HughBartling.com

Yesterday was the first day of meetings in Hawaii of the world’s major economies convened by US President Bush.  There is very little coverage in the press regarding what specifics were discussed or even the general tenor of the meeting.  In fact, at the time of this writing, the US State Department website doesn’t even provide an agenda of the proceedings.

According to some reports, the US is seeing this meeting as a way of mending fences with its allies and the general world community who took US delegates to task at last month’s UN meeting in Bali.  In Bali, the EU threatened to boycott the Hawaii talks if the US failed to agree to a 25-40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020.  The US did not embrace the reduction, but the EU did not follow through on its threat.

Given the public nature of the US-EU showdown last month, perhaps the lack of news yesterday is an indication that some serious negotiations are occurring.  Conversely, the EU could also be biding time for a new administration in Washington that may be more pragmatic in negotiations.

The ever-diplomatic UN climate change head, Yvo de Boer, was quoted as saying that there has been a shift in the mood of negotiations, suggesting that the US may be moving away from its recalcitrance.

Otherwise, most of the reporting from Hawaii centered around activist communities registering their impatience with the pace of negotiations as well as Hawaiian political leaders expressing their concern with the issue of climate change.  On the former theme, activists in Australia encouraged climate change minister Penny Wong to push for action and Reuters reports that there were a handful of protesters at the East-West Center where the talks were taking place.

Hawaii’s governor, Linda Lingle urged the delegates to bridge their differences while Honolulu mayor, Mufi Hannemann, reports on his support of the the US Conference of Mayors commitment to address climate change.

Finally, the Reuters environmental blog reports that nature itself may be making a statement as Hawaii is experiencing rare winter storm advisories and many of the beach-front hotels are putting up sandbags in anticipation of protecting the beach from storm swells.

I have had a long-standing research interest in the phenomenon of planned communities so its not surprising that I have been following the development of Songdo–the most expensive private real estate development in history.  Located about 70 kilometers southwest of Seoul, the city has its genesis in the country’s IMF-mandated economic restructuring following the devaluation of the won in 1997.

One of the IMF’s requirements was that Korea increase the capacity for receiving foreign direct investment, allowing for exogenous capital flows to jump-start the economy.  Songdo was conceived as a response to these mandates.  Situated in an “economic free trade zone,”  and having English promoted as the dominant language, it is an entirely new city constructed primarily by the US developer, Gale International.

At full build-out in 2012 Songdo will have 60,000 residents.  It also has ambitions to be a “green” and “ubiquitous” city wherein life for residents is fully networked.  It is this latter element that must have attracted Microsoft, which signed a memorandum of understanding develop technology training in various institutions in the city.  Interestingly, the Korean news site, Donga, reports that Gale Chairman Stan Gale says Microsoft wants to turn Songdo into a “model city of the future.”

Is Bill Gates following the well worn path of corporate utopianism pioneered by George Pullman and Walt Disney?

Tomorrow marks the second meeting of the world’s major economies convened by US President George Bush to discuss the problem of global climate change.

Given the fact that last month’s UN-sponsored talks in Bali nearly imploded as a result of US intransigence, it will be interesting to see how the two-day talks this week play out.  The US administration is still unwilling to sign on to mandatory cuts of greenhouse gas emissions.  In last night’s State of the Union speech, Bush mentioned climate change but was quite unambitious in his goal: “complete an international agreement that has the potential to slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases.”  The “potential” bit was picked up by New York Times environmental correspondent, Andrew Revkin, as being indicative of a real lowering of expectations in advance of the Hawaii meetings.

UN Climate Change head, Yvo de Boer, is interested in action, asserting the need for limiting GHGs to “move into higher gear.  Representatives of civil society groups in the Global South, meanwhile, are skeptical of the possibility that the US-sponsored talks could eclipse the UN process.

The Azerbaijani website, Trend, is reporting that many countries are not even sending their ranking environmental ministers to Hawaii, implying that countries of the EU, in particular, don’t expect any dramatic breakthroughs from the meeting.

Environmental activists from Hawaii have an interesting editorial in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin commenting on the real challenges islands like Hawaii face as the planet warms.  They also provide a link for the schedule of official events related to the talks as well as civil society meetings and protests.

Last year the leaders of the member countries of the European Union agreed to reducing CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020 and by 30% if a global agreement is developed.  Earlier this week European Union President Jose Manuel Barroso presented the details of allocations for each member countries and some more details about implementation to the European Parliament, which will have to support the measures.

In addition to the emissions targets, there is also a requirement that 20% of energy comes from renewable sources.  The plan has been criticized by environmentalists for not going far enough and by businesses for being too burdensome.

