Tag: ADP

UAE sets to impress

Submitted by rvoorhaar on November 29, 2012 - 12:55am

Yesterday the halls of COP 18 in Doha were abuzz because of an announcement by the UAE during the meeting of the ADP. The Gulf state announced concrete actions it would be taking in order to do its part in reducing climate change.

The UAE announced that they will open a 100 megawatt (MW) plant this year using Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), while also preparing for another 100 MW using Photovoltaics (PV).

This is exciting news considering that the UAE belongs to a set of countries that have not historically been responsible for comparatively large total emissions. The Arab world in specific is currently only responsible for a fraction of total world emissions and is still flagged as a developing country region.

The UAE has already been one of the more active countries in the region in renewable energy. In recent years it has shown a drive to improve its infrastructure in many regards and the energy generation sector is no exception.

The examples to this are numerous, such as increased solar energy (including a solar roofing pilot program), and wind energy generation adapted to the weather of the region. Several mass transit projects, such as the Dubai and Abu Dhabi metros, and the countrywide rail system, are underway. Following through in the transportation sector, several gas stations in the capital are involved in the initial phases of a drive to retrofit vehicles to use liquid petroleum gas.

ECO hopes this latest announcement in COP18 foreshadows much more to come. ECO remains cautions, however, since the UAE announced as well that it would be adopting nuclear energy and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) in order to reach its mitigation goals. CAN does not condone this last announcement and would strongly encourage the UAE to disregard this path and instead focus on their very promising renewable energy mix.

The UAE would do itself and he world a great favor by voluntarily pledging to commit to reducing climate pollution and by pledging its already existing mitigations actions. Such a gesture will cement the UAE's active stance on climate and hopefully encourage other countries to take similar pledges, and will push developed countries to take binding commitments.

This message has already being communicated to them by the Arab Youth Climate Movement (AYCM) and Greenpeace.

ECO remains hopeful that this move by the UAE can serve as a catalyst for change.

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COP18/CMP8 Doha Climate Conference

rvoorhaar's blog

ADPlease

Submitted by rvoorhaar on November 28, 2012 - 1:05am

What a difference a year makes? 2012 has been all about tying up the loose ends of the Durban package, which by the end of Doha should form a nice bow of an amended Kyoto, concluded LCA, and work plans for both ADP tracks. (And ECO won’t object if any Party would like to throw ambition into that mix!!) Today’s ADP roundtable will begin to flesh out what the work programme to reach a 2015 Protocol should cover. ECO has a few initial thoughts.

First, what to do about those remaining LCA issues? Many of these are clearly relevant to the 2015 discussion. Take equity for instance. ECO is overjoyed that the LCA chair’s text included a work programme on equitable access to sustainable development, as this provides a good platform for discussions on equity principles and indicators, a key element for successful ADP outcome in 2015. We’ve had one productive workshop on the subject, but there is much more to say about what EASD looks like exactly. What are the principles that should guide this issue? And what does that mean for IPR, trade matters, human rights and any number of other issues in practice? This is a crucial discussion and one that clearly must inform the work of the ADP. Equally important is the review of the long-term global temperature goal; after all, it is high time that Parties quantified what Article 2 actually means. A strong body is needed to conduct this review and its results must also inform the ADP.

The question of finance is omnipresent. In Doha, we need a COP decision covering all areas, including at least a doubling of fast-start financing for the 2013-2015 period. There will also need to be a political (not a technical) process on scaling up finance to the $100 billion per year level by 2020, as well as the sources for that finance. Clearly this work will inform all of the future discussions of the ADP. Finally, Parties will need to consider how all of the institutions created as part of the LCA at recent COPs fit and work together in the new agreement. For example, the linkages among the various bodies of the technology mechanism will determine how well it is able to respond to the needs of developing countries, and these linkage decisions clearly require political guidance. In short, there is a lot to discuss.

ECO cautions Parties, however, that 2013 cannot be just a talk shop. While a conceptual phase is needed to define an action plan with clear workplan and timelines, it must rapidly turn into very focused and in-depth discussions and negotiations. We have done this (almost) before! Submissions, workshops, technical papers, roundtables and continued high-level engagement are all needed, but ECO expects a compilation text of main elements by COP19. Whatever you may think of our deadlines, we assure you (along with the World Bank, IEA, IPCC and others) that there are clear planetary ones that humanity must absolutely respect – and those deadlines are already long past. There is no more time to waste.

While Parties will discuss workstream 1 today, ECO cannot help but say a few things about near-term ambition, because, well, we’re ambitious. Here the options are endless (and really just need to be implemented), from increasing developed country targets, to new pledges from our host and their neighbours, to strong signals to the Montreal Protocol on HFCs, or phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. It is high time that Parties agree the near-term ambition workstream will not be an endless talk shop and set out here in Doha a firm timetable of quantifiable actions.

