Naturaleza (Continuación)

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Dressing up failure as victory has been integral to climate-change negotiations since they started 20 years ago. The latest round of talks in Durban, South Africa, in December was no exception.

Climate negotiations have been in virtual limbo ever since the catastrophic and humiliating Copenhagen summit in 2009, where vertiginous expectations collided with hard political reality. So as negotiators – and a handful of government ministers – arrived in Durban, expectations could not have been lower.

Yet, by the end of the talks, the European Union’s climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, was being applauded in the media for achieving a “breakthrough” that had “salvaged Durban,” and, most significantly, for achieving the holy grail of climate negotiations, a “legally binding treaty.”…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

The United Nations’ recent 17th Conference of the Parties (COP-17) in Durban, South Africa succeeded in renewing the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions. But the meeting also highlighted the two major problems that plague international environmental negotiations. The first, unscientific skepticism, has an impact on the second, collective-action failure. Ultimately, only legislative bodies have the power to overcome this failure.

Skepticism regarding the need for environmental action arises from the relationship between environmental degradation and per capita income. According to the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), degradation and pollution increase enormously at the early stages of economic growth.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza, ,

Christmas is tied to the magical north and to the reindeer — creatures of mythical power that fly through the night across the world, helping to distribute happiness and good will. But reindeer do exist — we call them caribou in North America — and these animals and their home in the boreal woodlands and on the barren-ground tundra are in trouble.

For the past decade, I have been conducting aerial surveys of caribou herds. As I sit strapped in small planes in minus-20-degree temperatures, it amazes me that that they survive against the challenges of their environment — particularly the females.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

As the first chill of winter descends on the Northeast and the traditional cold-weather codfish run starts in earnest, fishermen and scientists are again at odds, debating whether the once fantastically abundant North Atlantic codfish populations are finally rebuilding — or hurtling inextricably toward collapse.

But even as regulators parse a recent gloomy assessment of Gulf of Maine codfish populations, the entire question of the commercial future of cod may soon become moot. Cod and other wild-caught whitefish, for centuries a staple of the Western diet, are on the way out.

Not long ago, any kind of colorless, neutral-tasting fish product sold in the United States or Europe (“whitefish” in fishing industry parlance) was made out of one of several wild species of the taxonomic order Gadiformes: cod, pollock, haddock, hake, take your pick.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza

It was far better to ski toward the South Pole than to reach it.

When I started out my journey in November 1992, everything was white all the way out to the horizon. As the weeks passed, I began to see more colors: variations of white, a bit of blue, green and yellow. By the time the strange-looking buildings of the Amundsen-Scott base appeared on the horizon 50 days later, I felt relief but also disappointment, and thought about skiing past it, back into the white nothingness.

The South Pole was considered the last place on earth when a fellow Norwegian, Roald Amundsen, arrived with four companions, a few dozen dogs and four sledges 100 years ago today.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Muchas veces se dice que el tiempo extremo es una de las principales razones para tomar medidas firmes respecto del calentamiento global. Hoy en día, ningún huracán ni ola de calor pasa sin que un político o activista lo presente como evidencia de la necesidad de un acuerdo sobre el clima global, como el que se acaba de posponer hasta fines de la década en Durban, Sudáfrica.

Estas afirmaciones merecen un escrutinio minucioso. En 2007, el Panel Intergubernamental sobre Cambio Climático de las Naciones Unidas (IPCC por su sigla en inglés) dio a conocer un informe sobre los extremos climáticos que recibió considerable atención por parte de los medios.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

UN climate change conferences don't of themselves cut greenhouse gas emissions. Negotiations about targets and texts cannot do that; only government policies that incentivise and require business investment in low carbon technologies and other emission-reducing activities can.

So the standard by which UN talks should be judged is whether or not they make such policy and investment more likely or less. And from that perspective the conference that has ended in Durban, South Africa, amid considerable drama, should be regarded as very much a success.

