The Resilience to Push Through

Posted on December 9, 2018 by amandac

Today was the last day for SBI/SBSTA and APA to draft a final text. The pressure, stress, and tension in each room could have been cut with a knife. The first adaptation meeting, SBI/SBSTA informal consultations on report of the Adaptation Committee, started by closing the room to observers. The second meeting, on National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), concluded in five minutes. There were no comments or arguments on the draft text and this will be offered to the Chair later today. The last meeting, APA Agenda Item 4 on Article 7, paragraphs 10 and 11, was highly debated.

As I sat in the meeting room getting ready, there was a low mumble among Parties. Parties slowly trickled in after yet another long night of informal informals. Tensions were high and a couple of Parties approached the Co-Facilitators bench. After a brief conversation, they decided to close the room to proceed with informal informals. I am not sure what happened in this meeting, but I can only conclude that there was heated debate and a lot of compromise. I will discuss why this is my conclusion in the section about the APA meeting. The idea of resilience started from the beginning of the morning sessions, and it was a tough road to stay on.

The next meeting, about Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and NAPs, was extremely short. The negotiators in this meeting are slightly different between Parties. There are new faces from larger, more developed countries because they are afforded the luxury of having multiple negotiators with expertise in one area. But these new faces brought a lighter atmosphere to this meeting. The session concluded within five minutes and the rest of the session was spent by Parties congratulating each other for the time, effort, and resiliency. As with any diplomatic process, Parties spoke up and thanked everyone for the patience and many compromises. This meeting was a nice break and each Party showed resilience.

The last meeting is where I read the tea leaves to figure out how the informal informal this morning went. The meeting started out very different than others this past week. Parties were gathering in groups outside of the meeting room to finish discussions about the draft text. When the Parties entered, there was a sense of discomfort and dissatisfaction. When the meeting began, Parties who have not spoken at all this week raised their flags.This is because the second draft did not include crucial language from the first draft. It was like looking at a completely new text. Almost every Party that spoke expressed concern and used language that showed how upset they were about the draft text. One Party found it “unacceptable” that language was deleted between the two drafts. This Party continued to state that if paragraph 9 was the only paragraph with some specific language, the Party will absolutely not agree on the draft if paragraph 9 is deleted or rephrased.

One Party, who has been very vocal this week, did not speak at all. When this Party did not speak at the beginning, those in the room could tell that something went wrong in the SBI/SBSTA session. The meeting this morning is when resiliency should have been kept by this Party. Instead it looked like that Party had almost entirely given up. Given the comparison between the first and second iteration, that is understandable. There were plenty of other Parties who expressed concerns with the draft. I hope this Party pushed through and was resilient during the informal informal that occurred right after the session officially closed. As everyone becomes more tired and irritated, resilience is more important than ever.

There was no consensus or ability to agree in some of the meetings today. The Parties need to continue to push through to attempt to produce a draft conclusion tomorrow. As the G77 negotiator stated in the NAPs meeting, “thank you for the resilience.” Everyone lost something, but everyone gained something. By the looks of today, some countries gave up more than they were hoping. Today was a pleasure to watch and we will see how the texts affect Parties in the future.

G77 + China: Perspectivas de la COP23

Posted on November 16, 2017 by mariapaula

Compuesto por 130 países, el G77 + China representa el grupo negociador más grande en la Convención Marco sobre el Cambio Climático (CMCC). El día de hoy durante su conferencia de prensa, la señora María Fernanda Espinoza en nombre del grupo, expresó los retos y debilidades de la COP23, así como los resultados positivos de las negociaciones sostenidas durante las últimas dos semanas en Bonn, Alemania.

En cuanto a los resultados positivos, el grupo resaltó la creación de la plataforma para las comunidades locales y los pueblos indígenas , la cual busca reforzar los conocimientos, las tecnologías, las prácticas y los esfuerzos de las comunidades locales y los pueblos indígenas para hacer frente al cambio climático.

