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climate change : how to filter co2 from the air

PeaceGen

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As i post this, over in Poland they're trying to hammer out how to avert a big increase in climate-change related extreme weather events that are feared to cost both more in reconstruction costs, but more importantly also in lives.

CNN-US, which i watch from time to time, reported that apparently the big stumbling block is that no-one knows how to take CO2, which together with methane forms the biggest climate threat to life on this planet,
out of the atmosphere.

so i did a little googling, and came across this :

https://physicsworld.com/a/how-to-efficiently-capture-carbon-dioxide-out-of-thin-air/
How to efficiently capture carbon dioxide out of thin air
16 Apr 2015

Captive gas: prototype carbon-collection system


A novel synthetic material that is a thousand times more efficient than trees at capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was presented by Klaus Lackner, director of Arizona State University’s new Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Maryland last Sunday. According to Lackner, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached the point where simply reducing emissions will not be enough to tackle climate change. Referring to recent environmental reports, Lackner emphasized the need for prolonged periods of carbon capture and storage – also known as “negative carbon emission”.

Trees and other biological matter are natural sinks of carbon dioxide but they do not trap it permanently and the amount of land required is prohibitive. “There is no practical solution that doesn’t include large periods of negative emission,” says Lackner, adding that “we need means that are faster than just growing a tree.” During the past few years, Lackner and his colleagues have developed a synthetic membrane that can capture carbon dioxide from the air passing through it. The membrane consists of an “ion-exchange” resin – positive anions in the resin attract carbon dioxide, with a maximum load of one carbon-dioxide molecule for every positive charge. This process is moisture sensitive, such that the resin absorbs carbon dioxide in dry air and releases it again in humid air. As a result, this material works best in warm, dry climates.

Show and tell
Lackner plans to install corrugated collecting panels incorporating the membrane material on the roof of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions this summer. The researchers hope that this public installation will demonstrate the economic feasibility and efficiency of a new technology that can address the issue of climate change, and help shift the debate from reduced carbon emissions to negative carbon emissions.

To keep costs low, the first step – capturing the carbon from the air – is free. “We made it cheap by being passive. We can’t afford to be blowing air around,” says Lackner. The resin itself is readily available and can be mass-produced, because it is already widely used to soften and purify water. The collectors trap between 10 and 50% of the total carbon dioxide that passes through. Compared with the amount of carbon dioxide that a typical tree collects during the course of its lifetime, these panels are a thousand times more efficient.


Able membrane: panels of carbon-capture resin
“I believe we have reached a point where it is really paramount for substantive public research and development of direct air capture,” says Lackner. “The Center for Negative Carbon Emissions cannot do it alone.”

Post trappings
Lackner estimates that about a hundred-million shipping-container-sized collectors would be needed to deal with the world’s current level of carbon emissions. As these collectors would typically become saturated within an hour, Lackner envisions a possible “ski-lift” approach where saturated panels are taken away to a humid environment to release their carbon dioxide and then recycled back to the dry air for more carbon capture.

The question also remains of what to do with the carbon dioxide once it is trapped. Burying it is one option, which is something Lackner says is likely, given the sheer quantity of carbon that must be captured. His centre is also testing ways to recycle the carbon dioxide and sell it to industries that could use it to make products such as fire extinguishers, fizzy drinks and carbon-dioxide-enhanced greenhouses, and even synthetic fuel oil.

and this :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_scrubber

Carbon dioxide scrubber
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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A carbon dioxide scrubber is a piece of equipment that absorbs carbon dioxide (CO2). It is used to treat exhaust gases from industrial plants or from exhaled air in life support systems such as rebreathers or in spacecraft, submersible craft or airtight chambers. Carbon dioxide scrubbers are also used in controlled atmosphere (CA) storage. They have also been researched for carbon capture.

Contents
Technologies[edit]
Amine scrubbing[edit]
Main article: Amine gas treating
The primary application for CO2 scrubbing is for removal of CO2 from the exhaust of coal- and gas-fired power plants. Virtually the only technology being seriously evaluated involves the use of various amines, e.g. monoethanolamine. Cold solutions of these organic compounds bind CO2, but the binding is reversed at higher temperatures:

CO2 + 2 HOCH2CH2NH2 ↔ HOCH2CH2NH3+ + HOCH2CH2NHCO2−
As of 2009, this technology has only been lightly implemented because of capital costs of installing the facility and the operating costs of utilizing it.[1]

Minerals and zeolites[edit]
Several minerals and mineral-like materials reversibly bind CO2.[2] Most often, these minerals are oxides or hydroxides, and often the CO2 is bound as carbonate. Carbon dioxide reacts with quicklime (calcium oxide) to form limestone (calcium carbonate),[3] in a process called carbonate looping. Other minerals include serpentinite, a magnesium silicate hydroxide, and olivine.[4][5] Molecular sieves also function in this capacity.

