John Lanchbery, Principal Climate Change Advisor
Today, 11th November, is the first day of the UN climate convention meeting in Warsaw. It is also Polish National Day and so the streets are hung with red and white bunting, the national colours of Poland, and the bars and restaurants were full last night. Us NGOs were, of course, holed up in the Warsaw School of Economics finalising our strategy for the UN meeting.
As somebody who has not been to Warsaw before, I have to say that it is a very nice place. After its almost total destruction in the Second World War, the Poles have rebuilt it in all its eighteenth century, and older, splendour. Wide streets, attractive buildings, lots of cafes and very cheap; everyone is friendly, courteous and speaks good English, even the ladies in the kiosks selling bus tickets. As it is on the same latitude as the Lodge but over a thousand miles to the East, I had expected Warsaw to be a bit colder than at the RSPB in Sandy but in fact, it has been a bit warmer… today is a lovely sunny day.
Alas, the Polish government does not have a good record climate change, in spite of opinion polls that show most Poles are worried about it. The government has, for example, planned a coal conference in the middle of the UN meeting. Worse, three times in the last few years they unilaterally vetoed decisions by all other EU ministers to strengthen the EU emission reduction targets for 2020.
It appears that the Polish government is now a bit embarrassed by the coal conference. And so it should be, as even it main argument about coal being the main plank of national energy security crumbles. Whilst Poland certainly does have a lot of old coal fired electricity generation, a substantial proportion of coal comes not from Poland but from cheaper suppliers, such as Russia, Colombia and South Africa and probably, as in the UK, increasingly from the USA dumping its cheap coal, which is being supplanted by shale gas. The Polish government was promoting shake gas too but all of the big international companies pulled out, saying that it was not economic in Poland.
So, we are hoping that the government will have a change of heart and side with the rest of the EU, and with the countries that are most vulnerable to climate change, notably the Alliance of Small Island States and the least developed countries. Certainly, all eyes should today be on the Philippines which has just been struck by yet another terrible tropical cyclone, even worse than the others that it has suffered recently and off-scale on the current measurement system of storm intensity.
As we all gather today for the UN conference in the bowels of the Polish Nation Stadium, built for the European Cup last year, we will also be looking for leadership from the biggest nations in terms of both power and emissions: China and the USA. Obama clearly understands that climate change is serious and Secretary of State John Kerry is very much onside. The question is how they can work to make the US a true leader without support from Congress, especially the House of Representatives? Perhaps the last, best hope is China, which is now the biggest emitter. The Chinese leadership openly acknowledges that the current addiction to coal is killing Chinese people, who are literally choking to death from air pollution in northern cities, and it is a government priority to stop it. They have also long acknowledged that their current development path is unsustainable and are putting in place carbon cap and trade schemes across major Chinese provinces.
Very strange being in a large circular building with large hole in the middle. The big meeting rooms are tents on the football pitch!