All posts by COA Students

Posted:
December 4, 2011
Author:
COA Students

Graham’s Intervention to the SBI:

Yesterday, Graham Reeder gave an intervention during a plenary of the Subsidiary Body for implementation.  Earth in Brackets plans to post videos of Graham’s and Julian’s interventions, so look out.

 

Thank you chair,
My name is Graham and I am here with College of the Atlantic to speak on behalf of the youth
constituency.

We appreciate the work we have seen to ensure solid outcomes and progress on key issues, but the
ambition on the part of developed countries has not been high enough and has not reflected the amount
of work that all parties have contributed in the last week. Here are some key areas of concern for youth:

———————

On finance, we call for better transparency within the GEF to make information and decisions relating to
amounts and flows of funds easily available. We want fewer obstacles to access of funding in order to
meet the urgent needs of developing countries, Least Developed Countries in particular.

The GEF must address the adaptation gap. We are concerned to see that 3.3 billion dollars have been
given to mitigation projects, and a mere 370 million for adaptation! We cannot wait for the green climate
fund: adaptation needs funding now. We call for an increase of activities under Article 6; the GEF must
ensure funding goes to systematic observations in developing countries,

——————–

We call for fair, equitable, and balanced solutions for the following three topics so that the Technology
Mechanism can become fully operationalized by no later than next year.

Funding for the CTCN must come from an equitable and transparent source with adequate safeguards in
place. Technology Needs Assessments must be accompanied by adequate training and support for
countries that will receive them. And equal attention must be paid to mitigation and adaptation within the
pilot projects under the Poznan strategic programme.
———————-
You have finished the review of Capacity Building but your work is not over. Negotiations so far have not
reflected the fun, passion, motivation and transformative power of Capacity Building that we feel every
day.
Young people are experts on Capacity Building and want to be recognised for our work. We ask that you
explicitly mention youth as experts and practitioners and include stakeholder inputs in reports and reviews.
——————–
Parties have done good work on adaptation. We urge you to accept the AOSIS proposal for language
changes on an international mechanism, the research is there, and youth do not have time to wait for
developed countries to be vague and slow on this matter. We wish to stress that NAPs cannot afford to
suffer from the same dismal implementation strategies as the NAPA process that LDCs are still waiting to
see on the ground, that strong guidance from the Adaptation Committee will be crucial to the success of
NAPs, and that adequate and accessible interim financing will be key as we wait for the development of
the GCF.

——————

We thank the chair for his hard work; he clearly understands the urgency of these issues and noted that
his own parents had lost their home in last year’s floods in Queensland. We urge those developed
country parties who have been slower to compromise and come forward with adequate financing to step
up to the plate and stop bracketing text on urgent issues. Remember that you need us, none of your
implementation strategies will work without the support and engagement of the world’s youth and we will
not stand for flimsy promises and stalled progress.

Finally, We have learned that several UNFCCC Secretariat staff working to liaise with observer
organisations will have to be laid off, with only two colleagues remaining. If governments are sincere
about meaningful participation of observers, then you MUST fulfill your financial pledges and provide ALL
the resources that the Secretariat needs as quickly as possible.

Posted:
December 3, 2011
Author:
COA Students

No One Can Play Poker Like The US

by Joe Perullo

There was a special Open-ended informal consultation on Wednesday organized by the president of the COP to discuss the possible Durban outcome.  There’s no definition on what the outcome is right now, but it will for sure address the concerns arising from the potential elimination of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.  The US was second or third on the initial speakers list, but strategically told the president that it was having “technical difficulties” and wouldn’t be ready to talk until later…

Indonesia took the floor, stressing the need for the conclusion of the Bali Action Plan (adaptation). Kenya and almost all others wanted a second commitment period to be part of the Durban package. Colombia and Cape Verde recognized the insufficiency of the KP (in both quantity of emission reductions required and implementation) and requested full operationalization of the Green Climate Fund, while The Bahamas mentioned how the amount of money in the Adaptation fund is insufficient.

Norway jumped on board with the developing countries stating its “faith in the facilitators.” This reveals the Scandinavian nation’s concerns over transparency in the process. Norway is a developed but non-essential player who wouldn’t be part of any side discussion by, say, the US, China, and India. With fears of being “left out of the room,” Norway called for the president and facilitators to keep the process opened for all the parties.

New Zealand stressed operationalization of the Cancun Agreements, which include the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Climate Technology Centre (CTC).

After all of these concerns of a Durban outcome were expressed, the US was finally ready to take the floor.  It played a wild card: instead of addressing the stated issues, the US ranted on how the AWG-LCA needed to be completed, meaning it should not be given any more time to address the five pillars of the Bali Road Map (shared vision, mitigation, adaptation, technology development and transfer, and finance). At the moment, LCA has barely finished developing policies for these, and has completely avoided mitigation.

Had the US said this in the beginning when it was supposed to, the other delegates would have focused their talks around keeping the LCA alive.  Soon after, the meeting was over and the US could slip out without having to defend itself from a torrent opposition.

Posted:
December 3, 2011
Author:
COA Students

Possible outcomes from Durban

by Samuli Sinisalo

After one week of negotiations, what are some of the possible outcomes we can expect from Durban?

The negotiations run on the two tracks: Kyoto Protocol and the Long term Cooperative Action.

