CAN's submission for how to proceed with the Long Term Finance (LTF) work programme agreed in Durban.
Preliminary responses for initial consultation
Our initial response to the questionnaire from the interim secretariat is based on the understanding that arrangements will be made by the GCF Board, including developing and operating accreditation processes in accordance with paragraph 16, section 7, "Observers", Chapter C "Rules of Procedure of the Board", of the GCF Governing Instrument.
We believe that the GCF will benefit from civil society participation/input in a number of ways including increasing transparency, effectiveness and credibility. Thus we invite the Board of the GCF, at its first meeting, to view these recommendations as the initial step in an inclusive, in-depth process for broad consultation and engagement on observer issues and we look forward to further opportunities in the near future to share additional and further developed views with the Board on these important issues.
Active observers according to the GCF Governing Instrument
· Active CSO board observers (1 North, 1 South)
· Active private sector board observers (1 North, 1 South)
Proposed structures for observers
· Alternate CSO board observers (1 North, 1 South)
· Alternate private sector board observers (1 North, 1 South)
· Advisory Committee (helps vet selections for CSO and private sector seats, and helps advise observers once they are nominated, including preparing pre-board meeting materials and consultations; 1 North, 1 South from each of the UNFCCC 9 constituencies = 18 people total)
· Third party facilitator for selection process
· Civil society liaison staff person in the GCF interim secretariat (supports observers)
Ministers – thank goodness you are here. Your delegations may have been burning some midnight oil in the last few days – but they have left the hard decisions for you! Here’s what your agenda for the next 4 days looks like:
1. Don’t just “Mind the Gap” – do something! Ministers, at Durban you must show that you live on the same planet as the rest of us and acknowledge that the current mitigation pathway puts us on track for over 4° C warming. You must explicitly acknowledge the 6 to 11 Gigatonne gap, agree to a 2012 work plan to close the gap by increasing developed country targets to at least 40% by 2020, and provide guidelines and timeframes for NAMAs to be registered and supported where required. The ambition work plan must include clear markers through 2012, including submissions, technical papers and a dedicated intersessional meeting, to ensure we don’t have another year of wishy washy workshops with outcomes.
2. Commit for the long term. Negotiators have made no progress at all in setting a peak year and a long term global goal for emissions. Ministers now should explicitly agree that each country contribute their fair share to the globally needed mitigation effort, leading to a peak by 2015 and a reduction of global emissions of at least 80% below 1990 by 2050.
3. Stop spinning wheels in the Review. Ministers need to ensure that the Review will be effective, and limiting the scope will help it get off the ground as an effective instrument. We must focus on the important things: reviewing the long-term goal and the overall progress towards achieving it. Leave the biannual reports under MRV to cover the inputs like the means of implementation.
4. High Time for legally binding. A 5 year long second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is an absolute necessity as it contains important architectural elements which are crucial to ensure that mitigation commitments are legally binding and have environmental integrity. Nobody believes that a temperature rise of 4° C might be OK. So now is the moment to act decisively. An LCA mandate to agree a comprehensive legally binding instrument can build on the KP. Parties need to go beyond their long stated positions and immediately kick off negotiations toward a comprehensive, fair, ambitious and binding agreement to be agreed no later than 2015.
6. KP is essential – but it must have integrity. When added together, loopholes in the KP could wipe out Annex I ambition for the second commitment period.
In LULUCF, hidden and unaccounted emissions could significantly undermine Annex I targets, and cause us to doubt your commitment. Ministers must therefore ensure emissions from forests and land use are accurately accounted and reject the options on the table with the lowest environmental integrity.
All of the parties to this relationship know that the hot air / carried over AAUs is a bad joke that threatens to sour our relationship. To keep it pure we need you to retire your surplus AAUs, or at least reduce them to 1%. Flexible mechanisms need clear rules and governance structures to avoid double counting of both emissions and finance, strengthen additionality testing and ensuring the standardization frenzy does not leave us with a highway for free-riders. Let’s start by keeping CCS and nuclear out of the CDM and let’s exclude coal power projects. Last but not least, we do indeed need stakeholder involvement in the CDM. Don’t back down, we are counting on you!
