Extreme weather is new normal, U.N.'s Ban tells climate talks

Barbara Lewis and Alister Doyle PlanetArk 5 Dec 12;

Extreme weather is the new normal and poses a threat to the human race, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday, as he sought to revive deadlocked global climate change talks.

Ban's intervention came as efforts to agree a symbolic extension of the U.N. Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that obliges about 35 developed nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, looked to be faltering.

In a speech to almost 200 nations meeting in Doha to try to get a breakthrough, Ban said a thaw in Arctic sea ice to record lows this year, superstorms and rising sea levels were all signs of a crisis.

"The abnormal is the new normal," he told delegates at the November 26-December 7 talks. He said signs of change were apparent everywhere and "from the United States to India, from Ukraine to Brazil, drought (has) decimated essential global crops".

"No one is immune to climate change - rich or poor. It is an existential challenge for the whole human race - our way of life, our plans for the future," he said.

Urging nations to cast off their apathy and embrace ambition, he had earlier said that Superstorm Sandy, which lashed the Caribbean and the United States a month ago, had "given us an awakening call".

The failure to agree a Kyoto extension is blocking efforts to lay the foundations of a new global U.N. deal that is meant to be agreed in 2015 and to enter into force from 2020.

At the last attempt in 2009, a summit in Copenhagen failed to agreed a global deal to succeed Kyoto.

Kyoto required countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012.

"A BLANK SLATE"

Robert Stavins, director of Harvard University's environmental economics program, said there was some hope that an accord could be struck in 2015.

"It's a blank slate and there is always hope for long-term happiness," he said, likening the situation to somebody seeking a new romance after being twice divorced.

Ban said that Kyoto should be a platform for future climate change action even though Russia, Japan and Canada are pulling out, leaving a group led by the European Union and Australia that account for only 15 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions.

The defectors say Kyoto is no longer relevant because emerging nations led by China and India will have no targets to curb their soaring emissions from 2013. And the United States, the second biggest emitter behind China, never ratified Kyoto.

Ban also said that rich nations should step up aid to help the poor cope with climate change after a $10-billion-a-year funding program promised for 2010-12 runs out.

Rich nations have set a long-term goal of providing $100 billion in aid by 2020 and poor nations say they want a clear timetable for aid from 2013. Faced with an economic slowdown at home, most developed nations are only promising "continued" aid.

Britain said it would spend around £1.8 billion ($2.9 billion) to finance climate change measures from 2013-15, on top of previously announced funds for 2011-15. It also unveiled new projects from Africa to Colombia, including a 98-million-pound-scheme ($157.75 million) to aid renewable power generation in Africa.

"If anything, the science is telling us it's now getting warmer quicker than we had previously expected," said Ed Davey, British energy and environment minister. "Our actions as a world are going slower than we had previously hoped."

(Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

At climate talks, UN chief rejects warming doubts
Karl Ritter Associated Press Yahoo News 5 Dec 12;

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Pointing to the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy and other weather disasters this year, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told an international climate conference Tuesday that it was time to "prove wrong" those who still have doubts about global warming.

Ban, addressing delegates at the annual U.N. climate talks, said time is running out for governments to act, citing recent reports showing rising emissions of greenhouse gases, which most scientists say are causing the warming trend.

"The abnormal is the new normal," Ban told environment ministers and climate officials from nearly 200 countries. "This year we have seen Manhattan and Beijing under water, hundreds of thousands of people washed from their homes in Colombia, Peru, the Philippines, Australia."

"The danger signs are all around," he said, noting that ice caps are melting, permafrost thawing and sea levels rising.

Delegates at the two-week talks that are set to end Friday are discussing future emissions cuts and climate aid to poor countries, issues that rich nations and the developing world have struggled to agree on for years.

In Doha, developing countries have criticized richer nations for not promising higher emissions cuts and not giving any firm commitments on how they plan to scale up climate aid to $100 billion by 2020, a pledge they made three years ago.

Ban told reporters after his speech that richer countries, including the U.S., "should take leadership" on climate change because they have the resources and technology to address the problem.

On Tuesday, Britain announced two initiatives to support renewable energy in Africa and a water management program that it said would help 18 million poor people become more resilient to climate change. The initiatives, totaling 133 million pounds ($214 million) over the next three years, were welcomed by climate activists.

"At last, a developed country has finally made a pledge for future climate finance here in Doha," Oxfam Climate Change Policy Advisor Tracy Carty said, but noted that the details remain "hazy."

At a side event earlier Tuesday, Ban said the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in the Caribbean and the U.S. east coast should be a wake-up call, showing "that before it's too late, we have to take action."

Climate scientists say it's difficult to link a single weather event to global warming but some say the damage caused by Sandy was worse because of rising sea levels.

A small minority of scientists still question whether the warming seen in recent decades is due to human activities, such as the carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

"Let us avoid all the skepticism. Let us prove wrong all these doubts on climate change," Ban said.

Climate scientists have already observed changes including melting Arctic ice and permafrost, rising sea levels and acidification of the ocean, shifting rainfall patterns with impacts on floods and droughts.

Low-lying Pacific island states, in particular, are losing shoreline to rising seas, expanding from heat and the runoff of melting land ice.

Governments represented at the Doha conference have started talks on crafting a new global climate treaty that would take effect in 2020. They are also discussing how to rein in greenhouse gas emissions before then, partly by extending the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty limiting the emissions of most industrialized countries that expires this year.

The U.S. never joined Kyoto, because it didn't cover emerging economies such as India and China, which now has the world's highest carbon emissions.

With only a few days remaining to agree on the Kyoto extension and other issues, the head of the U.N. climate change secretariat, Christiana Figueres, reminded the delegates that the "eyes of the world" are upon them.

"Present and future generations are counting on you," she said.