Catégorie : Previous Issues Articles

Canada’s environment minister, Peter Kent, arrived in Doha yesterday under the long shadow of the tar sands.

Since Durban, his government has been working hard to dismantle Canada’s environmental protection laws to speed up resource extraction, an initiative that government has been promoting under the Orwellian slogan of “responsible resource development.”

ECO has warned over and over again about the creeping influence of Canada’s massive deposit of car­bon intensive “unconventional oil”. Larger in geograph­ic extent than the entire nation of Qatar, and generating more emissions than all of New Zealand, the tar sands have been called the planet’s largest “carbon bomb”.

Projections from Minister Kent’s own department show that the growth in tar sands emissions by 2020 (73 Mt) will virtually cancel out all other emission reduc­tions in Canada’s economy (75 Mt). And yet Ottawa has done nothing to curb the sector’s exploding GHG pollution.

Quite the opposite – government documents suggest that Canada has taken international climate policies to some of the largest tar sands corporations in Canada for vetting.

Great news for Canada’s Fossil trophy case: the CEOs love what they called Canada’s “elegant” ap­proach. So now, a new report by the Canadian Youth Delegation, Commitment Issues, digs into the tar sands’ expansion blueprint, documenting the sector’s plans to blow past the production levels outlined in the IEA’s 450 scenario.
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Dear Ministers:

This is the non-negotiable planetary deadline. The recent UNEP and World Bank reports have been unequivocal: the window to stabilize temperature increase below 2° C, and thus avoid the most dangerous climate impacts, is closing rapidly. Durban set a number of other deadlines for Doha which must be respected. They include adoption of the amendments to the Kyoto Protocol, the successful closure of the LCA, and agreement on work programmes for both the 2015 Protocol negotiations and raising near-term ambition. So roll up your sleeves, Ministers: there is much to do! As always, ECO has some helpful hints to make your week easier.

#1 Don’t cheat – it doesn’t help the climate or build confidence

The amendments to the Kyoto Protocol must be adopted in Doha, progressing the only legally binding climate agreement in order to streamline the process.

Keeping Kyoto alive is crucial for two reasons – first, it has key architectural elements that must be reflected in the 2015 Protocol. These include overall and national carbon budgets, economy-wide targets, common rules-based accounting, compliance and five year commitment periods. Second, it was part of the Durban package and its adoption will enable progress next year on both elements of the ADP — its 2015 Protocol negotiations and near-term ambition.
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ECO understands that progress on transparent reporting of climate finance is grinding to a halt. SBSTA was meant to adopt common tabular formats for reporting by developed countries of both emissions and climate finance. Now the process appears to be deadlocked with no immediate solutions in sight.

Apparently, developed countries are opposing a key proposal made by developing countries on transparent reporting – a common tabular format on climate change. Essentially, this is a method to provide listings of individual, bilaterally financed actions, rather than just aggregate figures per recipient country or per sector.

The idea to list every single financed action with information on title, recipient country, committed amount, climate component of amount, sector, mitigation/adaptation, grants / / loans (also stating grant equivalent) and so forth seems pretty reasonable to ECO. Transparency of one’s own actions is a key ingredient to a ‘circle of confidence’ and a precondition for the ‘V’ in MRV. Developed countries could use such lists to demonstrate transparency, as well as tracking where and how their climate finance is flowing.

However, developed countries continue to argue that submitting project listings is too cumbersome. ECO would like toremind everyone that developed countries are already compiling such lists – forexample, the OECD DAC reporting system currently used to report aid flows.
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ECO has been pondering the evident marginalization of the ‘civil society voice’ lately and started scribbling a few preambular thoughts on a serviette…

Reaffirming that vibrant public participation “allows vital experience, expertise, information and perspectives from civil society to be brought into the process to generate new insights and approaches”¹;

Acknowledging the respectful, positive and constructive dialogue at the December 1 ADP Special Event;

Encouraging Parties and the Secretariat to provide roundtables and other opportunities to enhance the full inclusion of civil society as a relevant and meaningful voice in these negotiations; . . .

#Operative text…

¹ Guidelines for participation of representative of NGOs at meetings of the bodies of the UNFCCC.

