On response measures (Q1), this question should be considered off-topic because the Bali Action Plan (adopted even by ‘Friends of Response Measures’) clearly gave the response measures a home under the pillar of mitigation. In any case, seeking compensation for reduced oil sales is holding the millions of people hostage who are suffering from climate change and in dire need of adequate support to cope with its adverse effects.

On institutional arrangements (Q2), here’s a summary, really just a soundbite, on the adaptation framework.  It should facilitate and ensure the provision of financial support by developed to developing countries. It would not organise funding disbursement; however, the adaptation committee would recommend further action to the COP if insufficient funding undermines the scale of support required under the adaptation framework. It would do so by linking up with the Kyoto Adaptation Fund Board as well as other proposed institutions tasked with finance disbursement such as the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund.

On loss and damage (Q3), Annex I Parties should answer this question: What would you do if your country, its lands and the livelihoods of your people were becoming untenable or even starting to disappear under water or sand.  How would you face damages so substantial they are beyond your ability to adapt?  Parties should set up the international mechanism to address unavoidable loss and damage from climate change, through risk reduction and management, insurance and rehabilitation – against internationally established baselines — adaptation is no longer possible. In Cancún, Parties should establish such a mechanism and operationalise at least the insurance component, while agreeing to launch the rehabilitation component at COP17, using the year in between to study and develop its modalities.

On matching adaptation with support (Q4), our longstanding view is that developing countries should receive regular flows of grant finance through the financial mechanism and its operating entities in support of adaptation efforts. Needs and priorities should be identified through in-country, transparent and participatory adaptation planning, implementation and evaluation. Adaptation strategies can be disseminated consistently at the international level to support the continuous influx of finance, but there is no need for an ‘adaptation registry’.

The EU had the right idea in suggesting a report on whether they were keeping their promises. This might help make up for the fact that most EU Member States have done a pretty good job over the years at breaking long-standing promises to provide finance to poor countries, whether as aid or climate finance under the UNFCCC.

The Spanish Presidency started well, collecting information on Member State pledges, but then a problem arose. The EU’s commitment first made in Brussels at the December leaders’ summit did not address whether the promises they were making were “new and additional” as required by the Copenhagen Accord.  It is clear that this means over and above the target to provide at least 0.7% gross national income (GNI) in official development assistance (ODA). Climate change imposes new costs on developing countries, so new money is needed to tackle it.

Instead of owning up to relabeling old some ODA pledges and then adding them to the new fast-start climate finance total, EU governments thought it best to keep quiet and hope no one noticed . . . but some did.  Failing to ensure that climate finance is new and additional to existing ODA targets takes money that would otherwise have been available for spending on schools and hospitals in developing countries, to name one example. And that at a time when budgets for essential services are already being cut in the face of economic downturn.  And we won’t mention more than just this once that most countries aren’t even achieving their longstanding ODA pledges.

All that said, ECO welcomes the EU’s readiness to face the music in today’s side event. We hope they come clean about recycling past promises and are ready to answer questions on the scale of money going to different countries, and will detail how it will flow through bilateral and multilateral channels, as grants and loans, and for adaptation and mitigation.

This is just a preliminary report, and the EU will have another chance to get it right in the annual report due at COP 16. But to provide genuine transparency, and to ensure that the US and other rich countries are held accountable too, they should seek a common reporting framework. The Secretariat could be asked to take that on and add meat to the EU’s bare bones.

That would be wrong! Biological diversity supports ecosystems essential for human life, including climate regulation, water, food security and protection from natural disasters. Climate change is an increasing cause of biodiversity loss that in turn adds to the impacts of climate change.  Healthy ecosystems are particularly important for people living in poverty – they depend far more directly on natural resources for their livelihoods and survival.  Ah, now you’re seeing the connection to our agenda . . .

The starting point is that mitigation and adaptation must be based on sound science. An important new report, ‘Global Biodiversity Outlook 3’ (Convention on Biological Diversity, May 2010) supports this. GEO3 is also a wake up call.  In many places across the world, natural systems supporting economies, lives and livelihoods are at risk of rapid degradation and collapse.  While the poorest people suffer disproportionately from deteriorating ecosystems, ultimately, everyone stands to lose.  Climate change and biodiversity are inextricably linked. Government policy and our personal choices determine how human drivers of both will shape our future.