Various scrubbing processes have been proposed to remove CO2 from the air, or from flue gases. These usually involve using a variant of the Kraft process. Scrubbing processes may be based on sodium hydroxide.[6][7] The CO2 is absorbed into solution, transferred to lime via a process called causticization and released in a kiln. With some modifications to the existing processes, mainly an oxygen-fired kiln, the end result is a concentrated stream of CO2 ready for storage or use in fuels. An alternative to this thermo-chemical process is an electrical one in which a nominal voltage is applied across the carbonate solution to release the CO2.[citation needed] While simpler, this electrical process consumes more energy as it splits water at the same time. Since it depends on electricity, the electricity needs to be renewable, like PV. Otherwise the CO2 produced during electricity production has to be taken into account. Early incarnations of air capture used electricity as the energy source; hence, were dependent on a carbon-free source. Thermal air capture systems use heat generated on-site, which reduces the inefficiencies associated with off-site electricity production, but of course it still needs a source of (carbon-free) heat. Concentrated solar power is an example of such a source.[8]

Sodium hydroxide[edit]
Zeman and Lackner outlined a specific method of air capture.[9]

First, CO2 is absorbed by an alkaline NaOH solution to produce dissolved sodium carbonate. The absorption reaction is a gas liquid reaction, strongly exothermic, here:

2NaOH(aq) + CO2(g) → Na2CO3(aq) + H2O(l)
Na2CO3(aq) + Ca(OH)2(s) → 2NaOH(aq) + CaCO3(s)
ΔH° = -5.3 kJ/mol
Causticization is performed ubiquitously in the pulp and paper industry and readily transfers 94% of the carbonate ions from the sodium to the calcium cation.[9] Subsequently, the calcium carbonate precipitate is filtered from solution and thermally decomposed to produce gaseous CO2. The calcination reaction is the only endothermic reaction in the process and is shown here:

CaCO3(s) → CaO(s) + CO2(g)
ΔH° = + 179.2 kJ/mol
The thermal decomposition of calcite is performed in a lime kiln fired with oxygen in order to avoid an additional gas separation step. Hydration of the lime (CaO) completes the cycle. Lime hydration is an exothermic reaction that can be performed with water or steam. Using water, it is a liquid/solid reaction as shown here:

CaO(s) + H2O(l) → Ca(OH)2(s)
ΔH° = -64.5 kJ/mol
Lithium hydroxide[edit]
Other strong bases such as soda lime, sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, and lithium hydroxide are able to remove carbon dioxide by chemically reacting with it. In particular, lithium hydroxide was used aboard spacecraft, such as in the Apollo program, to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It reacts with carbon dioxide to form lithium carbonate.[10] Recently lithium hydroxide absorbent technology has been adapted for use in anesthesia machines. Anesthesia machines which provide life support and inhaled agents during surgery typically employ a closed circuit necessitating the removal of carbon dioxide exhaled by the patient. Lithium hydroxide may offer some safety and convenience benefits over the older calcium based products.

2 LiOH(s) + 2 H2O(g) → 2 LiOH·H2O(s)
2 LiOH·H2O(s) + CO2(g) → Li2CO3(s) + 3 H2O(g)
The net reaction being:

2LiOH(s) + CO2(g) → Li2CO3(s) + H2O(g)
Lithium peroxide can also be used as it absorbs more CO2 per unit weight with the added advantage of releasing oxygen.[11]

Regenerative carbon dioxide removal system[edit]
The regenerative carbon dioxide removal system (RCRS) on the space shuttle orbiter used a two-bed system that provided continuous removal of carbon dioxide without expendable products. Regenerable systems allowed a shuttle mission a longer stay in space without having to replenish its sorbent canisters. Older lithium hydroxide (LiOH)-based systems, which are non-regenerable, were replaced by regenerable metal-oxide-based systems. A system based on metal oxide primarily consisted of a metal oxide sorbent canister and a regenerator assembly. It worked by removing carbon dioxide using a sorbent material and then regenerating the sorbent material. The metal-oxide sorbent canister was regenerated by pumping air at approximately 400 °F (204 °C) through it at a standard flow rate of 7.5 cu ft/min (0.0035 m3/s) for 10 hours.[12]

