Chief negotiator for the G77 group of poorer nations Lumumba Di-Aping said the agreement was “a solution based on the same very values, in our opinion, that channelled six million people in Europe into furnaces”.

Addressing the final full session of the conference,  Di-Aping said Africa was being asked “to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact in order to maintain the economic dependence of a few countries”.

The agreement would “definitely result in massive devastation in Africa and small island states”.

Delegates from Africa and other developing countries accused South Africa of undermining the unity of the poorer nations by agreeing to the deal, brokered in backroom meetings that included China, Brazil and India.

The agreement recognises the scientific case for keeping temperature increases below 2C, but fails to commit signatories to the emissions reductions required to meet that target.

The refusal of some countries to sign the agreement means it is not legally binding.

The South African delegation has admitted that it doesn’t understand the agreement it helped broker.

The deal, the only one on the table at the plenary session, has also been slammed by the DA and local environmental NGOs.

The opposition spokesperson on the environment, Gareth Morgan, described it as “unacceptable” while Earthlife Africa said they were “disappointed”. It was far less than they hoped for, according to spokesperson Richard Worthington.

The executive director of Greenpeace UK, John Sauven, described Copenhagen as “a crime scene”.

“It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one on display here in Copenhagen,” he said. – enviromedianews

Sudanese-born Lumumba Di-Aping was speaking at an ad hoc meeting, attended by about 100 representative of African civil society and government. Although organisers tried to prevent the meeting being recorded, it was tweeted and subsequently blogged by Adam Welz, media director for the 350 climate action campaign in Africa.

According to Welz, Di-Aping criticised many of the African negotiating teams for being unprepared, lazy or allowing themselves to be “bought off” by the industrialised nations. He singled out South African delegates for “derailing” the process by allowing the rich countries to dictate terms.

Di-Aping slammed the leaked draft of a secret proposal drawn up by an anonymous group of rich nations, believed to include Britain, the US and Denmark. The so-called “Danish text” departs fundamentally from the existing Kyoto Protocol by imposing stringent emissions targets on developing countries, introducing a new category of “most vulnerable countries” and sidelining the UN.

Di-Aping, who began his address by bursting into tears, called the draft proposal “worse than no deal”.

He said the acceptance by the developed world that 2 degrees of warming was safe meant “certain death” for Africa.

Quoting from reports of the International Panel on Climate Change, he said a global average increase of 2 degrees would make much of Africa 3.5 degrees hotter.

“We are being asked to sign a suicide pact.” – enviromedianews

Delegates are under enormous pressure to reach fair, ambitious and binding targets to reduce greenhouse emissions and bring the carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million – the level science says we must reach to avoid catastrophic warming.

Environmental activists plan protests in Copenhagen and around the world on 12 December to pressure world leaders to reach the strongest possible deal.

On the even of the conference, South Africa pledged to reduce the growth of its greenhouse gas emissions by 34% by 2020 and to begin reducing them from 2025. The offer is conditional on receiving financial assistance from developed countries.

The offer has been both praised as a positive step, and criticised  for lacking ambition and being too dependent on handouts.

The Mail and Guardian, Cape Argus and Business Day have joined publications in 45 countries in “the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial”.

“We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency,” the editorial reads.

“Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.

“Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.

“The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.

“Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.

“But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June’s UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: “We can go into extra time but we can’t afford a replay.”

“At the deal’s heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.

“Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.

“Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world’s biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important steps in the right direction.

“Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of “exported emissions” so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than “old Europe”, must not suffer more than their richer partners.

“The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.

“Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.

“But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.

“Kicking our carbon habit within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.

“Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature”.

“It is in that spirit that 56 newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done then surely our leaders can too.

“The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.”

The text was drafted by a team from the British newspaper, the Guardian, during more than a month of consultations with editors from more than 20 of the papers involved. Like the Guardian most of the newspapers have taken the unusual step of featuring the editorial on their front page.

Taiwan's electric snake

A couple of months before the first sod was turned for the 2010 Green Point Stadium in early 2007, construction began on a similar project on the other side of the world.

Taiwan’s new 55,000-seater multipurpose venue was completed in 28 months and cost less than R1.5 billion.

Green Point, which will have a smaller capacity when the temporary seating is removed after the World Cup, is still under construction after more than 30 months, during which time the budget has soared from R1.2.billion to R4.5 billion.

But what really hurts is that Taiwan’s stadium is a flagship of green design and technology, able to produce all its own electricity when in use, and to sell its surplus to the neighbours when idle.

Not just that, but it is so breathtakingly beautiful it makes Green Point look like a chamber pot.

Designed by the visionary Japanese architect Toyo Ito after an international competition, the roof curls around the pitch like a snake, glittering with 8,844 photovoltaic scales.

According to Taiwanese officials, the stadium will generate 1.14 million kilowatt hours a year, preventing the release of 660 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.

Excess power will be sold, adding more than a R1 million to the stadium’s annual income.

So why couldn’t we have one like that?

In fact, why couldn’t all five of our extravagant new super-stadia have been built to double as clean power stations?

Because nobody thought about it, that’s why. Or if they did, no-one with any authority listened to them. It was all about size and spectacle and outdoing the Germans.

