Donald Trump a climate change advocate - what!

Donald Trump once advocated for action
for action against climate change.

As negotiators headed to Copenhagen in December 2009 to forge a global climate pact, concerned U.S. business leaders and liberal luminaries took out a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for aggressive climate action.

In an open letter to President Obama and the U.S. Congress, they declared: “If we fail to act now, it is scientifically irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet.”

One of the signatories of that letter: Donald Trump.

Also signed by Trump’s three adult children, the letter called for passage of U.S. climate legislation, investment in the clean energy economy, and leadership to inspire the rest of the world to join the fight against climate change

Read the Grist story - “Donald Trump once backed urgent climate action. Wait, what?”

Copenagen to futher enhance its green-image by divesting itself of all fossil fuel investments

Copenhagen mayor, Frank Jensen - his
city it to divest itself of
all coal, oil and gas investments.

Copenhagen’s mayor has announced plans to divest the city’s 6.9bn kroner (£700m) investment fund of all holdings in coal, oil and gas.

If his proposal is approved at a finance committee meeting next Tuesday, as expected, the Danish capital will become the country’s first investment fund to sell its stocks and bonds in fossil fuels.

“Copenhagen is at the forefront of world cities in the green transition, and we are working hard to become the world’s first CO2 neutral capital in 2025. Therefore it seems totally wrong for the municipality to still be investing in oil, coal and gas. We must change that,” the city’s mayor, Frank Jensen, told the Danish newspaper, Information, which first reported the story.

“I think this move sits well with Copenhagen’s desire for a green profile for their city,” he added.

Read The Guardian story - “Copenhagen set to divest from fossil fuels.”

Richard Denniss laments our preference for banks over the climate

Richard Denniss - "If only the climate
was as important as banks".

Want your country to enter the European Union? Want better access to Indian agricultural markets? Want some extra aid funding? Perhaps a seat on the UN Security Council? Which would you like? How can I help you? Step right in. Welcome to the biggest foreign policy swap meet since Copenhagen in 2009.

The Paris climate talks are not just about climate change. Paris isn't full of scientists, engineers or even economists. Its full of trade negotiators and lobbyists, most of whom know little about, and care even less about, what burning fossil fuels is doing to the atmosphere.

Anyone who has ever solved a problem or chaired a meeting knows that it doesn't take 40,000 negotiators and "observers" to break an impasse or solve a problem. Indeed, a cynic might argue that the creation of a process that requires so many participants was designed to ensure that the market for coal and oil continues to grow each year.

In 1992, world leaders first agreed that burning fossil fuels caused climate change, that we needed to burn less fossil fuels, and that rich countries should act first. Fossil fuel consumption and production have risen steadily since.

Read by the comment piece by The Australia Institute chief economist, Richard Denniss in the Canberra Times - “If only the climate was as important as big banks.”

'It's getting hotter', The Economist warns

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AVING the planet is now a matter of a few clicks—at least on a small scale.

On September 22nd the UN’s Climate Change Secretariat launched Climate Neutral Now, a website that estimates an individual’s carbon footprint based on whereabouts, recycling habits, energy use and so on.

Offsetting any resulting guilt is easy: the site takes donations to fund clean development projects. Your correspondent paid $24 to a facility capturing methane from pig dung to cover the carbon-dioxide emissions she had caused during the past year.

The initiative is one of many intended to spur action on greenhouse-gas emissions in the run-up to climate talks in Paris at the end of the year. Some seem quite successful: in recent weeks around 2,000 individuals and 400 organisations have committed to stop investing in firms that produce fossil fuels.

More important, countries have responded to a shift in climate-change policy after the failure of negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009: rather than trying to agree on mandatory emissions reductions, they were asked to say by October 1st what they were willing to do.

ReadThe Economist story - “It’s getting hotter”.

Paris flop equates with radicalism - Connie Hedegaard

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Connie Hedegaard - she fears
radicalism if Paris flops.

t the world’s last “blockbuster” climate summit, in Copenhagen in 2009, the person in the president’s chair was former EU climate commissioner and Danish environment minister Connie Hedegaard.

