Tag: UNFCCC

Next Sunday, October 10, the day after the close of the Tianjin conference, the world will take action – over 5,000 actions, to be precise, in more than 165 countries around the globe.

The 10/10/10 Global Work Day organized by 350.org and many others will highlight the public appetite for action that has only grown stronger since Copenhagen.            

And herein lies one of the great ironies of our time.  Public support for action on climate change is mounting in every country, and yet at exactly the same time, the climate negotiations are increasingly coloured by calls for lowering expectations and questions about the credibility of the multilateral process.

There is a climate crisis, and there is a crisis of confidence in the international process. Both require urgent action. Following the stalemate of Copenhagen, this week’s meeting and the Cancun COP are critical.

Let’s not fool ourselves – a failure to
deliver now will land the UN process in a royal mess. Failure to deliver tangible
results in Cancun could well see a repeat of the WTO experience . . . meeting after
irrelevant meeting.

The Kyoto Protocol is the first needed and legally binding response. A second commitment period for the KP is one essential building block toward a fair, ambitious and binding (FAB) deal that needs to be finalized at COP 17 in South Africa.

We hear a lot in the KP discussions about the importance of ‘the other track’. ECO has no doubt on this point: only by showing good faith in the KP can Annex B parties secure progress in the LCA. They must stop stalling and commit at Cancun to the second commitment period of the KP.  It is crucial to the world’s effort to limit climate change.

Trust-building is essential.  And make no mistake, developed country leadership is central to that. The current pledges by Annex B parties and existing loopholes put us on a path that far overshoots the threshold for dangerous climate change. But all countries must show their commitment to the UN process by showing political will and flexible positions.

We must learn the lessons of Copenhagen and move beyond ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’.  Reverting to the pre-Copenhagen grab bag of text is a recipe for recreating the Copenhagen stalemate.

To make real progress in Cancun, it is imperative to seek convergence and reduce the wide range of options in the text to workable proportions. That will allow for political decisions to be made at Cancun, where Parties must agree a clear mandate for a full fair, ambitious and binding deal to be concluded in South Africa.  It is no exaggeration: the credibility of this process and the fate of future generations are both at stake.

What are substantive examples of tangible progress?  Here is a starter kit to help go further and faster.

In the area of adaptation, the insurance mechanism can be put on track; a committee can start working with the most vulnerable countries on an insurance mechanism, and regional adaptation centers can be set up.

In the area of deforestation, the level of ambition should be quantified.

On finance, the governance of the new fund with a strong relationship with the Convention can be agreed, as well as the sources and scale of funding.

On mitigation, pledges should be formalized, and in doing so, the gigatonne gap needs to be recognized, and a process launched to deal with the gap.

On technology, a work programme can be agreed that empowers the committee to deliver specific technology action programs on solar concentrated power, building efficiency, and many others.

Finally, to fulfill the mandate contained in the Bali Action Plan, a decision on the next commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is needed. This decision should include clarity on the legal outcome to be delivered in South Africa.

This week, ECO again suggests, Parties should make offers, not demands.  The purpose here in Tianjin is not to force fouls, but to use teamwork to create a safe climate. 

Dear negotiators, we have said this before: you are the only team we have that can save the planet.

With Cancun looming, a push is coming to get much of LULUCF finalised here in Tianjin.  ECO cannot stress enough: it is more important than ever to get strong rules for forest management accounting. Proposals in the form of projected baselines for forest management that allow countries to increase anthropogenic emissions into the future without accounting them need to be rejected.

Avid readers will recall that ECO has been calling for emissions from forest management to be measured compared to what happened in the past -- just like all other sectors – and not to uncertain futures determined by Parties. In the current text, the proposal put forward by Tuvalu is the only one that attempts to incorporate this principle, and time must be found on the agenda in Tianjin to discuss this. A methodological review, while helpful in ensuring transparency, will not bring hidden emissions back into the accounts.

Meanwhile, with so much focus on this now familiar issue, we must not lose sight of the other ways in which Parties are attempting to use accounting for their lands and forests to fiddle the system. While negotiators have been knocking heads on rules that may determine whether forest management accounting becomes mandatory (and so it must), what of the fate of the other land use activities? It remains an open question as to whether Parties will still be allowed to elect for cropland or grazing land management, or revegetation.

Additionally, crucial environmental safeguards should be maintained in accounting for natural disturbances so that when the storms come or wildfires rage, these aren’t put forward as yet another excuse for not
accounting for man-made emissions.

We are often told that LULUCF accounting with environmental integrity, while technically achievable, is not politically realistic. Dealing with dangerous climate change will be a much greater political problem than good LULUCF rules could ever be. 

And locking in loopholes in the climate accounting is the last thing that should be on negotiators’ minds.