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In This Episode:

Feature Story – Poznan Wrap Up

Tony Mohr is the Manager of the Climate Change program at the Australian Conservation Foundation. Tony develops and communicates ACF’s climate change policy to governments, companies and Australians. His team have been influential in the development of emissions trading in Australia, the Garnaut review and the Mandatory Renewable Energy Project.  He’s also got a cool accent Mate!

Tony recently returned from the Poznan Conference. We spoke to him to get a world view on the outcomes of the event. The Bullet Points:

• The European Union made good progress at side negotiations holding to their 20% by 2020 goal.
• All told the conference was somewhat disappointing.  A lot of discussion and debate about finer points but not a lot of real substantive results.
• Some countries sighted concerns about the global financial crisis but as Tony pointed out, the financial crisis is short term, Climate Change is long-term.  Happily most delegates seemed to recognize the need to press forward on solutions regardless of the world financial situation.
• There is much anticipation of how the Obama administration will approach Climate Change around the world.  Regrettably this anticipation proved to be an easy out for many nations as they “wait and see”.  The lack of real details from Poznan will potentially complicate negotiations in 2009.
• There are a dozen or so conferences leading up to 2009 negotiations in Copenhagen.  Perhaps you might consider Denmark in your travel plans this year…
• More info at the end of these show notes.

Green Sprouts :: Special Guest Corey Colwell-Lipson from Celebrate Green.net

Some Great ideas for Greening Your Holiday:

1. Go for meaning over stuff
2. Wrap in a nice fabric instead of wasteful wrapping paper (the US could save 47,000 football fields of wrapping paper by wrapping just 3 gifts…)  Also known as furoshiki or bojagi
3. Rent a Tree.  Many garden centers now rent living Christmas trees.  Some stores will resell the trees or donate them to local parks.
4. Hide the presents.  Make it a game, a scavenger hunt.  No need to wrap, just leave clues.
5. Make the holidays about spending time not necessarily money.  Create an activity calendar with your kids.  Is a month too much for your schedule?  How about 12 days for Christmas or a week.  Bake cookies, play games, hike.
6. Get together with your friends for dinner instead of swapping more “stuff”

Lots more tips at the Celebrate Green site

Reusable News:

Obama appoints Energy Secretary and EPA Administrator

Barack Obama has named Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu as his energy secretary and Jersey Girl, Lisa Jackson, currently Governor Corzine’s chief of staff, as head of the environment protection agency (EPA).
The US president-elect said the new administration’s priorities were to end US dependence on foreign oil and fight climate change and as such we must move away from fossil fuels.
Mr Obama has pledged to make big changes in environmental policies.
“All of us know the problems that are rooted in our addiction to foreign oil,” he said. “It constrains our economy, shifts wealth to hostile regimes and leaves us dependent on unstable regions.”
He said these “urgent dangers” were only eclipsed by the long-term threat of climate change.
“Unless we act, [climate change] will lead to drought and famine abroad, devastating weather patterns and terrible storms on our shores and the disappearance of our coastline,”
He reiterated excerpts from his campaign stump speech when he said this crisis offers us boundless opportunities to create new jobs in the environmental industry.
People who have followed the science of climate change will recognize Mr. Obama’s comments as echoing the decades of cries from leading scientists on the issue. Having a representative in the White House who acknowledges scientific findings and allows substantiated data to guide his actions will be a welcome change indeed. More at BBC News

Irish Tax the Bag

Five months ago the Republic of Ireland placed a $.15 tax on plastic shopping bags. In that time use of plastic bags has dropped 90% and while generating 3.5 million euros in extra revenue to be spent on environmental projects.
Environment Minister Martin Cullen said “The levy has been an outstanding success in achieving what it set out to do. Over one billion plastic bags will be removed from circulation while raising funding for future environmentally friendly initiatives.”
He added: “It is clear that the levy has not only changed consumer behavior in relation to disposable plastic bags, it has also raised national consciousness about the role each one of us can, and must play if we are to tackle collectively the problems of litter and waste management.”
In March, Bangladesh banned polythene bags after it was found that they were blocking drainage systems and had been a major culprit during the 1988 and 1998 floods that submerged two-thirds of the country. More at BBC News

Obama Meets with Gore

On Tuesday Dec 9th Pres-Elect Obama and Senator Biden sat down for a private conference with Vice President Gore to hear his latest council on Climate Change. Here are some excerpts from Mr. Obama’s subsequent press conference. Audio excepts from CNN

A Healthy Upside to Higher Taxes?

New York Governor Taxes the Budget Gap Away
Governor Paterson unveiled a plan including 88 new taxes for New Yorkers. The New York Daily News reports that “Among other things, taxi rides, soda, beer, wine, and cigars would be taxed under Paterson’s proposal. “

Some of these taxes could potentially curb bad behavior in New Yorkers. Taxes on taxis could promote more use of public transportation. Cigar taxes could curb smoking which pollutes the air. But all these taxes could also curb the public’s trust in their state government!

More here:

Clean Power Plant To Be Built In Maryland

“A Silver Spring company has reached an agreement with Charles County officials that clears the way for construction of a $500 million natural gas power plant in St. Charles.

The agreement, announced Wednesday, is the most significant development in Competitive Power Ventures’ year-long effort to build what it says will be one of the cleanest power plants in the mid-Atlantic region. The plant is considered a critical piece of energy planning for the Washington region.

Under the agreement, CPV will buy reclaimed water from the county’s Mattawoman Wastewater Treatment plant to cool its facility, which will power about 600,000 homes in the Washington and Baltimore regions. Company officials said the plant will use polluted water that otherwise would flow into the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay.”

For more info:

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – Abbreviation Key

From:  iisd Reporting Services

AIJ -          Activities implemented jointly
AOSIS  –     Alliance of Small Island States
AR4 -          IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
AWG-KP  –      Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol
AWG-LCA -      Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention
CCS  -      Carbon Capture and Storage
CDM  -      Clean Development Mechanism
CGE  -      Consultative Group of Experts on Non-Annex I National Communications
COP   –      Conference of the Parties
COP/MOP  –      Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties
EGTT   -       Expert Group on Technology Transfer
EIT   -       Economies in transition to a market economy
GEF   -       Global Environment Facility
IPCC   -       Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
JI    -        Joint Implementation
JISC    -       Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee
LDCs    -       Least Developed Countries
LULUCF   –       Land use, land-use change and forestry
MRV    -       Measuring, reporting and verifying
NAPA   -       National adaptation programme of action
NWP   -       Nairobi Work Programme on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change
Ppm   -       Parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent
QELROs   -       Quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives
REDD    –        Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries
SB    -        Subsidiary Body
SBI   -       Subsidiary Body for Implementation
SBSTA     -    Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice
SIDS   -        Small Island Developing States
UNFCCC    -    United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change