Time is short.  The challenge to stay below 2o C of warming looms ever larger. The current Copenhagen pledges add up to a 3o to 4o C world by 2100 at best. At the same time, we have massively failed to meet the CBD’s target to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss globally by 2010 (agreed by world leaders at the Johannesburg World Summit in 2002 and integrated into the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs). Catastrophic changes to our planet could happen well within the lifetime of our children.

One planet.  Unabated, these crises will change our planet’s unique human-life supporting conditions.  Above 2o C of warming, ecosystem capacity to meet the needs of present and future generations will be severely compromised.  In fact, even at a 1.5o C increase, lives in vulnerable places such as small island developing states and communities in the polar regions will be tremendously difficult, and for some, impossible.

Costs increase the more we delay.  TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, 2009) is providing an economic evidence base for decision-makers, as Stern did for climate change. Addressing these challenges together will reduce costs and secure multiple benefits. But we must not steal from one pot to put money into another.  New, not recycled, public money is essential. Money promised in the CBD process in the past should not be counted towards satisfying fast-start finance promises.

Adaptation can support or harm nature and people. Supporting natural and social resilience is cost effective, locally appropriate and our insurance mechanism for the future.

Mitigation.  Nature can help. Ecosystems such as forests and peatlands absorb and store carbon, as do oceans and water bodies.  If our mitigation choices harm natural systems, such as biofuels replacing natural forest, we risk releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere.

190 Parties engaged in the UNFCCC are also signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Meeting the MDGs by 2015 is the international commitment to tackle poverty. This year through to Rio+20 in 2012 provides an opportunity not to be missed.

Governments will meet to discuss biodiversity in New York this September and Nagoya in October, international development at the MDG Summit in New York in September and climate change in Cancun at the end of 2010. Parties in the UNFCCC have a crucial role to play in encouraging cooperation and ensuring effective opportunities to make sure the links are made at national and international levels.  Addressing these interconnected crises in a mutually reinforcing way is the only realistic and cost effective way forward for our modern world.

L'argent pour l'adaptation, sujet de discussions et d'actions

Le groupe de contact (de négociations) sur le financement de l’adaptation au changement climatique vient juste de se finir. Deux sessions d’une heure et demi chacune ont permis aux parties d’exprimer leurs positions sur le nouveau texte présenté par Margareth Mukahanana-Sangarwe (ici, tout le monde l’appelle Margareth). L’une des questions qui a été discutée aujourd’hui par les délégués fut celle de savoir comment assurer que l’argent nécessaire à la mise en place d’actions dans les pays en développement soit suffisant, prévisible, nouveau et additionnel.

Aux Nations Unies, l’argent n’a pas d’odeur, mais il doit avoir un certain nombre de qualité pour être utile à l’adaptation aux changements climatiques. Petite explication sur les qualités à avoir pour passer le test onusien.

Suffisant : l’argent nécessaire pour l’adaptation au changement climatique doit répondre à une première exigence essentielle – être à la hauteur des besoins des pays en développement. Sans entrer dans la bataille des chiffres et des expertises, entre 67 (chiffre UNFCCC) et 150 (Oxfam, 2009) milliards de dollars sont nécessaires pour lutter contre les conséquences des modifications du climat.
Les débats concernant le montant à apporter n’ont pas encore débuté, mais d’après l’Accord de Copenhague, il est prévu que 100 milliards de dollars soient « mobilisés » pour rencontrer les besoins des pays du Sud.

Prévisible : les pays en développement craignent vraiment que l’argent versé le soit de manière irrégulière ou soumis à des aléas qu’ils ne maitrisent pas. Nombre de pays en développement s’inquiètent que le financement soit laissé entièrement au secteur privé ou aux marchés financiers (taxes assises sur les transactions sur le marché du carbone par exemple). Au cours de cette journée, les USA par la voix de J. Pershing ont annoncé que l’argent versé serait principalement issu du secteur privé avec les gouvernements comme catalyseurs. Reste plus qu’à connaître la définition de la catalyse financière public-privé !

