Catégorie : Previous Issues Articles

The new edition of the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), which ranks the climate protection performance of the 58 largest  emitting countries worldwide, was released by Germanwatch and CAN Europe this week. The report shows worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to climb, and not a single country is on track to deliver their fare share of emission reductions.

But there are some rays of hope this year. There appears to be a slowdown in the rate of increase for global CO2 emissions. And China, the highest emitter on a national basis, improved its performance.

While no country performed well enough to earn a coveted top-3 ranking, Denmark led the league table, improving their score in nearly every sector. The UK took 5th place, up from 10th, due to an emissions decrease of 15% in the last 5 years plus improvements in energy efficiency.

But you won’t be surprised that Canada and Australia are the bottom ranked performers among industrialised countries, while Japan also dropped several notches. Australia is ranked 57th but its recent election produced a government that is backtracking even from there. Canada still shows no intention of moving forward with meaningful climate policy and remains at a humiliating 58th position.
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ECO nodded off during the plenary and heard this:

Dear Ministerial colleagues:

It gives me great pleasure to be here with you at this High Level Roundtable on Market Approaches for Enhanced Climate Action. I want to report to you now that after 18 months Australia’s carbon market is working well.

After the first 12 months the carbon price, supported by other policies, delivered 7% emissions reductions from covered sectors. The proportion of renewables in the energy mix surged by 23%. Inflation impacts were almost exactly as predicted at 0.7%.  Auctioning revenues funded support  for low and middle-income households, leaving them better off than before the reform. Scare campaigns saying that entire cities and industries would be wiped out proved to be mere fear-mongering.

Australia’s carbon price and limit on carbon pollution was of course designed to give a long-term signal to drive investment decisions towards low-carbon technologies and projects. The next step includes an assessment of increasing our ambition based on science and comparative action. To that end, our statutorily  independent Climate Change Authority has released a draft recommendation for Australia’s emissions reduction target, informed by work programs under the Convention.

The Authority is chaired by a former head of Australia’s central Reserve Bank, and its board includes Australia’s chief scientist and the former head of the Australian Industry Group.
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The First Place Fossil goes to India, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia, and China for proposing to delete the only reference to equity in para 9 of the ADP text.  Equity is key to the 2015 agreement and Parties must leave Warsaw with a clear understanding of how the ex ante review will be conducted.  We were shocked that with all the discussions here and in Bonn, equity did not yield more than a passing reference in the first version of the ADP text. The next iteration must expand and not ‘streamline’ references to equity.  To these members of the Like-Minded Group, we urge you to engage in the development of an ex ante review, rather than hovering over the delete button.

The Second Place Fossil goes to Australia, who along with some other developed countries is impeding progress towards setting up an international mechanism on loss and damage. Trying to keep out key text elements proposed by more than 130 developing countries, delaying negotiation progress through procedural manoeu- vres, and lacking a clear commitment to strong support provisions in the decision text is highly concerning.  Australia is the leader of those lacking constructive spirit.

We call on the other developed countries to work seriously for the needs of the most vulnerable countries and help in establishing an effective international mechanism on loss and damage here.

So here we are at the first ever finance ministerial.  With the ‘climate crunch’ rapidly exposing our economies to the risks of climate change and economic downturn, the stakes have been raised.  Parties have agreed on the need for action, put in place the institutions and frameworks, but there is one essential ingredient missing: finance.

Climate impacts are accelerating and multiplying as they rush through our global economic system.  We all know that the lack of finance is blocking progress – both in action on the ground and in  negotiating a stronger global climate  deal.

The UNFCCC is the central multilateral framework for tackling climate change, and finance is key to powering the process. The refusal of developed countries to make clear commitments on finance is sapping the life out of the negotiations, just as much as the failure of the same countries to reduce their emissions.

For all countries to work together, regardless of their status as developing and developed, promises  must be upheld.  The finance gap is blocking progress on REDD+, draining down the Adaptation Fund, threatening  to make the GCF another empty shell, and  providing the perfect justification for ensuring the threadbare ADP text remains devoid of content.
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You may have noticed the developed countries’ increasing  enthusiasm for having private finance substitute for their direct support as part of meeting the the promise of mobilizing US $100 billion per year by 2020.

This year, two US-hosted ministerial meetings and the pre-COP finance discussions focused almost exclusively on the role of private finance, whilst the glaring uncertainties around the provision of public finance were barely discussed. And the invitation letter from the COP presidency to today’s finance ministerial encourages civil society organisations to ‘present their own ideas on possible ways of mobilizing sources of finance in the private sector’ as if to silence calls on the urgent need to scale up public finance.

So you be the judge: are developed countries sliding back on their side of the bargain and using private finance to sidestep the need to increase public finance?  Today’s Finance Ministerial is an opportunity to highlight that whilst private finance has a role to play in the global climate transition, it is not a substitute for scaling up  crucially needed public support.