Igualmente, destacó el trabajo que se ha realizado en el área de las pérdidas y daños con ocasión a los efectos de cambio climático en la que se están cuantificando los mismos para así definir los recursos necesarios para mitigación y adaptación y sobretodo recuperación después de un evento de cambio climático como los vividos en los últimos meses (Huracanes Irma y María).

Por otro lado, en lo que tiene que ver con las debilidades y los retos a los que todavía se enfrenta el grupo, Espinoza señaló que aún no está claro cómo las Partes van a cumplir con sus compromisos de adaptación y mitigación, en especial por los problemas de acceso a financiamiento y recursos, transferencias de tecnologías y el fortalecimiento de capacidades de los países.

En cuanto al financiamiento, resaltó que ocho años después de su creación el Fondo Verde Climático no ha recaudado el monto determinado para cada año y el acceso a este se hace cada vez más difícil, lo que pone en desventaja a los países menos desarrollados.

¿Qué está haciendo el G77 y China para mejorar el acceso al financiamiento y que las Partes puedan cumplir con sus metas de mitigación y adaptación?

El grupo presentó una propuesta ante la Conferencia de las Partes-COP23, en la que además de solicitar que el procedimiento para acceder a los recursos económicos sea más sencillo, se está solicitando un acceso real y consistente a los recursos que se necesitan por parte de los países.

Adicionalmente, se solicitó que estos recursos sean nuevos, predecibles y sostenibles en el tiempo para que se puedan financiar las actividades por medio de las cuales se busca cumplir con los compromisos adquiridos bajo el Acuerdo de París.

Así las cosas, y aunque se cumplieron algunos de los objetivos que se tenían para la COP23, los medios de implementación y en especial el acceso al financiamiento y los recursos sigue siendo “la pata débil” de las negociaciones.

Se espera que con la petición efectuada por el G77 y China, la COP continúe negociando y se llegue a un consenso para mejor el financiamiento que requieren los países menos desarrollados para cumplir con las metas propuestas bajo el Acuerdo de París.

Wheels of climate change policy roll on in Bonn

Posted on May 25, 2017 by achristian

While angst about the pending Trump decision on the Paris Agreement (PA) remained a subtext of the annual intersessional climate meetings that wrapped up last week in Bonn, Germany, the technical work trundled on.

More than 3,300 (negotiators, observers [including a VLS delegation], plus secretariat and other agency staff) participated in:

the 46th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI),
the 3rd part of the first session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA1.3),
several COP-mandated companion events (e.g., indigenous peoples, climate finance reporting, capacity building), and
more than 90 side events.

Photo by IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth

The Earth Negotiations Bulletin gave its usual comprehensive (if dry) lowdown of the meetings. By many reports (here, here, here, and here), the negotiations moved rather smoothly. In particular, positions on APA agenda items got clarified, even though negotiating texts are still out of reach. The APA must deliver a Paris rulebook by December 2018.

Aside from the Trump question, the media coverage (e.g., here, and here) spotlighted the contentious tussle over conflict of interest (read: corporate/fossil fuel industry influence on climate policy). But that shadow side of the SBI’s imperative to “further enhance the effective engagement of non-Party stakeholders,” was not the only thing we watched.

A few of our observations:

APA round table. (Photo by IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth)

APA round tables got a thumbs up for the airing and clarifying of views and could speed introduction of “contextual proposals” for PA rulebook pieces. Five will be held ahead of COP23, though observers will be excluded.

Parties are determined to understand, manage and capitalize on the linkages between Paris Agreement articles, and between the APA work and PA work of the subsidiary bodies. This is important and rich ground for cohesiveness.

