Sweltering 2014 on track to be hottest year on record

The Straits Times, 5 Dec 2014

LIMA (Peru) - This year is on track to be the hottest on record, or at least among the very warmest, the United Nations said in new evidence of long-term warming that adds urgency to 190-nation talks under way in Lima on slowing climate change.

Including this year, 14 of the 15 most sweltering years on record will have been in the 21st century, the UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said of the findings presented during the Dec 1-12 climate negotiations in Peru.

"There is no standstill in global warming," WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud said in a statement.

"What is particularly unusual and alarming this year are the high temperatures of vast areas of the ocean surface." The WMO said average sea surface temperatures hit record highs this year.

On land, it listed extremes including floods in Bangladesh and Britain and droughts in China and California.

Ms Christiana Figueres, head of the UN's Climate Change Secretariat, called the heat "bad news" that showed a need for action to limit carbon pollution.

If temperatures stay similarly above normal for the rest of the year, "2014 will likely be the hottest on record, ahead of 2010, 2005 and 1998", the WMO said, based on temperatures for January to October. A cool finish would push 2014 down the list.

The global average air temperature over land and the sea surface for January to October was 0.57 deg C above the average of 14 deg C for 1961-1990, the WMO said.

In Singapore, the National Environment Agency said the average temperature for 2014 so far was 28.0 deg C. It said this was not significantly different from the average temperature over the past 10 years.

The Lima talks are working on a deal to limit climate change, due to be agreed in Paris in a year's time.

REUTERS

Extreme weather patterns becoming the new normal
The Straits Times, 5 Dec 2014

LIMA (Peru) - Drought in California and Brazil, Britain's wettest winter and floods in the Balkans are examples of extreme weather patterns that are becoming the new normal.

"More and more people around the world are confronted with catastrophic climate change," Mr Martin Kaiser, head of climate politics at the environmental group Greenpeace, said at a UN conference in Lima, Peru, working to limit greenhouse gases.

The warmth is linked to unusual weather, with high ocean temperatures contributing to "exceptionally heavy rainfall and floods in many countries and extreme drought in others", the UN's World Meteorological Organisation said yesterday in a report on the state of the climate.

It said heatwaves occurred in South Africa, Australia and Argentina this year, while exceptional cold waves occurred in the United States in winter, in Australia in August and in Russia in October.

In August and September, millions of people were hit by flooding in northern Bangladesh, northern Pakistan and India.

Severe drought gripped the southern part of north-eastern China, and parts of the Yellow River and Huaihe river basins failed to get even half of the summer average rainfall.

On the positive side, tropical cyclone activity has been below normal so far, although a super typhoon is on track to hit the Philippines in days.

There are signs that doubts about climate change are dissipating in the US, a survey sponsored by the reinsurance company Munich Re showed.

The poll of 1,000 people published earlier this week showed 83 per cent of Americans believe global warming is happening and 66 per cent back taxes as a way to change the behaviour of consumers and businesses.

BLOOMBERG, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Singapore will do its part to combat climate change: Vivian Balakrishnan
By Imelda Saad, Channel NewsAsia, 10 Dec 2014

The Republic has achieved a 30 per cent decrease in carbon intensity, for a 10-year period between 2000 and 2010.

Speaking at a UN Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru on Wednesday (Dec 10), Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said this compares favourably with the global average decrease of 0.12 per cent over the same period.

Singapore is a member of the Small Island Developing States. On a global scale and at an aggregate level, the Republic contributes very little to global emissions. It is ranked 113th out of 140 countries, when it comes to carbon emissions generated per GDP dollars.

However, every little bit counts when it comes to combating climate change and Singapore will do its part, said Dr Balakrishnan.

Through various Government initiatives, the country has achieved a substantial decrease in carbon intensity, such as the move in the Year 2000 to switch from fuel oil to natural gas - a cleaner form of fossil fuel.

Today, close to 90 per cent of power in Singapore is produced by natural gas. There have also been moves to encourage the development of green buildings with energy-saving features and getting industries to take up machinery to reduce electricity consumption.

A reduction in carbon intensity essentially means that even as the nation develops, Singapore has managed to keep the levels of pollution in the country low. The challenge is in getting consumers and industries to reduce their reliance on energy and switch to clean energy sources.

In Peru, Dr Balakrishnan underlined the importance of encouraging universal participation and recognising each country's unique national circumstances in order to build a durable and effective global agreement on climate change.

“So for Singapore, we are a small island, we import almost 100 per cent of our energy needs and at the same time, we are alternative-energy constrained. By which we mean we have no access to renewable energy sources,” said director of the National Climate Change Secretariat, Mr Yuen Sai Kuan.

“For us, the most likely renewable energy source that we can tap on is solar, but even then, with the current state of technology, there are some limitations. For example, if there is thick cloud cover, which we often encounter in Singapore, this limits the effectiveness of solar power," he added.

CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTS EVERYONE

Mr Yuen said: "Climate change is a global issue and the inter-governmental panel on climate change has over the last year released its projections for what the world's climate will be like in the Year 2100.

"So as a small island, we will certainly be affected by all the climate change that will happen, and if you look at some of the recent weather phenomenon that we see, dry spells, more intense rainfall, Singapore will certainly be affected. So as a responsible member of the global community, and in our own interests, we would want to reduce our own carbon emissions to help address this problem."

The meeting in Peru sets the stage for member states to finalise a new climate change agreement by 2015. It will come into effect from 2020 and Dr Balakrishnan said Singapore is committed to support this new global initiative.

Nations agree on format for global climate deal
Countries to submit pledges to curb heat-trapping carbon gases
The Straits Times, 15 Dec 2014

LIMA - About 190 nations yesterday agreed on a vision for a historic pact to defeat climate change by adopting a format for national pledges to cut earth-warming greenhouse gases.

At marathon United Nations climate talks in Lima, Peru, nations approved the building blocks of a new global climate deal due to be sealed in Paris at the end of next year.

In more than 20 years of talks, nations have struggled to agree on ways to collectively fight climate change that everyone felt were fair.

At Lima, delegates agreed on an outline of how to collate national efforts to try to step up action to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Paris talks next year are meant to finalise a new global pact that would begin from 2020.

The Lima agreement was hard-won and came after a bitter dispute flared between rich and poor nations over how best to design a new pact that was fair, particularly for developing nations that need to grow their economies.

The meeting had been scheduled to end last Friday evening, after 12 days.

Instead, it overran by 32 hours, an exceptional delay even in the tradition of notoriously fractious UN climate meetings.

The agreement - dubbed the Lima Call for Climate Action - sets down the foundations for what is envisioned to be the most ambitious agreement in environmental history.

Due to take effect in 2020, the agreement would for the first time bind all nations into a single arena for curbing heat-trapping carbon gases that drive climate change.

Its aim is to limit global warming to 2 deg C over pre-industrial levels, averting potentially catastrophic damage to the earth's climate system.

Under the deal, nations must enter voluntary commitments to reduce their carbon emissions.

If agreed in Paris, a more ambitious climate agreement would impact global energy, transport and development policy for decades to come.

To curb warming, the world must cut back on emissions from fossil fuels, scientists say, and boost green energy use.

India said the agreed text of the deal preserved a notion enshrined in a 1992 climate convention that the rich have to lead the way in making cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

The deal satisfied the United States, which said it was time for big emerging economies to rein in fast-rising emissions.

In the face of opposition from China, the Lima deal stripped out demands for extensive information about the pledges and tougher scrutiny to see if, jointly, they close in on the 2 deg C target.

The document does not oblige rich nations to outline aid for poorer countries in their pledges, as the developing world had insisted.

Most of the tough decisions about how to slow climate change were also postponed.

"Much remains to be done in Paris next year," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

Conservation groups pressed for more action.

"The results in Lima are mediocre but this is not a surprise," said Mr Sebastien Blavier of Greenpeace France.

Ms Christiana Figueres, the UN's climate chief, said the Lima agreement found a new way to define the obligations of the rich and the poor. "That is a very important breakthrough."

Said Ms Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute think- tank: "What we are seeing is a new form of international cooperation on climate change where all countries participate with a new set of rules."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS

Nations' initial climate efforts just 'a start'
By Melody Zaccheus, The Straits Times, 15 Dec 2014

THE initial contributions by countries to combat climate change, as mapped out at United Nations talks in Peru, are only a start in solving the problem, Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said yesterday.

In a Facebook post, Dr Balakrishnan, who attended the 12-day United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said he hopes that countries "will hopefully be able to do more, collectively, in the future".

Involving about 190 nations, the talks wrapped up yesterday with a new pact to curb greenhouse gas emissions. It also approved a blueprint for talks leading up to a historic deal due to be made in Paris next December that will help countries avoid droughts, floods, storms and a rise in sea levels. It is due to come into effect in 2020.

Dr Balakrishnan described the conference as a "protracted" and "complex" one that featured many all-night negotiations.

He said Peru's Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal did a "great job" balancing all the interests of the countries involved.

"He set the stage for all countries to submit 'intended nationally determined contributions' by the middle of next year to address the impact of climate change."

Speaking at the conference last week, Dr Balakrishnan said that Singapore had achieved a 30 per cent decrease in carbon intensity from 2000 to 2010.

In his social media posting, he thanked members of the Singapore team. Dr Balakrishnan wrote: "We may come from a tiny country, but we did more than our fair share to facilitate a successful agreement.

"We have to always work harder, usually quietly behind the scenes, to prove our value and relevance to the world."

Post by Vivian Balakrishnan.