Tag: Gigatonne Gap

Yesterday’s second mitigation workshop put the spotlight on developing country actions. ECO was intrigued that developed countries didn’t use the opportunity to get payback for being grilled the day before on their pledges. This may have been, ECO speculates, because many developed countries are quite aware that their own pledges are pathetically below the 25-40% range, and full of loopholes. It may also be that developed countries have to admit that several of the developing countries, even if they haven’t yet pulled out all the stops, are much closer to their fair share of the global effort than their developed country friends. ECO would welcome such recognition but must insist that the gaping gigatonne gap is there because of a lack of ambition on many sides.

ECO was pleased by greater clarity by South Africa and India on the level of finance needed to implement developing country pledges. This may have helped remind developed countries that, as part of their fair share of the global mitigation effort, they need to support (through finance, technology and capacity building) ambitious mitigation actions by developing countries.

In order to ensure environmental integrity, ECO agrees with several developed country Parties that greater clarity on the assumptions behind business-as-usual baselines would help to bridge the trust deficit between countries. It would also go a long way to building trust to have a process under the UNFCCC to assess overall developed and developing country contributions to our global mitigation goals. ECO supports the Mexican notion that international guidance for establishing such baselines may be a next step to take en route to Durban. The suggestion to convert the long lists of NAMAs into information on expected economy wide emission levels would also be useful, with special treatment for LDCs and SIDS due to their particular circumstances.

Now that the two workshops are over, ECO expects Parties to feed the reports of both workshops into the LCA and KP negotiations. We support the Brazilian proposal that these workshops should have a connection to negotiations around ambition and finance. On the design of upcoming workshops ECO invites Parties to make future presentations more focused on the actual questions that need answers, e.g. assumptions behind pledges or baselines or crystal clear explanations on emissions accounting. This would enable better use of time and allow concrete conclusions to guide negotiations. Workshops could also benefit from more detailed presentations from experts and stakeholders, as well as their inclusion in ensuing discussions.

Next, ECO strongly suggests developed country Parties make submissions before Bonn on their assumptions on LULUCF accounting, AAU banking and access to international credits.

Developing countries should make submissions on the assumptions behind their BAU projections, including information on key factors such as energy use and prices, economic development, population, etc. ECO suggests that the secretariat paper focus on these assumptions.

Workshops in Bonn should then cover potential policy measures developed countries could undertake to go beyond current inadequate pledges and common guidelines for methodologies and assumptions underpinning the definition of BAUs – to get a better understanding of the combined effort of all Parties.

Yet, if it were not already crystal clear, there is one key message that ECO believes the workshops made obvious: Parties urgently need to address the gigatonne gap, and soon. And hey, why not start here in Bangkok, in order to produce substantial progress by Durban.

Economies are stressed and lending rates are high. Here at COP 16 it is the negotiators who are stressed and their blood pressures run high as they struggle to close the gaping wound that is the Gigatonne Gap. But fortunately, there are doctors in the house, and their climate checkup tells us about the benefits of addressing our emissions addictions.
We would all agree that exercise is beneficial to health. The changes in transport policy and the decrease in sedentism required to meet our GHG emissions targets can save lives, says leading medical journal The 
Lancet.  
For example, heart artery disease can fall by 20%, breast cancer by 12% and even dementia by 8%.  And rates of respiratory disease (such as asthma) fall as pollution levels decline -- a benefit also seen where clean cooking technologies replace  primitive stoves in developing regions. Rates of heart illness fall, as do those of osteoporosis (bone thinning), diabetes, obesity and depression.   Appropriate trimming of animal meat and fat consumption also reduces heart disease rates by 15%, and would reduce rates of bowel cancer. The Lancet showed that such gains applied worldwide, including the UK, India, and China.
With a healthier, more productive workforce, output will improve and healthcare costs will fall.  These data should encourage the EU, for one, to stretch for more ambition, and aim for at least a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Upping the target from 20% will save an additional 30 billion Euros each year in healthcare costs -- nearly two-thirds of the annual 46 billion Euro cost of such a change estimated by the European Commission. Put another way, as much as two-thirds of mitigation costs might be offset by healthcare savings.
And here’s an example closer to our temporary home here in Cancun.  Even a 10% fall in small particle pollution in Mexico City would save US $760 million a year.
On Thursday, a meeting in the US Pavilion emphasised the dire human health impact of climate change. Human suffering is the loose change paying the price of climate change. Ambitious mitigation targets can prevent that, and save lives and money as well. Let’s take the prescription, show ambition, and heal that Gigatonne Gap. And make nations healthier, happier and richer while we are at it.
Monday 6 December will be “Health Day” in Cancun. Watch for a statement for delegates supported by leading global medical and health groups.