PS: CDM’s little brother JI has been up to a bunch of no-good stuff: hot air gussied up in new clothes (ERUs) is still hot air.
7. Fill the Fund. Operationalising the GCF in Durban is essential but not nearly enough – an empty fund is no good to anyone. We need initial capitalization of the GCF from developed country Parties in Durban. Reaching $100 billion per year by 2020 will require a commitment to scaled up finance from 2013 onward and clear progress on innovative approaches to generate finance. In Durban, parties should move forward on the establishment of mechanisms in the shipping and aviation sectors in a way that reduces emissions, generates finance, and ensures no burdens and costs on developing countries. Countries must also agree to a detailed one year work programme under the UNFCCC to consider a full range of innovative sources of public finance and report back to COP 18 with a proposal for action.
8. Gear Up and Deliver Technology. Technology is heading in the right direction, but speed is needed! Don’t be held back by other laggards. The Tech Mechanism could be operational by the end of COP 18.
9. Feel the Love for Transparency and Stakeholders. Your negotiators excised stakeholders’ right to participate from the IAR text and subject to heavy bracketing in ICA. But we know, Ministers, that you recognize the worth of engaging stakeholders to create a better process – rather than having us only campaign from the outside. Current text also falls short on common accounting rules for Annex I countries and clarification of pledges for all countries. Surely we’ve learned from the financial crisis! Robust reporting, such as Biennial Reviews and Biennial Update Report guidelines, including tables for reporting actions, and a common reporting format for finance must be agreed in Durban, so countries can complete their biennial reports in time for the first review. And where would this relationship between us and the planet, be without compliance for our commitments!
10. An ambitious adaptation package at the African COP. Good agreements on Loss and Damage and the Nairobi Work Programme have already been reached. Wrapping up the package will require agreement on a strong Adaptation Committee including active civil society observers and direct reporting to the COP (as well to the SBs when COP does not meet). Furthermore, guidelines for National Adaptation Plans for Least Developed Countries must be adopted, plus modalities on how other developing countries can take these up. The prioritisation for LDCs must of course not be undermined.
A strong role for local, affected communities and civil society in national planning processes, building on the principles agreed in the Cancun Adaptation Framework, is essential. Finally, Parties must ensure that the Adaptation Fund does not dry up because of decreasing CER prices and lack of new pledges to the Fund from developed countries.
As Parties start to feel the effects of lack of sleep here at the COP, they might want an afternoon nap. But ECO knows Parties won’t want to fall asleep on the job when it comes to crafting a decision on the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). Durban needs to deliver a decision that formalizes and elaborates this process and outlines the guidelines and modalities for LDCs and other developing countries to benefit from the process, clearly articulating the role, responsibility, and functions that the UNFCCC will offer, support, and facilitate. The process should entail such efforts as workshops, forums and expert meetings to facilitate south-south learning.
The specific form and format of national adaptation plans and strategies should be decided by each country, including whether to create a stand-alone plan or to incorporate adaptation needs and actions into existing strategic climate change or poverty alleviation and development plans. The global process should be non-prescriptive and enable country-driven, flexible, and iterative national-level planning and implementation. There are, however, a number of elements which are important when developing guidelines in order for NAPs to deliver on essential needs.
A decision on the National Adaptation Plans should include an elaboration of the guiding principles included in paragraph 12 of 1/CP.16 in order to support a country-driven, gender-sensitive, participatory and fully transparent approach that takes into account vulnerable groups, communities and ecosystems. These principles help ensure that the NAPs process and implementation will deliver assistance for the most vulnerable, for example through comprehensive vulnerability assessments to identify and prioritise the most vulnerable groups, communities and ecosystems. The process should also include robust consultations and participatory approaches to meaningfully capture the needs and concerns of most vulnerable communities. NAPs should integrate and reflect gender considerations, integrate and address ecosystems and their services, and facilitate synergies with other multilateral frameworks, such as the CBD, UNCCD and the Hyogo Framework for Action.
