As Kyoto Protocol Ends, An Uncertain Climate Future

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Key provisions of the Kyoto Protocol expire in December of 2012, and experts say there's no real global framework in place to replace the treaty that was supposed to be the first step toward ambitious actions on climate change. Above, a coal-fired power plant in eastern China. China is now the leading carbon dioxide emitter in the world.

As diplomats from around the world gather in Durban, South Africa, for talks about climate change, a big question looms: What will become of the Kyoto climate treaty, which was negotiated with much fanfare in 1997. The treaty was supposed to be a first step toward much more ambitious actions on climate change, but it is now on the brink of fading into irrelevance. That could have major implications for the future of United Nations climate talks.

Even under the best of circumstances, the Kyoto protocol would have made a barely measurable dent in the amount of greenhouse gases flowing into the Earth's atmosphere.

We have very little space left in our atmosphere to be continuing to pollute before we cross certain thresholds where impacts will be inevitable.

- Jennifer Morgan, director, Climate and Energy Program, World Resources Institute

First, the United States decided not to ratify the treaty, so our emissions aren't covered by the pact. Then China leapfrogged the U.S. to become the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. But China is treated like a developing country under the Kyoto treaty, which means it has no obligations. Even so, Europe and a few other nations have been soldiering on.

But Jennifer Morgan, director of the Climate and Energy Program at the World Resources Institute says the treaty's day of reckoning now looms.

"The Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period, its first set of targets, ends next year. So the big question is, 'What happens next?'" she says. "Do the Kyoto countries, like Europe, move forward and put their new targets into a legally-binding treaty?"

The prospects are slim: Canada, Japan and Russia say they are not interested in pledging new reductions under the treaty. The United States and China prefer an alternate approach, which came out of the climate talks two years ago in Copenhagen. They have pledged to take action individually, but not under a binding treaty. However, those commitments aren't enough to prevent a 2-degree increase in global temperature, the internationally agreed upon goal.

"We have very little space left in our atmosphere to be continuing to pollute before we cross certain thresholds where impacts will be inevitable," she says. "So no matter what you're looking at, the current commitments are really quite inadequate."

The Future Of The Kyoto Protocol

The European Union has been the Kyoto Protocol's biggest champion, but it has ambivalent feelings about it now. Michael Grubb, a professor of climate change and energy policy at the University of Cambridge, says on the plus side, Europe likes the treaty because it has spelled out international rules, such as standards for counting carbon emissions. Europe uses those rules to limit its own emissions.

"Europe does not want to kind of jump into a void where there aren't any really agreed rules that bind on anything," Grubb says. "It's very reluctant to kill off the only actual legal framework that we've got."

On the downside, Europe is disappointed that the rest of the world did not follow its example. And Grubb says the economic crisis there has diminished the continent's appetite for more aggressive action.

"So there's a feeling that Europe is in a bit of a holding position on climate change, I'd say."

The real fight over the Kyoto treaty comes from nations in the developing world. They see the pact as a critical symbol of commitment by the rich nations to clean up a problem they largely created. South Africa's foreign minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, is presiding over the climate talks in Durban. And she says it's vital to these talks to either rekindle the Kyoto treaty, or to make progress on a successor.

"If this question is not resolved, the outcome on other matters in the negotiations will become difficult. A solution must be found," Nkoana-Mashabane says.

Her choice of words is quite diplomatic here: In fact, some nations have been threatening to pull the plug on the whole process if the Kyoto treaty is not reinvigorated. And they can do that, since the United Nations operates by consensus.

Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says that move would affect everything that's on the table at Durban, which is much more than commitments to limit emissions.

"If you think about it, it's actually counterproductive for developing countries to not move forward on adaptation, on reducing deforestation, on climate finance, because those are all things in their own self-interest. But the level of emotion and anger could be so big that they wouldn't think in those kind of terms and they would sort of block everything."

Technical structures set up by the Kyoto Protocol would live on even if nations didn't adopt new commitments under the treaty. But by now, the pact governs less than 20 percent of global emissions. So even if nations keep the treaty on life support in Durban, it has already lost its practical role as the foundation for a more ambitious climate agreement.

