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 Modern technology is great. Developed countries can now contribute finance to develop National Adaptation Plans (NAPS) in LDCs via credit card. |
 Well, at least they are honest. |
Categoría: Previous Issues Articles
Sécurité alimentaire au Maghreb : les oasis, une solution face aux changements climatiques
Actuellement le Maghreb, vit une période charnière. Avec un secteur agricole handicapé par de fortes inégalités et un climat aride, les Etats ont de plus en plus de difficultés à couvrir les besoins de leurs populations. La sous-alimentation croît d’années en années , poussant les pays à augmenter leurs importations et ainsi s’endetter d’avantage et accentuer leur vulnérabilité face à la volatilité des prix. De plus, les prévisions sur le changement climatique annoncent de lourdes conséquences aussi bien pour la dégradation des ressources naturelles que pour la productivité agricole. Et ce n’est pas la seule difficulté que devra affronter cette région. En effet, le contexte sociodémographique va également évoluer et obliger l’agriculture maghrébine à s’adapter à ces mutations.
C’est dans ce contexte alarmant de la sécurité alimentaire au Maghreb, qu’apparaît la nécessité de se tourner vers d’autres modèles d’agriculture. Dans un Maghreb de plus en plus aride (plus de 75% du territoire ), les oasis apparaissent comme étant un système d’agriculture résiliente et durable qui pourrait devenir un atout dans les années à venir pour la sécurité alimentaire en s’adaptant parfaitement aux contraintes spécifiques actuelles et futures de la région.
Les atouts des oasis pour la sécurité alimentaire du Maghreb :
– Des exploitations familiales (majoritaire dans les oasis) : modèle mis en avant par les organisations internationales dans leurs actions pour le développement rural et la lutte contre la pauvreté.
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Mettre un frein à la course à l’accaparement des terres qui affame à tout bout de champs
En parlant de climat, Doha parle également de développement. Parmi les phénomènes liés aux changements climatiques, on constate que le phénomène d’accaparement des terres s’est accéléré à la fin des années 2000 et touche essentiellement l’Afrique (62 % des transactions).
Les chiffres sont alarmants : Oxfam indique un accroissement des investissements étrangers dans des pays en développement de 200% entre mi-2008 et 2009; la Banque Mondiale estime les acquisitions effectuées en 2009 à 45 millions d’hectares, soit dix fois plus qu’en 2008; la FAO révèle qu’au cours des cinq dernières années, 50 à 80 millions d’hectares de terres agricoles dans les pays en développement ont fait l’objet d’achat ou de location. Ce qui inquiète le plus est ce à quoi les terres sont destinées: monocultures intensives et sécurité alimentaire du pays de l’investisseur.
L’enjeu est d’arriver à définir une meilleure gouvernance foncière qui pourrait empêcher les accaparements de terres, protéger les droits des communautés rurales contre toutes les formes d’accaparement foncier et in fine, contribuer à la sécurité et la souveraineté alimentaire des populations locales.
Les négociateurs et Ministres réunis à Doha doivent négocier des politiques climatiques qui permettent d’endiguer ce phénomène. Nous attendons des pays développés qu’ils développent des politiques agricoles qui luttent contre l’accaparement des terres au lieu d’y contribuer.
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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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Climat et sécurité alimentaire : attention aux fausses solutions !
Garantir le droit à l’alimentation dans un monde de contraintes climatiques ? Face à ce défi, le lancement d’un nouveau programme de travail sur l’agriculture, en débat depuis Durban, pourrait ouvrir la porte à plusieurs
« fausses solutions » :
→ La « climate-smart agriculture » : ce concept, qui mise prioritairement sur l’augmentation « durable » des rendements, néglige l’impact différencié des agricultures industrielles et familiales sur la sécurité alimentaire locale et l’environnement. Or il est crucial de rappeler que «les systèmes de production diversifiés, à petite échelle, des pays en développement offrent les meilleures perspectives d’amélioration des moyens de subsistance » ; Alors que l’agriculture industrielle à grande échelle, avec un fort apport d’intrants externes, génère d’importants niveaux d’émissions de GES.
→ L’intégration de l’agriculture aux marchés carbone, portée par certains comme solution pour garantir l’atténuation de l’agriculture tout en mobilisant des ressources financières pour l’adaptation, est discutable tout d’abord d’un point de vue environnemental. En effet, il est très difficile de mesurer le carbone contenu dans les sols agricoles, et il est impossible de garantir que le carbone y soit stocké durablement. De plus, les grandes exploitations agricoles seront les plus susceptibles d’attirer les investissements du fait de la complexité et des coûts de développement des projets de compensation carbone.
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Keep up your end of the bargain, Parties
In Durban, Parties agreed to a package – the adoption of a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, a successful conclusion of the LCA, urgent action to close the pre-2020 mitigation gap between the 2 degrees goal and the collective pledges now on the table, and collective movement toward a fair, ambitious and binding agreement in 2015. Parties must honour this political bargain.
