Eco Digital Blog

Working in a coalition of roughly 500 organizations from nearly 80 countries can be tough.  With so many different points of view and unique perspectives and expertise, coming to agreement on something as complex as solving climate change can be difficult to say the least.  But then again, isn't that what we're asking over 180 countries to do next month in Copenhagen?

Well, I'm happy to say that at least as far as the Climate Action Network - International (CAN) is concerned, we've done our job and it's in the form of CAN's "Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal." In this document just released today ahead of the upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen, we, as the world's largest network of organizations fighting for solutions to the climate crisis, share our collective views on the key elements of a successful climate agreement.  Now it's up to the leaders around the world to do their part in Copenhagen.

This vision has not come easily, but in the effort it has taken comes its strength.  We have brought together within CAN some of the most dedicated and expert analysts and advocates in world to come together around the key essentials for a successful outcome from the United Nations climate negotiations.  While some specifics may still be debated by even our own members in CAN, this document serves as the collective voice of what is needed from our leaders in Copenhagen and beyond.  And it's a powerful vision coming from hundreds of experts around the globe.

The thing that's amazing is that-while we've been as ambitious as we believe is necessary to address this challenge and as true to the science as we possibly can be - we know that what we've laid out is achievable.

Some highlights of what we're calling for include:

• A commitment to keep warming well below 2°C, with emission peaking between 2013 and 2017, and concentrations lowering to 350ppm CO2e.
• Industrialized countries as a group must take a target of more than 40% below 1990 levels by 2020.  Most of which should be met through domestic emissions reductions.
• Developing countries must be supported in their efforts to limit the growth of their industrial emissions, making substantial reductions below business-as-usual.  The support for their efforts to adapt to the adverse effects of
  climate change must also be scaled-up immediately and substantially,
  and the fact that certain loss and damage from climate change can not
  be avoided must be recognized.
• Emissions from deforestation and degradation must be reduced to zero by 2020, funded by at least US$35 billion per year from developed countries.
• Developed countries need to provide at least US$195 billion in public financing per year by 2020, in addition to ODA commitments, for developing country actions.
• Copenhagen outcomes must be legally binding and enforceable: a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol; and a complementary agreement with comparable action and enforcement for the United States, and action from developing countries.

When leaders come to Copenhagen next month, CAN's "FAB Essentials" will be our yardstick for measuring our leaders' success in their steps along the path towards climate stabilization and a sustainable world.  We know that what we've put forward is ambitious, but what's more important is that the elements found within CAN's FAB Essentials are both essential and achievable.

For more information on the Climate Action Network and "Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal," please visit our website.  An official press release can also be found here.  And finally, as the conference in December moves along, be sure to stay tuned at our blog for updates on how the nations of the world are doing in meeting the FAB Essentials.

Originally posted on Grist.org on 16 November

Waking up on a dreary Sunday morning this weekend in Copenhagen (where I've recently moved to prepare for the upcoming climate talks in December), I was met with a barrage of headlines, mostly from U.S. media, telling me that Copenhagen is doomed to total failure and I might as well head off to Mexico City where next year's summit will be held. The New York Times cried out: World Leaders Agree to Delay a Deal on Climate Change. The Washington Post bellowed: Copenhagen talks unlikely to yield climate accord, leaders told. Not the best way to start a Sunday morning.

Is Copenhagen really over before it begins? Had I moved to this dark, rainy (but beautiful!) city for no reason? Should we all just pack it up and hope that political declarations will solve it all?

The answer, thankfully, quickly became a resounding "no." As Grist's own David Roberts is often the first to point out, the mainstream media clearly got it wrong. There's still hope -- a lot of it, at that.

Let's start with those headlines. Who are these "world leaders" who agreed to delay? Well, the plural may be accurate, but just barely.

In the 48 hours since initial reports, as Ministers and other government representatives have trickled into Copenhagen for the "pre-COP" preparatory meeting, it's become clear that while the media reported that all 19 APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) leaders were in agreement on the so-called "one agreement, two steps" approach, that's not at all the case.

The real story occurred at a hastily arranged APEC breakfast. Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen made a last-minute visit and surprised the room with a speech that was only vetted by a few of the so-called "leaders." One can only imagine a room full of bleary-eyed Heads of State sitting around a big table sipping their coffee and politely nodding at Rasmussen's climate change speech without really understanding how their nods would be translated by the media.

Rasmussen began his speech by saying:

...I would like to share with you how I believe a Copenhagen Agreement could be constructed to serve the dual purpose of providing for continued negotiations on a legal agreement and for immediate action...

And later towards the end of the speech he says:

Some of you might have wished for a different format or for a different legal structure. Still, I believe you will agree with me on one fundamental point: What matters at the end of the day is the ability of the Copenhagen Agreement to capture and reinforce global commitment to real actions.

Doesn't sound like consensus to me; it sounds like a man trying to convince an audience to go along with him. It's not entirely clear who actually did agree with the Prime Minister, but what is clear is that there is nowhere near consensus on such a delay approach; in fact, dozens of countries oppose it and are still wishing--and fighting--for more.

Now, what about the actual plan itself -- the "one agreement, two steps" plan? Two steps to an agreement doesn't sounds so bad, right?

As NRDC's Jake Schmidt wrote, the strategy might not be so bad if you actually thought that the second step would ever be taken. Unfortunately, what Rasmussen has put forward is a cynical approach. It's becoming clear that all he cares about is getting a "positive" result in Copenhagen, and that the second step could just be for show.

If you look closely at Rasmussen's APEC breakfast speech, there's very little incentive to actually finish the job in 2010 (as in, to take the "second step"). Rasmussen explains his vision thusly:

The Copenhagen Agreement should capture progress already achieved in the negotiations and at the same time provide for immediate action already from next year.