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Scientists Say Texas Agency Edits Out Climate Change

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Scientists and conservationists accuse the state environmental agency of editing references to climate change and sea level rise out of a public report — because the agency, like Gov. Rick Perry, is skeptical of global warming.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, host: The Texas coast has also battled its share of dangerous floodwaters. Now a controversy over alleged scientific censorship is roiling Galveston Bay. It involves the administration of Texas Governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry.

ARI SHAPIRO, host: Scientists and conservationists accuse the state environmental agency of editing references to climate change and sea level rise out of a public report because the agency and the governor remain staunch global warming skeptics. NPR's John Burnett reports.

JOHN BURNETT: Galveston Bay is a large estuary on the upper Texas coast whose deteriorating health is of great concern to stakeholders, from fishermen to boaters to birders. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the TCEQ, commissioned a scientific report called State of the Bay, but it wasn't happy with some of the results. The report's authors are in agreement that sea-level rise caused by global warming is threatening wetlands surrounding Galveston Bay, but the TCEQ did not want any mention of human-caused environmental calamities and pulled out its red pencil.

L'OREAL STEPNEY: Let's call the meeting to order. I'll guess I'll do my official gavel thing.

BURNETT: And that's what brought issue before 50 people Wednesday morning inside a meeting room in a mosquito-infested marsh a few miles from the troubled bay. L'Oreal Stepney is deputy director of the Office of Water at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

STEPNEY: Let me say this clearly. We are not an agency that is about censorship. It is not what we do, it is wrong, it is not who we are.

BURNETT: Stepney played down the firestorm as merely professional differences between her agency and the report's authors. But the scientist who wrote the offending chapter claims what happened is nothing less than the muzzling of an inconvenient truth.

JOHN ANDERSON: One of the most striking edits that was made was the deletion of a figure that was taken from Science magazine that showed the measured rate of sea level rise over the long term in historical time, and the predicted rate of rise, and again, that was taken from Science magazine, one of the most credible journals on Earth.

BURNETT: The author is John Anderson, a ruddy-faced 67-year-old oceanographer from Rice University, who among other things has spent 26 seasons studying ice sheet changes in Antarctica, and its effect on global sea level rise. He says the agency deleted passages that Galveston Bay is currently rising three millimeters a year, a six-fold increase, and that human-induced global warming is the cause.

ANDERSON: And I think the travesty here is that this chapter was actually written for teachers. They're my target audience, and this to me is just an outward attempt to keep scientific information, scientific fact, from getting into classrooms.

BURNETT: The agency also deleted a reference that manmade dams on rivers have disrupted important sediment deposition into the bay. L'Oreal Stepney said in an interview that the report should focus on the overall health of the bay and avoid controversial theories. She said the TCEQ is not ignoring the reality of sea-level rise - it's mentioned elsewhere in the report - it's only Anderson's chapter linking it to global warming that they object to.

STEPNEY: It's unsettled science, in our opinion, and that's our position, and we've been clear about that.

BURNETT: At the meeting, the TCEQ offered a compromise - the agency would publish "State of the Bay" without Anderson's chapter and dissident scientists could publish the unedited chapter on their own. But that didn't placate the Galveston Bay Council that held the meeting. One after another members spoke up. The chair of the council said they wanted the state to publish the complete report unexpurgated. A representative from the EPA, which helped fund the study, echoed her comment. Then concerned citizen Albert Gonzalez spoke his mind.

ALBERT GONZALEZ. TEXAS: The political climate in our nation right now seems to be anti-regulation, anti-science. That just is very, very upsetting, and I just wanted to make that comment.

BURNETT: The world's leading science academies state that most of the global warming in recent decades is likely the result of human activities. Rick Perry, his commissioners on the TCEQ, and some members of Congress, mostly Republicans, say that human-caused climate change is junk science. The governor's office said he would have no comment on the Galveston Bay censorship controversy, which has yet to be resolved. John Burnett, NPR News, Houston.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

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Climate Activist Visits Wilderness Before Prison Term

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Tim DeChristopher was to go to prison, convicted of disrupting a government sale of oil and gas leases. He called his actions an act off civil disobedience against climate change. Prosecutors called them felonies. Ahead of his confinement, DeChristopher wanted to go on a final wilderness adventure.