Nouveau : il s’agit probablement là du point le plus dur des négociations. Les pays en développement et les ONG demandent instamment que cet argent soit réellement nouveau. Il ne s’agit pas de faire ce que le déjà regretté Yvo de Boer (secrétaire exécutif de la Convention) appelle du « climate washing ». Par « climate washing », Yvo de Boer entend le changement de nom de certains lignes budgétaires consacrées à l’aide publique au développement. Ainsi, et ce fut encore le cas des USA qui ont annoncé qu’ils allaient utiliser les fonds d’US-AID (l’agence pour le développement) pour l’adaptation au changement climatique. Du développement à l’adaptation, il n’y avait qu’un pas… Déjà allégrement franchi.

Additionnel : les fonds versés doivent, demandent certains pays en développement mais également la Norvège et les pays Scandinaves, être additionnels à l’aide au développement. Dans les années 1970-80, les pays développés s’étaient déjà engagés à verser 0,7% de leur PIB pour l’aide au développement, aujourd’hui, seules la Norvège, et la Suède ont rempli leurs engagement. Pas étonnant alors que les pays en développement soient méfiants… ! Ainsi, aujourd’hui toujours, ces derniers par l’intermédiaire de l’Egypte (représentant l’Afrique) et la Zambie (représentant les pays les moins avancés) ont demandé à ce que les pays développés consacrent au moins 1,5% de leur PIB à l’adaptation au changement climatique. La stratégie du « demander beaucoup pour avoir un minimum » semble être encore dans les cartons de l’absence de confiance.

Tout ici n’est qu’une question de confiance, celle-ci fait défaut depuis quelques années déjà. Les financements prévus à Copenhague doivent être versés et un peu de confiance, nécessaire à l’avancée des discussions, sera retrouvé.

There is a widely-acknowledged ‘gigatonne gap’ from the mitigation pledges made at Copenhagen to a global carbon budget and realistic pathway that will be consistent with avoiding dangerous warming of 2º C or more, not to mention 1.5º C, above pre-industrial levels.

On the current path, science tells us we are facing a world that is at least 3º to 4º C warmer. What does that mean?  The answers are shocking. This could spell the extinction of countries, ecosystems and species. People will perish. It is already starting to happen. Parties need to urgently take ownership of this gap and acknowledge the responsibility they share in closing it.

ECO has highlighted before that the complexity of the climate problem has instilled fear and mistrust – particularly between industrialized and developing countries. Without fairness and respect we will never have trust. The reality of historic responsibility, the difference in per capita emissions, the primary importance of development for countries whose populations struggle with the crisis of poverty – these are very real. The dynamic of fear and division is obscuring the urgency of the disaster we face.

The fundamental reason why the world is heading for a climate disaster is the feeble ambition on reduction targets and finance coming from all industrialized countries. In particular, the excessive emissions from the US now and to 2020 and beyond are stretching the world’s carbon budget beyond the breaking point.

Whatever else we could say about Copenhagen, it certainly underlined the need for a Fair, Ambitious and Binding agreement which combines the environmental security of a robust emissions cap with a much-needed energy and economic transformation spurred by policies, measures and innovation. Given the size of the gap, we urgently need creative thinking and courageous action.

Further work by SBSTA can support the analysis of available solutions and taking the necessary decisions. ECO proposes that Parties agree, here in Bonn, to hold a workshop under SBSTA Article 9 (‘Scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of mitigation of climate change’) in the first inter-sessional before Cancún, to come to a common understanding of the scale of the gap, and for steps that could and must be taken to address it.

Developed countries have not adequately reduced their emissions since agreeing the Convention in 1992. The aggregate target of -5% agreed in Kyoto may have been a political success, but it was far from consistent with the scientific realities even at that time. And in the event, many Annex I countries haven’t achieved those modest targets, and some have barely even tried. They need to do more.

And still, ECO also notes that fingerpointing is not a survival strategy. We will only stay afloat with a concerted effort from all, according to their abilities.