First, it has forced countries to admit that their current climate policies are inadequate. The Durban agreement explicitly refers to the "emissions gap" – the difference between the aggregate impact of commitments that countries have made, and the upper limit of emissions required to have a chance of meeting the globally agreed goal of no more than two degrees of global warming.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza

Scientists interested in drawing attention to the human transformation of planet Earth have begun calling the current geological epoch the Anthropocene — the age of man. Naming an epoch is serious business — and in this case the new name is well deserved, given humanity’s enormous alteration of the Earth.

We have acidified the oceans and changed global climate with our use of fossil fuels. We have bent more than 75 percent of the ice-free land on Earth to our will. We have built so many dams that half of the world’s river flow is regulated, stored or impeded by human-made structures.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Global leaders are meeting in Durban, South Africa, in an attempt to figure out how to continue their fight against "climate change" when the first Kyoto Protocol commitment period ends in 2012. Since I'm sitting here in the dark with the heat off, perhaps they'd grant me the temporary moral authority to offer a few suggestions for their agenda.

•Don't waste any time fiddling with the planet's thermostat. So the big achievement of the previous summit in Cancun, Mexico, was agreeing that the Earth's temperature must not be permitted to increase by 2 degrees Celsius? Look, I've been in European gyms with air conditioning that can't even be controlled within the space of a few thousand square feet, despite regular intervention by head-scratching specialists.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Before the Copenhagen climate-change summit two years ago, the two of us sat together in Cape Town to listen to five African farmers from different countries, four of whom were women, tell us how climate change was undermining their livelihoods. Each explained how floods and drought, and the lack of regular seasons to sow and reap, were outside their normal experience. Their fears are shared by subsistence farmers and indigenous people worldwide – the people bearing the brunt of climate shocks, though they played no part in causing them.

Now, two years later, we are in Durban, where South Africa is hosting this year’s climate-change conference, COP17, and the situation for poor people in Africa and elsewhere has deteriorated even further.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

The 17th conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, popularly known as COP-17, is taking place in Durban, South Africa, at a critical moment, as the historic 1997 Kyoto Protocol is set to expire next year. But, like the climate-change conferences in Copenhagen in 2009 and in Cancún in 2010, COP-17 can be expected to spend much and produce little.

Indeed, the extravagance of these conferences seems to grow, rather than shrink, as their dismal results become more apparent. COP-15 in Copenhagen lasted 12 days, and is estimated to have attracted 15,000 delegates and 5,000 journalists. The carbon emissions created by so many people flying to Denmark was real, while the emissions targets that the conference sought remained beyond reach.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

It’s that time of year again. Another holiday season and another United Nations climate conference is getting under way in some remote corner of the world.

The good news for those of us skeptical of global warming fear-mongering is that the chance of U.N. delegates now gathered in Durban, South Africa, agreeing to a revamped global warming treaty is slim. The bad news is that much remains at stake.

Global warming has become the ultimate means for anyone lacking a beneficial product or service to cash in and realize their dreams of wealth through government subsidies and mandates. With the Kyoto Protocol set to expire in 2012, carbon speculators are not about to let their billions (and hoped-for trillions) slip away without a fight.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza

As crucial climate talks begin in Durban, attention is focused on the likely role of the major country groupings. The outcome of the UN climate conference will be largely decided by the interplay of forces between the Basic (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) group formed two years ago, the EU, and the umbrella group of developed countries, led by the US and comprising Russia, Japan, Canada, Australia and others who oppose legally binding climate commitments.

For the first of these groups three issues are critical: the pressure on members to undertake binding obligations in the near future (which it opposes because of its developing world status); the fate of the Kyoto protocol, the world's only effective legal agreement on climate; and the performance of the developed states of the global north regarding their pledges to finance the south's climate actions.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfricaReflexionesNaturaleza,

This article was written by Nobel peace prize winner Wangari Maathai in September, shortly before her death. It addresses some of the main issues she and the Green Belt Movement were intending to raise at the UN climate summit, which starts in Durban, South Africa, on Monday

In 2011 the worst drought in 60 years engulfed the east of Africa, forcing millions into a desperate struggle to survive. Poor governance intensified the consequences: a drought, not unusual for this part of Africa, became a famine, in which untold human suffering was guaranteed.