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GUY RAZ, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Guy Raz.

This summer, a federal judge in Salt Lake City sentenced a climate activist named Tim DeChristopher to two years in prison. His crime: disrupting an auction of government, oil and gas leases. DeChristopher was a 27-year-old college student in the closing days of the Bush administration when he bid for and won almost two-dozen parcels that he knew he couldn't pay for. He called it an act of climate civil disobedience.

A couple of months ago, a jury found him guilty of two felonies. Now, before his sentencing, the activist set out on a last wilderness adventure - the descent of a river in Utah.

An old friend of ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, reporter Alex Chadwick, was along.

ALEX CHADWICK: I'd been following energy stories in the West, which is how I met Tim DeChristopher and John Weisheit.

JOHN WEISHEIT: So the snow melt has started, and every day the river is going to rise until it's exhausted.

CHADWICK: That's John, used to be a river guide, now a river advocate - an activist.

WEISHEIT: And they're saying that this year will be a high year.

CHADWICK: You hear that (unintelligible). John is rowing us down the Green River in eastern Utah. It's peaceful, but that's going to change. The Green is a tributary of the Colorado, and we'll reach it in a few days and we'll start down Cataract Canyon, 20 miles of almost continuous rapids that John knows well.

WEISHEIT: I've done it so many times and I've done all the failures that can be done.

CHADWICK: Cataract Canyon is one of the most notorious runs in the country at normal water flow, and we will be way past that. Too late now, there's no way off the river but down it.

WEISHEIT: I'm not worried at all. I think we'll do fine.

CHADWICK: I'm less confident of the outcome, or really of anything else. John invited me on this trip because of my wife and radio partner, Carolyn. She died a year ago. I tried to save her for months and failed. I stopped working and couldn't start again. I've been lost. John thinks the river is restorative, healing. And it is the kind of place that Carolyn liked.

There are several other guides on the trip - it's fun to go when it's scary. And there's Tim DeChristopher, a former wilderness guide, about 30, solidly built, hair clipped as short as the stubble on his face, calm like a monk. With a degree in economics and two federal felonies, the sentence pending then.

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: I'm expecting around two or three years. But it's hard to say.

CHADWICK: The felonies are from a Salt Lake City oil and gas auction Tim disrupted with fake bids he couldn't pay. He says it was an unplanned, spontaneous act of climate protest.

DECHRISTOPHER: I lost hope in a lot of things. I lost hope in having any sort of normal future, anything that my parents would define as a normal future of, you know, a career and retirement, and a family and all that stuff.

CHADWICK: The auction and his arrest made Tim DeChristopher a hero among the Greens. He was someone willing to risk all and then risk again.

DECHRISTOPHER: I have no remorse at all for my actions.

CHADWICK: Courts looks for remorse.

DECHRISTOPHER: Yeah, I don't have it.

CHADWICK: I get it that he wants to run Cataract Canyon in high water. But no remorse may be even riskier. He's about to be sentenced. Contrition might help.

(SOUNDBITE OF SQUAWKING)

CHADWICK: The ravens. They're mad at us because we don't leave anything at our campsite. It's still several days to the rapids - water high, but smooth. And days settle in unhurried patterns - row, camp, fire, talk. I'm making notes and interviewing Tim, partly from habit, partly to see if I can still do it without Carolyn there.

DECHRISTOPHER: At the height of the Somali pirate thing a couple of years ago, the pirate leaders released a statement to the Western world where he said: You have no idea what life in Somalia is like. You can't possibly understand how desperate our situation is. And he said: Your power comes from your ability to take things away from people. And therefore you can't stop us, because you have nothing left to take away. And it was a statement that really struck me as really profound.

CHADWICK: The Greens need a charismatic leader, but this is a man with a very dark view - climate change as Apocalypse, rising seas, flood, drought, famine, all in decades. Further, Tim DeChristopher believes it's too late now to stop, and the danger isn't so much from climate. It's us, human societies under severe stress. It's what we will become, maybe something like the Dark Ages, that's what he thinks climate change will mean.