Activated carbon[edit]
Activated carbon can be used as a carbon dioxide scrubber. Air with high carbon dioxide content, such as air from fruit storage locations, can be blown through beds of activated carbon and the carbon dioxide will adsorb onto the activated carbon. Once the bed is saturated it must then be "regenerated" by blowing low carbon dioxide air, such as ambient air, through the bed. This will release the carbon dioxide from the bed, and it can then be used to scrub again, leaving the net amount of carbon dioxide in the air the same as when the process was started.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)[edit]
Metal-organic frameworks are one of the most promising new technologies for carbon dioxide capture and sequestration via adsorption. Although no large-scale commercial technology exists nowadays, several research studies have indicated the great potential that MOFs have as a CO2 adsorbent. Its characteristics, such as pore structure and surface functions can be easily tuned to improve CO2 selectivity over other gases.[13]

A MOF could be specifically designed to act like a CO2 removal agent in post-combustion power plants. In this scenario, the flue gas would pass through a bed packed with a MOF material, where CO2 would be stripped. After saturation is reached, CO2 could be desorbed by doing a pressure or temperature swing. Carbon dioxide could then be compressed to supercritical conditions in order to be stored underground or utilized in enhanced oil recovery processes. However, this is not possible in large scale yet due to several difficulties, one of those being the production of MOFs in great quantities.[14]

Another problem is the availability of metals necessary to synthesize MOFs. In a hypothetical scenario where these materials are used to capture all CO2 needed to avoid global warming issues, such as maintaining a global temperature rise less than 2oC above the pre-industrial average temperature, we would need more metals than are available on Earth. For example, to synthesize all MOFs that utilize vanadium, we would need 1620% of 2010 global reserves. Even if using magnesium-based MOFs, which have demonstrated a great capacity to adsorb CO2, we would need 14% of 2010 global reserves, which is a considerable amount. Also, extensive mining would be necessary, leading to more potential environmental problems.[14]

In a project sponsored by the DOE and operated by UOP LLC in collaboration with faculty from four different universities, MOFs were tested as possible carbon dioxide removal agents in post-combustion flue gas. They were able to separate 90% of the CO2 from the flue gas stream using a vacuum pressure swing process. Through extensive investigation, researchers found out that the best MOF to be used was Mg/DOBDC, which has a 21.7 wt% CO2 loading capacity. Estimations showed that, if a similar system were to be applied to a large scale power plant, the cost of energy would increase by 65%, while a NETL baseline amine based system would cause an increase of 81% (the DOE goal is 35%). Also, each ton of CO2 avoided would cost $57, while for the amine system this cost is estimated to be $72. The project ended in 2010,estimating that the total capital required to implement such a project in a 580 MW power plant was 354 million dollars.[15]

Other methods[edit]
Many other methods and materials have been discussed for scrubbing carbon dioxide.

