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As many as 9,000 participants are expected to attend the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's 14th Conference of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Poznan starting tomorrow, including an official US delegation led by Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Dr. Paula Dobriansky. Senator John Kerry (D-MA) will lead a Senate delegation. Members of President-elect Obama's transition team are also expected to attend.

The climate change talks in Poznan mark the critical halfway point between the 2007 meeting in Bali in which a draft blueprint of a global action plan was set and next year's COP meeting in Copenhagen, which is expected to result in the establishment of a global climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Kerry warned that although the US is now in a position to play a leading role in global climate change negotiations, Congress and the incoming Obama administration's ability to offer greenhouse gas emission reduction incentives to rapidly industrializing countries such as China and India would be limited by the economic crisis. "The bottom line is we are not going to be in the position we were two years ago in the short term to do as much technology transfer or economic assistance in terms of transitional issues that might have led other countries to participate," Kerry was quoted as saying in a news report.

UNFCCC executive director Yvo de Boer warns of the dangers of failure and urges participating countries to turn hardship into opportunity and, if anything, dedicate more effort and resources to mitigating and adapting to climate change in a video address released in advance of the climate change talks commencing (see video link in the body of this post).

COP-14 “is taking place in the broader context of the current global financial crisis and impending recession, but we cannot allow this to detract from the fight against climate change,” de Boer says.

“We must now focus on the opportunities for 'green' growth that can put the global economy on to a stable, sustainable path. The need for real progress on tackling climate change has never been more urgent. The effects of climate change that science has identified are already weighing heavily on those most vulnerable, and those who await the financial and technological resources they need to deal with these impacts.”

Seeking Clarity

The UNFCCC has put out an advance agenda outlining the key issues and basis for negotiations in Poznan. Participants are expected to agree on a plan of action and programs of work for next year's final negotiations and make significant progress on ongoing issues necessary to further implementation of Kyoto Protocol requirements.

These include enhancing the capacity of developing countries to carry actions out; reduce emissions from deforestation—the REDD framework; improve technology transfer and adaptation; advance understanding and commonly held views for a new climate change regime; and strengthen commitments to the process and timeline.

Time is of the essence, de Boer emphasized in his video address. “We have little more than a year to agree on strengthening action on mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology.”

Participants are presented with the challenge off realizing three essential aims by next year's COP meeting in Copenhagen in order to “unleash ambitious, concerted action through a ratified, agreed outcome,” he continues: clarity on how to generate additional financial resources; clarity on an institutional framework for adaptation and mitigation; and clarity on the nature of commitments.

“Ministers will discuss their vision of long term cooperative action on climate change. They'll have the opportunity to give a strong signal as to a shared vision on the types of mechanisms, the financial mechanisms, and the institutional structure that are needed to deliver results,” de Boer said.

Concrete progress needs to be made on several key issues during the Poznan talks and in the run-up to next year's meeting in Copenhagen and the 2012 expiry of the Kyoto Protocol, particularly with regard to developing countries, according to de Boer. These include adaptation, financing, technology transfer and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Another major topic is improving the effectiveness of the Clean Development Mechanism and its geographical reach.

What will be required of developing countries when it comes to commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—even the definition of “developing countries”--are points that the US State Department's delegation intends to zoom in on during the climate talks, Dobriansky said during a panel discussion in Washington DC earlier this month.

And while the US administration agrees on the appropriateness and value of “differentiation” when it comes to the emissions reductions commitments in specific economic, industrial and other sectors individual countries are willing and able to commit to, the US believes that more attention needs to be paid to what outcomes should be common across all countries.

A third key issue the US State Dept. delegation intends to address is encouraging and enabling countries to establish national mitigation action plans in a way that is “measurable, reportable, and internationally verifiable.”

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Apologies for the delay in delivering this weekly wrap up! I am still recovering from my Tryptophan haze.
This was a big week in sustainable business news! Read on for the biggest stories:

Five Reasons You Should Consider Generating Your Own Green Energy While 3P’s own Ryan Mickle doesn’t much like the idea at least as compared with other solutions for combating climate change, there are some compelling reasons for going off the grid, not the least of which is turning on every light in the house and blasting Blondie when the power goes off on your block, just to stick it to your neighbors who refuse to compost.

Electric Car Network on the Fast Track in San Francisco San Francisco joins the fine company of Israel and Denmark as one of Better Place’s inaugural networks for electric cars. A couple of us from 3P were at a presentation by Better Place’s founder last week, and they’ve got it all figured out! Plug-in parking spaces at home, work, and shopping centers, battery exchange stations, and the cars are pretty cute to boot. I’m working on getting Nick to buy us one, for business use *only* of course. Click on lots of pages, people!