Enjoy your discussions today, but we look forward to seeing it in writing soon.

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COP18/CMP8 Doha Climate Conference

rvoorhaar's blog

CAN Intervention in the COP18 ADP Opening Plenary, 27 November, 2012

Submitted by Sam Harris on November 27, 2012 - 2:25pm

ADP Opening Plenary Intervention

27 November, 2012

Given by, Rongtai (Marvin) Nala

Thank you Chair. My name is Rongtai Nala and I'm speaking on behalf of
Climate Action Network.

As a young climate activist, I am gravely concerned about the impact of
climate change on the planet. Recent severe weather events are warning us of
the dangerous 4 degree path we are on. The ADP has an opportunity to turn
this around. We must not squander it.

At Doha, an ADP work plan to increase short term ambition must be agreed,
informed by a technical paper assessing the g It must ensure that developed country 2020 emissions reduction targets increase to at least 40% below 1990 levels. In order that developing
countries can increase their mitigation ambition and deal with climate
impacts, public finance must be at least double Fast Start Finance with
$10-15bn in new public finance for the Green Climate Fund over 2013-2015.

An equitable approach to sharing the costs of mitigation and adaptation
amongst countries will be a truly essential part of a 2015 agreement.

And a clear workplan, with milestones and timeframes, will be essential for
the ADP to live up to its potential. There is no atmospheric nor political
space for failure.

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Climate Action Network

Related Event:

COP18/CMP8 Doha Climate Conference

DOHA CLIMATE TALKS: A BETTER WAY FORWARD

Submitted by Secretariat on November 5, 2012 - 7:41pm

In late November 2012, world governments will meet in Doha, Qatar, for the UN Climate Change Conference, to firm up the outcomes of the Durban conference held in 2011.

Christian Aid believes Doha gives governments a vital opportunity to advance global cooperation in confronting the challenge of climate change. It believes it is possible to achieve an ambitious outcome from the conference that will deliver on all the elements of the package agreed in Durban.

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COP18/CMP8 Doha Climate Conference

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Christian Aid

CAN Submission - How to advance the work of the ADP in Doha and Beyond. 29 October 2012

Submitted by Anonymous on October 29, 2012 - 10:01pm

CAN Submission - How to advance the work of the ADP in Doha and Beyond. 29 October 2012

Download the file - which contains full details on:

Practical ideas and suggestions on how the ADP can advance its work, both towards delivering an effective post-2020 agreement and bridging the ambition gap in the pre-2020 period

Produce a balanced package from every COP
Support ministerial round table
Ensure adequate negotiating time
Ensure that the ADP co-chairs and facilitators obtain clear mandates to begin work on text
Embrace multi-stakeholder process

How best to advance the work of the ADP in Doha and beyond

Set milestones and detailed workplans for both ADP workstreams
Take work from other negotiating tracks into account
Ensure Civil Society Access to ADP
Involve ministerial level negotiators early in the process
Incorporate equity into Workstream 1

Topics or questions that could be used to focus substantive discussions in Doha or in future sessions, building upon the roundtable discussions in Bangkok

How to increase the pledged levels of ambition for Parties, including through enhanced support, to be in compliance with the ultimate objective of the Convention and the agreed 2ºC temperature increase limit
How can we ensure that sufficient, predictable and public finance and other support is provided to meet urgent pre-2020 adaptation needs?
How to ensure that predictable levels of financial, technological and capacity building support are made available to developing countries to implement the NAMAs they have already identified, and further support any additional NAMAs in the short term?

Equity questions:

How should equity principles be applied in the new agreement?
What indicators best specify those principles?
How can we best ensure each Party is doing is its fair share of the global effort without compromising its sustainable development needs?
How will we provide developing countries with the means to implement their commitments and how will we cooperatively ensure that the global emissions reach a rapid and sustainable peak, one consistent with an agreed temperature goal and cumulative emission reduction pathways that would allow the world to stay within that goal?

Practical Ideas and Suggestions on how the ADP can advance its work on bridging the ambition gap in the pre-2020 period

At Doha an ADP workplan to increase short term ambition must be agreed:

Informed by a technical paper assessing the gap in ambition and ways to close it and by the progress of the Review; increasing developed country economy wide targets to close the gap between existing ambition and that needed to keep warming below 1.5^oC; ensuring that any new market mechanisms add to overall ambition with stringent rules; facilitating developing countries to reduce their emissions by rapidly scaling-up public climate finance, focusing on economy-wide or sector-wide actions that would rapidly and significantly lower emission trajectories and supporting initiatives that reduce costs and eliminate barriers and perceived risk, so that low and zero carbon technologies and approaches can quickly become competitive;
To enable developing countries to increase their mitigation and adequately deal with adaptation public finance from 2013-15 must be at least double the amount of the Fast Start Finance, and there should be a process to reassess the adequacy of financial pledges in terms of overall scale required, thematic balance and geographical distribution starting in 2013. A 2 year Doha Capacity Action Plan should be initiated.

