Tagged: doha

27 Nov, 2012

Climate Finance: Up and Not Down!

To our freshly arrived negotiators, get ready for a major wake up call (or at least a loud and not particularly polite noise) on finance, when the countries most vulnerable to climate change will be rightly asking: what happens when Fast Start Finance runs out at the end of this year?

And what happens now that we know Fast Start Finance (the money pledged between 2010 and 2012) was mostly a false start? Yes, ECO did the maths and estimates only 33% of FSF was “new” money (that is, additional to existing, pre-Copenhagen pledges), and around 24% additional to existing aid promises. Only one-fifth of finance was spent on adaptation, and less than half was available as grants. It seems developed countries need to re-learn some basics about climate finance. Which part of “new and additional, predictable, and adequate in relation to rapidly spiralling needs…with balanced allocation between mitigation and adaptation” are they failing to understand?

And to those who need illustration of “spiralling needs”, please count the unprecedented number of climate related disasters in 2012 which – along with sea-level rise, and the gradual but deadly effects on agricultural and fresh water systems – mean that the bill from carbon pollution just keeps going up and up.
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27 Nov, 2012

President Obama: We Hope for Change

In his victory speech after being re-elected to a second term, President Obama swelled the hopes once again of people around the world who care about climate change when he said, “We want our children to live in an America that is not burdened by debt, that is not weakened by inequality, that is not threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.” Those hopes continued to swell when in a press conference a few days later, he responded to a question from the media on climate by saying that he planned to start “a conversation across the country…” to see “how we can shape an agenda that garners bipartisan support and helps move this agenda forward…and…be an international leader” on climate change. President Obama appears to understand that climate change is a legacy issue that was not adequately addressed during his first term in office.

The question therefore has to be, what next? In his second term, will President Obama deliver the bold action needed to reduce the threat of climate change to the US and the world, by shifting the US economy towards a zero carbon future, and making the issue a centerpiece of US foreign policy? In the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, and the drought, wildfires and other extreme weather events that have afflicted the US over the last year, it is clearly time for President Obama to press the reset button on climate policy, both nationally and internationally.
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27 Nov, 2012

Fossil of the Day

The First Place Fossil is awarded to USA, Canada, Russia, Japan and New Zealand for running away from a legally binding, multilateral rules based regime. To the USA – seriously, get over your exceptionalism and agree to common accounting rules already. Canada you are exceptional in ways we cannot communicate diplomatically during a fossil presentation, but it is not good – withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol is completely unacceptable and your target is an insult to the most vulnerable. As for Japan, Russia and New Zealand – you still have a chance to support the only legally binding regime and commit to ambitious targets for the second commitment period (and that means no AAU carry over, Russia). We are looking to hearing from you by the end of the week, because really, do we want to be lumped into this low-ambition group?

The Second Place Fossil is awarded to New Zealand. Unlike its neighbour to the west, New Zealand decided not to put its target into the second commitment period, citing spurious grounds when the reality is that it is just a massive display of irresponsibility. Its island partners in the Pacific should think again before ever trusting NZ again.

The Ray of the Day goes to the EU for having already reached their pledged 2020 target almost 10 years ahead of time!
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27 Nov, 2012

Right to Appeal Is Not a Game Of Two Halves

Here in Doha, Parties will decide on an appeals procedure that would consider decisions made by the CDM Executive Board. It is crucial that civil society representatives are eligible to launch an appeal. But wait, ECO heard that some Parties would like to grant the right to appeal to one side (investors) only? Dear delegates, this is not a game of two halves but two sides of the same coin. Indeed, we would like to remind you that any appeals procedure must serve the interests of all affected stakeholders.

Granting the right to appeal to investors only prioritises corporate profit over the public interest, especially given the wider impacts that flawed CDM projects can have on global climate change and sustainable development.

ECO urges delegates to take this opportunity to adopt a fair and balanced means to provide a public check during the CDM project approval process, and promote transparency, accountability and integrity in the decisionmaking process. Take this critical opportunity to introduce much needed quality control in the CDM decisionmaking process and adopt a robust appeals procedure!

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26 Nov, 2012

Bridging the Gulf

From one aggressively air-conditioned conference centre to another… Only three months ago, ECO was sitting in tropical Bangkok pondering the outcome of COP18, and now here we are on the edge of the desert. But what a change three months can make. A new Chinese leadership, a new mandate for US President Obama, elections in Ukraine, Georgia, Lithuania and Venezuela, as well as many, many more extreme weather events, resulting in severe loss and extensive damage. But will such monumental shifts in global politics affect the outcome in Doha?

Despite high hopes, Doha was never going to be a cup final. Durban, marked out for the grand ‘huddle’, gave the negotiators new political instructions. Doha must prepare the roadmap for 2015. ECO would like to remind delegates this doesn’t mean you can kick back and snooze till then. Remember – if you snooze, you lose! Too much is at stake. The final saga of the Kyoto Protocol rolls on, the LCA requires successful closure and a work plan for the new Durban platform for both a 2015 deal and near term ambition must be established, along with progress under the subsidiary bodies. Doha must not renegotiate Durban. We must only move forward.
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26 Nov, 2012

The Pathway to Ambition

Is equity really the pathway to ambition? ECO is here to say that it had better be. Without equity, nothing else will work. Which is to say that nothing else will work well enough. Without equity the story of the low carbon, climate resilient transition will be a story of “too little, too late.” And as the scientists are anxiously telling us – see, recently, the World Bank’s Turn Down the Heat report – this is a story without a happy ending.

Let’s admit the public secret that we all already know – equity will either be shaped into a pathway to ambition or inequity will, assuredly, loom before us as an altogether unscalable wall. We can see how this would happen. The US – while insisting that it’s pushing bravely past the sterile politics of an obsolete North/South firewall – has managed to purge CBDR (and RC) from all official texts. But to what effect? For an overwhelming majority of Parties, absence of new equity language affirms the obvious. The Convention language applies. Has the US noticed that actions provoke reactions?

The head of the US delegation has rejected the Annexes as “anachronistic,” and has gone on to call for “the differentiation of a continuum, with each country expected to act vigorously in accordance with its evolving circumstances, capabilities and responsibilities.”
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