With regard to modalities, ECO believes a NAPs decision should enhance synergies and linkages among the different bodies involved, in particular the Least Developed Countries Expert Group, the Adaptation Committee and the Nairobi Work Programme, to enable the dissemination of knowledge, information and good practices. Modalities should include opportunities to build national, local and civil society
capacity.
It is important to get the technical modalities right, and it is vital not to hold this up. However, ECO would also like to remind developed country Parties that vulnerable countries and communities cannot adapt to the impacts of climate change (which they did not cause) empty-handed. They need to be able to trust in the will of developed countries to deliver funds for preparation and implementation of the NAPs. Potential channels for funding NAPs already exist through the LDCF (for planning and projects in LDCs), the Adaptation Fund (for projects) and potentially the Green Climate Fund - they just need to be filled up.
And a well-crafted NAPs decision will be rewarded with plenty of time for catching up on sleep.
There are nine days left before the members of the Transitional Committee (TC) tasked with the design of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) will gather in Cape Town, South Africa for their fourth and final meeting before the COP in Durban.
It is clear that discussions are in a critical phase. The outcome of the TC meeting will likely determine whether the GCF will become a major driver for change that allows developing countries to shift towards a sustainable, low-carbon and climate-resilient development pathway, or alternatively become just another business-as-usual instrument. Will the Fund initiate a shift in the global financial architecture towards increased ownership for those who face the harsh reality of climate change impacts and wish to harness the benefits from low-carbon development? Or will it be another body with difficult access procedures for developing countries and thus lag behind the urgency of response that is needed? Success is possible in Cape Town, but there is also a real risk of failure.
ECO would like to encourage all TC members to do their utmost to conclude a strong and ambitious GCF which gives the developing world the bold means necessary to address climate change. Concluding their task will not be the endpoint for the design of the Fund, but rather a starting point which will hopefully provide the framework from which the key pillar in the international fight against climate change will emerge. Thus, ECO urges the TC members to focus on finding common ground, seeking compromise and show that the GCF is a joint response by the global community to the urgent problem which we are facing with our backs against the wall. It will not be perfect from its inception, but has to be a solid foundation on which to build.
Importantly, the TC must ensure that the Fund is credible from its inception, and ECO would like to urge the TC members to ensure that the outcome of their discussions is one which civil society can continue to defend. We seek assurance that civil society will be given at least the same attention as the private sector in the procedures of the GCF – for example, through active observer seats on the board and strong in-country participation.
The GCF will be a key channel for adaptation finance, and many civil society organizations have long experience in addressing the needs of peoples most affected by climate change. We seek assurance that a balanced allocation between adaptation and mitigation will be achieved to correct the major global over allocation towards mitigation that exists. We seek assurance that the GCF will enable direct access to funds for developing countries, notwithstanding the fact that reliable fiduciary standards are an important part of direct access design.
We seek assurance that environmental, social and gender safeguards are consistently and effectively applied with a view to reducing the risk that GCF resources are harming the people they are intended to help. Finally, we seek assurance that the GCF will be a key driver of low-carbon, climate-resilient and gender-equitable development pathways thus providing developing countries the help they have long been promised to alleviate poverty and achieve their development goals. There is still a chance to come up with a great result in Cape Town, the world will be watching.
ECO is pleased to see that adaptation negotiators are getting busy with detailed discussions on the Adaptation Committee. Since this is the only adaptation issue currently on the LCA agenda here in Panama, we expect progress towards taking a decision in Durban, especially before negotiators start enjoying the train ride along the Panama Canal (Tourist advice of the day!). ECO would like to thank Parties for agreement to provide access to the informals and consequently was able to follow some of the discussions. ECO heard that all Parties seem to support getting the Adaptation Committee up and running in Durban, including a work programme for the first year. That is the right approach, and we hope that no one falls back into a “taking hostage” mood linking the committee to other negotiation issues.