See also[edit]
References[edit]
  1. ^ Gary T. Rochelle (2009). "Amine Scrubbing for CO2Capture". Science. 325 (5948): 1652. Bibcode:2009Sci...325.1652R. doi:10.1126/science.1176731.
  2. ^ Sunho Choi; Jeffrey H. Drese; Christopher W. Jones (2009). "Adsorbent Materials for Carbon Dioxide Capture from Large Anthropogenic Point Sources". ChemSusChem. 2 (9): 796–854. doi:10.1002/cssc.200900036. PMID 19731282.
  3. ^ "Imagine No Restrictions On Fossil-Fuel Usage And No Global Warming". ScienceDaily. April 15, 2002.
  4. ^ "Natural Mineral Locks Up Carbon Dioxide". Sciencedaily. September 3, 2004. Retrieved 2011-06-01.
  5. ^https://web.archive.org/web/20060709000905/http://www.tececo.com/sustainability.tececo_kiln.php. Archived from the original on July 9, 2006. Retrieved January 13, 2009.Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. ^ Kenneth Chang (February 19, 2008). "Scientists would turn greenhouse gas into gasoline". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-10-29.
  7. ^ "Chemical 'sponge' could filter CO2 from the air – environment". New Scientist. October 3, 2007. Retrieved 2009-10-29.
  8. ^ "Can technology clear the air? – environment". New Scientist. January 12, 2009. Retrieved 2009-10-29.
  9. ^ Jump up to:a b F. S. Zeman; K. S. Lackner (2004). "Capturing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere". World Resour. Rev. 16: 157–172.
  10. ^ J.R. Jaunsen (1989). "The Behavior and Capabilities of Lithium Hydroxide Carbon Dioxide Scrubbers in a Deep Sea Environment". US Naval Academy Technical Report. USNA-TSPR-157. Retrieved 2008-06-17.
  11. ^ Petzow, G. N.; Aldinger, F.; Jönsson, S.; Welge, P.; Van Kampen, V.; Mensing, T.; Brüning, T. (2005). "Beryllium and Beryllium Compounds". Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. doi:10.1002/14356007.a04_011.pub2. ISBN 3527306730.
  12. ^ "Carbon Dioxide Removal". Hamilton Sundstrand. Archived from the original on 2007-10-31. Retrieved 2008-10-27. The new metal-oxide-based system replaces the existing non-regenerable lithium hydroxide (LiOH) carbon dioxide (CO2) removal system located in the EMU's Primary Life Support System.
  13. ^ Li, Jian-Rong (2011). "Carbon dioxide capture-related gas adsorption and separation in metal-organic frameworks"(PDF). Coordination Chemistry Reviews. doi:10.1016/j.ccr.2011.02.012.
  14. ^ Jump up to:a b Smit, Berend; Reimer, Jeffrey R.; Oldenburg, Curtis M.; Bourg, Ian C. (2014). Introduction to Carbon Capture and Sequestration. Imperial College Press. ISBN 978-1-78326-327-1.
  15. ^ Willis, Richard; Lesch, David A. (2010). "Carbon Dioxide Removal from Flue Gas Using Microporous Metal Organic Frameworks". Final Technical Report. DOE Award Number: DE-FC26-07NT43092. OSTI 1003992-YRfi3u/.
  16. ^ "Adsorption and Desorption of CO2 on Solid Sorbents"(PDF). netl.doe.gov.
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  • This page was last edited on 11 December 2018, at 14:00 (UTC).

more can be found via https://www.google.com/search?q=att...rome..69i57.5830j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

regardless of what liar Trump says,
we have to start making machines that can cheaply be built (because we're going to need a lot of them)
which filter at least that CO2 out of the air at various strategic spots around the world,
strip it down into O2 and C, and use the C to make commercial products.

and we need to turn this into a business-model that allows for rapid growth of the number of installations that capture carbon.

as i said, we need to take hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO2 out of the air, coz that's what we added into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution with our cars, factories, etc, etc, etc.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/doha-infographic-gets-the-numbers-wrong-underestimates-human-emissions
Doha infographic gets the numbers wrong, underestimates human emissions








An extract from the infographic – click to enlarge © Information is Beautiful

There’s a startling infographic on the Guardian’s datablog today from designers Information is Beautiful. Timed for UN climate talks in Doha, it presents some top-line numbers about human-caused carbon emissions, followed by a whole page listing potential impacts of climate change according to temperature rise.

But one of the key top-line figures is wrong, and several others are confusingly presented – so we’re happy to report that the graphic is being revised.

We’ve focused on trying to understand where the top line numbers come from and haven’t gone over the whole graphic in detail. The infographic asks: “How many gigatons of carbon dioxide have we released to date?”. It also suggests figures for how much we can “safely release” based on a global carbon budget, and how much carbon dioxide there is “left to release” if remaining fossil fuel reserves were burned.

Let’s take each of them in turn.

How many gigatons of carbon dioxide have we released to date?

The graphic states the world released 530 gigatons of carbon dioxide between 1850 and 2000, and 380 gigatons of carbon dioxide since 2000.

This makes a total of 910 gigatons of carbon dioxide released by human activity.

This seems low – the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO)’s annual greenhouse gas bulletin, released two weeks ago, gives a higher figure:

“Since the industrial revolution, about 375 billion tonnes of carbon have been emitted by humans into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2).”

Converting this (roughly ) to a tonnage of carbon dioxide gives 1,374 gigatons – substantially higher than the infographic estimate.

One of the researchers explained to us how the figures had been calculated. They were done in two parts. The figure for emissions since 2000 is based on analysis in a recent report from NGO Carbon Tracker, and appears to be right.