Climate realism requires action, not new accounting tricks.  So another problem is the loopholes that were built into the Kyoto architecture . . . LULUCF rules that hide increased forestry emissions, prodigious offsetting with little additionality (and not even targeted towards sustainable low carbon development), and AAU banking that has become an increasing concern as the end of the first commitment period approaches. The Secretariat’s technical paper recalculated the levels of effort pledged and sheds a clear light on the assumptions behind the targets. While these issues are part of the KP negotiations, they must also be put in a consolidated context.

Finally, ECO suggests that the workshop explore the potential of new sources, sectors and approaches to reduce radiative forcing in the atmosphere and generate funds to support action. Such innovative approaches could include, inter alia:

* International aviation and shipping, a large and rapidly growing source of emissions (business-as-usual would result in 2.2 Gt CO2 by 2020), and one that can be a significant source of climate finance.

* Designing REDD, market mechanisms, NAMAs, etc., to avoid double-counting of both developed country mitigation and financial support obligations, all relevant to the MRV agenda item.

* Reducing emissions of black carbon.

* Inclusion of new F-gases in the climate regime, as technically feasible.

* Taking industrial GHGs (N2O, HFCs and NF3) out of the CDM. Their abatement costs can be better met through a fund. The CDM can be better targeted at transformational measures.

A comprehensive and realistic approach to closing the gigatonne gap is needed now. The inclusion of new sources and sectors should not replace efforts in existing sectors, but be additional so as to bridge the gigatonne gap and peak global emissions by 2015.

The AF Board has also developed a transparent working mode and allows observers to publicly comment on project proposals before their adoption. Furthermore, the strategic priority that the particular needs of the most vulnerable communities and people should be given special attention is an important new step.

ECO has been closely following the development of the AF and recognises that establishing a proper framework for the AF Board has been quite an achievement. With the accreditation of the first National Implementing Entity, the Centre de Suivi Ecologique (CSE) from Senegal, the direct access modality became a reality. The recent call for project proposals by AF for funding through the AF marks the beginning of the long-awaited implementation phase.

It is remarkable that interventions in yesterday´s SBI plenary uniformly supported the Adaptation Fund, across both developing and developed countries. This is a clear sign of progress.  In addition, Spain’s contribution of 45 million and Germany´s pledge of 10 million euro to the AF will help set up the ground-breaking facility under the Kyoto Protocol.  Other developed countries ought to immediately follow this positive example of fast-start finance.

During the SBI session here, Parties will consider the Terms of Reference for the review of the Adaptation Fund. ECO considers that the review should be based on the positive development of the Fund, the importance of its innovative features and particularly its direct access pilot. The Fund is now just becoming fully operational, so some of the necessary lessons will not be fully captured in the next six months. But the review should in particular look at the following aspects:

* In order to play out its full potential, the resources for the Adaptation Fund have to be increased, and the review should consider how to raise those funds as soon as possible.

* The current set-up has improved significantly compared to early days, but the review should nevertheless address quality, cost-effectiveness and options for further improvement.

* The appropriate role of the AF in the broad finance architecture now being shaped must be discussed.

Overall, the review should seek to strengthen the Adaptation Fund’s innovative features and help overcome operational barriers.

Clearly, on the KP track lamentably little progress has bee made over the past four years. ECO suggests that the following issues must be agreed this year, as a priority:

• LULUCF accounting rules – Annex I countries must stop trying to hide emissions from forest management and commit to reduce them instead.
• CDM/JI/emissions trading modalities – These must be revamped to avoid double counting of mitigation and financial support obligations, and to keep inappropriate sectors, such as nuclear and CCS, out of the CDM.
• New sources and sectors and other accounting rules around them (the “other issues”) should include new gases to the extent that is technically possible, and use the new IPCC AR4 global warming potential (GWP) measures over the 100 year timescale.
• The commitment period length, base year and the other modalities that will define the calculation of the quantified emission reduction obligation (QERO) and assigned amount from country pledges (here’s a free hint! correct answers for the first two are: 5 years, 1990).