ECO understands that there are some controversies about the link of the Adaptation Committee to the entities of the financial mechanism, in particular the Green Climate Fund. The Adaptation Committee could become a key institution, galvanizing and synthesizing knowledge and experience on different aspects around adaptation, and providing technical guidance on planning and implementation at programme and policy levels. Then existing and emerging institutions like the Green Climate Fund could build on their work, such as guidelines for funding, on the recommendations of the Adaptation Committee in order to ensure adherence to the adaptation framework, and take into consideration the growing adaptation sciences and emerging issues.
This however does not mean that the Committee should trespass into the core business of the GCF Board (or other institutions). A soft link will be a way to increase the overall coherence which is so demanded by everyone.
ECO suggests that negotiators review a recent study published by the Earth System Governance Project. It reviewed experience from multilateral institutions from a variety of areas with regard to participatory approaches and the inclusion of stakeholders in its governance structure.
Whilst ECO appreciates that there seems to be convergence towards allowing observers to attend the Adaptation Committee meetings, the lessons learned from this and other studies suggest that adding representatives from stakeholder constituencies to the governance structure of the Committee, either voting or non-voting, could add much needed expertise, insights and credibility to the work of the Adaptation Committee.
We surmise that this was also proposed by some Parties in the negotiations. There is no doubt that stakeholder constituencies would have to ensure appropriate representation from developing countries combined with adequate expertise. Now is the time to put the Adaptation Committee on the right track, to be ambitious and to converge as soon as possible.
Back in Bonn, Eco complained that the finance negotiations seemed more concerned with designing finance institutions than deciding where the long-term finance to fund them should come from. The result could be a Green Climate Fund that is an empty shell, and a Standing Committee that is left to stand still.
Paying a quick visit to yesterday’s finance informal, Eco was pleased to see a number of parties stress the need to readdress this balance. When Durban draws to a close, the world’s citizens will find it extraordinary if the African COP does not deliver the resources that poor and vulnerable people in Africa and elsewhere need to adapt to climate change and shift to a low-carbon development path.
A meaningful decision on long-term finance in Durban should cover at least three elements. First, a roadmap is needed for scaling-up climate finance from 2013 to 2020 to at least meet the $100 billion per year commitment by 2020. This should include a commitment from developed countries that there will be no gap after the end of the Fast Start Finance period. The roadmap should recognise that $100 billion is needed from public finance – mobilised first and foremost through assessed budgetary contributions of developed countries, and through supplementary sources of public finance, such as carbon pricing of international transport or financial transaction taxes.
Finally the roadmap should include a detailed workplan to drive towards the further decisions needed at COP-18, including technical workshops and submissions from parties, experts and observers.
But negotiators should not be satisfied with agreeing a roadmap alone. They must also get the finance car on the road and start driving down it.
The second key area to address in Durban is the initial capitalisation of the Green Climate Fund. Eco wants to be clear that an initial capitalisation should not merely cover the running costs of the Secretariat and Board of the new fund over the next year, but must extend commitment to a substantial first tranche of funding to enable the disbursement of climate finance to developing countries from 2013.
Finally, there should be a decision in Durban to move ahead with the most promising supplementary sources of public finance. Eco notes that the International Maritime Organisation is ready to get to work on designing an instrument to apply a universal carbon price to international shipping, which would both control high and rising emissions from the sector, and raise substantial new revenues. But the IMO process is waiting for guidance from the UNFCCC COP on how to do so while respecting CBDR.
There is no reason to delay giving that guidance to ensure the IMO gets down to work from March next year. A Durban decision should establish the principle that CBDR can be addressed by directing revenues as compensation to developing countries and to the Green Climate Fund. Further work will still be needed on the details of implementation, but better to start those discussions next year than wait another 12 months.