But the 520 gigatons figure for pre-2000 emissions is, we think, wrong, and underestimates human carbon dioxide emissions.

An Information is Beautiful researcher told us how it was calculated. It’s based on the increase in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide from before the industrial revolution to now. For every eight gigatons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide goes up by approximately one part per million.

This means that according to Information is Beautiful’s analysis, there is 851 gigatons more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than in 1850. The researchers then subtracted a figure for human-caused carbon dioxide emissions since 2000, to get a number for emissions pre-2000.

But unfortunately, this rough calculation ends up producing the wrong number. This is because natural carbon sinks absorb just over half of human carbon emissions. So the amount of carbon dioxide that stays in the atmosphere is only about half of the carbon dioxide humans emit – the planet absorbs the other half.

As the WMO notes, manmade emissions before 2000 were actually significantly higher.

How many more gigatons of carbon dioxide can we safely release?

Carbon Tracker’s report cites a global carbon budget, giving the amount of carbon dioxide the world can release while staying below a temperature rise of two degrees above pre-industrial levels. It says:

“Research by the Potsdam Institute calculates that to reduce the chance of exceeding 2°C warming to 20%, the global carbon budget for 2000-2050 is 886 gigatons CO2.”

Information is Beautiful calculates that 500 gigatons is the (rough) amount left in this budget, taking emissions between 2000 and now into account.

How many more gigatons of carbon dioxide are there “left to release” in fossil fuel reserves?

The graphic states that based on the reserves of the top 100 coal, gas and oil companies, they are capable of releasing a further 745 gigatons of carbon dioxide. This figure is also from the Carbon Tracker report.

But the graphic is unclear here. Carbon Tracker actually calculates that the 745 figure accounts for the potential emissions from the reserves of the top 100 coal, and top 100 oil and gas companies listed on the stock exchange. So, that’s 200 listed companies. It seems likely that this is just some confusing grammar, rather than an error. (As we publish, this has just been corrected.)

Finally, the graphic says that there are 2,050 gigatons of carbon dioxide left to release from all known fossil fuel reserves.

This is calculated from the same Carbon Tracker report but appears to be based on some incorrect arithmetic. Carbon Tracker estimate that there are 2,795 gigatons of potential carbon dioxide emissions remaining in all the earth’s proven reserves. Information is Beautiful appears to have subtracted the 745 figure that apparently accounts for coal, oil and gas companies’ potential emissions, leaving 2,050 gigatons of carbon dioxide from all fossil fuel reserves. (This has also just been corrected.)

Overall, it’s a shame that the numbers at the top of the graphic ended up being unclear or incorrect. Infographics are really powerful ways to get across complex information to a wide audience. But unfortunately if the information is wrong, that rather defeats the purpose.

However, good news! Information is Beautiful has been quick to respond to our questions, which we really appreciate. It’s going to update the graphic addressing the issues we’ve raised, with revised figures based on the World Meteorological Organisation data.
 
.
How about you just stop consuming and producing less? Human greed knows no bounds. We want more and newer mobile phones. We wants more, newer and bigger cars. We want to travel in bigger and newer airplanes. We want more, more and more.

It is funny the West lectures the world today about the dangers of climate change and CO2 when the biggest polluters are the so-called developed nations.
 
Last edited:
.
How about you just stop consuming and producing less? Human greed knows no bounds. We want more and newer mobile phones. We wants more, newer and bigger cars. We want to travel in bigger and newer airplanes. We want more, more and more.

stuff's gotta get replaced eventually dude.
might as well be better than what we had before,
otherwise we'd still be using sailboats and horse-drawn carriages to get you your amazon orders ;)

It is funny the West lectures the world today about the dangers of climate change and CO2 when the biggest polluters are the so-called developed nations.

we lecture mostly each other on climate change, in case you hadn't noticed.
and that is necessary, apparently.
so we do it.

also... the results of the meeting in Poland are in by now :

https://www.washingtonpost.com/ener...ures-up/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6184990373cc
‘1,000 little steps’: Global climate talks end in progress but fail to address the galloping pace of climate change


“In the climate emergency we’re in, slow success is no success."

Brady Dennis ,
Griff Witte and
Chris Mooney
December 15 at 4:38 PM

KATOWICE, Poland — Weary climate negotiators limped across the finish line Saturday night after days of round-the-clock talks, striking a deal that keeps the world moving forward with plans to curb carbon emissions. But the agreement fell well short of the breakthrough that scientists — and many of the conference’s own participants — say is needed to avoid the cataclysmic impacts of a warming planet.