From the Kyoto track, there are at least four possible outcomes:
1) No second commitment period is signed and Kyoto Protocol is buried and forgotten
2) Negotiations for second commitment period are extended by another year
3) The Kyoto Protocol is continued selectively with a political declaration
4) The Kyoto Protocol gets a second commitment period

From the Long Term Cooperative Action track I can think of at least five possible outcomes:
1) No agreement – the Bali Action Plan is buried and forgotten
2) The Bali Action Plan is concluded with a political declaration of emission reductions
3) The Bali Action Plan is not concluded, but extended for another year
4) The Bali Action Plan is rewritten into a new Durban negotiation mandate
5) The Bali Action plan is concluded by signing a new and ambitious legally binding instrument

The options above are listed in order apparent success. Number ones are the clear failures, which are hard to be spinned into successes by anyone.

Number two on both lists are the political declarations. This would be simply repeating the failure of Copenhagen. The political approach of pledge and review has been out there for two years now, and it can be seen that it is not the solution to the mitigation of climate change, nor to the adaptation. Especially under Kyoto Protocol it would be better to continue negotiations than to lock into low level of ambition and compromise the legally binding status of the Protocol.

Option 3 on KP track and options 3 and 4 on the LCA track all result in the continuation of negotiations. As I said, for KP it’s better to continue negotiating that to settle for a bad outcome. Under LCA, the negotiation mandate from Bali has already been extended twice. As long as real progress is made, extending it for another year might not be a bad idea. But renegotiating the negotiation mandate, turning the ambitious, comprehensive and equitable Bali Action Plan into a watered down Durban Mandate is not a good idea. The planet and the developing world only have things to lose if the Bali Action Plan is redefined.

The optimum outcome, the only real and unquestionable success from Durban would be the signing of the second commitment period under KP, and the non-KP Annex 1 Parties committing to comparable cuts under the LCA.

Whatever the combination of these two negotiating tracks is, we will see in about a week. The media, all over the world, is likely to call it a success. With this breakdown of the negotiations, you can analyze yourself what kind of success it really was. Unfortunately the negotiations are likely to go for the lowest common denominator and result in the least ambitious combination possible that can be spinned as success in the eyes of media and public. For the time being, Durban Disaster seems to be the most likely outcome from COP17.

Posted:
December 3, 2011
Author:
COA Students

Agriculture, Aviation, and Article 4.1.(c): a report-back from Sector Specific Approaches

by Trudi Zundel

Yesterday Parties met for the first time to talk about cooperative sectoral approaches and sector-specific actions under the Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action. Sectoral approaches are simply work programmes that are specific to different sectors, like agriculture, aviation, or waste managment, for example.

These sector-specific actions are supposed to “enhance the implementation of Article 4. 1(c) of the Convention,” which details the commitments of countries that are members of the UNFCCC. It basically says, in so many words, that countries need to develop and implement practices that “control, reduce, or prevent” greenhouse gas emissions from their sectors.

This is an important area of the negotiations (if you could find an area that wasn’t important). Here, countries are supposed to design programmes to deal with reducing emissions across the whole economy, although to date the only programmes being developed are under agriculture and bunker fuels. For context, this is where the negotiations on whether or not there will be a work programme on agriculture under mitigation.

For years countries have been trying to put together a framework for work programmes, but negotiations have only resulted in an ever-growing document that lays out the different versions that countries would like to see, in separate “options.” Now they are trying to combine those options into one text that can be negotiated, and the key disagreements are coming to a head.

There are three main parts to the framework currently: the general framework, which explains the principles and values that the specific programmes should comply by; an agricultural work programme, which is one of the main Durban priorities for South Africa and the African Union; and a work programme on bunker fuels, which would reduce emissions from air and marine transport–something that would seriously affect trade.

What does it matter what the framework looks like? Several developed countries are questioning the need for any general framework at all–the US, Australia, and New Zealand think that, since each sector is unique, no framework could be relevant to all of them and that it’s better to leave out a framework and only  include considerations that are relevant in each specific sector’s programme. However, the principles expressed in the general framework are important because they will determine how much developing countries have to do. The UNFCCC convention contains the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, which essentially means that developed countries have more commitments than developing countries because they have more resources and of historical responsibility (which are  two of the reasons why only developed countries are legally bound to reduce their emissions under the Kyoto Protocol). Developing countries are determined to have that aspect of the Convention expressed in the general framework, otherwise they may be bound to commitments they cannot uphold… leaving out the general framework seems like a ploy to sneak around the parts of the Convention that they don’t like, though: if developed countries aren’t willing to explicitly state common but differentiated responsibilities in the general framework, it’s unlikely that they’ll be excited to state it in specific sectoral programmes.

Developing countries want to have more than just common but differentiated responsibilities included– some of the options include paragraphs on ensuring that programmes don’t affect food security, contribute to reducing poverty, and don’t negatively affect trade.

A lot of countries said that they were committed to having an agricultural work programme come out of Durban. However, Argentina was also very clear that there would be no agricultural work programme without a general framework; developing countries in general, including Brazil, India, and China, are holding fast that there needs to be a general framework before agreeing to details on sectoral programmes.

What does all of this mean, going into the second week? A new draft of the LCA text, which still isn’t a draft negotiating document, came out this morning.

1. The new LCA text includes common but differentiated responsibilities in the general framework… The text hasn’t been negotiated yet, though, so who knows what will happen.

2. It’s likely that the LCA will request the Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technological Advice to develop a work programme on agriculture as part of the Durban outcome–both developing and developed countries have said that that is one of their goals, and the request is included in the newest LCA note.  NGOs are fighting hard against this, as the work programme on agriculture is under an Article that deals with mitigation, will almost certainly result in soil carbon markets. The World Bank is throwing its entire weight behind developing it, and is chomping at the bit for the go-ahead from the UNFCCC that would legitimize it.

3. There might be some language about bunker fuels, but the text is still convoluted with different options. For that we’ll have to wait and see.

4. Either way, for better or for worse, it looks like sectoral approaches, which have been under consideration for so many years, will be reflected in the final Durban outcome.

 

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