In Britain, 40% of the country’s electricity will need to come from renewable sources–up from the current level of 5%.   This will undoubtedly cause political discord given the growing power of regional governments–like the Scottish Parliament–whose geography may be advantageous for wind power development, but who may be less inclined to support the radical changes required on their local landscapes.  The Independent offers a glimpse into these battles in a feature today on Scottish opposition to a wind farm proposed for the Isle of Lewis.

Dave LeBlanc, the architecture critic from the Globe and Mail, asserts that environmentalism and green architecture will be much more successful as a mass movement if aesthetics are given as much attention by advocates than the scientific facts of cost savings and emission reductions.

It is an interesting argument given the realities of consumer capitalism and the absence of political will in many Western countries to initiate adequate environmentally-oriented regulatory regimes.

The Canadian designer Bruce Mau explored these possibilities in his Massive Change project–that was exhibited here in Chicago in 2006.  Mau and a panel of other architects and artists are taking up the subject again next month (Feb. 17) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Japanese Prime Minster Yasuo Fukuda presented a proposal [.pdf] to push global climate change talks to the next level.

Fukuda is this year’s chair of the G-8 and will be pushing the proposal at the annual meeting of G-8 leaders to take place in July. The proposal has two major elements: embracing the IPCC goal of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050 and establishing a $10 billion (US) fund for adaptation efforts in the developing world. He also asserted the need to establish a global adaptation and mitigation fund.

Fukuda’s announcement at Davos is significant because Japan was considered to be dragging its feet at last month’s UN meetings in Bali over specific targets for GHG emissions. Fukuda’s speech seems to suggest that Japan is interested in reasserting global leadership on the issue.

Fukuda’s speech comes on the heels of next week’s “major economies” conference on global warming sponsored by the United States. In today’s Wall Street Journal, James Connaughton, the chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, has an op-ed piece laying out “the Bush plan for Climate Change.” The piece is extremely thin on specifics for a post-Kyoto reductions regime.

In a press briefing yesterday, Connaughton was asked about some specifics relating to global binding targets and a domestic cap-and-trade system and he failed to offer any clarity as to the administration’s view.

As the administrations’ partners in obfuscation start to develop more specific proposals, it is likely that the US will be under significant pressure to acquiesce to the developing global consensus.

Last month, the US Environmental Protection Agency denied the State of California’s application to determine its own greenhouse emissions standards for automobiles and other vehicles. Yesterday, the EPA Administrator, Stephen Johnson, testified before the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee in an attempt to explain his decision.

When the Clean Air Act was passed in 1966, California was given an exemption to use stricter standards for emission than the federal ones determined by the EPA.  Bush’s EPA–under Johnson’s authority–surprisingly ignored this provision and denied California’s application.  The law requires that the state apply for an exemption to assert its authority, but in past years the EPA has generally given blanket approval.

Johnson’s explanation [.pdf] for not following the letter of the law and the agency’s precedent was that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to a problem that is “fundamentally global in nature” and, hence “not exclusive to California and differs in a basic way from the previous local and regional air pollution problems addressed in prior waivers.”

Essentially Johnson is saying that since GHG emissions contribute to global environmental problems and are not restricted to the state of California, there is no need for them to reduce emissions.   Ultimately, the logic of Johnson leads to a denial of the affects of global warming in the state.  This is particularly galling given the fact that EPA staff laid out a strong case for the impact of global warming on California.
Vermont senator, Bernie Sanders, expressed exasperation and failed to get Johnson to acknowledge the seriousness of climate change.  It will be interesting to see how this impacts the “major economies” meeting convened by the White House in Hawaii next week to discuss global warming–particularly if European Union representatives push stronger for US commitment to a GHG reduction scheme.

In the interim, Senator Barbara Boxer has introduced legislation that will overturn Johnson’s decision.

The New York Times reports on the release today of the annual Environmental Performance Index by Yale University’s Center for Environmental Law and Policy.

The index ranks countries according to a host of environmental criteria ranging from environmental health to climate change policy and water and air pollution.  Given the dynamic nature of environmental problems, the weight given to various aspects of environmental policy fluctuates from year to year.

This year, the United States ranks 39th in the world, behind most of the EU member countries and other unlikely candidates such as the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Russia, and Panama.  The killer for the US is that more weight is placed on climate change policy than other areas.

The report was issued at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.  The WEF will have numerous panels on environmental issues–many of which will be webcast, including Thursday’s event on climate change featuring Bono and Al Gore!