GLOBAL WARMING X HOUR WILL ARRIVE IN 2030

The problem of global warming is becoming more acute and academics from many countries are trying to tackle it. Azerbaijan is no exception: in 1995 our country joined the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and in 2000 signed the Kyoto Protocol. Our specialists in ecology, oceanography, hydrometeorology, agriculture and health care and academics from other disciplines are working on a project to enable Azerbaijan to meet its obligations under the convention.

Journalists as mediators between scientists and public

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Ecology Ministry have held training sessions on climate problems for journalists and NGO representatives in Baku. Representatives of the media and NGOs had the opportunity to meet experts in different fields. Opening the session, the UNDP resident coordinator in Azerbaijan, Bruno Puesa, said that all the major natural disasters in recent years have been the result of global climate change brought about by scientific and technical progress. Puesa said that Azerbaijan is in a relatively good position, as it does not make a major contribution to destroying the natural balance in the world. Of course he is right: you cannot really compare our country with the USA whose total emissions in 2004 were the same as the total emissions of India and China combined, according to official statistics. And even India and China are developing rapidly and are acknowledged to be major emitters of carbon dioxide.

Bruno Puesa stressed that Azerbaijan too should give priority to clean technologies. He said that one of the upsides of the increase in the oil price is that it forces both individuals and organizations to make more economical use of fuel and wider use of metering which in the final analysis helps to reduce the volume of harmful emissions into the atmosphere. Bruno Puesa said that each one of us can make our small contribution to the common cause of combating global warming - for example, just by not leaving the lights on or making careful use of air conditioners. 

Talking about training on climate change, the UNDP chief explained that one of his organization's main objectives is to bring to a wider public "carefully packaged" scientific conclusions on the subject. The media and NGOs are natural bridges between the scientific community and the wider public. The training included a course devised by the Ecosphere NGO in which journalists were given a great deal of useful information on working with scientific sources. 

Is disaster ahead?

The training gave journalists a general understanding of five models of climate development in Azerbaijan over the coming century which are being worked out with the aid of computer technology by an expert group from the Ecology Ministry. These models make substantially different forecasts, but even the most optimistic states clearly the need to take action now at all levels - from the state level to the individual.

Clips were shown from the film An Inconvenient Truth, produced by an inter-governmental expert group on climate change led by former US Vice-President Al Gore: the film was devoted to the planet's melting icecaps and the consequences of floods and hurricanes. The balding Kilimanjaro, the shrunken glaciers of Peru, the meadows of England, the plains of the USA and the valleys of Croatia have been battered beyond recognition by natural disasters. In October the film was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its clear and hard-hitting presentation of the problem.

A climate change conference was held in Valencia in November. According to the report presented to the conference by the UN's inter-governmental expert group, the world's climate really is changing. Ninety per cent of the changes are brought about by emissions of greenhouse gases which humanity could significantly reduce with acceptable costs to the economy. The experts think that if carbon dioxide emissions continue at current levels, there will be a qualitative shift in climate change and the changes will be sudden and irreversible.

They predict that in 50 years the average temperature on Earth will increase on a scale of 1.1 to 6.4 degrees. The melting of the ice floes in Antarctica and Greenland will raise the levels of the world's oceans by 28-43 cm and drown some island states and coastal cities. The influence of tropical cyclones on the climate is increasing; they cause either droughts or floods in different regions that will lead to the extinction of some types of flora and fauna.

Azerbaijani specialists gave figures for the climate in our country at the training session in Baku. These figures are in the same vein as the gloomy international predictions: the average air temperature is increasing steadily from decade to decade, as is wind speed. The balance is changing between the volume of precipitation and the volume of evaporation. Agriculture is gradually experiencing desertification and cities are beginning to experience a shortage of water.

Azerbaijan has already drawn up its first national report on the problem and began its second in September 2006. Scientists say it will by completed by 2009 and will include statistics on greenhouse gas emissions, an assessment of the effects of climate change and the level of adaptation to it and also a calculation of losses and scenario for potential climate change in the country.