Side Event

Monday 3rd December

18:30 – 20:00

CLIMATE ACTION AND

ADVOCACY  IN THE SOUTH

Hall 5, Side Event Room 2

In both ADP workstreams, Parties have begun taking positions on the future of CBDR. Some see a global spectrum approach as the way forward. Others advocate a system in which the annexes are nuanced and differentiated. Whatever happens, ECO sees the need for a dynamic system that differentiates on the basis of equity principles.

ECO believes that it is helpful to cluster the various equity principles into three groups:

• Precautionary or adequacy principles – because climate catastrophe would be the ultimate injustice
• CBDR+RC, which remains key, but must be interpreted and operationalised dynamically
• Equitable Access to Sustainable Development – because just and sustainable development are human rights that must be both protected and promoted by the climate regime.

Why wouldn’t Parties want to discuss these principles within a separate, one-year work programme, with the intention of operationalising them? Such a work programme must inform the ADP streams on near-term and post-2020 ambition. ECO calls for a COP decision on this equity work programme to be taken at Doha. The Shared Vision contact groups should prepare this decision.

One way or another, Parties have got to find the space to build greater understanding of one another’s positions if they are to identify areas of convergence.
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Yesterday ECO asked the question every journalist watching these talks wants answered: will countries in the Arab Gulf commit to change course to a greener future here in Doha? So far just one country has given an answer. Lebanon has said that they are striving to submit a supported NAMA. ECO strives with them.

To most people in the real world outside the climate change negotiations, the acid test for success in Doha is whether the outcome will include any further emissions cuts beyond those pledged three years ago in Copenhagen. That is, any action that will actually help us to tackle our ballooning global greenhouse gas emissions.

But when negotiations on this issue finally began on Friday, delegates talked more about what mitigation actions others must take, rather than what they must do.

At least Lebanon seems to have read the script for this COP. It’s time for other countries, including those in the Arab region, to learn their lines. They should recognise their vulnerability to climate change impacts, announce a pledge and show they are ready to be major players in these talks.

That would be something these talks can be remembered for, even after the circus has left town.
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New Zealand is topping the Fossil leader board this year and seems determined to stretch its lead. Initially copping an onslaught of condemnation for not re-committing under Kyoto, they are adding insult to injury by continuing to advocate for access to flexible mechanisms for non-legally bound countries, while offering no carrot in return. Their self-centred approach to these negotiations reflects a distinct lack of willingness to participate responsibly.

Increased access to markets is probably a good thing – no one wants to see the CDM collapse entirely – however New Zealand must demonstrate in Doha that it is prepared to pull its weight pre-2020. New Zealand should announce a target of at least 25% below 1990 emissions levels and send a strong signal that they are prepared to make real progress. Yes, these are above the conditional range of your present targets, Minister, but that’s what ambition is. A pledge to significantly scale up finance next year would also serve to restore previously eroded trust, and advance crucial progress on scaling up desperately needed climate funds.

Four fossils in five days give New Zealand a pretty decent hit rate on the fossil ladder. So resigned to inadequacy, the New Zealand Climate Change Minister Tim Groser has started referring to “Fossil” awards as a certainty.
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The LCA is discussing the establishment of a new market mechanism (NMM) and a Framework for Various Approaches (FVA), including the use of markets. But well into the 1st week, it is still unclear what these two work programmes could be about.

There is a common view that the FVA is supposed to give recognition to national emission reduction systems and, if Parties want to, make the emission reductions units that are achieved by these systems internationally tradable and eligible for meeting national emission reduction targets (QELROs). Under the NMM on the other hand, countries could put forward national emission reduction systems to the UNFCCC to be approved for the issuance of credits. Both work streams could end up hosting the same types of emission reduction systems, ranging from market-based instruments to renewable feed-in tariffs. ECO is therefore wondering why bother with two different work streams?!

The answer is clear if one looks at the politics. Although the same types of emission reduction systems could be hosted, the NMM requires international common standards and UNFCCC approval before credits could be issued and used for compliance. The FVA on the other hand could allow countries to develop whatever systems they want and offer the resulting emission credits for compliance without the UNFCCC taking a close look at them, something strongly wished for by Japan, New Zealand and the US.
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