Interlude: from Bali to Kakamigahara via Mount Rushmore

According to the radio this morning (RFI), the UN climate change conference in Bali isn’t really going anywhere. The hope was that by now (11.30 GMT), delegates would have mapped out a two-year process to agree a set of emissions cuts to replace the current Kyoto Protocol targets. The Times reports that “the proposal, supported by the EU and Brazil, would have set out in writing an ambition to cut greenhouse gases produced by industrialised countries by up to two fifths in the next 13 years. The emissions cut would have been non-binding and subject to future negotiation, but even this was too much for the US, which opposes any reference to specific numerical goals in advance of more detailed negotiations next year.” So it appears that the best we can currently hope for is a compromise that would keep the US at the negotiating table just long enough for Bush to be replaced in 2009 by a more environmentally-conscious president.

Teaching my Suzuki how to swim

The rains in Kinshasa have caused the roads to deteriorate severely

Meanwhile, the Telegraph used the Carbon Footprint calculator to estimate how many trees would have to be planted to offset conference carbon emissions: 136,987.

According to a report from IBM Global Business Services, picked up by Environmental Leader, sixty-seven percent of consumers polled across six countries (Australia, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States) would be willing to pay more for eco-friendly energy. True, most of these would only be willing to pay 5 percent more, and cost and quality were still considered more important than environmental concerns, but the Americans, surprisingly, were the most willing to pay a sizable premium, up to an additional 20 percent or more.

I remember seeing one of the Diesel “Global Warming Ready” ads in the US last year, and, while admitting that it was clever, also thinking that one day our children would be amazed at how oblivious, even insensitive, our generation had been. Imagine if at the beginning of the 20th century, Coco Chanel or the Tirocchi sisters had launched a “World War Ready” advertising campaign showing women carrying bayonet-mounted rifles over costly garments designed to show off their tightly corseted torsos.

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(For a full discussion of whether Diesel meant its satire of global warming to be sarcastic or to raise awareness, read this Washington Post article, in which I also discovered that Ben & Jerry's ice cream has been pushing a campaign to "Lick Global Warming".)

Finally, in case you’re feeling guilty about how much energy your Christmas lights are consuming this year, here is one idea: at the Aqua Toto Gifu aquarium in Kakamigahara, Japan, the Christmas tree is powered by…an electric eel! According to the Mainichi Daily News, each time the eel touches a conductive copper wire installed in its tank, a surge of electric power lights up the globes in the tree.

As for me, I was embarrassed to discover that my Carbon Footprint for 2007 is estimated at no less than 17.250 tonnes of CO2! By comparison, the average for the DRC is 0.04 tonnes, for the world is 4 tonnes and for industrialised nations is 11 tonnes. I look forward to the day when planes will be flown on renewable energy. In the meantime, I better get planting…