Copenhagen: Day 8
This morning, despite that plenary sessions were scheduled, sessions were cancelled. Delegates were told that the African union walked out. While many G77 and China countries have staked out a position to support the continued force of the Kyoto Protocol, and to add a parallel track for the Long Term Cooperative Action, developed countries have expressed support for options such as a new treaty that would replace the Kyoto Protocol. Finance commitments from developed countries to developing and least-developed nations are also unclear.
The Compounds with a Bite - Some technical meetings continued in the afternoon. I observed a meeting on methodological issues, focusing on high global warming potential (GWP) compounds. For example, many chemicals such as refrigerants can cause tens of thousands of times more damage than carbon dioxide. For example there's Sulfur hexafluoride, with a GWP of 23,900. Mitigating High GWP compounds is considered very cost effective because of alternative technologies and the relatively fewer molecules emitted. However, the Kyoto Protocol only addresses a handful of the dozens of known compounds. An effective treaty needs to allow scientific panels to include compounds based on the best available science.
Although methane is more associated with agriculture and waste industries, the methane collected from EBMUD’s anaerobic digester would cause 20 – 60 times more damage to the climate if the digesters didn’t convert the methane into carbon dioxide and renewable energy.