More frequent interventions are coming from the new “coalition” of 3
Marcia Levaggi, Argentina, speaking on behalf of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay (Photo by IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth)

contiguous South American countries – Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. They constitute 3 of the 4 members of Mercosur, the Southern Common Market, which is on track to a free trade agreement with the European Free Trade Association. We’ve known them as part of multiple different negotiating groups: G77+China (all 3); Coalition of Rainforest Nations (Argentina, Uruguay); BASIC (Brazil); Like-minded Developing Countries (Argentina); and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). We’ll be keeping an eye on this development.
The Long Term Climate Finance workshops (LTF) may catalyze concrete COP consideration of strategies to address the confusing
Breakout during LTF event. (Photo by IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth)

multi-lateral climate finance architecture and developing countries’ challenges in accessing finance. (See the World Resources Institute new pub out on this issue.)
The SBSTA’s agriculture agenda item hopped on a rollercoaster, disrupting the 4-year stalemate between developed and developing countries over adaptation vs mitigation. The excitement generated by delegates’ Week 1 mantras (“very substantive dialogue,” “feels like a family”) landed with a thud in the end. No mature elements moved forward to the SBI; nor was an agriculture work programme recommended. We do see slightly positive prospects looking ahead, given the Co-Facilitators’ non-paper. Stay tuned for our deeper dive on this.

The Gender Action Plan workshop wasn’t covered by anyone, but you’ll get the in-depth story with our next post.

Next up? Thank you, Carbon Brief, for the chart of steps toward COP23.

SB44 – Next Steps After Paris

Posted on June 1, 2016 by tbach

During the last two weeks of May, the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) gathered in Bonn, Germany for their regular midyear meeting. This session is called SB44, which simply means the 44th meeting of the climate change convention’s subbodies, which include two standing groups, the SBI (Subsidiary Body for Implementation) and SBSTA (Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice) and one temporary one, the APA (Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement). SB44 is the place where the rubber meets the road. Few world leaders attend and even fewer members of the media. Instead, career diplomats who focus on international environmental law in general and climate change specifically come to Bonn to work out the technical realities of translating treaty words into governmental actions.

At SB44, the Parties continued work on climate change mitigation and adaptation programs initiated under the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol (KP). But it’s fair to say that this work was perpetually overshadowed by the future impacts of the Paris Agreement (PA). What would happen to pre-2020 commitments under the KP’s Second Commitment Period if the Paris Agreement entered into force early? How do the NDCs or nationally determined contributions required under the Paris Agreement relate to the pre-2020 Cancun pledges? How will existing governance mechanisms under the UNFCCC and KP, like the KP’s CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) Executive Board, UNFCCC’s Standing Committee on Finance and Adaptation Committee, and the COP19-created Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage, serve the Paris Agreement? Will we simply learn from their track records of what (and what not) to do when creating new governance structures under the PA?

The Paris Agreement seized the center stage for at least a third of SB44’s agenda, given the number of tasks assigned by COP21for moving into implementation. While on the surface, this work has the appearance of being technical, in reality it is rooted deeply in international politics. Hence the first week of the APA’s SB44 work was held up while the Parties disputed their agenda for the midyear session. The G77+China — the largest negotiating group in the UNFCCC negotiations — filed a request before the opening plenaries with concrete suggestions for “balancing” the agenda so that it was less mitigation-centric — a hangover from the UNFCCC and KP’s work programme foci. Through these agenda corrections, the G77 also sought to launch the next phase of work using the precise language that Parties forged last December when agreeing by consensus on the COP21 decisions.

Forging North American relations at a biergarten on the Rhein.

The APA agenda dispute (and to a lesser extent, those in SBSTA and SBI) served as the opening salvo of a consistent campaign to address the constructive ambiguity that Parties had built into the Paris Agreement’s provisions very carefully. The art of compromise on display in Paris does not transition easily to the technical exercise in Bonn of translating those words into action. This difficulty stood out most strikingly for me on two agenda items: Paris Agreement Article 6 (“cooperative approaches”) and its relation to Article 5 (forests and other land use) and transparency and global stocktaking under Articles 13 and 14, including on finance. More to come soon on these specific topics.

