Tag: long term

CAN Intervention - Long Term Finance Consultations - May 17, 2012

Submitted by MBrockley on May 17, 2012 - 11:01am

LTF_Work_Programme_Intervention_-_May_17.pdf

Distinguished delegates,

My name is Mahlet Eyassu, Forum for Environment, Ethiopia and I will speak on behalf of the Climate Action Network.At a time when the impacts of climate change are increasingly severe, progress on long-term finance must be more ambitious and cannot be delayed any longer.Since the commitment to mobilize $100 billion in climate finance by 2020 was made in 2009 we’ve seen little progress towards it. Even more worrying is the fact that there is currently no certainty on how much climate finance will be delivered after the Fast Start Finance period ends this year.

The long-term finance work programme provides a critical opportunity for focused and constructive engagement on mobilizing and scaling up climate finance that must not be wasted. It is vital the Work Programme contributes to decisions at COP 18 that:

1. Identify and advance promising sources of finance, especially public sources, such as providing guidance to the IMO and ICAO on generating financing from measures to address emissions from international shipping and aviation; as well as public finance liberated in developed countries through the elimination of their fossil fuel subsidies.

2. Provide a roadmap for agreeing to specific pathways for mobilising $100 billion by 2020 - including maximization of public sources, an appropriate role for the private sector and trajectory for scaling up.

3. Establish a shared understanding of developing country financing needs – based on a review of recent literature on mitigation and adaptation financing requirements; and

4. Explicitly commit to providing scaled up financing from 2013 onwards, including for the capitalization of the Green Climate Fund.

In addition to constructive engagement on these areas through the work programme, parties must also be afforded sufficient contact group time in Bonn, Bangkok and Doha to negotiate vital decisions for agreement at COP 18. In this respect it is imperative the Work Programme is seen as a compliment to, rather than a substitute for, the formal negotiations.

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Organization:

Climate Action Network

UNFCCC

Related Event:

Bonn Climate Change Conference 2012

Related Member Organization:

Forum for Environment - Ethiopia (FfE)

Getting Shared Vision Out of Deadlock

Submitted by Anonymous on October 6, 2011 - 9:42am

As delegates flock into Panama’s final meeting on Shared Vision, ECO has few hopes that the world will be much closer by the end of this week to agreeing on a peak year and a long term reduction goal for global emissions. But delegates need to remember that their heads of state have already laid out a common vision: keeping global temperature below 2°C! The science is clear – meeting this goal requires dramatically scaling up the current collective level of ambition. The best lawyers in the world can’t negotiate with the atmosphere!

In addition, ECO agrees with many Parties that focusing on the numbers without any notion of equity in achieving them will fail to deliver emission pathways that will allow the world to stay below 2°C, let alone, 1.5°C.

ECO proposes the following step-wise approach to achieving a shared vision in Durban:

Step 1: Parties agree to collectively aim for an emissions pathway that not only keeps us below 2°C, but also keeps the possibility of limiting warming to 1.5°C within reach. Parties agree to peak global emissions by 2015 and cut them by 80% by 2050.

Step 2: Parties commit to launch a process to look at countries’ “fair shares” to get the world onto the desired emissions pathway, based on the following principles of the UNFCCC: historical responsibility for past and present emissions, capability for reducing such emissions, and the right to sustainable development.

Step 3:Parties agree to inject the outputs of this exercise into the negotiations over a comprehensive legally binding long-term climate regime (see Monday’s ECO for more on the mandate for these negotiations).

While much work will be required after Durban to turn this vision into reality, setting the goal is the first step on the road to collective survival. Make it so!

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Anonymous's blog

CAN Intervention on Long Term Finance, Informal, 2 October 2011

Submitted by Anonymous on October 3, 2011 - 2:46pm

Intervention_on_LT_Finance.pdf

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Organization:

Climate Action Network

Kyoto

UNFCCC

Related Event:

Panama 2011

Reassessing priorities on long-term finance

Submitted by Anonymous on October 3, 2011 - 9:09am

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.

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Standing Committee on Finance