Copenhagen climate change talks must fail, says top scientist
Exclusive: World's leading climate change expert says summit talks so
flawed that deal would be a disaster
* Suzanne Goldenberg
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/suzannegoldenberg> , US environment
correspondent
* guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/> , Wednesday 2 December
2009 20.54 GMT
[James Hansen]
'We don't have a leader who is able to grasp [the issue] and say
what is really needed. Instead we are trying to continue business as
usual,' say James Hansen. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA
The scientist who convinced the world to take notice
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/fossilfuels.climatech\
ange> of the looming danger of global warming says it would be better
for the planet and for future generations if next week's Copenhagen
climate change summit <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/copenhagen>
ended in collapse.
James Hansen talks to Suzanne Goldenberg Link to this audio
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/audio/2009/dec/03/copenhagen-shou\
ld-fail-hansen>
In an interview with the Guardian, James Hansen
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/hansen> , the world's pre-eminent
climate scientist, said any agreement likely to emerge from the
negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start
again from scratch.
"I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right
track because it's a disaster track," said Hansen, who heads the Nasa
Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
"The whole approach is so fundamentally wrong that it is better to
reassess the situation. If it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/08/kyoto-poznan-environm\
ent-emissions-carbon> then [people] will spend years trying to
determine exactly what that means." He was speaking as progress towards
a deal in Copenhagen received a boost today, with India revealing a
target to curb its carbon emissions
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/02/india-reveal-carbon-e\
mission-target> . All four of the major emitters the US
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/25/barack-obama-copenhag\
en> , China
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/26/china-targets-cut-car\
bon-footprint> , EU and India have now tabled offers on emissions,
although the equally vexed issue of funding for developing nations
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/29/eu-copenhagen-climate-aid-f\
unding> to deal with global warming remains deadlocked.
Hansen, in repeated appearances before Congress beginning in 1989, has
done more than any other scientist to educate politicians about the
causes of global warming and to prod them into action to avoid its most
catastrophic consequences. But he is vehemently opposed to the carbon
market schemes
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/carbon-trading-market\
-copenhagen-summit> in which permits to pollute are bought and
sold which are seen by the EU and other governments as the most
efficient way to cut emissions and move to a new clean energy economy
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/nov/18/climate-change-renewable\
energy> .
Hansen is also fiercely critical of Barack Obama and even Al Gore,
who won a Nobel peace prize
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/12/climatechange.interna\
tionalnews> for his efforts to get the world to act on climate change
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/scienceofclimatechange> saying
politicians have failed to meet what he regards as the moral challenge
of our age.
In Hansen's view, dealing with climate change allows no room for the
compromises that rule the world of elected politics. "This is analagous
to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism
faced by Winston Churchill," he said. "On those kind of issues you
cannot compromise. You can't say let's reduce slavery, let's find a
compromise and reduce it 50% or reduce it 40%."
He added: "We don't have a leader who is able to grasp it and say what
is really needed. Instead we are trying to continue business as usual."
The understated Iowan's journey from climate scientist to activist
accelerated in the last years of the Bush administration. Hansen, a
reluctant public speaker, says he was forced into the public realm by
the increasingly clear looming spectre of droughts, floods, famines and
drowned cities indicated by the science.
That enormous body of scientific evidence has been put under a
microscope by climate sceptics after last month's release online of
hacked emails sent by respected researchers at the climate research unit
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change-scepticism> of
the University of East Anglia. Hansen admitted the controversy could
shake public's trust, and called for an investigation. "All that stuff
they are arguing about the data doesn't really change the analysis at
all, but it does leave a very bad impression," he said.
The row reached Congress today, with Republicans accusing the
researchers of engaging in "scientific fascism" and pressing the Obama
administration's top science adviser, John Holdren, to condemn the
email. Holdren, a climate scientist who wrote one of the emails in the
UEA trove, said he was prepared to denounce any misuse of data by the
scientists if one is proved.
Hansen has emerged as a leading campaigner against the coal industry,
which produces more greenhouse gas emissions than any other fuel source.
He has become a fixture at campus demonstrations and last summer was
arrested at a protest
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/24/james-hansen-daryl-ha\
nnah-mining-protest> against mountaintop mining in West Virginia
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/04/mountaintop-mining> ,
where he called the Obama government's policies "half-assed".
He has irked some environmentalists by espousing a direct carbon tax on
fuel use. Some see that as a distraction from rallying support in
Congress for cap-and-trade legislation
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/06/carbon-tax-cap-trade>
that is on the table.
He is scathing of that approach. "This is analagous to the indulgences
that the Catholic church sold in the middle ages. The bishops collected
lots of money and the sinners got redemption. Both parties liked that
arrangement despite its absurdity. That is exactly what's happening," he
said. "We've got the developed countries who want to continue more or
less business as usual and then these developing countries who want
money and that is what they can get through offsets [sold through the
carbon markets]."
For all Hansen's pessimism, he insists there is still hope. "It may be
that we have already committed to a future sea level rise of a metre
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/sea-level> or even more but that
doesn't mean that you give up.
"Because if you give up you could be talking about tens of metres. So I
find it screwy that people say you passed a tipping point so it's too
late. In that case what are you thinking: that we are going to abandon
the planet? You want to minimise the damage."