Losing Loss and Damage? Or Will the Paris Agreement Adapt?

Posted on December 10, 2015 by annie

Last night marked the 4^th meeting of the Comité de Paris, a group of ministerial leaders that carries out informal consultations “to make progress and facilitate compromise on the draft Paris Outcome and package of decisions transmitted to the COP by ADP.” At a meeting earlier in the day, COP President Laurent Fabius reported on the status of Adaptation and Loss and Damage (L&D) in the new Paris agreement.

Source: L’Express

Fabius explained that through informal consultations, Parties have almost concluded on the major issue of Adaptation to climate change impacts, which will enable focus on L&D. However, at the start of last night’s meeting, Fabius commented that he still had no updates from Parties on L&D in the agreement. The responses that followed suggest that negotiations are far from complete on Article 4 on Adaptation and Article 5 on L&D.

After the COP President’s opening remarks at last night’s meeting, 60 countries and groups shared their positions on the newest draft agreement text. Comments included a landslide outcry across developing countries and negotiating groups for increasing the ambition for Adaptation, and giving clear attention to L&D. Many developing countries and negotiating groups also said it was essential to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C.

Source: GCCA

South Africa, on behalf of the G-77 and China, pointed out that their group’s key proposals on Adaptation don’t appear in new text. They said that they trust that Parties will be able to engage further on Adaptation for developing countries. On L&D, the group acknowledged that there will be further consultation to advance on the issue. The current draft text has two options for Article 5 on L&D. First, to include it in its own Article, Article 5. The second option would be to incorporate it in Article 4 with the Adaptation provisions. South Africa, on behalf of the G-77 and China, stated that there should be a separate article on L&D, which must be clearly bounded by the principles of the Convention, particularly the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDRRC) that addresses permanent impacts of climate change. Many countries echoed South Africa on behalf of the G-77 and China’s position in subsequent remarks, including as described in yesterday’s ENB report, the G-77 and China, with Vietnam, Haiti, and Timor Leste, among others, emphasized the need for a distinct article on L&D.

Guatemala, on behalf of AILAC, agreed that Parties must continue to make progress in a bridging proposal for L&D, and said that in moving toward the final phase of negotiations, there is a need to catalyze actions in the area of Adaptation and the need to include a registry for adaptation actions. The most recent version of the draft text dropped the bracketed reference to a registry for adaptation communications that was included in the previous version. Chile echoed these sentiments, supporting AILAC’s proposal for Adaptation, including a registry for nationally determined priorities that would act as catalyst for short-term climate adaptation actions.

The coming hours and days will shed more light on the status of Adaptation and L&D in the Paris agreement.

COP21 Begins in 24 Hours: Will a Paris Agreement [Decrease] [Solve] [Do Nothing On] Climate Change?

Posted on November 29, 2015 by tbach

If all politics are local, but greenhouse gases find their way into the atmosphere’s international space, how can the global community act collectively on climate change? In 1992, the solution was to adopt an international treaty. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) declared climate change a “common concern of mankind,” and committed 166 countries to tackling it. Most UNFCCC parties were developing countries, who had contributed relatively few emissions given their pre-industrial poverty but were nonetheless already experiencing the irreversible, negative effects of climate change. Under the convention’s principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capacities” (CBDRRC), developed countries and top greenhouse gas emitters like the European Union and the United States agreed to take the lead.

Yet, progress has been slow. In 2007, this leadership took the form of the UNFCCC’s Kyoto Protocol, which placed clear greenhouse gas emission limits on developed countries while imposing none on developing countries. When the United States refused to ratify, its emissions, along with those of rapidly industrializing developing countries like China, India, and Brazil, escaped international regulation. Consequently, when negotiations for continuing the protocol beyond its first 2008-2012 period faltered at COP15 in Copenhagen, a new approach to international limits on greenhouse gas emissions began to take shape. It gained momentum at the two subsequent conferences of parties (COPs) held in Cancun and Durban. Now, almost six years on, there is emerging agreement that all parties—developed and developing countries—should make individual, international climate change mitigation pledges determined by each party’s national government.

