This time in 2009, anticipation was feverish in advance of the climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen. Two years later, as that negotiation process reaches Durban, South Africa, expectations are somewhat diminished.
There is some hope that the Durban gathering, which begins today, will prove to be a 'summit of small steps,' with progress on such areas as cooperation on clean technology and establishing rules and regulations for a Green Climate Fund.
But there will be no new climate treaty emerging from the upcoming discussions; in fact, according to the BBC's Richard Black, the principal division among the delegations is that some (primarily the European Union and 'climate-vulnerable' countries such as small island states) want to negotiate a treaty that is completed by 2015 and 'begins to bite' by 2020 and others - well, don't. Black writes that this latter bloc includes Brazil, which has argued that 2012-2015 should be a "reflection phase;" India, which says it should be a "technical/scientific period;" and some developed nations which argue that a new treaty is unrealistic before 2018 at the earliest. That latter grouping includes Japan, Canada, and Russia; predictably, it also includes the United States, where climate change continues to be the hottest of potatoes.
ANALYSIS: Climate Change: A Threat to US Security
Last week, for example, the Washington Post reported that Congress had barred the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from establishing a proposed National Climate Service. The idea behind the service was to create a "one-stop shop" on climate information, and "make it easier for people to find information, such as seasonal growing outlooks and drought, wildfire and flood forecasts." It would have cost no money - and, if anything, made the agency's climate work more efficiently.
But, at a June hearing, Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland told NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco of his fear that "the climate services could become little propaganda sources instead of a science source." More recently, Texas Rep. Ralph Hall accused NOAA of operating a "a shadow climate service operation," even though, as the Post article points out, NOAA's climate data has, far from being in the shadows, "been public for decades."
Never mind that the World Meteorological Organization confirmed last week that greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere reached record levels in 2010 and that the rate of increase of carbon dioxide is still growing. Never mind either that yet another study confirmed that the Arctic is losing sea ice "on a pace and magnitude unlike anything the Earth has experienced in the past 1,450 years." As long as NOAA doesn't establish a new website to disseminate its 'warmist propaganda', all will be right with the world.
ANALYSIS: Climate Skeptics: A US and UK Press Phenom
Meanwhile, notwithstanding a new release of supposedly revelatory e-mails stolen from climate scientists in 2009, climate scientists keep on doing what climate scientists do: adding to the sum of knowledge about climate science. One widely-covered recent contribution, by a team led by Andreas Schmittner of Oregon State University, argues that the atmosphere's 'climate sensitivity' may be less than had been predicted or feared. Although most forecasts suggest that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would lead to an average global temperature increase of around 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (although it could be as low as 3.6F or as high as 8.1F), Schmittner and colleagues used proxy data from periods of past climatic extremes to argue that the most likely increase would be around 4.1 degrees, and perhaps as low as 3F (or as high as 4.7F).
ANALYSIS: Skeptics Catching Up on Climate Science
That was enough for some to declare the paper "another in a long line of revelations showing the scientific fraud at the heart of the anti-global warming movement" and a sign that "warmist ideology is crumbling" - apparently missing the part of the study that emphasized that (a) increased greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming; and (b) a doubling of CO2 could lead to warming of over 4 degrees F; to say nothing of Schmitter's own observation that "very small changes in temperature cause huge changes in certain regions. So even if we get a smaller temperature rise than we expected, the knock-on effects would still be severe."
It is, of course, just one paper; furthermore, others have expressed caution over the accuracy and extensiveness of the study's data set, and pointed out that there are other factors, including long-term feedbacks such as the melting of tundra and subsequent release of methane, that the study does not address. There are questions, too, about the sophistication of the models used, and even Schmittner concedes that “the range that we estimate for climate sensitivity may be too narrow".
Besides, as Rachel Nuwer summarized in the New York Times: "While climate scientists generally center their research around a potential doubling of carbon dioxide, there is no guarantee humanity will actually stop its emissions at that level, meaning the temperature increase could be higher than the forecasts. The carbon dioxide level is up 40 percent already, emissions are rising rapidly, and global negotiations to limit them have not been very successful."
Photograph: Greenpeace and Tcktcktck volunteers raise a wind turbine on the beach at dawn in Durban, to send a 'message of hope' for the latest round of UN climate change talks opening in the South African city on Monday. Credit: Shayne Robinson/Greenpeace
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