I wonder if the people you're targeting might not really enjoy hearing you say this. They'll say: Look, this guy is a radical, a self-described radical. And he's on the side of the Somali pirates, for God's sakes. If you want to be on that side, that's who you're standing with.

DECHRISTOPHER: From what I've seen, my opponents really don't like to have people hear what I have to say. They do like to, you know, try to put words into my mouth. You know, say, oh, he mentioned the Somali pirates and saw something profound in what they were saying, so therefore he's on their side. But they've actually really avoided spreading anything that I say.

I think they know that when people see someone like me as a person, and start to actually, you know, consider the things that I'm saying, it's hard to vilify someone like that. And I think that's dangerous to those in power, when the people on the bottom start to see that the people they're told to hate aren't really their enemy.

CHADWICK: Day seven. We reached the Colorado yesterday. The water is bigger, faster. It rained overnight, the wind tore down my shelter, storm bands keep coming, everyone looks rattier. It's just light now, a little after six. John Weisheit's wife is headed toward the boats.

Here comes an experienced river guide, Susette Weisheit. Susette, how does the river look today?

SUSETTE WEISCHEIT: Fantastic. I mean we're up, the river is cooking along. It surprised us all by coming up a little bit further than we thought it would, and kind of encroached on our camp. But, you know, more is better.

CHADWICK: More is better? Hmm.

WEISCHEIT: I love it.

CHADWICK: We are going down Cataract Canyon today at six times normal flow. Small driftwood trees rush by, parts of bigger ones. We air-pump the boats, so the rubberized skin is drum tight. John's boat is 17-feet long, the beam not half that. The river is 50-yards wide and it looks bad all the way across.

WEISHEIT: I've seen it this high a lot, and I know what's down here and what to expect. And so, it really doesn't terrify me anymore.

CHADWICK: The first big rapid, John shoves an oar hard, the boat finds a narrowing V. The water is fast, but the moment stretches like a dream, as though we're falling very slowly and there's always enough time to save ourselves.

(SOUNDBITE OF RUSHING WATER)

CHADWICK: Bam, bam, bam through a series of waves, and we pull to the riverbank out of the tumble and froth to the safe solidity of land. On a high point on the rocky slope ahead, we stand looking down at the ugly place we are about to go.

What rapid are you all talking about?

WEISHEIT: Well, that's Rapid Number 15. Some people call it Capsize. Some people call it Hell-to-Pay.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

CHADWICK: A big piece of driftwood shoots through perfectly. Looks easy. Then a log the size of a person catches the channel wrong, hits a rock, rolls under, disappears.

WEISHEIT: How do you think we should run it?

WEISCHEIT: Hay-diddle-diddle...

WEISHEIT: What does that mean?

WEISCHEIT: Right down the middle.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

WEISCHEIT: But there's a huge momma hole on the left side. So just don't get there.

CHADWICK: Watching them watch the river, I see the patterns. Even in the places that look crazy, some ways are better than others. Stay calm. See what's there. It's still dangerous, but it's more interesting than scary. And I'm thinking about Tim, and the judge, and the sentencing, and risk.

This is not a good time for him to be testing any more limits. But it's like the river you're caught in the currents. You can see the patterns, look for them, find the way.

DECHRISTOPHER: I think I can be dangerous to them in either place.

CHADWICK: He told me he's been talking with other activists about whether a political dissident can be more dangerous to the government in prison than out.

DECHRISTOPHER: There is certainly a power in an activist going to jail. I think it undermines the moral legitimacy of the current government if, in order to continue what they're doing, they have to put principled, honest people in jail. But, you know, I'll also continue organizing if they don't lock me up. So, I think it's a no-win for them. That's why it's a powerful thing if we're willing to actually make those sacrifices.

CHADWICK: A huge, dim mass ahead to the left, blurry under a layer of fast water. We're in a steep drop and behind the boulder, there's a hole like the gateway to another dimension. It's close enough to spit in. The boat hesitates and pushes by. That's the Buttonhook, John says, and he's looking down river at the next rapid coming on.

In prison, Tim will begin writing a book, a series of letters to his father. During the Salt Lake trial, his mother and sister came over from Denver for support. His father, a retired executive from the energy industry, did not.