Only once the designs were signed off was there a belated attempt tack on various “environmental enhancements”. Now, six months before kick off, they start talking about “green goals”.

It’s too late.

It is now estimated that the 2010 World Cup will be the dirtiest ever, contributing 2.75 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

The only way to do anything about that now is to offset it. It would have helped if all our new stadia were able to generate clean, free electricity. Instead, they will add to the problem by increasing demand for the dirty stuff.

So much for a legacy. – enviromedianews

Uranium Road, based on the book by anti-nuclear researcher Dr David Fig, reveals the secrets, the risks and huge amounts of money wasted on South Africa’s nuclear power programme.

The film was first screened on MNet’s Carte Blanche in 2007. It provoked an outcry from the nuclear industry which laid a complaint with the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. The dispute was later resolved, but no information about the deal have ever been released.

The SABC gave the programme no pre-publicity apart from the synopsis on its “group sales” page where it says the film “rips away the veil of secrecy from both the past and the present South African nuclear programmes, showing how the nuclear industry creates closed cliques of the powerful and fundamentally undermines the democratic principles of our young democracy”.

Is this a signal that the public broadcaster has become more willing to carry content which challenges government policy, or is someone in programming in for the high jump?

The so-called TEEB report for policymakers, hosted by the UN and sponsored by the European Commission and individual European nations, concluded that countries which invested in “ecological infrastructure” would soon begin to outperform those which failed to nurture their natural systems.

More than 100 scientists, economists and policy experts contributed to the report, evaluating 1,100 studies across a variety of ecosystems around the world.

Among the “invisible” and uncosted benefits provided by natural systems like forests, wetlands and oceans they listed the regulation and enhancement of fresh water supplies, improvement in air quality, the provision of food and fuel, soil creation, pollination services, carbon sequestration and cultural services.

The leader of the TEEB study, Deutsche Bank economist Pavan Sukhdev, says the loss of forests and biodiversity in general could cost the global economy between $2 trillion and $4.5 trillion a year.

Yet an annual investment of just $40 billion would secure the delivery of ecosystem services worth $5 trillion.

“Nature’s multiple and complex values have direct economic impacts on human well being and public and private spending”, he says.

“Recognizing and rewarding the value delivered to society by the natural environment must become a policy priority.”

Sukhdev blamed our “consumption-led, production-driven, and GDP-measured” economic model for failing to take into account the value of natural services.

“This model is in need of significant reform. The multiple crises we are experiencing – fuel, food, finance, and the economy – serve as reminders of the need for change.”- enviromedianews

Returns on investment

In Vietnam, the TEEB researchers found that an investment of $1-million in planting and protecting nearly 12,000 hectares of mangroves saved more than $7-million every year in dyke maintenance.

In Thailand, on the other hand, the conversion of mangroves to government-subsidised shrimp farms generated about $1,220 annually per hectare but cost local communities more than $12,000 per hectare in lost wood and non-wood forest products, fish resources and coastal protection services. A further $9,000 a hectare would need to be spent to restore the mangroves after the shrimp farms reached the end of their productive lives after just five years.

For a cost of less than $5-million (R37 million) South Africa’s Working for Water programme had restored more than 3,000 ha of land, created hundreds of sustainable jobs in poor, rural areas, and was saving between 1.1 and 1.6 million cubic metres of water a year.

In Venezuela, investment in the national protected area system is preventing sedimentation that otherwise could reduce farming income by around $3.5 million a year.

Investment in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve is generating close to $50 million a year, and has created 7,000 jobs.

For the full report and summary, visit http://www.teebweb.org/

The trials are part of the newly launched Hemp Project, a combined effort by government, business and community organisations to uplift emerging women farmers.

The project, which will include the manufacture and marketing of hemp products as well as cultivation, is expected to create 87 sustainable jobs this year, and thousands more as hemp production expands.

Spokesperson for the project Dr Thandeka Kunene, a long-time hemp advocate and owner of the House of Hemp retail outlet in Gauteng, said the industry had the potential to provide work for 200,000 women in a few years time.

“Next year, we expect to expand commercial production to at least 10,000 ha”, she said. “And the year after that, even more.”

Until local farmers are able to produce enough hemp for processing into fibre and oils, the manufacturing side of the project will depend on imported material.

The hemp project has been delayed for years by legislation which fails to differentiate between industrial hemp and narcotic strains of the cannabis plant.

The commercial trials will be strictly controlled by government agencies which insist that the widespread cultivation of hemp will contribute to drug abuse, although the level of psychoactive ingredients in the industrial strain are insignificant.

Hemp has many environmental advantages over other sources of fibre – it requires a fraction of the water, pesticides and herbicides used in cotton cultivation and in one growing season, it can produce four times the amount of celluose per ha as a pine plantation does in seven years.

Hemp is one of the first plants every domesticated by humans.

The word “canvas” is a corruption of “cannabis” and the Dutch and Afrikaans word for “shirt” reflects the plant’s historic importance as fabric for clothing.

Over the past 10 years, a number of countries have lifted their restrictions on the cultivation of industrial hemp, and the crop is now grown widely in the Far East, Europe and Canada. – enviromedianews