The Hawaiian culture places great emphasis on the word “Aloha,” which means love, peace, compassion, and charity. Hawaiians greet and bid farewell to their guests with Aloha. Unfortunately, there was no Aloha at this year’s APEC Summit (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) in Honolulu, Hawaii.  Sadly, a local Hawaiian youth was killed on the first day of the summit after scuffling with a U.S. federal agent who was hired as a security guard for the multi-day event. This caused bewilderment and a wave of protests from locals.

Honolulu, normally a peaceful vacation town, was not very friendly during the week of the summit and seemed to escalate into chaos. Roads were closed for world leaders and their entourages, causing massive traffic jams. According to witnesses, just the Chinese delegation alone, arrived with 1,000 members and that was only one of the 21 delegations in attendance. Thousands of armed soldiers and federal agents patrolled the perimeter of the tourist part of Honolulu-Waikiki, where the summit took place. Displaying weapons to cause fear in peaceful people is, unfortunately, a common practice in many countries. The meeting was held on Hawaii, far from the US mainland, where large-scale protests were unlikely. Yet, authorities and the APEC planning committee apparently decided to take special measures in light of recent Occupy Movement Protests in most large US cities.  To give you a sense of how much security was there, the US government spent $44 million to prepare for the summit, including $18 million for police and $10 million for “contingency expenses” such as 700 thousand units of non-lethal weapons, including 25 thousand pepper sprays, and even 3 thousand tasers, all purchased by American taxpayers.

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In December of 2009, the U.S. Ex Im Bank gave a record $3 Billion dollars in financing to ExxonMobil for a controversial Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project in Papua New Guinea.   NGOs and Civil Society groups in Papua New Guinea and abroad warned Ex Im Bank that this project’s pipeline would slice through tribal lands and stir conflicts among local people.  And, as predicted, that’s exactly what happened.

Early this week, an outbreak of violence was reportedly sparked by the recent death of a child near the project site. Villagers reportedly attacked employees of an international contractor to the gas project which led to the shutdown of work at one of the LNG project sites.  Disputes between local landowners and the $15 billion dollar LNG project are nothing new and have been reported several times since the project was sanctioned in 2009. The project was disrupted even last week when landowners protested that they hadn’t received the benefits they have been promised from this project. In February 2010, four people were reportedly killed when fighting broke out over a land dispute and there have been several other shutdowns of the project due to similar issues with landowners and tribal communities.

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Our friends at the  Pure Salmon Campaign have launched a new video highlighting the Norwegian Government’s exploitation of salmon in British Columbia.  The launch coincides with campaign events around the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC, Canada – where we are be on the ground to highlight the environmental problems of Norwegian salmon farming operations in British Columbia.  Watch a clip below or click here to watch the full video.

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of impressions for anyone who cares about the global climate.  As we post this blog, we still do not know the outcomes of the Copenhagen negotiations.  Will countries come to agreement on anything that can move forward?  Will that agreement be fair, ambitious, and binding?  Will the agreement help keep us within 350 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere?

I am impressed by all the people who traveled to Copenhagen to have their voices heard.  Indigenous peoples, environmental activists, and others are doing what they can to speak up.  Kudos to Faith Gemmill from REDOIL, who confronted Secretary Salazar about his decision to allow offshore drilling in the Arctic:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N49WoIecsLU.  And kudos to Brendan Cummings of Center for Biological Diversity, who as a polar bear challenged Obama’s leadership:  http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/polar-bear-warns-obama-about-climate-failure/.  Most of all, kudos to the youth who made their voices heard during the climate talks.  Check out this inspiring video documenting a youth sit-in at the Bella Center:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re11HDMdf_E

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Like many of us around the world, I am keenly watching events unfold in Copenhagen.  I keep wondering whether our diplomats will be able to pull themselves together to come out of Copenhagen with a strong, binding agreement that truly reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Today’s big news focused on developing countries walking out of the talks due to concerns about developed countries abandoning the binding targets of the Kyoto Protocol.  This reminds me of the famous WTO negotiations in Seattle ten years ago.  At those negotiations, developing countries brought down the talks because they saw too much back-room dealing.  Oh, and they also saw the incredible protests on the streets calling the entire WTO into question.

Developing countries have every reason to be concerned.  Watching U.S. senators introduce “climate” legislation that allows more offshore oil drilling – such as Senators Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham did last week – does not instill me with confidence that the U.S. can be a leader on climate change issues.  It appears as though we are allowing Senator Imhofe – a notorious climate change denier – to control U.S. legislation and, through it, the outcome of the negotiations in Copenhagen.  We need the U.S. and other developed countries to step up to the plate and commit to significant, binding reductions in emissions.

Developing countries also need to do their part to reduce emissions.  This is why we are helping to build a grassroots environmental movement in China.  Grassroots voices can change China towards a low-carbon path.  We need these voices to speak up loudly and clearly.

