Living Planet: Environment Matters Around the Globe

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DATE : Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:30:00 GMT
Entered in Database : 2009-12-17 16:30:00
length : 14577358
Link to the Show / Show Notes

This week Living Planet is at the global climate summit in Copenhagen with an in-depth look at the negotiations themselves as well as some of the key items on the agenda.
Deadline to replace Kyoto looms

The Kyoto Protocol officially expires in 2012 and while that may seem like a long way off, something needs to be done because carbon is already taking its toll on the planet.

Ever since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, countries have been talking about ways to tackle climate change. That meeting gave rise to the United Nations Climate Change Convention, which would eventually give us that polarising treaty, known after the Japanese city Kyoto.

Delegates from around the world have spent two weeks in Copenhagen, desperately trying to settle on an improvement – or a replacement – for Kyoto. Two years ago they set themselves a deadline to get the job done and it's now set to expire.

Report: Mark Mattox

A key part of the new climate agreement will certainly involve paying developing countries in the tropical regions of the world not to cut down their forests.

Stopping deforestation will be a major component of any successful effort to limit greenhouse gas emissions. One man who has been critically acclaimed for his pioneering role in conserving his country’s forests is the president of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo.

His Low Carbon Development Strategy will see Guyana get paid $580 million (397 million euros) annually not to cut down its forests under a deal with Norway. Jagdeo had his forests evaluated by the respected western consulting firm, McKinsey and Co. They put a price tag on the trees, based on what Guyana could have earned if it had opened them up to logging.

Interview: Nathan Witkop

Following the email scandal at the University of East Anglia last month, many people have begun to doubt the science behind climate change. Experts, however, are warning that is a very dangerous attitude to take.

Despite the presence of over 45,000 people at the conference in Copenhagen, as well as the engagement of most of the world’s leaders, not all are convinced by the dangers of climate change, whether humans are driving it or whether it is even happening at all.

When email correspondence of some climate scientists in Britain were recently hacked and published, climate skeptics and deniers claimed to have discovered evidence of a cover up. The claims have particular resonance in the US, where climate policy remains a heated issue in the country’s senate.

Living Planet spoke to two experts prominent in US climate circles. Elliot Diringe is vice president of international strategy at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Dr. John D. Holdren is President Barrack Obama’s science advisor.

Interview: Nathan Witkop

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