LA wants a Seat at the Green Team Table LA has no shortage of sunshine, and Mayor Villaraigosa made a commitment last week to put it to better use than tanning aspiring actresses: he committed the city to reaching 10% solar by 2020. That is a fine, fine commitment, Mayor! Keep it up and we’ll work on getting you a fancy electric car network too.

Can Wind Farms Change the Weather? Ecogeek has given me another reason for eco-panic insomnia. This gives the butterfly effect a whole new meaning (with one turn of the windmill...). Luckily it looks like the windfarm would have to stretch from Texas to Canada to have an impact. That doesn’t mean this isn’t fodder for another eco thriller B movie.

Walmart Goes Big with Two Newspopping Stories
First they pledge to buy 226 million kilowatt-hours of renewable power each year from a wind farm that’s set to be up and running by April 2009 (avoiding the production of a staggering 139,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually).
Then CEO Lee Scott, champion of the superpower’s green initiatives, resigns. Will this mean the end of the green happy face?

Corn Based Plastic Sales Skyrocket Sales have jumped 450% in the most recent period recorded. Now you know where to put that money you yanked out of the stock market. Just don’t forget to compost your bio-plastics! (Otherwise they offgas methane in the landfill and contribute to global warming.) Just call me the eco-Debbie Downer.

A Cap and Trade Thanksgiving This is a great piece about the compromises inherent in any 100 mile meal undertaking. I love me some carbon humor.3P had its own share of Thanksgiving coverage: sustainable turkey farming and food economics in a fuel based economy.

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Much as LEED™ has transformed the building industry, the people behind the STAR Community Index hope to transform the way local governments set priorities and implement policies and practices to make their cities more sustainable.

The STAR Community Index isn’t the first to try and rank or rate the greenness of cities. SustainLane for example has already put out three rankings on the sustainability of cities, including creating a network for government officials to exchange best practices.

However, as SustainLane’s methodology has sometimes been criticized, The STAR Community Index is taking a slightly different approach. GreenBiz writes, “The Star Community Index is the only thus far that intends to use the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design as a working model for development.”

According to its website, The STAR Community Index is a national, consensus-based framework for gauging the sustainability and livability of U.S. communities. STAR will be launched by 2010, and is currently being developed through a partnership between ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and the Center for American Progress (CAP).

Program Director Lynne Barker said, during a briefing at the USGBC's Greenbuild conference, "We want to create a common agenda through a national process."

As Jetson Green writes, some of the aims of STAR are to offer a globally recognized green standard system for local governments, increase accountability in data and actions, create a roadmap to track and achieve environmental goals, enable peer-to-peer learning among communities, and engage public support and participation.

Taking a page out of the LEED rubric, STAR is soliciting community, volunteer participation to establish the framework of indicators and metrics by which cities will be rated. The volunteer based technical committees will focus on:

* Natural Systems (ecosystems, habitat, water, storm water, air quality, and resource conservation)

* Planning & Design (land use, transportation and mobility, and parks, open space and recreation)

* Energy & Climate (energy, emissions, renewable energy, and green building)

* Economic Development (clean technologies, green jobs, local commerce, tourism, and local food)

* Employment and Workforce Training (green job training, workforce wages, and youth skills)

* Education, Arts, and Community (education excellence, arts, civic engagement, and social equity)

* Children, Health, and Safety (community health, access to health care, and public safety)

* Affordability and Human Dignity (affordable, workforce housing, poverty, and human services).

The people behind STAR say it will become the definitive means by which local governments measure and “certify” their achievements.

Readers: What do you think are the most important elements, listed above or what was left out, to help make a city more sustainable?

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As you read this, someone close to you may be cleaning, stuffing, or slicing a turkey. Over 45 million turkeys were purchased for Thanksgiving out of the 265 million raised this year alone. The vast majority of these birds were grown on industrial farms. Perhaps your bird is organic, free range, or locally grown, but odds are you won’t be dining on a heritage turkey this holiday. You may be surprised to learn just how much healthier these birds are, how crucial they are for the future of our food system, and why its hard for this niche to turn a profit.

Heritage turkeys - birds with genetic lines that predate the engineering that defines the current poultry market - are bred and raised in a traditional, humane, and sustainable manner. To meet the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy standard, they must mate naturally, live productively outdoors, and grow slowly in order to develop strong bodies. In contrast, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, 99% of American turkeys are Broad Breasted Whites. These turkeys are the product of the 1960’s shift to industrial farming and have been bred to grow the maximum quantity of white meat. Such genetic selection is inhumane, dangerous to human health, and ultimately not commercially viable.

