The Daily Climate: Schwarzenegger Hosting International Climate Confab

by Emily Gertz

Published November 12, 2008 @ 09:32AM PST

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- whose name has been breathlessly evoked for a big climate or energy appointment in the Obama administration -- will next week host the "Governors Global Climate Summit" in Los Angeles, bringing US state leaders and international representatives together to talk aobut how to combat global warming. According to Agency France-Presse, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom have been invited to atend. In the void of federal action, America's towns, cities and states have been taking the lead in combatting global warming. Under the Governator's leadership, California passed the first law in the nation to cap and cut greenhouse gas emissions in 2006.

Who better to represent the internal contradictions of the American soul when it comes to cars and climate change? The Governator has been spotted more than once cruising in a mighty cute, red, Dodge Challenger, which gets all of a gas-gulping 13 miles to the gallon.

Japan has focused on hitting its Kyoto treaty targets for lowering carbon dioxide pollution through a combination of voluntary measures, and tougher limits on industry. But the nation is not merely struggling to meet its Kyoto committments, but failing: Japan's CO2 equivalent emissions rose to a record high of 1.371 billion metric tons in its past fiscal year, up 2.3 percent. Reuters reports that the increase is largely due to the closure of the country's only nuclear power plant. "With developing countries already questioning Tokyo's political will to rein in emissions and top CO2 polluters China, the United States and India free from Kyoto's 2008-2012 targets, Japan's actions will be seen as a milestone as governments struggle to agree on a successor to the protocol next year."

On the upside, however, Fred Pearce at Yale 360 reports that green slams on China are unfair, despite that country's well-documented environmental problems, and recent rise to the top of the world's list of major carbon dioxide polluters. "China, as WWF reported recently, consumes 15 per cent of the world’s resources," says Pearce. "But with 20 percent of the world’s population (1.3 billion people), is that really surprising? Likewise, should we be shocked that the world’s most populous country has the world’s largest carbon footprint? If China were instead a series of smaller countries each reporting their statistics separately, we probably wouldn’t turn a hair," Pearce says. He notes that China raises most of its fish food supply in ponds -- good for overtaxed global fisheries -- banned plastic bags in shops back in June, is the world's leading recycler, and has built more wind turbines than any other country.

[[Compare China's resource use and greenhouse gas pollution with the United States: the US has around 5% percent of the world's population and consumes about 25% of its resources. After a long reign as the world's biggest polluter, the US is now second only to China in CO2 emissions.]]

Image: Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, "highlights clean energy innovation at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory" on Nov. 10, 2008. Source: Office of the Governor of the State of California