Sustainable Energy and Economy Network

The director of energy programs for Washington think-tank, The Institute of Policy Studies, Janet Redman said at UN climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries had promised to provide $A28.3billion to get fast-track mitigation projects in developing countries.

'' That money was meant to build trust and as as stop-gap until the institutions were ready to deliver the far greater sums necessary in the long-run. Recent reports show that developed countries have committed to only about half of that,'' Dr Redman said.

To understand the implications of the conference’s outcome, the Prospect spoke to Janet Redman, co-director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network at the D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, who is in Bonn for the negotiations.

What are the expected goals of the conference in Bonn? We’re now one week into the talks—how have they played out thus far?

The major battle that’s being waged here is, will we see the Kyoto Protocol move forward? Or, will we see it being undermined and gutted and instead see a whole different process, where it would be more of a pledge-and-review process? That’s what the U.S. is really pushing. That means that every country says what it thinks it can do based on its own national circumstances. Basically, “I think I can reduce my emissions by this much.” You hope that it totals what the science is calling for. And you review them at a later date.

"The ingredients -- multiple polluters, remote forests, invisible gases, financial speculators and hard-to-verify carbon offsets -- make carbon trading a 'recipe for corruption,' agrees Daphne Wysham, a fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies and founder of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network.

"'The system is ungovernable, from start to finish,' she says. 'We do not have the capacity to monitor every polluter and every timber thief and every derivatives trader in every part of the globe, and yet we are opening up markets to trading in invisible gases that will involve these.'"

"Daphne Wysham, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies think tank, is part of a growing coalition that supports the idea of a carbon tax. With cap and trade legislation a dead duck in the new Republican-dominated House of Representatives, Wysham figures that campaigners in the US have two years to start educating the public about the benefits of "tax and rebate" before the political complexion of Congress shifts again. In the meantime she's bullish about the potential for US action. 'We may exceed the targets that the US has put on the table through a switch to natural gas from coal and a ramping up of wind energy; in addition, there's a major pushback from the grassroots against existing and proposed coal-fired electricity plants based on their mercury and other emissions.' But however the political climate changes, and despite the shifting sands of globalisation, (climate scientist James) Hansen will be using his expertise to try and avert a toxic timebomb for our descendants and their planet."

"Daphne Wysham, a fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies who studies energy issues, said in an interview that she understands the appeal of a carbon tax.

“'We do have an interesting array of organizations from the left and the right saying a carbon tax is much better than cap and trade,' Wysham says. 'I think a payroll tax shift is one possible approach that could work. In this current economic climate, it may stimulate employers to hire more people. And if a dividend was being returned to people, it would be even more palatable.'”