With progress on these elements in Panama, Eco is confident that Durban can yet deliver an balanced outcome on finance which helps both to operationalize the new finance institutions needed, and to mobilize the long-term revenues. The people watching the African COP will expect nothing less.
Parties, we have a problem!!!
Global CO2 emissions did a full swing after the recession, growing more than 5% in 2010, according to a report published last week by the Netherlands Environmental Protection Agency. The highest increase in the last two decades fuels the climate crisis. Without accounting for the land-use sector, global CO2 emissions reached 33 billion tonnes, a 45% increase since 1990. , driven mostly by a 7.6 % increase in coal consumption. This means the world now uses coal for a third of its energy demand – the highest share since 1970. Use of other fossil fuels soared too, with natural gas consumption increasing by 7% and oil consumption jumping by 3%. (This increase takes place mostly in the developing countries, in order to reach decent living standards.)
The report, which uses data from the Statistical Review of World Energy, shows that the growth of emissions was driven in part by economic growth in China and India, with 10% or 9% increases in 2010 respectively. While India’s per capita emissions remain fairly low, China’s 6.8 tonnes per head per year already overtake those of large historic and de-facto polluters such as France, Italy and Spain. This follows at least in part because of moving manufacturing industries into developing countries, the output of which are largely used by developed countries.
So, clearly all Parties, especially those bound by the existing commitments for emission reduction need to do their share in Durban to lay the foundation for a solution to the problem (hint, hint: KP 2nd commitment period, LCA mandate for legally binding instrument, close the gigatonne gap, operationalize the Green Climate Fund, develop the technology mechanism and a robust MRV framework). Inspiration can also be found in more and more countries - in particular in the developing world - working towards a shift to low carbon economies. While the upward spiral of emissions in China is concerning from a global point of view, the country managed to double its wind and solar capacity for the 6th year in a row. If the developed countries and other major emitters followed China’s lead and achieved similar renewable energy growth rates, along with a push for energy efficiency, the World’s prospects of staying below 1.5° C or 2°C would be much better than they are now.Parties, we have a problem!!!
Global CO2 emissions did a full swing after the recession, growing more than 5% in 2010, according to a report published last week by the Netherlands Environmental Protection Agency. The highest increase in the last two decades fuels the climate crisis. Without accounting for the land-use sector, global CO2 emissions reached 33 billion tonnes, a 45% increase since 1990. , driven mostly by a 7.6 % increase in coal consumption. This means the world now uses coal for a third of its energy demand – the highest share since 1970. Use of other fossil fuels soared too, with natural gas consumption increasing by 7% and oil consumption jumping by 3%. (This increase takes place mostly in the developing countries, in order to reach decent living standards.)
The report, which uses data from the Statistical Review of World Energy, shows that the growth of emissions was driven in part by economic growth in China and India, with 10% or 9% increases in 2010 respectively. While India’s per capita emissions remain fairly low, China’s 6.8 tonnes per head per year already overtake those of large historic and de-facto polluters such as France, Italy and Spain. This follows at least in part because of moving manufacturing industries into developing countries, the output of which are largely used by developed countries.
So, clearly all Parties, especially those bound by the existing commitments for emission reduction need to do their share in Durban to lay the foundation for a solution to the problem (hint, hint: KP 2nd commitment period, LCA mandate for legally binding instrument, close the gigatonne gap, operationalize the Green Climate Fund, develop the technology mechanism and a robust MRV framework). Inspiration can also be found in more and more countries - in particular in the developing world - working towards a shift to low carbon economies. While the upward spiral of emissions in China is concerning from a global point of view, the country managed to double its wind and solar capacity for the 6th year in a row. If the developed countries and other major emitters followed China’s lead and achieved similar renewable energy growth rates, along with a push for energy efficiency, the World’s prospects of staying below 1.5° C or 2°C would be much better than they are now.
The Leadership Development Program (LDP) is one of CAN’s cornerstone programs that aims to strengthen its national and regional nodes and build professional leadership within the network....