Delegates, in case you haven’t noticed, there is an elephant roaming the halls of the Moon Palace, and it weighs something like 9 gigatonnes.  
As reaffirmed by UNEP in its new Emissions Gap Report, the climate pledges made in Copenhagen fall far short of what is needed to limit global temperature rise to less than 2 ^oC, and even further below a 1.5 ^oC limit which is needed to minimize the inundation of low-lying nations and coastal areas, the loss of coral reefs and the permanent disappearance of summer Arctic sea ice.  But instead of starting to bring the elephant down to size, Parties seem determined to fatten it up even further.
According to the UNEP, the gap between where the Copenhagen Accord pledges are now and where they should be in 2020 could be bigger than the combined emissions of China and Russia. At best, the gap ‘only’ equals all cars, trucks and buses in the world, or the combined emissions of the 27 EU member states.
The UNEP report identifies specific actions Parties can take here in Cancun to help close the Gigatonne Gap.  But their actions so far suggest they won’t admit to seeing the elephant and that the future of the planet is at stake.  For example, while strict LULUCF accounting rules would close the gap considerably, Parties are on the verge of cementing rules that will make the problem much worse.
The list goes on. The EU is promoting an 8-year commitment period, freezing the current low level of ambition in place for the remainder of this decade.  Russia and Ukraine insist on flooding the next commitment period with hot air from the first. The Umbrella countries have trouble acknowledging that there is any gap at all.  It should be obvious that just implementing their Copenhagen pledges won’t do the trick.
In the coming days ECO expects countries to act on the UNEP report. First, they need to drop the proposed accounting rules and loopholes that will 
expand rather than close the Gigatonne Gap.  
In addition, while grappling with proposals to anchor the Copenhagen pledges in the UNFCCC, they should also fully acknowledge the existence of the gap and commit to a timely process to close it as rapidly as possible – before the elephant stampedes across the planet.

As we eagerly anticipate the release of an actual LCA mitigation text, ECO is confident that it is realistic to expect substantial progress here in Cancun.
The new text will need to tackle some very controversial issues. One of the biggest debates currently underway is the inscription of emission pledges by parties. Not only does the magnitude of the pledges determine of the size of the Gigatonne Gap, the question of where they are placed reaches right into the heart of these negotiations. Should pledges be placed in the KP, the LCA or both, or should there be an independent decision on these pledges and how to go about monitoring them?
It is isn’t surprising that a lot of time is being spent on discussing this structural issue, but the concerns need to be guided by the willingness to move forward.
No balanced climate package can be achieved without resolution on ambitious mitigation targets by developed countries within the text. The bottom line is that developed countries still need to agree an aggregate reduction target of more than 40% below 1990 levels by 2020, with emissions peaking in 2015. The Gigatonne Gap should still be acknowledged and measures to bridge this gap addressed within the text.
Meanwhile, developing countries must define their nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) that contribute to sustainable development, with technical support provided to help design and implement them.
Each country must agree to develop a low carbon climate-resilient development strategy – in the case of developed countries, a zero carbon approach, and in the case of developing countries, contingent on support with NAMAs providing the building blocks. These should be long term strategic plans to decarbonize a country’s economy by 2050.
Monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) and international consultation and Analysis (ICA) must be developed in a way that adheres to the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities, whilst ensuring environmental integrity. Agreeing MRV rules for developed countries under the Convention that are comparable to the Kyoto Protocol must be as important as ICA for developing countries.
Meaningful progress on all of these issues is eminently within reach in Cancun. A strong mitigation text is necessary as a first step to ensure progress on all other fronts. Let’s ensure this balanced package leads to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding deal in Durban next year.