Tag: Workplan

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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Anonymous's blog

Plan (and then DO) the work: Don’t bicker over the agenda

Submitted by Anonymous on April 4, 2011 - 10:17pm

ECO has been impressed with the quality of both the presentations and Q&A sessions in the workshops over the past two days, and hopes parties will keep focused on content in the coming days. Alas, we hear, parties are gearing up for a multiple day discussion about the agenda over the next three days, rather than developing a robust work programme for all of 2011. ECO has been around the block enough times to know that parties are very good at talking about what to talk about. So we will insist on a prompt 6pm finish today, with adopted agendas, for both the LCA and KP. To help ensure parties adhere to this deadline and turn up on Wednesday ready to work, ECO has put together its own LCA agenda (see page 3) as well as some thoughts on what is to be agreed by the end of this week.

The provisional Agenda is missing some key elements (namely a mitigation negotiating space, consideration of innovative sources of finance, international transport and compliance for developed countries). Parties need to fill those gaps, and then agree to a work plan to fill the real gaps in ambition and financial support by the end of 2011!

Cancun was a modest success as it buried the ghost of Copenhagen. However, the Cancun Agreements postponed important issues that underpin the success, or otherwise, of efforts to fight catastrophic climate change. In 2011 ECO expects parties to be up and ready to BOTH implement the Agreements AND fill in the gaps (gigatonne, finance and others) that remain! You must be able to run and chew gum at the same time. Even ECO can do it (and ECO isn’t the most coordinated).

By the end of the week, ECO expects a detailed work programme for 2011 that will deliver on both. This work programme must include elements like:

The number of sessions this year;
What issues will be dealt with and when;
Number, timing and content of technical workshops;
Invitations for submissions from Parties and observers;
Technical papers, etc.

Of course, the specific requirements will vary according to the agenda item. By way of example, ECO expects parties to produce MRV rules by Durban that, will drastically increase the length of the Cancun Agreements! So the work plan needs to enable informed discussions and the negotiation on such rules.

With so much to discuss and plan out, there is no time to waste bickering about the agenda. Progress can and must be made in technical forums on these issues this year, while retaining strong linkage and political oversight by the overall LCA negotiations and making progress on the remaining crunch issues.

If parties implement and operationalize all of the agreements made in Cancun (including, and improving, the Kyoto Protocol), we can build a robust regime. However, good architecture alone will not produce the level of ambition needed. Concrete steps need to be made in 2011 to close the gigatonne and finance gaps in order to avoid dangerous and devastating climate change.

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