Live Report from Paris Climate Change Meeting

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where Associate Professor Frank Jotzo is speaking live on-line from the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) in Paris. He describes the mood at the conference as "cautious optimism". Frank commented that the approach having heads of state speak at the beginning, rather than then end was working well. Australia was seen to be having a positive note "Australia is back", but as significant as Canada. Frank said Australia is supporting language for a 1.5 degree target. He commented that the alternative wordings in the draft agreement were "very strong", but there would need to be a mechanism to "ratchet up" the targets. All claims from developing countries are unlikely to be accepted. Australia has pledged $200M to the green climate find and is charing that part of the negotiations. Lastely Frank commented that the section of the agreement about what countries will do domestically was "A mess of square brackets" (this being the way not-agreed text is indicated).

Frank then discussed ANU research on what Australia might do to be carbon neutral by 2050. This would be by shitting down the high polluting brown coal fired power station and replacing them with solar power.  He argued this could be done "without tears".

Later today I will be talking about how I teach ANU students to use ICT to reduce carbon emissions.