When the KP was first negotiated, Parties agreed targets first, and the following years turned into excruciating negotiation exercises that ended up agreeing a series of loopholes. ECO has long maintained that the rules should be negotiated first, so that the science-indicated reduction target of at least 40% on 1990 levels by 2020 can be fairly shared between the Annex B Parties.

For this reason, negotiating time in Bonn and for the intersessionals should be concentrated on clearing these issues, so that the targets and then the discussion on QEROs can be resolved rationally and equitably, based on a clear and common understanding of the underlying scope and rules of accounting. In the short term, then, negotiating time should be concentrated on resolving the issues listed above.

In the LCA track, a balanced agreement is needed by Cancún, with each of the Bali Action Plan building blocks being addressed. In Copenhagen, the LCA negotiating texts on adaptation, technology and REDD+ were well advanced, and agreement should be possible on these issues this year. Additionally, finance, MRV and low carbon development plans should be among the agreements reached this year.

Adaptation

Most Parties seem to agree that progress can be made in Bonn on the design of an adaptation framework for implementation. However, developed countries should stop resisting a firm institutional link that ensures the provision of regular, reliable and truly additional grant-based finance needed to make this framework a real implementation action tool.

Bonn II could also achieve greater clarity on the enhancement, establishment, composition and role of regional centres and initiatives as well as the proposed establishment of an adaptation committee. Another issue that must advance is how to address unavoidable loss and damage from climate change impacts when adaptation is not longer a viable option, e.g., when water resources disappear due to shrinking glaciers and livelihoods become untenable. Progress in Bonn would be achieved if Parties clearly recognise the need for an international mechanism to address loss and damage, and identify key substantive issues to be addressed in subsequent sessions.

Technology

Technology negotiations have progressed enough that areas of clear convergence can be identified, especially regarding the establishment of a technology mechanism. More clarity is required to ensure that it operates within UNFCCC authority and principles. Other areas to be further clarified are the role of regional innovation centres, as well as criteria for MRV for technology support and actions that may take place outside the UNFCCC mechanism. Negotiators should be willing to show more flexibility regarding intellectual property issues, acknowledging the valid concerns of all parties, while focusing on a solution that will preserve incentives for innovation and ensure and expand production of, and access to, climate technologies for mitigation and adaptation.

REDD+

While ECO understands and agrees that reliable and adequate long-term funding is essential, goals for REDD and the conservation and enhancement of carbon stocks remain essential. There should also be a finance goal for support, either a specific range – a number of studies have indicated that halving emissions by 2020 would cost $15-35 billion in 2020 – or simply an agreement to finance achievement of the carbon-related goals. It is crucial to move on this now given the speed of REDD negotiations and the launch of the REDD+ partnership for fast-start financing last week.

Successful mitigation outcomes from REDD+ activities by developing countries,  supported by developed countries, depends on using improved methodological guidance for estimating emissions by sources and removals by sinks. SBSTA needs to progress this issue.

Climate integrity is not the only concern for REDD+ activities; safeguards not only need to be agreed, but the LCA text needs to operationalize them.

Finance

Climate finance can be a valuable opportunity to build some momentum in a process that needs a shot in the arm. Here in Bonn, parties should set ambitious goals for finance outcomes in Cancún, whether or not a comprehensive deal is agreed by then. To be more precise, by Cancún parties can finalize decisions covering finance MRV, governance and institution, and make substantial progress on operationalizing sources of finance to mobilize funding at the scale needed.

But it must be decided here in Bonn to achieve this by Cancún, and that means a negotiating text must be developed that will result in this outcome. ECO gives fair warning: for any parties thinking of blocking progress on finance because they didn’t get what they want in other areas, it’s time to open eyes to the bright light of negotiating reality.

MRV

ECO recognizes the crucial role of gathering, in a consistent and comparable way, accurate information relating to emission reduction activities undertaken by Parties, as well as the support provided. Indeed, this is central to the integrity of the climate regime. Thus, it is vital to continue discussions on the nature of MRV, in particular its scope and architecture, that is tailored to Parties’ differentiated obligations.  In so doing, Parties should agree a process at this meeting to elaborate the main issues associated with MRV. Additionally, Parties should give the Chair a mandate to develop text on MRV for this and future negotiations. Parties should also consider how to provide capacity building and support to construct and maintain domestic reporting and verification systems in non-Annex I countries.