A job for the whole planet

The independent Human Development Reports, commissioned by the UNDP, create a framework for discussion of the toughest problems facing mankind. The report for 2007-08 was presented on 27 November in the city of Brazilia. The very title of the Human Development Report reveals the most pressing current problem. This year the annual document is entitled Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World. It is based on the recently published conclusions of the inter-governmental group of experts on climate change, which consists of 2,000 scientists from different countries. The 2007-08 Human Development Report was launched in Azerbaijan at a press conference at the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources.

Funnily enough climate change still causes arguments, although its effects have been scientifically proven. Amateur ecologists, scientists and UNDP specialists now have to prove (above all to the world's developed countries) that this could scupper human progress and divide the world in two. Rich countries will continue to pollute the Earth's atmosphere with emissions of greenhouse gases (but in order to survive rather than to get richer), while the residents of the poorest countries will continue to be short of the most basic necessities - water and fuel. This will bring to nought all mankind's efforts to tackle poverty.

Specialists think that the point of no return will be reached in the first third of this century - a 50 per cent increase in CO2 emissions is forecast by 2030. So we have to move quickly. Kevin Watkins, lead author of the Human Development 

, reported fears that the 21st century's carbon budget would be used up by 2032 - in other words, the volume of carbons that can be absorbed without increasing the global temperature by more than two degrees Celsius (two degrees are the permissible upper limit after which disaster will ensue). In Siberia the temperature is already rising by 3.6 degrees Celsius. This is changing the way of life of the indigenous peoples (academics have observed that the languages of the indigenous people have no words to describe the climate, flora and fauna that can now be seen around them). This increases the risk of flooding in the Russian Federation, of the glaciers melting in the mountains of Central Asia, etc. These are the problems of just one part of our planet.

The Human Development Report says, "Tackling climate change requires action on two fronts. First, the world urgently needs to step up action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions… Adaptation is the second global necessity." On both fronts the developed countries must help the economically less developed, because, as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "Climate change threatens the entire human family." 

Some of the ways to prevent climate change recommended by scientists are a gradual tax increase on carbons, tougher emissions standards, support for the development of low carbon energy and international cooperation on financing and sharing technology.

Flaws in our own ecology

It is common knowledge that growth in emissions is in direct proportion to the index for the development of human potential. The human potential development index includes categories such as life expectancy, literacy and income levels. According to the 2007-08 Human Development Report, Iceland tops the human potential development list, just edging out Norway which topped it for the past six years. The list includes 175 countries, Hong Kong and the occupied Palestinian territories. This year 17 UN member countries were not included on the list because of a lack of reliable data (Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and others). Azerbaijan came 98th in this list, Georgia 96th, Armenia 83rd and Russia 67th. 

Azerbaijani Ecology Minister Huseyngulu Bagirov told the press conference of an encouraging trend - in the past few years the level of emissions in Azerbaijan has almost halved, "In 2000 the figure was 70 million tonnes, while now it is around 35 million. At the same time the volume of harmful emissions by vehicle transport has doubled to 9 million tonnes." On the other hand, he said, a huge number of residents of our country still use ordinary logs for fuel which leads to the destruction of forests and an increase in the amount of methane in the atmosphere. 

Another curse for Azerbaijan's ecology is the general penchant of rural residents for cattle rearing. This is nothing unusual - stock rearing is one of the most profitable areas of agriculture. However, excessive interest in it is a blow for our country's forests because of widespread, uncontrolled grazing. As they want to cut costs, rural residents do not buy feed or prepare it themselves, but send out their cattle to forage for common food that they usually find in ancient forests. Since Azerbaijan's Ministry for Ecology and Natural Resources has recently declared its intention to increase fines for environmental breaches, we can assume that the toughened sanctions will include fines for uncontrolled grazing.