The deal struck Saturday at a global conference in the heart of Polish coal country, where some 25,000 delegates had gathered, adds legal flesh to the bones of the 2015 Paris agreement, setting the rules of the road for nearly 200 countries to cut their production of greenhouse gases and monitor one another’s progress.

While President Trump announced his intentions to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement, the Obama administration had already joined, and the text of the agreement doesn’t allow for formal withdrawal until late 2020. In the meantime, the U.S. remains involved in the negotiations and sends an annual delegation.

Trump has rejected the science behind climate change, and his administration has adopted policies that will roll back efforts to cut emissions. If Trump does not win reelection in 2020, a subsequent president could rejoin the Paris agreement.

The agreement reached in Poland prods countries to step up their ambition in fighting climate change, a recognition of the fact that the world’s efforts have not gone nearly far enough. But, like the landmark 2015 agreement in Paris, it does not bind countries to hit their targets. And observers questioned whether it was sufficient given the extraordinary stakes.

“We are driven by our sense of humanity and commitment to the well-being of the earth that sustains us and those generations that will replace us,” Michal Kurtyka, the Polish environmental official who presided over the two-week international summit, said late Saturday as the marathon talks drew to a close.

Kurtyka noted the difficulty of finding global consensus on issues so technical and, in many ways, politically fraught. “Under these circumstances, every single step forward is a big achievement,” he said. “And through this package, you have made 1,000 little steps forward together.”

Approval of the agreement prompted a standing ovation from the delegates. But even as they cheered, the outcome raised immediate questions about whether the steps taken in Katowice were big enough as global emissions continue to rise.

“In the climate emergency we’re in, slow success is no success,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “In an emergency, if the ambulance doesn’t get you to the hospital in time, you die. If the firetruck doesn’t get to your house in time, it burns down.”

Negotiators said the agreement was the best that could have been expected given the limited agenda for the talks and the need for a global consensus. Virtually every nation on Earth was represented at Katowice, ranging from small island countries that threaten to be swallowed by rising seas — and that pushed for a crisis-level response — to the United States.

The world’s largest economy and its second-largest polluter played an at-times contentious role in the negotiations, with its officials rankling fellow delegates by initially refusing to accept a landmark climate report and later putting on a presentation touting the virtues of fossil fuels.

But fellow negotiators said the United States was mostly notable for its absence.

“The U.S. was the driving force in the run-up to Paris. Once they decide to no longer be a part of the agreement, they can’t be a driver,” said Jochen Flasbarth, a top German delegate.

Flasbarth said the minimized U.S. role was particularly apparent in negotiations with China, which did not feel as much pressure to ramp up its commitment in fighting climate change as it otherwise might have. China is the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases.

“The U.S. role here is somewhat schizophrenic — pushing coal and dissing science on the one hand, but also working hard in the room for strong transparency rules,” said Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a nonprofit based in Virginia. “Over the long haul, making the agreement operational will do more to strengthen climate ambition than any immediate political signals.”

In a statement, the U.S. State Department said that while the administration’s position on the Paris agreement — the U.S. is leaving — remains unchanged, the latest meeting helped the U.S. with “holding our economic competitors accountable” when it comes to adequately reporting their greenhouse gas emissions.

“The United States is not taking on any burdens or financial pledges in support of the Paris Agreement and will not allow climate agreements to be used as a vehicle to redistribute wealth,” the statement said. “We will work with our many partner countries to innovate and deploy a broad array of technologies that promote economic growth, improve energy security, and protect the environment.”

In another sign of a more difficult environment for climate negotiations this year, text establishing a large part of a planned carbon trading system was scuttled after Brazil, one of the world’s leading greenhouse gas producers, blocked proposals for counting certain emissions.

Brazil led a push for lenient rules that other nations said would weaken the system, which is intended to incentivize emissions cuts by creating a market price. With negotiators unable to reach a deal, the issue was punted until next year — a move that Boston College environmental law professor David Wirth said could “delay or undermine confidence among the private sector in undertaking climate-friendly investments — one of the most important purposes of the Paris Rulebook.”

This year’s conference — an annual U.N.-sponsored exercise now in its 24th year — came against the backdrop of increasingly dire assessments by scientists.

