natural sounds

Yes this is late. I got sick and busy. What can I say, you get what you pay for.

Top story: China’s got a brand new bag

China has up until recently been a mystery on climate and energy.

China is officially a “non-Annex 1 country”, as defined by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which means it’s “developing” and not historically responsible for the build-up of green house gases in our atmosphere.

That said, however, China’s economic boom of the last 20 years has catapulted it to the top of current green house gas emitters, though it’s worth noting that in terms of per capita emissions and energy use, China is still far below the US, Canada and most of Western Europe.

Because it’s a non-Annex 1 country, the Kyoto Accord did not apply to China. But the new treaty being worked on in anticipation of the Copenhagen summit in December is designed to include all countries big and small, developed and developing.

Before the recent round of negotiations started last year, not much was known about China’s position on climate change and emission-policy. The stance by the government seemed to be “economic growth at all cost,” and the central government was very harsh on emissions caps and any other policies that would limit growth.

That view has changed by a few degrees.

First, China is a short-, medium- and long-term climate change “loser.” All 15 climate models (including China’s own) show the expansion of the globe’s subtropical deserts, which would directly threaten China’s ability to feed itself, already not taken for granted. Most climate models also show the intermittent-to-permanent failure of the northwest monsoon, which would affect both short- and long-term fresh water supplies through all of Southern and SE Asia. Finally, the melting Himalayan glaciers are already causing disastrous floods in large swaths of central China. These floods will continue until the glaciers are gone, which will usher in a long, extremely dry period throughout the entire region.

Geopolitical analysts see the Chinese-Russian border is a potential hotspot 50 to 75 years down the road: the boundary is still disputed in many areas and if Siberia becomes a new breadbasket while many millions of Chinese become food and water refugees, the potential for conflict, even nuclear, seems high.

Until recently, we did not even know if China was aware of its fate. Turns out, the leaders there know exactly what’s going on.

In recent diplomatic forums, including the Bonn meetings earlier this month and the bilateral US-China discussions that ended last week, China is still drawing a very hard line on emissions reductions for Annex 1 countries — demanding 40% from 1990 levels — and, without that, refusing to commit to any hard targets for its own emissions.

However, China is already committing billions of dollars toward transforming its economy and energy infrastructure in a way the dwarfs what’s happening here in the US and in most other Annex 1 nations. Only Germany is investing more.

China is also developing the industrial infrastructure to build the world’s new green machines. The country’s begun a top-down economic initiative to build electric bicycles and cars — skipping ahead of traditional and hybrid models. Chinese companies have signed deals with American energy companies to provide wind turbines; American and British manufacturers are complaining the Chinese are keeping foreign competition out of their developing infrastructure. It’s not yet clear if this is the “World War 2 size effort” that many say is needed to prevent catastrophe, but it is a much more clear step in that direction than exists anywhere else in the world.

Given these mixed messages, what is the path to Copenhagen? Obama (and the world) knows that any agreement is impossible without China and US lead climate negotiator Todd Stern is still optimistic. However, after little movement during the last set of meetings in Beijing, how the two countries move forward is still a mystery.

Further reading:

Center for American Progress: China Begins Its Transition to a Clean-Energy Economy China’s Climate Progress by the Numbers

Time: On the Streets of China, Electric Bikes Are Swarming

Economist: Heating up or cooling down?

AFP: US expects China to cut emissions after a ‘peak year’

CNN: Pachauri: Stern stance on China climate talks ‘pragmatic’

New Scientist: Silk Road threatened by melting glaciers

Other stories of interest:

LATimes: A ‘time bomb’ for world wheat crop (Ed: And it’s NOT climate change!)
“Crop scientists fear the Ug99 fungus could wipe out more than 80% of worldwide wheat crops as it spreads from eastern Africa. It has already jumped the Red Sea and … is poised to enter the breadbasket of northern India and Pakistan. … “It’s a time bomb,” said Jim Peterson, a professor of wheat breeding and genetics at Oregon State University in Corvallis. “It moves in the air, it can move in clothing on an airplane. We know it’s going to be here. It’s a matter of how long it’s going to take.””

Wired: High-Altitude Wind Machines Could Power New York City
“The first rigorous, worldwide study of high-altitude wind power estimates that there is enough wind energy at altitudes of about 1,600 to 40,000 feet to meet global electricity demand a hundred times over. … Even better, the best high-altitude wind-power resources match up with highly populated areas including North America’s Eastern Seaboard and China’s coastline.”

NYT: Making the Case for Climate as a Migration Driver
“The study … combined climatological and demographic data with field interviews of migrants already on the move. The aim was to provide an overview, with rich maps and an oft-lacking dose of empiricism, of where the changing environment is driving decision-making on the ground and which areas are likely to be hit hardest if things get worse.”

AP: Russia to bolster presence in energy-rich Arctic
“Russia will rebuild its Soviet-era network of polar stations and use its icebreaker fleet to help support its claim to the vast resources of the Arctic, the man who led a mission to plant a Russian flag on the Arctic seabed said Wednesday.”

Reuters: U.S. startup turning human waste into fuel
“EnerTech Environmental, an Atlanta startup, on Thursday unveiled the United States’ first commercial biosolids-to-energy facility in California’s Inland Empire. “Biosolids” is the nice term for processed sewage sludge. The product customers buy is 95 percent solid and interchangeable with coal, according to Chief Executive Kevin Bolin, whose grandfather invented the company’s patented “SlurryCarb” technology.”

Reuters: Climate change blamed for Caribbean coral deaths
“The analysis of 500 surveys of 200 reefs, conducted between 1969 and 2008, showed the most complex types of reef had been virtually wiped out across the entire Caribbean.”