At COP21 in December, the current 196 UNFCCC parties will decide if they can sign on to this new paradigm of international climate change regulation. The Durban Mandate requires the parties to “develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties” by the end of 2015. In Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11, 2015, the parties will have their last opportunity to shape the international climate change law that will take the place of the Kyoto Protocol when it ends in 2020.

During four negotiation sessions this year, the parties drafted a “Paris Package” that consists of a core legal agreement based on a system of nationally determined contributions and several COP decisions addressing implementation and political issues. The current 31-page draft agreement outlines how parties’ individual contributions will be internationally measured, reviewed, and verified. These pledges no longer focus solely on mitigation. Consistent with appeals from the developing world, the draft agreement pays almost equal attention to adaptation and finance actions. Likewise, it sets out conditions for transparent international reporting. Under it, parties take responsibility for determining whether their national efforts collectively keep global temperature rise below the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s recommended upper limit of 2 degrees Celsius.

This new system of national pledges that are internationally made and scrutinized for sufficiency had a trial run this year. By Oct. 1, 2015, 147 parties had submitted their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), covering approximately 86 percent of total global emissions. While each INDC derives from national priorities, overall they tend to include substantive contributions on mitigation, adaptation, and finance, as well as important process pledges on reporting and verification, technology transfer, and capacity building. Developed countries have pledged absolute mitigation targets and resources for vulnerable developing countries. Higher-income developing countries like Brazil, China, and Mexico have made concrete greenhouse gas mitigation pledges. Other developing countries have described their mitigation and adaptation efforts and goals, but made them conditional on receiving financial assistance. Transparency in this pledging process has been prioritized: INDCs are publicly available at the UNFCCC website and have been reviewed closely by the UNFCCC secretariat, non-governmental organization (NGOs), and the press.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that, at least in the short term, these intended contributions do not add up to keeping atmospheric warming below the 2-degree Celsius goal. A Nov. 1, 2015, UNFCCC report concluded that while the INDC pledges—if fulfilled—would slow down the global rate of greenhouse gas emissions, they will not maintain the global temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius. Likewise NGOs like Climate Action Tracker (CAT) and Climate Interactive reach the same conclusion. CAT calculates that achieving the unconditional INDC pledges would still likely lead to a 2.7-degree Celsius increase. Climate Interactive’s math adds up to a predicted 3.5-degree Celsius increase.

So how could COP21’s Paris Package address this shortfall and result in a new international agreement that leads parties to bend the global emissions curve to a 2-degree Celsius or lower pathway?

First, it would use these INDCs as a starting point only and include provisions in the new agreement that require all parties to increase their contributions in regular, transparent cycles. In this way, COP21 serves as “a way station in this fight, not a terminus,” as Bill McKibben recently wrote.
Second, it would emphasize the need for all parties to adapt to changes already locked in by historical emissions, and recognize the permanent loss and damage experienced by the most vulnerable developing countries.
Third, to achieve these first two, it would show agreement on the amount and kind of financing available for developing countries to achieve their pledges. COP15’s promise of mobilizing $100 billion per year by 2020 for mitigation and adaptation activities is still on the table. A recent OECD report indicates that climate finance reached $62 billion in 2014. But many note that mobilizing private finance is not the same as pledging public funds, and call for developed country governments to do more.
Fourth, it would include a COP decision that ramps up the INDC pledges before the new agreement takes effect in 2020. From now until then, non-state actors like cities, states, and provinces, as well as businesses and consumer groups, have focused their subnational powers on renewable energy and energy efficiency actions intended to narrow the emissions gap.
Fifth, it would reflect a new understanding of CBDRRC. While this core principle no longer translates into developing countries getting a bye on greenhouse gas emissions limits, it also does not exempt developed countries from their historical responsibility for climate change and their capacity to provide finance and technology for low- or no-carbon development. The deep tension over how to fairly bring all parties into a common framework that recognizes different starting points permeates the draft text through heavily [bracketed] language.