Governments could have planned for the drought (after all, some regions haven't seen good rains for four years) and helped their people adapt to the realities of global warming.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

In 1997, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Kyoto Protocol – an agreement among signatory states to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. In 2012, however, the Clean Development Mechanism, a system of carbon credits in which each credit represents a country’s right to emit one ton of carbon dioxide (CO2), is set to expire. While policymakers struggle to extend it, carbon-finance specialists are seeking market-driven alternatives. Progress on the issue has stalled: at the last two UNFCCC conferences in Copenhagen and Cancún, members failed to arrive at an agreement on emission cuts.

Reduction, or mitigation, of CO2 emissions is not easy.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaReflexionesNaturaleza,

In 1888, Brazil became the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery — a profound moral stain for a nation that prides itself today on being a multiracial democracy.

During the long 19th-century struggle against slavery, at a time when abolitionists in Britain were protesting the forced transfer of millions of Africans from their homelands, Brazilian leaders denounced the global abolitionist movement for interfering in the country’s internal affairs.

More than a century later, the same right to noninterference in internal affairs is again being invoked, this time by the agribusiness interests defending Brazil’s right to strip and burn what remains of the planet’s tropical rainforests.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

The lesson the world is learning the hard way from the financial crisis is that there is only one boat and we are all in it. To stay afloat, we need rules tough enough to stop systemic risks becoming systemic collapses. This lesson is as true for the environment as it is for the economy.

A key battle in the campaign to build an effective system of global rules will shortly take place in Durban, where the UN climate negotiations reopen at the end of this month. The International Energy Agency has set the scene, with the timely warning in its new World Energy Outlook that we are way off track to avoid dangerous climate change, and that the window for effective action is closing fast.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza

Cuando el mes pasado el nuevo gabinete de gobierno de Dinamarca se presentó ante la reina Margarita II, el ministro de desarrollo entrante quiso dejar sentadas sus credenciales ecologistas, al llegar hasta el palacio en un diminuto vehículo eléctrico de tres ruedas. El momento fotográfico fue una demostración elocuente acerca de su compromiso con el medioambiente... pero probablemente no la que el ministro pretendía dar.

La autonomía del vehículo eléctrico de Christian Friis Bach era insuficiente para recorrer los 30 kilómetros que separan su casa del palacio. Así que el ministro puso el miniauto eléctrico en un remolque para caballos y durante tres cuartas partes del trayecto lo llevó a la rastra con su Citroën con motor a gasolina; sólo volvió a usar el miniauto cuando las cámaras de televisión estuvieron cerca.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza

For the elephants that are returning to southern Angola, after herds were devastated during the country’s civil wars, the battle is far from over. Old land mines, sown during the decades of conflict that ended in 2002, are threatening the lives and limbs not only of people, but also of the growing elephant populations that are crossing into Angola from northern Botswana on ancient migration routes that continue into Zambia. Mines are a particularly stark example of how humans interfere with migratory journeys that have linked breeding and feeding sites across the globe for millennia.

Up to 10,000 animal species are thought to migrate.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

En noviembre de 2009, la cumbre del clima celebrada en Copenhague se saldó con un sonoro fracaso. Varios de los países de entre los mayores emisores de dióxido de carbono (CO2) a la atmósfera, en particular Estados Unidos y China, cerraron la discusión evitando comprometerse a reducir las emisiones. Sustituyeron un acuerdo de reducciones cuantificables, que habría sido lo único efectivo, por una declaración en la que llamaban a no sobrepasar el nivel de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) en la atmósfera asociado a un aumento de la temperatura media del planeta de dos grados centígrados, umbral que los expertos consideran no debe sobrepasarse a riesgo de provocar graves perturbaciones climáticas.…  Seguir leyendo »