15 May 2010
The Hartwell paper was published this week by a group of 14 academics from USA, Canada, UK, Germany, Finland and Japan. It proposes that the failure of the UN Copenhagen summit (COP15) to enforce meaningful targets and the lack of noticeable progress from the global agreements and targets on reducing carbon emissions actually provide an opportunity to address concerns on climate change in different ways.
The authors argue for the expansion of measures that are popular and pragmatic, offering energy security and also aiding human dignity by providing the poorest with safe, available energy. They point out that a majority of human activity that forces climate change is not due to carbon emissions but other causes, such as the loss of tropical forests, black carbon and the emission of other greenhouse gases. These causes can be addressed in ways that do not generate the controversy of capping carbon emissions.
The proposed approach suggests incentives for investing in alternative energy sources, which speaks to the desires of many nations to increase their energy security, and for helping underdeveloped countries to use more effective energy – for example by providing more efficient stoves for the poorest to dramatically reduce the 1.5 million annual premature deaths due to soot which is addition would cut the effect of “black carbon” on warming and on the melting of glaciers. The BBC’s “Costing the Earth” programme this week looks at this in some detail and examines the practicalities of such approaches.
The report switches the focus from CO2 emission targets and this has been criticised by other leading figures in the field such as Bill Hare, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, as reported in Nature’s Climate Feedback blog.
In discussing how to put their proposals into practice, the authors suggest funding via an hypothecated carbon tax, which they claim will be low. But it is not clear how low this would be and any tax would seem to counter their argument that their approach would be more popular than the current emission caps and carbon trading.
Whether practical or not, the paper opens up other strategies for changing the damaging by-products of humanity’s energy usage. The question is whether these are useful additions or alternatives to current approaches or whether they would mainly damage the efforts to focus on carbon reduction. The proposals are likely to prove additional distractions to such efforts as the American Power Act, as noted in Discovery’s article on this bill by US Senators Kerry and Liebermann
7 May 2010
The new People’s Choice award in this year’s AIBs is very exciting for a number of reasons. It is the first time we are asking the general public to vote for awards, which allows the shortlisted entrants to gain a wider exposure for their programmes, as viewers will come from throughout the world, including many countries where the programmes are not currently broadcast. The voting process will also use social media to gain interest and attention, providing another example of the sort of audience engagement and participation which is becoming more and more important to broadcasting in the 21st century.
In addition climate change, the subject of programmes in the People’s Choice award, is a highly topical subject which provokes fierce debate and raises issues which could have a dramatic impact on the way that all nations live. Different countries, and even different tribes and regions within countries, risk being affected in different ways. For example, the indigenous people of the Amazon risk their lands turning into dry savanna (see here for how our sponsor, ADB, is helping the Surui tribe) while the coastal regions risk more flooding.
Because of the differing risks, as well as different political viewpoints, the range of views on climate change is enormous and the challenges of exploring and explaining the science are great. We hear about the fierce debates in the US Senate ; India and China are signing up to the Copenhagen accord; a survey in Africa shows that many Africans blame God and not global emissions for climate change; countries as diverse as Mongolia, Saudi Arabia and Madagascar show increasing awareness by joining in Earth Day celebrations.
We are eager to see the submissions for the People’s Choice award to see how broadcasters from throughout the world are tackling this contraversial issue which raises such passion and which is so important to all of our futures.
19 April 2010
It is ironic that some attendees due at the Peoples Climate Summit called by Bolivian President Evo Morales should be delayed by the volanic eruption in Iceland: climatic conditions are preventing aircraft travel, which is responsible for high carbon emissions per person, and yet stopping people coming together to discuss how to reduce the impact of carbon emissions.
Hopefully the conference will not be badly affected, since it is aiming to bring together and respresent the views and concerns of the poorest two billion people in the world on the subject of climate change. It is often the poorest who are worst affected by climatic disasters – witness how the recent Haiti earthquake killed 250,000 while the earthquake in Chile just afterwards killed under 500, with better infrastructure in Chile being a major factor. The poorest also live in the lands most likely to be flooded and live precariously with little or no reserves against poor harvests, drought and famine.
Morales points out that 75 percent of historical emissions of greenhouse gases originated in “the countries of the North that followed a path of irrational industrialization”.
The summit should provide an interesting contrast to the views of the industrialised and newly industrialising countries which tended to dominate at Kyoto and Copenhagen.
The AIB is looking forward to providing access to some of the very divergent views on climate change in its People’s Choice category at the 2010 AIBs – international media excellence awards
12 April 2010
The Association for International Broadcasting is at MIP TV in Cannes where we officially announce the 2010 AIBs. We are excited by the inclusion of two new awards this year – one for the Best Children’s Factual Programme or Series, the other a “People’s Choice” for the Best TV Coverage of Climate Change.
I will talk more about the Best Children’s Factual Programme or Series in another post, and how it links in with our support of 1GOAL and the “Education for All” campaign linked to the World Cup in South Africa.
But let me now explain more about the new “People’s Choice” award. Up to now, all awards at the AIBs have been determined by an independent panel of judges, consisting of respected professionals from broadcasting and related industries – and this will continue to be the case for all awards apart from this special new award. The “People’s Choice” award recognises the increasing power of the audience to provide rapid feedback on programmes, often in real-time. We are harnessing the power of online tools and social networking to allow viewers from around the world to vote for the best programme in this category.
Each year, the topic for entries in this category will be chosen as something of great current interest. For 2010 the subject is “climate change” which creates great passion and interest around the world. By showcasing the best programmes from around the world, not only will the highest quality broadcasting be on view and brought to new audiences in many different countries, but the impact and opinions of climate change as it affects many different communities will be on display.
The shortlist of the best programmes will be available to view on different online platforms and viewers will have one vote for their favourite. More details on the viewing and voting procedures will be available nearer the time. But we are sure this will provide great interest to viewers and a fantastic platforms to the programmes entered.
We will be updating you on the progress of this award regularly in the lead up to the awards ceremony on 10th November.