When he talks to you about you about who you are and what you've done, what your beliefs are, do you understand him?

DECHRISTOPHER: I think I do. I think he comes from a genuine belief that we have a system that works and it has for him. You know, he came from a poor family and worked hard and studied hard and became an engineer. And, you know, moved up through the ranks and became secure and very comfortable. I guess I kind of view my father as a prototypical, comfortable liberal in America.

And I feel like that's the audience that I'm most drawn to addressing. And so, I think, you know, a book is a series of letters to him, you know, without the kind of emotional directness of our actual conversations. I think it might be a good way to address the comfortable liberal audience.

CHADWICK: When did you last speak with him?

DECHRISTOPHER: Christmas.

CHADWICK: That's a long time.

DECHRISTOPHER: Yup.

CHADWICK: But maybe it's not so long. Carolyn died nine months earlier and she's still present, always. Early in the morning of the last day, I tell her about this trip that she should have joined. We'd run Cataract Canyon the day before in six hours. We're loading boats again now and I find my friend, the river guide, John Weisheit.

DECHRISTOPHER: I'm trying to remember that thing that you told me that you have to do when things get really bad.

WEISHEIT: Oh, yes. Sometimes, things don't happen very well on the river and boats slip or driftwood gets in the way and one of the things that I've learned through the years is, when things get, like, you're actually combating nature and you're not getting anywhere, it's best to surrender. When you're out here, there's nothing wrong with surrender. It's actually a good idea.

CHADWICK: The next day, Tim and I share a ride a ride back to Salt Lake. We talk about prison, about being in, waiting to get out, about patience and finding that line through the bad parts where the patterns start to blur and it will help, maybe, to remember what happens on the river.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RAZ: Producer Alex Chadwick gathered material for his story this summer. Tim DeChristopher is now serving a two-year sentence in federal prison in California.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RAZ: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

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HEALTH MANAGEMENT. Al Gore's '24 Hours' On Climate Change

Enlarge Courtesy of the Climate Reality Project
Former Vice President Al Gore trains a group of presenters for the 24 Hours of Reality project. The online program will stream live online from 24 locations worldwide.
Courtesy of the Climate Reality Project Former Vice President Al Gore trains a group of presenters for the 24 Hours of Reality project. The online program will stream live online from 24 locations worldwide.
Former Vice President Al Gore has spent much of the last decade on advocacy for environmental issues. He won an Oscar for his 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth. In 2007, he received the Nobel Peace Prize along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Gore kicks off a new project today designed to increase awareness around the issue of climate change. 24 Hours of Reality, a 24-hour live online event, will offer local perspectives on the impact of climate change from 24 locations around the world.
In the years since An Inconvenient Truth, polls show the American public has become increasingly skeptical about whether humans are the cause of rising global temperatures. Gore hopes that the overwhelming scientific consensus around climate change will help convince skeptics that it is prudent to respond.
"If 98 doctors told you you had a heart condition that required you to make some changes and two doctors say, 'Don't worry about it,' ... hopefully you'd go with the 98," Gore tells NPR's Neal Conan. "That's the condition we're in now."
Gore also argues that many companies and individuals are making positive changes, purely on economic grounds. "There are a great many people and businesses that don't care to engage in discussion or debate about climate science who are going ahead right now to become more efficient — cut their emissions, cut their costs — and in the process they're becoming more profitable, most often."
The former vice president is also hopeful that there will come a time when what he considers the sheer evidence of climate change, like extreme weather events, will help penetrate resistance. "I saw this as a child growing up ... in the American South during the civil rights revolution," he says, "where individuals who were so resistant [to] eliminating the laws justifying discrimination did actually change when they really looked deeply into their own hearts and confronted the reality of the situation."
Climate scientists themselves have often not helped their own cause, Gore concedes. While he lauds skilled science communicators like the late Carl Sagan and Bill Nye "The Science Guy," "by and large, scientists often do not feel comfortable playing that role ... many of them are not comfortable in the political process of conducting a political dialogue," he says. "The more engaging and charismatic and personable scientists can get involved in telling the world about what they are finding, the better."

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