As someone who has led many important international efforts to reduce the risks of climate change but who also presided over what many felt was a frustrating result in Copenhagen, she has a unique perspective on the hype and hopes for December’s crunch climate summit in Paris.

The Sydney Democracy Network invited her to a discussion where she engaged with participants including the new chief executive of the Investor Group on Climate Change, Emma Herd, Clean Energy Finance Corporation chair Jillian Broadbent and Climate Council chair Tim Flannery.

Read the comments by Adjunct professor at University of Sydney, Nick Rowley, who writes on The Conversation - “‘I fear we will see radicalisation’ if Paris climate talks flop, says chair of 2009 Copenhagen summit”.

When does climate change become dangerous?

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ow much does the climate have to change for it to be “dangerous”?

This question has vexed scientists ever since the first climate models were developed, back in the nineteen-seventies.

It was provisionally answered in 2009, though by politicians rather than scientists.

According to an agreement known as the Copenhagen Accord, which was brokered by President Barack Obama, to avoid danger, the world needs “to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius” (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Read The New Yorker story - “A New Climate-Change Danger Zone?”

Paris talks vastly more successful than Copenhagen catastrophe

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limate talks this year in Paris should be vastly more successful than those that fell apart on Copenhagen in 2009.

Executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, said countries were ahead of schedule in negotiating a landmark global agreement on curbing greenhouse gases that can be adopted at a Paris summit in December.

Christina Figueres.

“We’re in a very, very different position to Copenhagen, not just from a procedural point of view, but from many other points of view,” Figueres told reporters during a visit to Australia.

Rod McGuirk, of Associated Press, writing on TheStar.com, quoted Figueres during a recent visit to Australia, who said, “We’re in a very, very different position to Copenhagen, not just from a procedural point of view, but from many other points of view.”

McGirk’s story is headed: “Paris summit on climate change should be much smoother than Copenhagen, U.N. climate chief predicts."

Australian Government puts up $4m to back climate contrarian

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he Australian government has pledged $4 million to help Danish climate contrarian Bjørn Lomborg establish a “climate consensus centre” at the University of Western Australia.

According to the Guardian Australia, a spokesman for education minister Christopher Pyne said that the country would pay $4 million over four years to help Lomborg establish a centre based off the same methodology used at his Copenhagen Consensus Center, which operated from 2004 to 2012.

In 2012, it was defunded by the Danish government, and has been operating in the United States with backing from private investors since.

Read The ClimateProgress  story here: “Australia Pledges Millions To Help Climate Contrarian Set Up Center To Argue Against ClimateAction”.

Considering the 'Road to Paris'

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rofessor Nick Rowley of the Sydney Democracy Network at the University of Sydney has written the first part of a three-part essay on the prospects for a global climate deal at the Paris 2015 talks.

This first instalment - “The Road to Paris: three myths about international climate talks” – on The Conversation looks at the most important international meeting on climate change since Copenhagen in 2009 and asks what are the chances of success at this year’s Paris talks?

It asks, “What might “success” mean? And can the mistakes and challenges that have befallen previous meetings be avoided and tackled?”

Easy to do, but great for the greater good - on'ya bike!

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iding a bicycle is relatively easy and simple, but the impact, both personally and on the greater good, can be massive.

Copenhagen is a wonderful example of that.

The Danish capital has motivated half of its habitants to commute to work by bicycle every day.

How did that come about? A half-century ago, the city’s inhabitants were becoming almost as reliant on cars as people anywhere else. But after the oil crisis of the 1970s, many Copenhagen residents made a personal commitment to ride bicycles rather than drive, out of moral principle, even if that was inconvenient for them.

The unintended consequence is a small, but significant contribution to mitigating climate change, along with improving the health of all those who ride bicycles.

The New York Times discusses this idealistic but concrete step in its story, “How Idealism, Expressed in Concrete Steps, Can Fight Climate Change”.