Nigel Sizer’s 8th post from the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, which kicked of Monday, December 3rd.
Rare’s Arlington neighbor, AES Corporation is here in force. Today their CEO announced plans to invest $600 million in energy plants in Indonesia and Thailand that will run on agricultural waste. The first will be built in Bali. Rice husk and straw waste are traditionally burned in the fields here, producing thick haze for a couple of months each year. AES has long been a leader on climate change, offsetting a power plant’s emissions for the first time 20 years ago.
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Governor Maggi, of Matto Grosso state in the Brazilian Amazon, Professor Dan Nepstad of Woods Hole Research Center, and the leader of the Amazon’s rubbertappers agreeing on proposals for reducing deforestation.
Dan Nepstad, of Woods Hole Research Center, presented new estimates of the costs of reducing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. By 2030 he estimates 55 percent of the Amazon would be cleared, logged or otherwise damaged if there are not major changes in policy and financing. In a brilliant exercise in modeling and projection, Nepstad and his collaborators have mapped out, across the entire Brazilian Amazon, the opportunity costs of keeping forest standing. He has shown that about 90 percent of the carbon needs to have a price of less than $5 per tonne, and 94 percent is less than $10 per tonne to outbid more destructive activities. Even building in generous payments to forest peoples and local communities that have already been conserving forests, improving local healthcare and other support, over the next 30 years it would cost only $41 billion to bring deforestation down in the Brazilian Amazon down to zero. This works out to be only $1.2 per tonne of avoided emissions of carbon dioxide – a very good deal as Lord Stern said the day before.
So American corporations and scientists are making huge contributions to progress on climate change, as are over 700 US cities, California, New York and countless other local initiatives.
And former US Vice President, Al Gore, has arguably made the greatest contribution to moving action on climate change forward. The highlight of the past two weeks was attending his hour-long exhortation to delegates last night to move forward despite the enormous obstacle posed by the White House. “My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for impeding progress here in Bali,” he stressed, to thunderous applause. He then asked all those who had applauded that statement to harness their anger and frustration at the United States and channel it into moving forward, leaving a large space for the next US administration to fill following the elections next year.
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Al Gore exhorting action and leadership from delegates in Bali.
“We are seeing the early stages of a global people power movement for the first time,” exhorted Gore to a thrilled and packed auditorium. He ended on a direct and inspiring note, appealing to us, telling us that we should devote all our efforts to moving action forward since, “This relatively small group of people here in Bali can control the destiny of all humankind.”
As you’ve seen in the media, negotiations are not going well. But this shouldn’t be a surprise, governments have rarely been ahead of concerned citizens on environmental issues. Check out Gore’s website to see the dozens of things you can do now to reduce emissions, none of us need to wait for governments to come to consensus here in Bali, it is up to each person, first and foremost Americans, to lead by doing: http://www.climateprotect.org/
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