Cop25: What was achieved and where to next?

The annual UN climate talks closed in disappointment on Sunday in Madrid, after two weeks spent trying to hash out a deal.

Leaders from UN Climate Change and Chile's
Cop25 presidency lead talks in Madrid 

Countries failed to agree on many of the hoped for outcomes, including rules to set up a global carbon trading system and a system to channel new finance to countries facing the impacts of climate change.

Countries agreed in Paris in 2015 to revisit their climate pledges by 2020. But many countries were pushing this year for a clear call for all countries to submit more ambitious climate pledges next year. This is seen as a key means of ensuring countries put a focus on improving their current pledges, as well as empowering civil society to hold them to account.

But countries such as China and Brazil opposed placing any obligation on countries to submit enhanced pledges next year, arguing it should be each country’s own decision. They instead argued the focus should be on pre-2020 action by developing countries to meet their previous pledges (see below).

As talks reached their final days, tensions grew after a draft decision removed any call for countries to “update” or “enhance” their climate plans by 2020. Instead, it only invited them to “communicate” them in 2020 – far weaker language which put no obligation on enhanced ambition.

Read the Climate Home News story by Jocelyn Timberley - “Cop25: What was achieved and where to next?”

Coal to hydrogen project reliant on carbon capture pipe dream

National environment group Friends of the Earth has expressed disappointment at the announcement that the Andrews government is proceeding with a trial led by Kawasaki Heavy Industries to convert Victorian brown coal into liquid hydrogen for export.

There are many significant problems with this project:

“Firstly, it is most unlikely it will ever move to commercial phase. This project will only proceed if carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is employed” said Friends of the Earth campaigns co-ordinator Cam Walker.

“New uses of coal would come with an unacceptable climate burden unless CCS is deployed and would be inconsistent with the government’s commitment for the state to be carbon neutral by 2050.”

According to the government’s own Statement on future uses of coal, major new coal projects will need to operate within mandated emissions standards. Without CCS, it seems very unlikely that the Kawasaki project would meet this requirement.

 “Why is the government promoting a project which is at odds with its own policy?” asked Mr Walker.

Friends of the Earth say government expenditure on coal projects is a waste of taxpayer dollars.

“Governments have squandered over $1.3 billion on carbon capture projects with no return on investment. This is money that could have been invested in healthcare, education, infrastructure, and climate action.”

“Secondly, the $100m of new public funds allocated to this project represents wasted money that should have gone to job creating projects in the Latrobe Valley that use technology that is already viable. Obvious candidates include renewables, energy efficiency and retrofitting of houses, energy storage, high tech research and developing a business case for the geothermal resource that exists under the Latrobe Valley.

“CCS has already absorbed well over $1.3 billion of public funds and each new dollar invested in this technology represents a dollar that is taken from technology that works.”

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“Thirdly, we have to ask who is driving this project? The federal government lacks the state government’s commitment to ensuring CCS is linked to any new coal developments. And government officials continue to promote ‘clean coal’ technology, despite the fact that this technology is going nowhere.”

Friends the Earth say the Victorian government needs to hit the reset button on the matter.

“The state government needs to seek more informed advice from energy experts to ensure that future projects reflect best practise technology suitable for the 21^st century, instead of relying on advice which is clearly aligned with promoting the ‘clean coal’ pipe-dream”.

Disappointment, validity and credibility



Bjorn Lomborg.

Disappointment envelops me when I see major newspapers with international credibility publishing stories of questionable validity.

Both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post recently published an opinion piece from Bjørn Lomborg, who is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School where he directs the Copenhagen Consensus Centre.

Lomborg, the author “The Skeptical Environmentalist”, “Cool It” and “How much have global problems cost the world? A scorecard from 1900 to 2050” had his views published in the Washington Post in in story headed; “Don’t blame climate change for extreme weather”.

Lomborg’s “The Skeptical Environmentalist” had been discredited by many influential climatologists and the publication of his article drew this comment from one reader:

“I might have taken this article seriously had it been written by a research climatologist with peer-reviewed publications in climatology. I am offended, though, that the WP accepted this piece for publication, knowing full well that the author could only claim a pretense of actual knowledge (adjunct professor of business). It would have been equally meaningful for a writer to step outside the WP building and ask passers-by on the street what they think about climate change and then publish their comments as though they were scientific results. Bad journalism here and appalling editorial work”.

The Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch who, along with his cohort of editors, is known as a climate skeptic and the Washington Post was only recently bought by amazon.com owner, Jeff Bezos.