Public finance has a critical role to play in mitigation by helping to catalyse larger private investments,. The real need is estimated to exceed $1 trillion globally,  if we are to limit the temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius.
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ECO wonders if developed countries are scheming to create suspense on the Adaptation Fund over the next couple of days, by orchestrating the announcements of their pledges to start with the lowest first: Norway’s  US $2.5 million was announced yesterday. While that doesn’t quite compare to Sweden’s  $30 million, we believe that every dollar counts. Perhaps we will now see a race to the top, with a string of pledges — each one higher than the one before — to reach and exceed the goal of $100 million before COP 19 is over. ECO is excited to see who will turn out to be the highest bidder.

Once again, falling short of the $100 million goal is simply not an option. Surely developed country ministers will want to make that possible, to demonstrate good faith and pave the way for the much larger goal of mobilizing $100 billion per annum in climate finance by 2020.

The argument has been made here and there that the Adaptation Fund is not quite empty yet.  Perhaps so for now, but not for long.  The Adaptation Fund Board predicts that it will run out of money over the course of the next year. And already there are stranded projects (see table nearby).

Fill the Adaptation Gap

Only a minor share of climate finance is currently being allocated to adaptation, meaning that vital support to the world’s vulnerable people and communities is lacking. Agreement must be reached to increase finance for adaptation, and a first step must be to improve the balance between mitigation and adaptation. COP 19 should agree that at least 50% of all public climate finance is allocated to adaptation.

Ensure Predictability

Predictability of finance through to 2020 is vital. This requires a global climate finance roadmap that sets out intermediate targets and planned collective action to mobilize additional finance. To complement that, developed countries should prepare national pathways showing how their contribution to the $100 billion promise will evolve over time, disaggregated by relevant types, instruments and channels.

Where is the Finance (WTF) to fill the gap? Here’s one of many answers to that question, the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT).

In early 2013, 11 EU Member States agreed to introduce an FTT that could generate revenues of €37bn a year or more, depending on its scope. While the FTT is still in in the design phase, ECO wonders whether France,  Germany and the other nine European supporters could not only finalise discussions on the scope of the FTT (on which scale of revenue will depend) but make a bold move: by allocating a big portion of the revenues to climate finance. This is a marvellous plan, as it would allow the EU – perhaps in time for the Ban Ki-moon summit in late 2014 – to assign a substantial amount to the very empty Green Climate Fund.

It’s not a totally mad idea, It’s said France already is earmarking 10% of its FTT revenues to climate action. And we hear that Belgium supports the idea of  using part of the FTT revenues for development and climate action.

But what about the others, for instance Germany – where a new government is being formed even as the ministerial proceeds? One coalition partner had joined a grand campaign to allocate 33% of FTT revenues to climate action.
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Cancun – Wednesday 6th December 2010

Time to Make It Happen: a Fair Climate Fund

Over 200 civil society organisations today launch a call for a fair climate fund to be established this week in Cancun. As ministers arrive to face the vital politi¬cal challenges around the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, sufficient political time and energy must be spared to ensure substantive outcomes on issues that really matter to those suffering from climate change’s savage impacts.

As the Civil Society Call makes clear, poor people are losing out twice. They are being hardest hit by a crisis they did least to cause, but the are not being served by climate-related funds that should be helping them.

Most existing funds have benefited just a handful of developing countries, privileging mitigation over adaptation, and offering little scope for the meaningful participation of affected communities, especially women.

There is an urgent need to establish a new fair global climate fund to help developing countries build resilience to the impacts of climate change, protect their forests, and adopt low-carbon development pathways. Public finance is vital to meet these needs, while carbon markets are proving inadequate or inappropriate. To be truly equitable and effective, the new fund must mark a clear shift in the management of global flows of climate finance that delivers for poor people.
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With negotiations for a draft ADP text entering their third day, the debate on equity is surely heating up. This is the moment to ensure that an important aspect of effort sharing is on the agenda: the equitable provision of finance and other means of implementation – especially to the most vulnerable.

As a number of Parties noted this week, equity must apply to all pillars of international global climate response. In contributing their fair share of the global effort, developed countries need to both control their own emissions and support further mitigation through the provision of climate finance, by helping poorer countries implement their low-carbon development strategies.

Does this mean that wealthier countries can buy their way out of making substantial emissions reductions at home? Sorry Japan, it most definitely does not. To close the emissions gap we must make every possible effort to reduce emissions within our borders. Period.

But, what about the global adaptation effort, you ask? Who pays for that? Given the neglect of adaptation finance in favor of mitigation, it is more important than ever to ensure that countries also make a fair contribution to the adaptation challenge. There is a core equity element here: the polluter pays principle.
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