The minister also reported that according to scientific observations some rivers in Azerbaijan that have traditionally dried up in summer now do not dry up or dry up later and for a shorter time which is the result of a warmer climate and the melting of glaciers in the mountains. Mentioning that the non-oil sector is developing intensively in Azerbaijan and that energy from sun, wind and thermal sources is being considered, Huseyngulu Bagirov talked about five pilot projects to produce ecologically clean fuel from organic agricultural waste. The minister said that the ministry, together with foreign companies, is carrying out these projects on farms in different regions as part of the third amendment to the Kyoto Protocol on clean methods of production.

The minister also said that the situation in Azerbaijan is more positive with regard to carbon emissions, which are 3.8 tonnes per head of population annually, according to the 2007-08 Human Development Report, just 0.2 per cent of the accepted world figures, unlike in many countries. For comparison, emissions per head of population in Russia are 8.8 per cent, in China 10.6 per cent and in the USA 21.2 per cent. Azerbaijan has the potential to reduce the volume of greenhouse gas emissions and is using that potential but needs to speed up the process.

Bali protocol

Very many people, whose actions one way or another contribute to tackling global climate change, and many other ordinary citizens of the planet looked forward with great interest to the outcome of the UN's 13th world climate conference in early December in Bali, Indonesia. The governments of some 200 countries were to discuss a new version of the Kyoto Protocol (its current phase runs out in 2012). A strategy for adaptation to climate change is proposed as its basis.

Greenpeace activists put an enormous thermometer, around seven metres high, at the entrance to the summit to remind delegates that the average temperature on the planet must not rise by more than two degrees Celsius, otherwise the consequences of climate change will be irreversible. Sadly this thermometer became a symbol more of the warming of emotions and even the heat of passion at the conference which began with three countries receiving booby prizes for the greatest atmospheric pollution. The dubious honours went to the USA, Saudi Arabia and the hosts, Indonesia.

The rest of the conference, held in a very tense atmosphere, did not produce a happy consensus either. The participating states divided into several camps. The developing countries, including the major emitters of greenhouse gases, India and China, said that the developed states should take most of the responsibility for man's increased impact on the climate system. The developed countries were not united either and managed to share only a refusal to take on new commitments on reducing emissions for fear of slowing down their own economic development.

Australia's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol provided the only ray of hope. However, this was due more to the determination of Australia's newly elected prime minister, Kevin Rudd, than to any achievement by the conference. The new broom was so powerful that the green continent (a sizeable area of land) now leads the planet in terms of climate commitments. The Australian prime minister said that by 2050 his country will reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 60 per cent compared with 2000; second, Australia is working out a national scheme on trading in emissions quotas and, third, by 2020 it will increase by 20 per cent the proportion of power generated by renewable sources.

Unfortunately, this has not been an example to anyone. European Union representatives proposed a road map agreement. This is a plan of action that will allow a 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions worldwide by 2020. But the conference's presiding bodies on Bali were not as optimistic as the European countries or Australia - their compromise proposal was to set the rate at just 20 per cent. 

However, these disagreements pale into insignificance compared with the USA's position. After Australia ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the USA was the only country left that had not done so. It had, therefore, not agreed to a quota system for emissions of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. US President George Bush said that he does not support compulsory norms on emissions for every state. Washington thinks that "every country should decide in accordance with its own plans" reductions in harmful emissions.

Former US Vice-President Al Gore, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to combating global warming, certainly did not share the opinion of his head of state. He urged the Bali summit to be more decisive on climate issues and ignore US objections to reducing harmful emissions, as US President George Bush will soon be leaving office.

One consequence of the USA's official position was that the climate plan submitted by the US delegation at the Bali conference was rejected by European delegations and the representatives of international environmental organizations. Another consequence is that the European Union now intends to derail another island meeting on climate, this one on Hawaii early next year. Delegations from 16 leading industrialized countries were to have met under US auspices in an attempt to resolve climate issues outside the UN. The Europeans think that if it was not possible to convince the USA to join the Kyoto Protocol within the UN framework on Bali, then the American delegation will make no concessions under their native palm trees. This is, of course, logical.

The Kyoto Protocol was to have been the first major step in international cooperation to protect the climate, but the first step has turned out to be the hardest. The last word will be given to an Internet wit from Greenpeace who christened the Kyoto Protocol "Balistic".