em!”

Last month, more than 200 complaints were filed with the Advertising Standards Authority after the Department of Energy and Climate Change produced an Act on C02 advert which suggested that pets might drown as a result of climate change. Scaring people might not always be the best way to convince people of your argument – as many environmentalists are belatedly now recognising – but that shouldn’t mean, therefore, that we avoid talking about “scary” subjects with children altogether.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2009/nov/11/global-warming-seame-street

The United States of America is the nation least concerned about climate change according to a new survey.

The HSBC Climate Confidence Monitor polled consumers from 12 nations – Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Mexico, the UK and the USA – on their attitudes and behaviour regarding the threat of climate change.

For numerous questions in the survey, it was the citizens of the United States who emerged as the least worried or active when it came to tackling climate change.

For example, when participants were asked to rank how concerned they were about a list of world issues (global economic stability, terrorism, violence in everyday life, climate change, pandemic diseases, global poverty, social breakdown and natural disasters), just 6% of US consumers stipulated climate change as a top concern, the lowest percentage of any country. Only natural disasters ranked lower as a concern among US consumers at 3%. (See Concern about World Issues.)

Concern about World Issues

It was a similar story regarding commitment. The survey showed the US had the least number of people making a significant effort to help reduce climate change through how they live their life today (see Commitment by Country).

Commitment by Country

US consumers also had the lowest net rating for making low carbon choices to tackle climate change and reduce carbon footprints (see All Low-carbon Choices by Country).

All Low-carbon Choices by Country

Ahead of the crucial United Nations meeting in Copenhagen in December to try and reach a new international agreement on emissions reduction before the Kyoto Protocol expires, the survey asked the people of the world how much importance they placed on a global deal being achieved. Once again, the people of the US were revealed to be the least concerned, well behind all the other nations participating in the survey (see New Global Emissions Deal “Extremely Important” by Country).

New Global Emissions Deal "Extremely Important" by Country

For more on the HSBC Climate Confidence Monitor 2009 see http://www.hsbc.com/1/2/climateconfidencemonitor