The COP17 global climate summit is now in full swing in Durban. And in honour of so much climate-chatter going on, this Makana Enviro News is dedicated to climate change.
It’s depressing. You should be worried. And you don’t know half of it. But without exaggeration, it’s time to face facts or mass extinction.
The COP17 global climate summit is now in full swing in Durban. And in honour of so much climate-chatter going on, this Makana Enviro News is dedicated to climate change.
It’s depressing. You should be worried. And you don’t know half of it. But without exaggeration, it’s time to face facts or mass extinction.
Climate Change – The statistics and the myth of emission-reduction
Right now, as the world’s signatories to the Kyoto Protocol meet at COP17 to negotiate new reduction targets, you’d be forgiven for thinking that at least we’re on the right track – that after so many years and annual climate change summits, emissions were coming down.
Not at all. Now I won’t comment on what I think COP17 will achieve – it’s too soon – but if its predecessors are anything to go by… absolutely nothing. The facts: In the latest report by the International Energy Agency, the world’s premier energy consumption-monitoring body, 2010 marked the greatest increase in global warming gas emissions ever recorded.
In total, over 30 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels – 564 million more tons than in 2009 – a record 6% annual increase – higher than any worst case scenario projected just half a decade ago.
Weren’t we supposed to be decreasing green house gas emissions? Yes – by building new fossil-fuelled power stations, gas-guzzling factories, dirty oil-extraction plants like the tar sands and un-eco-sensitive buildings – with many more planned for construction around the world. South Africa has two coal-powered stations on the cards.
That’s how we’re reducing emissions – with fossil fuel, self delusion and wishful thinking. And whatever is built now that emits carbon, will do so for decades. It’s what many now call the "lock-in" effect – humanity locked into fossil fuel-burning energy for the foreseeable future – with the carbon we emit having a 100-year lifespan.
That’s how long it stays up there – a century of helping us bake and just five years to go till irreversible climate change. Five years. Tick-tock. What Scientists Are Saying Climate scientists all agree that the world has to stay below two degrees Celsius of warming to prevent irreversible climate change.
Two degrees is the limit of safety. After that we’re in uncharted territory. Now to stay below that point, emissions must be kept at no higher than 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We’re already on 390 parts per million; and with fossil-fuelled infrastructure still being built, this figure keeps rising.
We have a smaller and smaller gap in which to manoeuvre. And without significant steps at COP 17, we’ll break the 450 parts per million barrier in 2017. Then we’re in climate change wilderness. The last time this much carbon was in the Earth’s atmosphere was 65 million years ago. This is serious. Two degrees already wipes out most of our coral reefs and glaciers. And the political and economic will to do anything about it, other than talk, seems to be non-existent.
Unfortunately, too much money is involved. China, the world’s premier polluter together with the US, has decades of coal reserves and is building coal-powered power stations at a frenetic pace. In the US, the sustained PR and lobbyist war on climate discourse by mining and oil has decreased the percentage of Americans concerned about climate change from 71% to about 45% in less than half a decade.
The big polluters, such as the US, China, Japan and Europe – two thirds of all global emissions between them – don’t care. And the media really doesn’t seem to either. The International Energy Agency’s report of last year’s record-breaking emission increases should have made every front page on the globe – should have been the 8 o’clock lead story on all TV stations. It was buried.
In this, though, the School of Journalism and Media Studies (JMS) at Rhodes is playing a positively pioneering role. Rhodes JMS and Highway Africa – a leading role in climate-change discourse The Rhodes School of Journalism and Media Studies (JMS), and its Highway Africa Centre, are significantly involved with COP 17 and current discourse on climate change – its coverage by the media in particular.
In fact, Highway Africa's Reporting Development Network Africa (RDNA) is currently providing a news service at the summit itself – edited by Grocott’s Mail editor Steven Lang and staffed by numerous JMS students – whose output can be viewed online http://reportingdna.org/blogs
This initiative is the culmination of Highway Africa’s theme and activities for 2011, which focused on sustainable development and climate change – with a variety of workshops, book launches, sessions and colloquia on climate change over several months.
The theme of its annual conference was “African Media and the Global Sustainability Challenge” – featuring an array of high-profile media leaders, journalists, policymakers and academics discussing the role of media in reporting climate change and the challenge of sustainable development.
This included a colloquium of journalism educators on the topic of 'Journalism and Climate Change in the Global South', of which a selection of papers will be published in a special themed issue of the journal, Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, edited by Deputy Head of School Prof Wasserman (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/recq).
Wasserman also recently gave a talk in Johannesburg as part of a panel put together by the South African Civil Society Information Service – dealing with the South African media's response to climate change – in which he addressed the frequency, prominence and tone of climate change coverage.
This included the fact that the amount of coverage by the media is not commensurate with the scale of the issue; that it usually appears as a special feature or part of natural disaster stories, rather than being integral to daily reporting; that it vacillates between apocalyptic sensationalism and the opposite notion that climate change is a distant problem; and that it ultimately lacks a critical humanisation of climate change – not really dealing with how climate change is already affecting, and likely to affect, the lives of people. People like us. If you want to know how climate change affects you, go to www.capetown.gov.za/en/EnvironmentalResourceManagement/publications/Pages/EnviroWORKSNewsletters.aspx, or email enviroworks@capetown.gov.za for an electronic version of the Enviroworks December 2011 newsletter.
It’s written by experts for Everyman and will open your eyes beautifully.
Local Is Lekker – COP 17 and Grahamstown
On 16 November a COP17 Round Table was held here in Grahamstown, from which a statement was drafted, outlining what this town’s citizens wanted our government to put on the table, ranging from environmental education and awareness, to improved management and use of water resources, to food security and the mindful use of energy and promotion of renewable sources, as well as the protection of biodiversity.
You see, what those attending the round table realised – and what we all should know – is that climate change is an all-permeating, all-encompassing issue with potentially catastrophic effects on everything we take for granted.
And it’s inextricably entwined with the every aspect of human-driven planetary degradation. Be it climate change, deforestation, habitat loss, the fact that 80% of the planet’s fresh water is no longer drinkable, every kind of pollution you can imagine, or soil erosion to the point of desertification, the entire catastrophe is interlinked.
It’s us. And we have to stop it. Within our complex body coding we still have the exact same 200 genes as the original single-cell organisms from which life on Earth evolved. We are not just in this world. We are of it. And maybe when we remember that, precious profit will take a back seat to the precious life we’ve been part of for 6 billion years and counting.
Contacts for Makana Enviro-News: Nikki Köhly: n.kohly@ru.ac.za, 046 603 7205 / Jenny Gon: j-gon@intekom.co.za, 046 622 5822 / Nick Hamer: n.hamer@ru.ac.za, 084 722 3458 / Nick James: nickjames@intekom.co.za, 046 622 5757 / Lawrence Sisitka: heilaw@imaginet.co.za, 046 622 8595 / Strato Copteros strato@iafrica.com, 082 785 6403
