Tag: loopholes

Looking at the new reports being posted on the UNFCCC website, ECO feels some empathy for the reviewers tasked with ‘judging’ the forest management reference levels.

Since there was no agreement on the rules for reference levels, each Party has had to do its own thing.  And the results look as disjointed as a talent show.  Some sang, while others danced.  Some lifted impressive weights, while others performed magic tricks.  Maybe some have shown real talent, but how can we judge the quality of their performance when we have no basis for comparison?

Perhaps Parties should take note of another multilateral, global process – the Olympic Games.  In those Games, the rules are clear in advance, and thus the judges are able to score each performance on a set of common criteria – and those who don’t play by the jointly agreed rules, are disqualified.  

It would have made the “judges” – the expert reviewers – job easier if Parties had agreed to a single method for setting reference levels back in Cancun.  And of course, if that method had environmental integrity, the climate would be the ultimate victor.   That didn’t happen in Cancun, and now Panama may be the last chance for Parties to recognize that such global reference levels are in the interest of all of our “national circumstances”.  ECO says: “Go for the gold!” 

ECO is pleased that parties finally managed to agree on agendas last week. (Imagine how much quicker it could have been if agenda discussions were held transparently in plenary, as opposed to shenanigans occurring behind closed doors). This week Parties must make up for lost time – and convince everyone that another intersessional would be productive.  After all, there is much work to be done between now and December so that Durban can successfully lay the basis for a fair, ambitious, and binding global climate change regime.

Essential to Durban’s success is securing a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.  Intrinsically linked is the binding outcome under the LCA, where Parties now need to discuss the substantive issues. Our ultimate objective must be a legally binding architecture, which is fair and ambitious.

Last week, the list of issues under shared vision began to resemble a bag of assorted cookies.  ECO suggests focusing on the agreed global goal with peak year, and only including issues essential for these discussions – such as effort sharing.  Agreement of a mid-term goal of -80% by 2050 and a 2015 peak year for emissions must be the aim.

On mitigation, some issues may look technical but are in reality political. This week ECO suggests focusing on the following three areas required to address the gigatonne gap: (i) clarifying assumptions; (ii) closing loopholes; and (iii) preparing to move beyond the high end of the current pledges by Durban. ECO assumes parties remain serious in their commitment to 1.5/2°C – you are aren’t you?

This week also offers opportunities for LULUCF.  The re-analysis of this issue as a significant loophole in the mitigation workshops could allow Annex I land and forests to contribute to genuine emissions reductions.  And technical discussions on force majeure provisions for forests could genuinely reflect extraordinary circumstances.  Or, if Annex I parties are up to their usual tricks, could this be yet another way to avoid accounting for emissions?

Parties should also take the opportunity to draft a CDM appeals procedure to grant affected communities and peoples access to justice.  And this week parties should move closer to  a  decision

to address climate forcing HFC in cooperation with the Montreal Protocol and exclude all new HCHC-22 facilities from the CDM.

The two groups on REDD+ (in the LCA and in SBSTA) got off to a good start last week. In this second week, ECO anticipates significant progress on both reference levels and information on safeguards, hopefully followed by expert meetings prior to Durban.

Adaptation negotiators should press ahead on substance to make the Cancún Adaptation Framework operational in Durban.  Parties should strengthen the role of the Adaptation Committee to promote coherence in adaptation, and to ensure meaningful stakeholder participation in its operations.  Furthermore, this week must see parties launch the activities of the work programme on loss and damage.

With the end of the fast start finance period only one year after Durban and no indication of how rapidly public finance will be scaled up from the $10 billion per year currently committed, parties need to start discussions here in Bonn on effort sharing, scaling up finance, and on new innovative public sources such as raising finance from international transport.  For this to happen, the US and its Umbrella Group allies need to stop blocking the discussion of sources and scale of long-term finance.

ECO has two requests for technology negotiators over the next week. First, fill up the nominations of the Technology Executive Committee. Secondly, decide on the terms of reference and likely locations of the Climate Technology Centre and Networks to maintain balance of adaptation and mitigation technology.

Among other issues that should be addressed, Parties need to deal with technical issues. ECO is waiting eagerly for some technical workshops and expert meetings. In the coming months, technical experts should make progress on technical issues such as biennial reports, reporting on support, IAR/ICA, REDD safeguards, etc.  These discussions must feed into the negotiating process.

Given the uncertainty over whether another intersessional will take place, the next five days will determine whether Parties will be able to secure an effective and balanced outcome of COP 17 in Durban. Parties should make the best use of this time and ensure both political and technical issues get addressed.

Ministers, would you like a glowing ECO article with your name on it?  
As you delve into the unresolved issues with the KP, the first thing you need to know is that the main proposal for LULUCF doesn’t ensure a robust, environmentally sound approach to forest management accounting.  While sorting this out may seem daunting when you are presented with the complex draft text, we can help make your mission very clear: close the Logging Loopholes!  And if you do, ECO will put your decision in lights and say your country did something really great to truly reduce emissions.
To get a sense of the problem, consider that the proposed reference levels for forest management, tucked away in an innocuous looking annex, would allow an increase in annual emissions of 451 Mt relative to the historical average (1990-2008). That’s a lot of tonnes!  
Surely a half-gigatonne divergence from recent trends is a red flag. The Copenhagen pledges are for emissions decreases, and yet the LULUCF reference levels go up. Up versus down, hmmm.  That means Annex I Parties now assume their own logging increases while asking other countries to reduce their emissions from deforestation. The forest sector should not be excluded, so how about actually building ambition right into the 
LULUCF rules.
So one huge step is to close the loophole of the projected reference level approach, which will only make climate change worse.  
And there are lots of ideas floating around the Moon Palace on how to do this.  Some of them already appear as options in the draft text: use a historical baseline (Tuvalu); combine historical and projected baselines (Africa Group); fix the rules and policy cut-off dates for reference level setting; revert to the current rules for the first commitment period.  Most of these options can be judged against their ability to shrink the loophole.
ECO stresses that LULUCF accounting must be mandatory, and not only for forest management, but for all sectors (to the extent it’s technically feasible).  For example, emissions from draining and rewetting wetlands are considerable, and they should be counted.
But it’s also important that mandatory accounting not come at the price of deeply flawed rules. The objective of this process wasn’t just to produce new LULUCF rules, but rather to produce better ones.
Another large loophole in the draft LULUCF text is the provision to allow Annex I Parties to exclude from the accounting books emissions from wildfires, infestations, extreme weather events, and the like.  This is known as force majeure, a legal term that means these emissions ‘could not have reasonably been foreseen by the Party’. Some Parties are trying to exploit this provision to exclude all emissions from natural disturbances, a recipe for diminished accountability and lost mitigation potential.  
Normal variations in natural disturbances and even increasing trends as a result of climate change can both be reasonably foreseen.  This means the force majeure text must involve a threshold below which emissions are not excluded.
Ministers, we’re facing a daunting gap between emissions reductions on the table and what science says is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. It’s time to get serious and tackle emission reductions wherever we can. Start by closing the logging loopholes, and headlines galore will follow.