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Equity/effort-sharing

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Climate Action Network

CAN Positions

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COP18/CMP8 Doha Climate Conference

CAN Intervention on International Transport - LCA Sectoral approaches spinoff group, Bangkok Sept 4, 2012

Submitted by Secretariat on September 5, 2012 - 1:40am

Intervention_LCA_sect_approaches_final.pdf

Delivered by Mark Lutes

Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I am from WWF and speak here on behalf of the Climate Action Network.

We are seeing a rich and wide-ranging discussion in many areas here in Bangkok, in particular a very interesting discussion in the ADP round tables, with many thoughtful and creative interventions about the shape of long-term efforts to address climate change;

Would be good for some of that same spirit to filter through into this group on the way to Doha, and to see some new thinking on how to break out of the same pattern of the past 10 years. I’m sure many of you are tired of saying the same things year after year. - What we need from the LCA this year under sectoral approaches is some way to break the deadlock and polarization that currently exists in the IMO and ICAO on market based measures;

How to do this – a signal to these bodies, or to parties to these bodies (to use a potentially useful wording from Japan), on how to address convention principals in the context of their own established approaches and customary practices.

Singapore provided a useful compromise – take account of the principals and provisions of the UNFCCC in the context of global measures under the IMO and ICAO, but it would be useful to go beyond this and say how this might be done.

One way would be through the use of revenue generated by MBMs, that can be used to address any impacts on developing countries, to support technology transfer and cooperation and transfer for developing countries, especially the most vulnerable, in implementing these measures, and also to provide financing for developing countries, while making sure that only financing raised from developed countries counts towards the commitments of those countries.

We are pleased to see the EU submission introduces the issue of finance, and perhaps these two text can be combined in a way that gives appropriate guidance on how to address CBDR, in global measures under the sectoral bodies.

Doha is the last chance to produce some useful outcomes from your five years of deliberations, and we urge you not to waste that opportunity.

Thank you

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Organization:

Climate Action Network

Related Event:

Bangkok Climate Change Conference 2012

Where There's a Gap, There's a Way

Submitted by Secretariat on September 2, 2012 - 8:28pm

ECO was pleasantly surprised by the tenor of interventions at the ADP roundtable on ambition Saturday. There was widespread acknowledgement that, as things currently stand, we are not on track for limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels. Many Parties lamented the lack of pre-2020 ambition, with one bright spark noting that failure to take decisive action in the short term has ominous implications for the post-2020 process.

In the words of one delegation “there is a serious gap”. This echoes what scientists have been telling us for some time now. In its “Bridging the Emissions Gap” report published at the end of 2011, UNEP undertook a systematic assessment of the size of what we should by rights be calling the Multi-Gigatonne Gap, concluding that it is in the range of 6-11 Gt.

So even under the most conservative assessment, which assumes perfect implementation of countries’ current pledges, the world is on a pathway to emit 50 gigatonnes of CO₂-equivalent per year by 2020, instead of the needed 44 gigatonnes or less. This analysis is backed up by a whole host of studies, so it seems the science is pretty solid. We think the sheer scale of the gap should have countries setting up Emergency Emissions Reductions Crisis Centres (ECO would abbreviate them EEKKs! if it were in charge).

One reason for optimism is that as huge as the Multi-Gigatonne Gap is, UNEP estimates that emission reductions of between 14 to 20 Gt of CO₂-equivalent are possible by 2020 and without any significant technical or financial breakthroughs needed. What is more, the costs incurred by these reductions would not be prohibitive. That sounds like a win-win situation to us.

So what exactly can countries do to stave off impending global meltdown (unfortunately, we are not talking figuratively here)? As it turns out, there’s rather a large menu of options to choose from. Many actions could be implemented with immediate effect, using existing frameworks outside the UNFCCC. The phase out of HFCs is an excellent case in point. Agreeing to a consumption and production phase-out of these super greenhouse gases under the Montreal Protocol, with cost-effective alternatives made available to developing countries, would avoid a whopping 88-140 gigatonnes/CO₂e emissions by 2050 at a very reasonable price – the near-term emissions savings would also be sizeable. This approach was recently endorsed by the nations of the world at the Rio+20 Conference – all it would take now is for Parties to the UNFCCC to do the same, thereby freeing themselves up to tackle other challenges.

