Obama set to announce US target for cutting emissions at summit

November 7, 2009
Ben Webster, Environment Editor

President Obama is preparing to break the deadlock in negotiations on a global deal on climate change by announcing a target for cutting US greenhouse gas emissions.
The US is the only developed country yet to propose an emissions target. Poorer nations, including most of Africa, are threatening to walk out of a UN summit in Copenhagen next month unless Mr Obama commits to an ambitious reduction.
Mr Obama may wait until the final stages of the negotiations in Copenhagen in order to achieve maximum political impact with his announcement and give other countries little opportunity to demand deeper cuts from the US.
The US delegation at pre-summit talks in Barcelona hinted that Mr Obama was considering offering a range of possible reductions rather than a single number. This would make it easier for the President to persuade Congress to pass legislation making the target legally binding.

During his election campaign, Mr Obama proposed that the US should cut emissions by 14 per cent on 2005 levels. A bill passed by the House of Representatives last summer would cut emissions by 17 per cent.
A second bill, tabled in the Senate by John Kerry, the former Democrat presidential candidate, would cut emissions by 20 per cent.
Jonathan Pershing, the lead US negotiator at the Barcelona talks, gave the clearest indication to date that America would announce a provisional target before the end of the Copenhagen summit.
He said: “Developing countries, including the US, need to make robust mid-term reductions from a set base year.” Mr Pershing added: “In the US we are moving to make a substantial contribution to a robust Copenhagen deal. We are very interested in seeing that deal move forward and we recognise that others are seeking numbers from us.” He said Mr Obama could make a political commitment to a target without waiting for the Senate to approve it.
“The executive body has authorities which are not exclusively reliant on Congress and that is a decision which has to be made.” Mr Pershing also said that the US was preparing to make a “substantial contribution” to a global fund aimed at helping developing countries adapt to climate change and pursue low-carbon economic growth.
He said the US was not expecting developing countries to cut their overall emissions but it wanted to see specific commitments from them on reducing their growth in emissions compared with the “business as usual” position.
Yvo de Boer, the UN’s senior climate change official, said the summit would achieve very little if Mr Obama failed to announce a target

Diamond Watchdog Challenges Zimbabwe With Possible Banning of ItsDiamonds

Diamond watchdog gives Zimbabwe time to comply

The Associated Press
Friday, November 6, 2009 9:43 AM

JOHANNESBURG — The world’s diamond control body is calling on Zimbabwe to clean up a lawless field, but has stopped short of suspending the country from a process meant to keep “blood” gems off the market.

Kimberley Process investigators had recommended Zimbabwe be suspended because its security forces are raping women, killing illegal miners and smuggling diamonds from the field in the troubled country’s east.

In a communique issued late Thursday after meetings this week of officials from Zimbabwe and other Kimberley Process members, the group said its investigators found evidence of Zimbabwe’s “significant noncompliance.” Zimbabwe, however, agreed to take unspecified steps to get back into compliance, and would be given time to do so under Kimberley Process monitoring, the group said.

China Offers Africa More Trade, Investment

China offers Africa more trade, investment

Associated Press | 07 Nov 2009 | 07:56 AM ET
By TAREK EL-TABLAWY

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt - China appeared on Saturday to be adopting a more nuanced investment approach in Africa amid stiff criticism that its aggressive quest for natural resources has ignored local human rights violations.

Ahead of a two-day China-Africa forum beginning Sunday, China’s Commerce Minister Chen Deming said Beijing is offering to abolish import duties on some African commodities and ensure that its exports to the continent are safe.

The suggestions outlined in an article published Saturday appear part of an effort by China to show that it is balancing its mushrooming needs with those of a continent that is saddled with some of the highest poverty rates in the world, a debilitating AIDS epidemic and chronic corruption and conflict.

“Of course China’s objectives are to grow its economy,” said Edward K. Brown, director for policy services at the Africa Center for Economic Transformation, a research and policy advisory organization based in Ghana.

But Brown said Africa’s leaders must also shoulder the same burden.

“Africans need to up the ante to see how they can best leverage their potential and ensure that Chinese investments are channeled into those areas where they generate the most value,” he said.

The meeting Sunday in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik is a continuation of a push launched in 2006 by the energy hungry Asian giant into a resource-rich continent — a drive that included billions in investments in infrastructure.

Chinese investments in Africa totaled $7.8 billion as of last year, while trade has rocketed 30 percent annually this decade, exceeding $100 billion last year, Chen said in an essay published in the state-run China Daily newspaper.

Africa, however, has not been China’s only target.

While long major player in Sudan’s oil industry, Beijing has also been reaching out to Gulf Arab states and other Arab OPEC members. It has signed a refinery deal with Kuwait and Chinese refiner Sinopec has set up a multibillion dollar joint venture petrochemicals plant with Saudi Arabia’s SABIC.

Most recently, Chinese companies have bid aggressively to develop some of Iraq’s most prized oil fields even as some Western oil majors have been reluctant to take on the task in a country still grappling with violence following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of the country.

But its Africa investments have been the lightning rod for critics, focusing attention on a country whose own human rights record has been the catalyst for continuous criticism by many Western governments and international advocacy groups.

An announcement that a little-known Chinese company signed a $7 billion mining deal with Guinea’s repressive military regime only served to underscore that sentiment. The deal came shortly after Guinean soldiers opened fire on demonstrators in September, killing over 150 people.

Beijing said has said it was not involved in that deal and officials have in recent weeks stressed they are looking to foster responsible development in Africa, including through human resource development and agriculture.

