Tag: Adaptation

The Adaptation Fund (AF) has entered into its fifth year of operation. A couple of weeks before this Bonn session, the Board of the Fund (AFB) at its 17th meeting made substantial decisions for further advancing the Fund´s provisions. In particular, these covered critical aspects such as the guidance for the consultative process, the consideration of most vulnerable communities, the establishment of complaints procedures and increased transparency regarding the technical review of project proposals. In the course of this week, the AFB had a chance to share information on its progress with interested Parties. The AFB can be congratulated for increasing its attention towards these issues and for learning from its own lessons.

This is important for the AF at its critical juncture of raising funds for meeting the adaptation needs of vulnerable countries and financing innovative projects that benefit the targeted areas. The prices for Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), which is the innovative and main funding source of the AF, have drastically decreased over the last months. Part of this is due to the lack of global ambition in mitigation. The EU, with its Emissions Trading Scheme, is one of the key demanders of the CERs. However, the current EU target of  20% reduction is not only well below the ambition indicated by the IPCC with regard to the 2°C limit, but also affects the prospect of the ETS as a functioning setter of price signals for emissions. (Of course, other developed countries lag behind in their mitigation ambition as well).

The direct access  approach of the AF is speeding up, with more and more developing countries managing the associated accreditation process, while sadly the funding gap is increasing, making it almost impossible for the AF to respond to all funding requests.

Few resources have been dedicated to the AF, despite its innovativeness and its progress. Sweden has contributed this year for a second time; Spain is the top contributor, with 45 million Euro. There are still too many developed countries who have not paid into it, some of them sitting on the Board. (And one could also imagine that some developing countries would support the AF in their own interest, e.g. as a learning tool.)

To address this issue, the Adaptation Fund Board has now set the target to raise US$100 million additional funds by the end of 2013. ECO encourages all developed countries to put additional money into the Fund. These contributions should enable the AF to keep pace with need until the Green Climate Fund becomes fully operational, due to increasing funding demands from developing countries.

Have a strong coffee, shake your head and rub your eyes. Saudi Arabia, the well-known guardian of fossil fuel interests, is planning a massive renewable energy scheme in its country. So says the news in the region and rumours from inside the Royal Family and their ministries. Apparently 52 Gigawatts (GW) of renewable power will come online by 2030, 130% of existing electricity generation capacity - most of it as concentrated solar power and the remainder as solar photovoltaics and wind. Reportedly, the government is looking for a quick start, with about three GW to be installed in 2013 and another four GW in 2014.

It all started about one year ago when Saudi Arabia announced a US $100 billion investment for solar power, which was followed shortly after by oil minister Al-Naimi declaring to the media "Saudi Arabia plans to generate solar electricity equalling the amount of its energy from crude exports”. Although the current plan does not come close to that ambition, it still represents a remarkable and substantive move. For comparison, in 2011, which was another renewable energy boom year, total newly installed renewable power worldwide was about 80 GW.

ECO is not naïve. We know that high oil prices on world markets of more than $100 per barrel are strong incentives for any oil exporter to save the crude domestically and reap the benefits of exports. Certainly one, if not the key, motivation for the Saudis presently.

But there is another logic. Saudi Arabia admits that using renewable energy makes much more sense than “abundant” fossil fuels. And expanding renewables substantially, for whatever reason, is good for our atmosphere and the climate. Each ton of CO2 saved through renewables is one ton saved permanently. Could we also imagine that some clever folks in Saudi Arabia assume that the desire for fossil fuels in the world economy will end some time before we physically run out of them? We should be reminded that OPEC’s call for increased oil prices in the early 80s met with this advice from the then oil minister Yamani of Saudi Arabia to his peers: “The stone age did not finish because mankind ran out of stones”. Is it now time to assume that the Saudis are seriously preparing to export solar and become a technological hub for solar industry manufacturing?

Before ECO applauds Saudi Arabia’s constructive contribution to climate change policy, ECO would like this renewable energy target officially confirmed in Riyadh and announced internationally. If this happens, ECO will rub its eyes again and be happy to publicly acknowledge a landslide in Saudi policy, especially when those with greater responsibility are shirking their pollution reduction obligations.

ECO is hopeful that countries will approach the Bonn intersessional with a renewed vigour for making real progress towards a fair, ambitious and globally binding deal that reflects the scientific, economic and humanitarian imperatives.

 Equity: All parties must make good faith efforts to understand each other's predicaments. The goal? Establish a commonly understood “equity corridor”, a channel of principles and approaches that could provide foundations towards more detailed, technical and difficult questions. Equity must explicitly and formally become integral to the ADP agenda.