Other, equally crucial initiatives countries should undertake include addressing international emissions from aviation and shipping, which together account for a massive 5% of global CO₂ emissions, abolishing fossil fuel subsidies and closing the huge loopholes in the current commitments (did you know that up to 13 billion surplus AAUs could make their way into the Kyoto Protocol’s next commitment period?) to name but a non-exhaustive few.

With such a long shopping list of potential measures to chose from, there really is no excuse for inaction.

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Bangkok Climate Change Conference 2012

Secretariat's blog

Angels and Demons?

Submitted by Secretariat on August 29, 2012 - 8:36pm

ANGELS and DEMONS?

Welcome again to the Krung Thep, the city of angels. ECO hopes that this location will inspire delegates to put aside their devilish disagreements and instead move forward in a spirit of angelic cooperation in the fight against climate change and its deadly impacts. The recent flooding in Manila, the typhoon coming ashore near Shanghai and widespread drought and crop failures in the U.S.A. are stark reminders that the impacts of climate change are real, global and growing.

The large majority of countries, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, are demanding a global response that has a very high probability of limiting global warming to levels that do not threaten their livelihoods and their very existence. The best available science indicates that this will require global emissions to remain within a strict carbon budget – and a collective and rapid transition to a low carbon global economy. It requires both an ambitious post-2020 treaty regime and much greater ambition between now and 2020 – the two-track approach agreed in Durban.

Success in the negotiations towards a fair, ambitious and legally binding deal by 2015 depends on bridging one of the fundamental divides in these talks. On the one side, we have those countries that want a scientifically responsive and responsible, rules-based system. On the other side, there are those that don’t want too many questions asked about their failure to act. (Of course, at least one of these countries doesn’t put it exactly this way, and calls for a more “flexible” approach.)

To meet the global climate challenge, the new ADP architecture for the post 2020 period must be viable for the long term, with a negotiated renewal of targets and actions every five years. It must also be dynamic, with respective changes in responsibility and capability fairly reflected in each renewal of the framework. It must further ensure that countries are accountable for doing what they agreed to do in both mitigation and in providing and effectively utilising support, with common accounting rules and a common, but differentiated, MRV system to allow transparent reporting of progress and to spotlight freeloaders. ECO notes that these are exactly the design elements that so many have fought hard to uphold in the Kyoto Protocol.

Against this fair, ambitious and legally binding deal are just a few countries. For these countries, fairness is finger pointing, ambition is for others and legally binding is too much of a bind. If their lack of political will causes the world to blow past the 2 degrees Celsius target that their leaders have endorsed, well, that’s just too bad.

So what do negotiators at Bangkok need to work towards to receive their halos? At COP18 in Doha, the world needs to see:

· A Doha amendment for a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol applying immediately to a range of developed countries, including Australia and New Zealand; this should include targets within the range of 25-40% below 1990 levels, with an adjustment procedure to increase ambition, and should enhance environmental integrity by minimizing carried over AAUs and improving CDM and JI rules to lead to real emission reductions.

· Non-Kyoto developed countries adopting stringent QEROs, comparable in effort and transparency with Kyoto Parties. ‘Comparability’ requires common accounting!

· Developing countries registering their mitigation actions and required support, and all developing countries to make pledges – including Qatar.

· Agreement that global emissions will peak in 2015, which means that developed countries need to reduce their emissions much more quickly, and provide support for developing countries to take more mitigation action.

· Agreement on a detailed work plan for the ADP, both on the 2015 legally binding agreement and on ways to substantially raise pre-2020 ambition.

· Commitment to at least $10-15 billion in new public finance for the Green Climate Fund over 2013-2015, together with meaningful steps to develop innovative sources of public financing and agree on a process to reassess the adequacy of financial pledges with the first reassessment in 2013.

· Funding modalities for National Adaptation Plans in order to scale-up work immediately, and establishment of a second phase of the work program for loss & damage.

· The rapid operationalisation of the GCF, the Standing Committee, the NAMA registry, the Adaptation Committee, the Technology Executive Committee and the Climate Technology Centre and Network.

Laying the foundations for these successes in Doha means that this will be a busy week in Bangkok! As we all know, the devil is in the details. So, where better to get started than in the city of angels?

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foundation for success

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Adaptation

Equity/effort-sharing

Finance

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Bangkok Climate Change Conference 2012

Secretariat's blog

Ludwig

Submitted by MBrockley on May 25, 2012 - 5:00am

Roaming the corridors late on Thursday night, Ludwig heard rumours of agreement on the ADP agenda. Did he really hear right? After two weeks, can it really be that they've agreed on a footnote of an agenda, after being assured that the agenda is neutral and that the footnote doesn't mean anything?

Wow! Probably the most carbon-intensive footnote Ludwig has ever seen.

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agenda

ADP

agenda fight

Related Event:

Bonn Climate Change Conference 2012