Zero- and Low-Carbon Action Plans

As part of the essential process to build trust among Parties through transparency of action, ECO would like to highlight the need to agree by Cancún that both developed and developing countries (with optional participation by LDCs and SIDS) will produce national plans showing how developed countries can get their emissions to near-zero by 2050, and how developing countries can reduce their emissions — with support from developed countries as defined and agreed previously, including the Convention and the Bali Action Plan — in line with the required overall global carbon budget.

Time for action is so short, there is no time to lose, and actions are needed now in line with the scientific imperative. There is much that can progress at the multilateral level this year. In Bonn, Parties must build upon progress in the LCA and KP tracks to date and define the expectations for a balanced and ambitious outcome in Cancún.

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Developed countries should produce Zero Carbon Action Plans (ZCAPs) to map out the institutions and policies needed for them to achieve their targets under a five-year commitment period, with the longer-term aim of near-total decarbonization by 2050.  ZCAPs would also serve to document how each country proposes to achieve their support obligations to developing countries.  Both parts of the ZCAP would be subject to MRV procedures to help ensure the environmental integrity of the deal and also to give all countries increased confidence that others will not free-ride.  The long-term component allows countries to begin to develop a long-term vision for their economies and to plan for related socioeconomic transition. The reporting, review and compliance components of the ZCAP proposal are therefore essential to the integrity of the overall deal and giving confidence that targets will be met.

Developing countries, over the short to medium run and depending on capacity, will produce visionary low-carbon action plans (LCAPs) that provide a road map and outline a trajectory for their pathway to a low-carbon and climate-resilient economy, clearly linking development and climate goals to achieve sustainable development.  These plans should be developed through a bottom-up, country-driven process and should build upon national plans for adaptation and mitigation, recognizing the linkages already in place in many countries between these issues.  They should provide an integrated framework where a country’s NAMAs can form a coherent package.  These NAMAs would then form essential building blocks of a LCAP, and together their cumulative impact should result in the long-term objective of a low-carbon economy as well as stay within atmospheric limitations.  Mitigation efforts together with adaptation all contribute towards the overall LCAP.

ZCAPs and LCAPs link to a number of existing agenda items.  They are in the LCA text and are also relevant in the MRV discussions (MRV mitigation on non-Annex I, Annex I, the “firewall” between them, and MRV finance).  Because ECO sees them as being related to national communications, but forward- rather than backward-looking, SBI agenda items 3 and 4 (national communications for developed and developing countries) are also relevant.

Unfortunately, suspension of the AWG-LCA work leaves these requests in limbo. If SBSTA has to wait for direction from COP16 in December, then their work can’t start before June 2011 — hardly the most prompt of starts. At its next meeting in June, SBSTA should respond to the draft requests on which consensus was reached at Copenhagen.  Draft paragraph 4, without brackets, encompasses almost all of the methodological work that only SBSTA can do.

What is at issue?  Progress on REDD+  is held back by the lack of definitions that clearly distinguish natural forests, degraded forests and plantations. The present forest definitions, developed for reporting on

LULUCF by Annex I Parties, are woefully inadequate even for that purpose. So it is  urgent that SBSTA respond to the request to “investigate the possible application of  biome-specific definitions for the second and subsequent commitment periods”.

To be sure, completing the quest for biome-specific definitions will take time, and time is slipping away. However, SBSTA can consider a convenient alternative as an interim solution. All parties currently send forest reports to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) using a classification system that could suit REDD+ very well.  In fact, it is already in use by the Convention on Biological Diversity REDD+ expert group known as AHTEG.

Parties want a timely start, but REDD+ cannot live by finance alone. Safeguards and guidelines are also needed. The LCA should send its draft REDD+ requests to SBSTA for consideration in June, remind SBSTA of Decision 11/CP.7 and invite SBSTA to advise on the merit of existing FAO forest classifications on an interim basis.