The 300-350 Show: The Road to Copenhagen - Bonn, Week 1
First Broadcast: 4 June 2009
Featuring:
- Almuth Ernsting (Biofuel Watch)
- Various (CAN International)
We start our coverage of the United Nations climate talks in Bonn with a look at some of the targets that rich nations are bringing to the table. We also flag up the dangers of the scientifically unfounded rush to include Biochar and large-scale no-till agriculture in the draft negotiating texts.
“The bad news is that we have fewer actual answers than we need to make a watertight case for biochar, especially in a climate context … we need to advocate for policies that allow for the emergence of a biochar industry … before we have answers to the many research questions.” Steve Brick - Executive Director, International Biochar Intiative.
“There are still fundamental uncertainties associated with biochar as a mitigation option … Our mitigation scenarios are strictly illustrative in nature … [and] assume waste-derived biochar provides only a very small fraction of the land-use related CO2 drawdown, with reforestation and curtailed deforestation providing a magnitude more.” – Pushker Kharecha & James Hansen.
Biochar
Civil society declaration: ‘Biochar’, a new big threat to people, land, and ecosystems
www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/news.php?id=1226
Biochar included in draft Copenhagen text
www.biochar-international.org/biocharpolicy.html
James Hansen: We never said biochar was a miracle cure (Guardian, 25 March)
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/25/hansen-biochar-monbiot-response
Agriculture and climate change: Real problems, false solutions
www.econexus.info/pdf/agriculture-climate-change-june-2009.pdf
Biofuel Watch
www.biofuelwatch.org.uk
George Monbiot on Biochar
www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/03/24/woodchips-with-everything/
www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/03/27/pyrolising-the-planet/
Bonn
Copenhagen draft negotiating texts, webcasts, etc
http://unfccc.int/meetings/sb30/items/4842.php
AoSIS Views on Shared Vision (Dec 2008)
http://copportal1.man.poznan.pl/Doc.ashx?Id=46&Mime=application/pdf&Presentation=True
Available Audio
The Road to Copenhagen - Bonn, Week 1 – Listen Online | Download .mp3 (22.14 MB)