The Copenhagen Agreement should be political by nature, yet precise on specific commitments and binding on countries committing to reach certain targets and to undertake certain actions or provide agreed finance.

The Copenhagen Agreement should be global, comprehensive and substantial, yet flexible enough to accommodate countries with very different national circumstances.

The Copenhagen Agreement should finally mandate continued legal negotiations and set a deadline for their conclusion.

Why would any developed country with high emissions want to go back to the table and flesh out a legally binding deal after the pressure of Copenhagen has passed and there is no real obligation to do so? Despite his lip service to "continued legal negotiations", there's no clarity nor firm deadline. Rasmussen's invention of "politically binding"--a term no one seems willing or able to define--is also repeated here.

Furthermore, there is only a passing mention of the Kyoto Protocol later in the speech. Despite what some would have you think, however, the Kyoto Protocol does not expire in 2012. In fact, in 2005, the parties to the Kyoto Protocol agreed to negotiate a second commitment period (2013-2017) and further committed in Bali in 2007 to reaching a conclusion on what that second commitment period would look like. In Rasmussen's vision, this goal seems to disappear in favor of a "politically binding" outcome.

Indeed, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper--one of the leading climate negotiation blockers now that George W. Bush is out of the picture--has been positively beaming in the press about this announcement. Not a sign of a positive development.

Luckily, there's still time to push for more. The Alliance of Small Island States, the African Group of nations, and other vulnerable and least developed countries will surely be pushing back on this plan during the prep meetings in Copenhagen this week. In fact, 11 Pacific Island States already have. Some European nations are also likely to stand up to this plan.

The planet and its people need a fair, ambitious, and binding outcome from this process. Countries should be working on such a document in Copenhagen and they can and should finish it there. After all, it's what they committed to in Bali just two years ago.

ECO learned of a new type of urgent mail delivery system in the UNFCCC today.

The recipient? A negotiator who, while not expecting a visit from the post office certainly should have anticipated some kind of message as a result of his country’s positions.  And where was this  message service are we speaking of?  It was easily to identify thanks to a walking banner at the entrance of the FIRA centre.

This specialty message delivery was inaugurated Thursday with the first lucky recipient being the Saudi head of delegation. The authors of the inaugural message were many: NGOs from 18 different developing countries, as well as the international youth present in Barcelona.

The youth delivered their letter along with pictures of their co-authors in the 18 developing countries gathering in front of Saudi embassies yesterday. These peaceful protests urged Saudi Arabia to stop playing an obstructionist role in the current climate negotiations, and to support the poorest and most vulnerable countries.

ECO notifies heads of delegations that “banner mail” might welcome them on their way into the UNFCCC venue.  Keep your eyes open, and your positions ambitious, or else you will be the next lucky winner!

Thursday marked another unedifying exchange in the KP “numbers group.” Annex I parties were questioning their abilities to increase their targets. Also on the table were two very important architectural elements: the 1990 base year and the system of 5-year commitment periods.

Despite arguing rightly in the past that the cost of inaction is far higher than the cost of action, the EU’s first consideration in possibly moving beyond its strikingly inadequate -30% conditional target is the economy!

Rather than embracing rapid reductions as a means of avoiding climate impacts and its heavy economic consequences, the EU whinged that -30% was about all it could do, despite the reduction of emissions during the current recession easing the task.

The cost of achieving the -30% target is now estimated to be EURO 203 billion cheaper than the original 20% reduction was expected to be when first adopted, according to a Sandbag analysis, and there’s every reason to believe other countries can similarly increase the scale of effort for the same reason.

Further, New Zealand feels that spending 0.6% of their GDP would be a high price for contributing to saving the world’s life support systems. Iceland appeared willing to countenance a higher target, but only if it has access to LULUCF and offsets.

Japan felt its newly-enhanced target is enough and rejected outright the need for a science-based top-down target. Other developed countries remained noticeably silent.

It gets worse.  Countries that have done least to reduce their emissions were keenest to hide their failures using more recent base years. Canada admitted that 1990 “was important” but bleated that the US had chosen a 2005 base year for its domestic target discussion, and in any case, new countries   (so-called “major emitters”) joining Annex B might find 1990 a barrier for so doing.

So Canada not only wants to hide its own inaction, but simultaneously points its finger at developing countries to pick up the pieces. Japan, also a major underachiever and finger-pointer, wanted to see the developed countries targets “from different angles.”

But Micronesia provided new analysis that the targets on the table range from -10% to 17% by 2020 relative to 1990 levels ex-LULUCF.  (Note to Japan: whichever way you look at it, the targets on the table are somewhere between a quarter and a third of what is needed, as a minimum.)

On the length of the second commitment period, several countries held out for periods longer than the 5-year cycle established in Kyoto. One has to suspect the motives of those that would seek to decouple the negotiations from political cycles in many countries, and disallow frequent and regular review of commitments based on the most recent science, particularly that of the IPCC.  Those culpable in this regard included Japan (again!) and Australia (although they did say they were open to 5 years).

The EU joined the fray in favour of 8-year periods, but later expressed an intention to review its targets in light of the next IPCC Assessment Report (so why not internationally in a 5-year commitment period?).  Avoiding lock-in has to be an essential element of the architecture of the Copenhagen agreement.

Once a 5-year second commitment period is properly in place for 2013-2017, ECO recommends the following timetable for the 2018-2022 commitment period: Negotiations should begin no later than 2013, conclude no later than 2015 and be directed by a scientific review done in 2014 based on the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC (AR5).