A recent study on chickens led by Bill Muir, a Purdue University animal sciences professor, was the first to analyze the genetic diversity of a complete agricultural commodity. The study concludes that “commercial birds are missing more than half of the genetic diversity native to the species, possibly leaving them vulnerable to new diseases and raising questions about their long-term sustainability.”

Similarly, by the late nineties, only three corporate breeders supplied the entire turkey market worldwide. Canadian poultry geneticist Roy Crawford calls the genetic base for international poultry “extremely narrow” and “vulnerable to genetic disease.”

Frank Reese, a renowned fourth generation turkey farmer, explains that even farmers selling locally grown poultry buy from the same breeders as industrial growers. Mr. Reese runs the Good Sheppard Turkey Ranch in Kansas, where his birds have genetic lines traceable to the late 1800s.

Mr. Reese explains that his biggest obstacle is infrastructure. As his turkeys became the focus of national attention and began to sell across state lines, he needed to work with federally certified plants.

Every aspect of the mass production system is designed around a single product, the Broad Breasted Whites. From transport to processing machinery, the heritage turkey faces costly obstacles. The linear mass production system is highly centralized, most turkeys are grown in just three states, and not adaptable to diversity. Furthermore, industrial infrastructure allows costs to be externalized, leaving taxpayers to cover expenses from subsidies to environmental damage.

The cost differential between a Butterball and a heritage bird is the infrastructure gap. “To reestablish the infrastructure,” Mr. Reese allowed, “it will take major players who care about the animals, family farmers, and the environment.”

Yet, recent fluctuations in the price of grain challenge the industrial model and raise questions about how turkeys will be fed. Unlike heritage birds, the industrial turkey market depends on cheap corn.

At the same time, the success of Proposition 2 in California evidences the power of consumer awareness even in times of economic hardship.

Through the development of the nonprofit Standard-Bred Poultry Institute, Mr. Reese will train farmers interested in preserving the genetic pool of heritage breeds. The institute works closely with Farm Forward, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing sustainable agriculture. Thanks to Farm Forward, and numerous supporting organizations, Good Sheppard Turkey Ranch is thriving and advancing methods of poultry farming necessary for a healthy food system.

Be thankful for the foresight of family farmers and check back soon for more on Farm Forward. Happy Turkey Day.

Want more Thanksgiving Coverage? An Efficient Thanksgiving Day Turkey

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The free-range turkey we bought for this year's Thanksgiving was ordered through a local organic and natural foods store. And it was about three times the cost of the conventional turkeys they were selling at the mega-supermarket.

But our turkey was raised naturally, without genetically-modified feed grown with synthetic, nutrient-depleting fertilizers. The feed wasn't covered in pesticide residue either. There was also minimal processing, minimal storage, and transportation was less than 30 miles.

From farm to table, this turkey represents the workings of a sustainable and efficient food system. A system that, unfortunately, is not more widely utilized and accepted.

Most of the food we produce today is done so in an unsustainable way. And I'm not just talking about environmentally unsustainable. I'm talking about bottom-line sustainability. For instance, when energy prices shoot back up (and you better believe they will once we get a respite from this economic downturn), more and more agricultural operations will be forced to pass those higher energy prices onto you...the consumer. Just like we saw this past summer.

You see, an enormous amount of fossil fuel is required in industrial farming. And not just for transportation and fueling machinery either. In fact, the biggest chunk of fossil fuel usage in industrial farming actually comes from chemicals.

That's right, as much as 40 percent of energy consumed in the food system can be traced back to artificial fertilizers and pesticides. Most industrial fertilizers today are synthesized from nitrogen and natural gas.

The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that it takes an average of 5.5 gallons of fossil fuel per acre. And the USDA has stated that reducing repetitive fertilizer application on the 250 million acres of major U.S. cropland would save about $1 billion worth of petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides per year.

Of course, transporting all our food is energy-intensive too.

Most industrial farming utilizes economies of scale to gain a competitive advantage. And that means that today, most of our food is grown in concentration-specific areas. However, as we just saw six months ago, when oil prices skyrocketed, that competitive advantage began to deteriorate. This is a trend that will only continue to get worse. And don't let the current price of oil fool you. That price is heading right back up once the dust of today's recession settles. And when it does, once again the cost to transport all that food from one centralized area will soar. This is a big country, folks. And it ain't cheap to move tomatoes grown in California's San Joaquin valley to Baltimore.

Point is, we've become very accustomed to having unlimited access to cheap, and abundant fossil fuel resources. But those days are coming to an end. And just like we must transition our transportation infrastructure to accommodate an eventual shortfall in gasoline and diesel, we must transition the way we grow, process and move our food. This means embracing agricultural systems that don't use synthetic fertilizers and costly pesticides. This means moving away from the centralized industrial farms and supporting