Among the new measure outlined in the Saturday article by Chen, the commerce minister, are exempting unspecified types of commodities from customs duties, setting up logistics centers in Africa and creating an inspection system to weed out trade in substandard consumer goods.

China would also continue to build schools and hospitals, support malaria-prevention programs and improve farming methods in Africa, Chen said.

“China has closely followed the development of Africa and sincerely wishes to make its contributions to the African people in developing their nations and creating a better life,” he said.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/33749161/

From the Inbox - Help Make History - Join the Largest Action Ever to Stop Mountaintop Removal Mining

Dear Friend,

Today, organizations across the nation are joining forces with iLoveMountains.org to send a powerful message to the Obama Administration that blasting on Coal River Mountain needs to stop now. More than 500,000 people across the country are being asked to contact the 4 decision-makers in the Obama Administration that can put a stop to the blasting on Coal River Mountain. This could be the largest day of action on mountaintop removal ever, and we need your help to make history.

Will you take a moment to send a message to these decision-makers today?
http://www.iLoveMountains.org/CoalRiver

Last week, we told you about how residents in southern West Virginia have been promoting a plan that would save the last remaining mountain in the Coal River Valley from mountaintop removal coal mining - through wind power. Your response to our appeal to contact the President was incredible. Reports came back from the White House of a deluge of calls, and in less than a week more than 1,500 new people joined the movement to end mountaintop removal coal mining.

But local reports of blasting on the mountain have continued to come in, and we need to redouble our efforts. Blasting is occurring directly next to the Brushy Fork slurry impoundment, a dam which holds 8.2 billion gallons of toxic coal slurry. Every day that blasting continues, more than 1,000 people are in danger of being overtaken by a 50-foot high wall of coal sludge should the dam fail.

The fate of Coal River Mountain is still uncertain, but its implications for our energy future are clear. Will we continue down the path of destroying our nation’s oldest mountains for a few years worth of coal, or seize the opportunity to produce clean wind power for 85,000 homes and generate green jobs and a new energy economy?

Help make history today- and help save Coal River Mountain for the future. Ask the Environmental Protection Agency, Army Corps of Engineers, Department of the Interior and the Council of Environmental Quality to stop the blasting on Coal River Mountain

Thanks for all that you do,

Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org

Protesters Tell It On the Mountain in Coal Country

Coal River Mountain in West Virginia is rumbling. Last week’s Mountaintop Removal Day of Action unleashed a wave of protestsaround the country, with activists demanding that the Obama administration halt the coal industry’s pillage of Appalachia and foster the development of renewable energy.

Since the area has been designated as a potentially huge wind power resource, Coal River Mountain occupies a critical pivot point in the transformation of the country’s energy infrastructure—as well as an economic crossroads for workers in a deeply impoverished region.

While demonstrations have pushed people into the streets, into treetops and behind bars in recent weeks, Massey Energy (recently the target of an employment discrimination lawsuit) has continued to blast through the region’s fragile landscape, reports Jeff Biggers at Huffington Post.

Activists want the EPA to block the company’s mountaintop removal plans, following the agency’s recent intervention against a similar project slated for Spruce Mine in West Virginia. Environmental groups are also pressuring the administration to take bolder action to undo Bush-era policies that encourage mountaintop mining pollution.

As reported before, strip-mining mountains to feed the country’s coal addiction has outraged environmentalists, but posed a sharp dilemma for workers whose livelihoods are entwined with the industry.

In an AP report on a public hearing in Kentucky about ending mountaintop removal, one miner voiced a common concern: “It’s going to put a lot of people out work,” said Junie Halcomb. “We can’t survive without coal money.”

But outside the threat of climate change, the mining industry has long littered coal country with environmental hazards, from dangerous working conditions to poisoned lungs.

While the miners’ union has purported to defend its members by dithering on mountaintop removal, some advocates say workers are being led into the wrong battle. In a recent commentary in the Herald-Dispatch, Terry and Wilma Steele, local activists in West Virginia’s mine community, argued:

What the [United Mine Workers of America] had better realize is that some of its strongest union men are fighting with the environmentalists against [mountaintop removal]. These miners, like this writer, have lived and worked all their lives in W. Va. We have watched the deep mines close; MTR mines take our jobs, our land and our union. More recently, we watched the muddy flood waters pour off these sites, as it took roads and homes. Just a few MTR mines chained the union to the real enemy.

At a community forum in Wise County, Virginia, coordinated by the grassroots media project Appalshop, project director Tom Hansell tried to reorient the debate toward economic empowerment through environmental consciousness:

…the political and economic momentum behind the power plant is powerful enough to frame the debate in terms of jobs versus environment. This resulted in a highly polarized community setting. To begin the process of healing, I want to change the conversation from “which side are you on” to “what do you imagine for the future?”

A study issued by Coal River Wind on the community’s wind power potential presents two divergent pathways into the country’s energy future:

The benefits of mountaintop removal mining would end after 17 years when the mining ends, but the costs of mountaintop removal mining are projected to continue due to the expected deaths and illnesses caused by the coal mining. In contrast, the benefits from the wind scenarios continue indefinitely.

Fighting the mining moguls is an uphill battle, but as the ecological toll grows more apparent, labor and environmental groups may finally find common ground in reclaiming Appalachia from the fossil fuel industry.

Massey may have the money and political clout to move mountains. But the challenge of shifting America’s energy system is drumming up a deeper mass movement.

Source:
Working in These Times, “Protesters Tell It On the Mountain in Coal Country“, accessed November 4, 2009

From the Inbox - National Parks Receive Funding Increase