Let’s start with the KP. Those trying to get another bite of the negotiation cherry by dragging out submitting their carbon budgets (QELROs) have to understand that this will be perceived as acting in bad faith. Australia – ECO remembers the brinkmanship with your QELRO last time. So for you, as well as New Zealand, Ukraine and others on the fence on the Kyoto second commitment period, ECO demands to see your QELROs up front. And, of course, just any old KP second commitment period won’t suffice. We must have a robust, ratifiable agreement that respects the original intention of the KP to raise ambition and create real environmental integrity. The AOSIS and Africa Group proposals will facilitate this endeavour. Effectively eliminating surplus AAUs and ensuring the environmental integrity of the CDM is also essential – you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
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Finally, Finance?
ECO is heartened to have heard that a group of developed countries is considering putting concrete numbers on the table for long-term finance in Doha. In the last year of Fast Start Finance, and with few firm commitments for finance from 2013 onwards currently on the table, this is none too soon. Substantial new and additional climate finance commitments could really help to give a boost to the negotiations going into Qatar.
As ECO has long argued, such commitments would give developing countries some needed reassurance that climate finance is not about to fall off a cliff, but rather start the steady climb towards the US$100 billion per year promise made in Copenhagen and Cancun. Rhetorical reassurances during the negotiations are no match for concrete numbers committed on paper.
Let’s hope that more developed countries reach this enlightened conclusion before Doha. There will be nowhere for them to hide if a group of countries makes a pledge, while they turn up empty handed.
But ECO would also hope that developed countries have learned some lessons from the Fast Start Finance experience, and apply them as they consider their pledge. Don´t forget that ECO has a beady eye for creative accounting tricks that may artificially inflate finance pledges that are actually not new and additional.
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Ace the AC
ECO congratulates the Adaptation Committee (AC) members for their selection and welcomes them to Bangkok, where the first AC meeting will take place. The AC has been mandated with the very important task of promoting the implementation of enhanced action on adaptation in a coherent manner, and supporting the COP in taking appropriate decisions on adaptation. ECO would like to encourage all members of the AC, both from developed and developing countries, to work as ONE TEAM and with a true spirit of collaboration and cooperation.
In its first meeting, the AC’s members will focus on developing its three year work plan and its modalities. ECO requests that the Adaptation Committee include the following priority issues. The AC should:
– consider the linkages and stimulate coherence among the various adaptation institutions within the UNFCCC, including the Standing Committee and Green Climate Fund
– develop an overview, identify gaps and establish/strengthen regional centres and networks to address those gaps
– facilitate discussion among Parties to explore ways to effectively address regional, cross-border and common sub-regional adaptation issues through promoting ecosystem- and community-based approaches.
Other issues to be to reflected upon include the guidelines and modalities for the National Adaptation Planning (NAP) process for non-LDC countries and national institutional arrangements for adaptation.
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Get Technology’s «Boots On the Ground» Grounded
We stand at the precipice of what could be the final stroke of the LCA at COP18 in Doha, and the conversation is turning ever more to the question of how political decisions for various elements of the LCA that have not been fully resolved will be handled post-COP18. ECO sees that the discussion on technology transfer, which cuts across mitigation and adaptation, provides a stark view of what’s at stake if the LCA’s closing is not properly done, in the light of the sometimes yawning gap between the understandings of developed and the developing countries.
If you mark the IPCC Assessment Report 1 (1990) as the starting point, the discussion on technology transfer has been ongoing for more than two decades. That’s a lot of work to sit idle if the Technology Mechanism suddenly faced a lack of support, and a staggering missed opportunity to close the mitigation gap and address the growing need for climate adaptation.
As it now stands, the Technology Mechanism lacks full funding even on a short-term basis, its governance and reporting structure are incomplete, its linkages with other bodies inside the Convention are hampered by the chicken/egg dilemma, its cross-cutting support for NAMAs and NAPAs/NAPs is uncertain and ill-defined, and the conversation on what is likely the most political decision of all – how priorities are to be set within the TEC and CTCN – has barely been broached, if at all.
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Aren’t You Lowering Ambition, Japan?
Japan will soon make a decision on new energy and climate policy in light of the Fukushima nuclear accident. ECO supports the voices of the majority of Japanese people, who say, “No, thank you” to nuclear. Nuclear is not a solution.
However, we realized with surprise, Japan considered that mitigation is not possible without nuclear. Believe it or not, the projection of GHG pollution in 2020 for Japan is from 0% to -7% from 1990 levels when Japan chooses a nuclear-free future. This is nearly at the level of the first commitment period Kyoto target (-6%)! Is nuclear really a mitigation solution? ECO believes NOT. Japan could surely reduce CO2 while reducing its dependence on nuclear. Rather, it’s better and faster to realise a low-carbon society through shifting the tremendous nuclear investments to renewables and energy efficiency.
ECO is anxious to know whether Japan intends to discuss raising ambition as a matter of urgency. We have no time to delay. No room to lower efforts. In the last session in Bonn, ECO urged Japan to reaffirm its 25% reduction target by 2020 in Bangkok. Your silence is deafening. So, take the ambition discussion back home, identify any possible reduction potentials other than nuclear (here’s a preview – you will find a lot) and come back with an ambitious target.
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