An October report from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that the world was far off-track in its efforts to avoid the most catastrophic impacts from warming temperatures. It concluded that a “rapid and far-reaching” transformation of the world’s energy, transportation and other sectors will be necessary over the next dozen years to avoid warming the globe more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

But rather than lighting a fire under the world to move with more urgency, the report became a source of political friction during the talks in Poland.

Early in the summit, the Trump administration joined Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait in blocking official acceptance of the report’s findings, arguing that any agreement should merely “note” its existence rather than “welcome” its warnings.

The final text of the agreement says that the world “recognizes” the role of the IPCC, “expresses appreciation and gratitude” to the scientists who produced it, “welcomes” its timely completion and “invites” nations to “make use of the information” it contained.

This treatment is “one of the clearest illustrations that any sense of urgency is lacking in the [conference] outcome,” said Joeri Rogelj, a scientist with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria who led the key second chapter of the IPCC report. “After the initial failure … to welcome the IPCC report which they had asked for, the final text now expressed its appreciation and gratitude to the IPCC and the scientific community for delivering the report on time, but then fails to acknowledge any of the report’s findings.”

The fight over how to address the report encapsulated the U.S. shift under Trump, from pushing fellow countries to act more aggressively to refusing to acknowledge the conclusion of the world’s top scientists.

A chorus of activists, diplomats and national delegates — none more vocal than the coalition of small island states suffering rising sea levels — had implored leaders of the summit to recognize the content of the IPCC report. The issue continued to be debated into the conference’s closing hours, along with a bevy of more technical disagreements.

The conference was scheduled to end Friday, but repeated deadlines for closing out the talks came and went, with negotiators haggling through Friday night and again on Saturday. By then, some negotiators had nearly lost their voices. Bleary-eyed journalists slept on chairs or FaceTimed with their loved ones from afar. U.N. staffers, security officials and the rest of the dwindling crowd at the cavernous conference center — built on the site of a former coal waste dump — speculated over when the talks would finally reach their end.

The once-busy pavilions — which had pulsated with a seemingly endless stream of lectures and demonstrations of new technologies — were being broken apart. A group of Pacific Islanders sat in a small circle, playing a guitar and drums. A group of Austrians seemed determined to clear out any remaining wine, beer and sweets in their corner of the conference center and to invite passersby to join in.

After two weeks under the cold, unremittingly gray skies of December in Poland, negotiators are due to meet in the sun and warmth of Santiago, Chile, next winter. In between, the U.N. is hosting a climate summit in September that observers say now takes on crucial importance as a measure of whether countries are serious about raising their carbon emissions targets.

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who led a previous round of U.N. climate talks and is now leader of the World Wildlife Fund’s global climate and energy practice, said world leaders will need to come through in New York on the promises they have made in Katowice.

“Anything less,” he said, “is a failure in political and moral leadership.”

Mooney reported from Washington.

https://qz.com/1497005/greta-thunberg-15-blasts-world-leaders-for-immaturity-at-cop24/
15-year-old Greta Thunberg spoke for her generation at the COP24 climate talks in Poland
By Zoë SchlangerDecember 15, 2018


Fifteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg minced no words at the COP24 climate talks in Katowice, Poland this week. Speaking to the assembled countries Wednesday, at the most important climate negotiating meeting since the Paris talks in 2015, she said:

The year 2078, I will celebrate my 75th birthday. If I have children, maybe they will spend that day with me. Maybe they will ask me about you. Maybe they will ask why you didn’t do anything while there still was time to act.

As of Saturday, delegates were nearing an agreement on a rulebook for how the Paris Agreement will be implemented over the next several years. The text to come out of COP24 will decide, for example, how greenhouse gases will be counted, and how the international community will verify that countries are actually taking the steps they committed to on paper.

But “the result will not be the breakthrough campaigners and some countries were hoping for,” according to the Guardian. It notes that the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait have managed to water down a resolution to acknowledge a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that found a temperature rise of 1.5°C would be disastrous for life on Earth. (Meanwhile the US, which has vowed to pull out of the Paris Agreement, hosted a pro-coal event at the meeting.)

In a speech lasting under five minutes, Thunberg castigated leaders at the talks for decades of inaction and too-small steps in the face of climate crisis.

You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children.

But I don’t care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the living planet. Our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money. Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few.

Thunberg led Swedish students in mass walkouts from school earlier this year, and last month thousands of students in Australia, inspired by her, also left their classrooms.
 
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