The UNFCCC requires consensus to lift these brackets. The negotiations thus far have produced little of it. Instead, despite its fractured international politics, the G77+China has flexed its negotiation muscle through disciplined coordination of member countries that otherwise align with the diverse agendas of the Africa Group, Arab Group, and Like Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs). AOSIS, which represents low-lying countries whose very existence is threatened by sea level rise, works with the least developed countries group (LDCs) to press for strong adaptation and loss and damage provisions. The E.U. and U.S. are committed to market mechanisms for achieving mitigation reductions and private climate financing along with government contributions. Two negotiating groups, the Environmental Integrity Group (EIG) and AILAC, seek to find common ground. The EIG is the only group that includes both developed and developing countries. AILAC’s members are middle-income Central and South American countries that are growing rapidly yet can still reorient toward low-carbon pathways. But these national negotiators can go only so far: While they are masters of the technical details and crafting precise legal language, it appears that the true power to compromise resides in their national capitals.

Leading up to COP21, weekly meetings of heads of state and their environmental, foreign affairs, and finance ministers have taken place. In this way, local politics are actively engaged on the international problem of climate change. All parties preparing for Paris have said clearly what they want to avoid—no repeat of COP15, no “ghosts of Copenhagen” haunting COP21. It will be a day-by-day proposition with some bumpy rides along the way. Follow the journey here till its finish!

Will the ADP meet its mandate in Lima?

Posted on December 12, 2014 by tbach

The last few days of a two-week COP always include their fair share of drama. After the workmanlike approach to the SBI and SBSTA agenda items during the first week, the late nights, constantly delayed and then conflicting meeting times, and inevitable sticking points between parties take their toll.

Today was no exception. After finishing its review at 1am this morning of all 36 paragraphs (and 18 pages) of the draft COP decision reissued by the co-chairs on Monday, the weary delegates and co-chairs reconvened at about 10am. While giving themselves a well-deserved pat on the back for having achieved this initial round of negotiation, reality struck when trying to decide how to move from review to reconciliation of the now 55-page text filled with dozens of alternative clauses.

Bolivia, on behalf of the G77+China, announced that China was working on a slimmed down version to propose to the group and asked for more time to complete it. When the morning meeting finally reconvened at 4:30pm, Bolivia told assembled parties that it had a revised text only for Workstream 2 (pre-2020 ambition). This news sparked a debate for more than an hour over how to consider this new draft, whether in a full contact group or in a smaller “friends of the chair” meeting with participants selected by each negotiating bloc.

The session also produced some testy moments. Malaysia complained that the starting draft text of the decision, produced by the chairs, was biased. It proudly claimed “tremendous and immense progress” during these two weeks toward better reflecting LMDC’s views. When pushed by developed country Parties as to why there was still no consensus among developing countries, the Malaysian delegate retorted “have you got convergence amongst developed countries?” The answer at the time of this meeting was no. Malaysia did not want the G77 and LMDCs to shoulder the blame for the delay.

Switzerland responded that some parties had waited too long to make their suggestions and therefore the negotiations have been extremely slow and inefficient. Switzerland submitted their proposals in March 2014 and pointed out that all parties, developed and developing alike, were able to do so. However, it should be noted that the LMDCs also submitted their suggestions in March. Switzerland reaffirmed that Parties need to develop a decision that is acceptable to all parties, not just 130 parties. This was a clear reference to the G77+China, some of whose members had developed the new draft text outside the contact group meeting and had not yet supplied it to all of its members, let alone the rest of the ADP.

With this, the ADP negotiators hit a road block. With no time remaining before the scheduled President’s Stocktaking, the session broke with no progress to show.