 Mitigation: The work of the Kyoto Protocol track needs to be completed by the end of 2012 with a ratifiable outcome agreed in Doha. The QELROs inscribed in Qatar need to be as strong as possible, with Parties moving to at least the top ends of their pledges. The EU needs to make good on their long-dangled promise of a move to 30%. This move has to be solely through domestic action in order to meet their own target of reducing emissions by 95% by 2050. Another priority for Doha should be that the massive loopholes should be closed, including severely limiting AAU carry over and preventing double counting across the mechanisms and NAMAs.

 In LCA, non-KP developed countries need to define their QELROs, again with increased ambition and closed loopholes. Developing countries that have not come forward with NAMAs or pledges need to. ECO looks to countries like Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Thailand and particularly our COP host Qatar. Their combined efforts have significant potential to close a part of the gigatonne gap. All countries need to use the upcoming workshops to give absolute clarity on the assumptions behind their pledges.

 Review: Bonn needs to continue from the Durban decision by preparing decisions for Qatar on the first periodic review’s scope and other modalities, such as the body to responsible. It is crucial to reach agreement on these remaining items in order to guarantee a timely start in 2013 and for the review to advise the COP’s decision in 2014 and its action in 2015. The opportunity to reinforce science-based knowledge into the highly political UNFCCC negotiations should not be missed.

 International Transport: Discussions to address fast-rising emissions from international shipping and aviation are under way in the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), but have been deadlocked on certain issues. Parties can speed progress there through guidance in the UNFCCC on how to address CBDRRC, and in particular inviting them to direct revenue raised to the Green Climate Fund, in accordance with the principals of the Climate Convention.

 Finance: Fast Start Finance comes to an end in 2012. Unfortunately, it looks like rich countries are planning for Fast Finish Finance instead. For example, the EU's finance ministers meeting this Tuesday may only agree to "continue" climate finance post-2012. ECO knows that this could mean a drop in funding levels compared to the 3 years since Copenhagen. Parties must use this year's Work Programme on Long-term Finance to agree on a pathway and promising sources of public finance. At Doha, parties need to capitalise the Green Climate Fund, set the Board in place and finalise the GCF host.

 Flex Mex: In order to prevent repeating past mistakes, ECO would like to see strong environmental and social safeguards for the new market-based systems under LCA. In SBI, Parties have another chance to adopt a meaningful CDM appeals procedure that would empower all local and global stakeholders, including project-affected peoples and communities.

 Adaptation: On National Adaptation Plans, Parties have to move forward by scaling up financial support immediately to allow LDCs and others to carry out well-designed, participatory planning. These processes should also inform the ADP negotiations towards 2015. On loss and damage, ECO reminds Parties that in Qatar they need to advance items like the consideration of approaches, including an international loss and damage mechanism and climate risk insurance facility.

 MRV: There are two outstanding issues on MRV that the LCA must address. First, there is the need to agree on common accounting rules – without these there can be no robust IAR/ICA processes nor rigorous carbon markets. Second, ECO is disappointed that all references to NGO participation in the IAR and ICA processes were deleted and expects that there will be opportunities to input into these process as they occur.

 Legal: ECO would assume that parties have now agreed that what they are negotiating will be legally binding. It is time to move forward, building off the agreements from Durban, with substantive discussions. An immediate priority should be that a work plan is developed under the ADP with clear milestones for each year leading up to 2015. The work plan should also agree that at some stage there will be a legal group to sort out the outstanding legal issues.

 Capacity Building: There is a chasm between ambition established by the Marrakech Framework and reality today. Over the last 11 years, a small set of developing countries and blocs (BASIC, South Korea, Singapore, Mexico, Israel, etc.) have built their capacity on their own, not as a result of outside support. That still leaves around 140 developing countries lacking the capacity to tackle climate change, even in the near future. In Bonn, the Durban Forum on Capacity Building must scale up capacity development and delivery. LCA should maintain its dedicated sub-item for capacity building.

 Technology: The Technology group needs to focus on two key issues this time. First, ECO asks for more information to be made public regarding the Climate Technology Centre and Network, before the report is presented to the SBI. Second, an effective ADP workplan must address the unfinished LCA technology issues in order to send the right political messages for an effective Technology mechanism.

 Agriculture: ECO expects the agriculture discussion will focus on the goal of maintaining and sustainably increasing food security, particularly in developing countries, whilst putting strong focus on the agricultural sector's adaptation needs. These issues are urgent, as most of the rural poor in developing countries depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Negotiations must assist small-scale food producers and other vulnerable groups in becoming more climate change-resilient.