On the first day of climate talks in Copenhagen, I have been thinking a lot about rhetoric vs. reality.  The last few days have been abuzz with rumors that the climate talks will result in a deal.  Obama changed his plans to attend the final day of the conference, befitting his role as a major world leader.  The pressure will be on U.S. negotiators to make sure that Obama’s trip is not in vain.

I hope that they are right and that we will get a real, enforceable, meaningful international agreement that leads to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.  Our planet is crying out for this.  Kudos to the newspapers around the world that banded together to prove that an international agreement is, in fact, possible (at least among newspapers) by printing the same editorial calling for a meaningful agreement:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/06/copenhagen-editorial

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Posted by Doug Norlen

Today, the U.S. Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank announced its official carbon policy.

Ex-Im Bank’s policy does nothing to curb the agency’s growing overall portfolio of greenhouse gas emissions.  In fact, applications to Ex-Im Bank for greenhouse gas-emitting projects are skyrocketing after the financial crisis, as project sponsors seek public subsidies to prop up economically and ecologically damaging projects.  Ex-Im Bank continues to subsidize fossil fuel-related transactions despite the recent G-20 pledge to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.

Ex-Im Bank touts is support for renewable energy and energy efficiency, yet in recent years its support for these transactions represent less than 2% of its overall energy portfolio.

Ex-Im Bank’s carbon policy perpetuates the approach taken under the Bush Administration and undercuts the Obama Administration’s claim to international leadership on climate change.

Read the story as reported by Environmental Finance here.

Last night several Pacific Environment staff attended an interesting panel discussion on Climate Change. The organizations represented were Global Anti-Incineration Alliance, International Rivers, International Forum on Globalization and Rainforest Action Network. The panelists were reporting back from attending the first round of international negotiations that took place last December in Poznan, Poland.

Below are some key points that were discussed:

Who should pay for it?

Developing countries, led by India and China, are stressing the need for developed economies like the U.S. and Europe to provide the capital needed to invest in green technologies in the developing world. They argue that the U.S., and Europe created the climate crisis we are living in today through their hundreds of years of industrialization. While the developing world is growing fast and catching up in their level of emissions, they simply do not have the capital nor the responsibility (as the argument implies) to abandon fast, cheap and polluting methods of growth to remedy a situation they did not create.

False solutions:

Carbon offsets allow polluters in the industrial world to take advantage of loopholes by claiming offsets based on sustainable projects that would have taken place anyway.

Cap & Trade is a false solution also because it does not involve forcing polluters to cease known bad practices like the use of coal, or clean coal and biofuel, etc.

Grassroots actions:

A slideshow was presented with images from grassroots protests that took place during these negotiations. They demonstrated how grassroots protest could help sway climate negotiations toward adopting more real and sustainable solutions.

These panelists brought up important points about the flaws of the various solutions to Climate Change that have been put forward in various negotiations and resulting treaties. What I personally found interesting was the fact that I am currently reading an article in the Mother Jones about how “cap and trade” is our one chance to establish a solution that could be agreed upon by different parties, including industry groups and that the system has been proven successful as a model similar to the one based on the “Clean Air Act”.

I am inclined to think no solutions are perfect and without negative repercussions. Climate Change is such a global issue involving so many players/countries with different sets of challenges, we have to be aware that whatever solutions we are putting forward will likely go through a very intense and grueling process of international debates and consensus-reaching. I think we are better off building on best practices than to imagine an ideal world based on ideal solutions.

This month I joined over 11,000 others at the 14th United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP-14), in Poznan, Poland.  Reactions from the enormous conference ranged from disappointment at the lack of progress in negotiations to enthusiasm and hope. We’re hoping that the incoming Obama Administration will bring new international leadership and end the eight years of obstructionism that has characterized the Bush Administration’s approach to climate change.

In Poznan, Pacific Environment focused on the funding needed for countries to meet their obligations under the climate change convention (especially for climate change mitigation and adaptation).  Most environmental organizations and developing countries want to see the mechanisms controlling funding remain controlled by the climate change convention’s Conference of Parties, which reflects the wide and more democratic membership of the UN.  However, some developed countries support funds under the control of the World Bank Group, over which they have more control.  This is despite the fact that the World Bank has a record of financing projects that worsen climate change and that otherwise do social and environmental harm.

Pacific Environment participated in two statements on this topic that were released at COP-14:

http://members.foei.org/en/campaigns/climate/kyoto-protocol/world-bank-out-of-climate-change-finance

http://www.ifg.org/events/copenhagen2008/Global_Climate_Fund_Poznan.pdf

Meanwhile, governments world-wide continue to subsidize harmful fossil fuel projects that undermine their own commitments under the climate change convention.  It reminded me that continued grass-roots resistance to these projects by Pacific Environment and its partners, wholly outside of the massive and cumbersome climate change convention processes, is as crucial as ever.