Thus after a week of lengthy negotiations over a draft COP decision on the implementation of all the elements of decision 1/CP.17, Co-Chair Kishan Kumarsingh had to provide a disappointing update to COP20 President Manuel Pulgar-Vidal: ultimately, some Parties could not recommend or agree upon how to move forward, which left Parties in a position where consensus could not be reached, and in fact appeared to drive Party agreement further apart rather than converging together.

In a very heartfelt and off-the-cuff response, the COP President implored ministers and negotiators to work together with his guidance and direction. He reminded negotiators that this is in fact a very crucial moment at Lima – with only one day remaining – and with that provided 4 observations for consideration.

First is timing. With only one day left to close the conference, it is the time to send a clear and strong message and move the process forward.

Second is to make sure we embrace the spirit of Lima, including the outcome of COP20, and to avoid the “we don’t want” phraseology. Instead proposals should be brought forward in a constructive and reasonable way to achieve the objectives of reaching a draft decision. “We will not accept leaving with empty hands; the spirit of Lima includes the outcome, not just the warm hospitality.” Bottom line: If
we leave Lima with empty hands, we will not have a deal in Paris.

Third is the importance of maintaining a transparent and party driven process. Now is not the time to develop singular approaches. We need to work with open doors, and talk to all Parties and negotiating blocs. Pulgar-Vidal exhorted delegates to “put in all your will, all your political support, to build the outcome together.”

Fourth, the President provided instruction and guidance to the Co-Chairs and parties to get back together and develop a reasonable text by 9pm tonight and then reconvene tomorrow morning at 9am. With his guidance and coordination, the text must reflect a position of all parties, and maintain the confidence of all via the text. He reminded parties, “It is not a linguistic discussion, it is a substantive discussion, and we need to show that we can advance in the discussion. Not in the words, not the commas, not in the dots, but in the substance. It must focus on the key points.” These include the draft decision providing clear and strong direction, including the upfront information required for all Parties to submit their INDCs in 2015 and to take ambitious pre-2020 action. It also includes evolving the non-paper into the elements of a negotiating text.

“Help us, help me” said President Pulgar-Vidal, in a visibly emotional way. Drawing on his 28 years as an environmental lawyer, as a participant at the1992 Rio summit and a firm believer in the value of international environmental conventions, he reiterated his plea: “We understand your domestic needs, your domestic agendas. Don’t leave me alone – work with me. Let’s bring good hope to the world, sharing a common objective.” To which the room erupted into loud and sustained applause. The COP20 President then charged the ADP to get back to work and report on its progress at a 9am stocktaking tomorrow morning. AcknowIedging the ovation from his colleagues, he smiled when he said “I appreciate your applause, but I appreciate more the applause to you tomorrow at 6pm.”

With that, the evening stocktaking ended and negotiators milled around the room, seeking out conversations with one another before returning to formal negotiations. Tonight, a 10:30pm revised decision draft was posted on the ADP site, clocking in at a slim 7 pages. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s reactions to it.

Mind the [Ambition] Gap

Posted on December 3, 2014 by whitneyb

When stepping onto the Underground in London, a voice rings out, “Mind the gap.” Perhaps this should also be echoing through the halls of the COP20 venue in Lima, Peru, this week. The pre-2020 ambition gap is often stated in terms of what must be done differently from business as usual to keep GHGs from warming the global temperature 2°C (relative to pre-industrial levels) before the year 2020.

The most recent IPCC Report (AR5) states with high confidence that there are opportunities through mitigation, adaptation and integrated responses to narrow this gap. The ADP meetings held in Lima during this session are ripe with discussions of interim measures to be taken prior to the next year’s Paris COP21. On Tuesday, the Parties discussed a draft text which is set to accelerate implementation of climate action. Over the next 10 days, Parties will negotiate which gap-closing measures they are willing to take.

Parties are looking to negotiate specific texts and elements, while in Lima, that can be solidified at the upcoming COP21 in Paris; without concrete commitments in place upon leaving Lima next week, it will be very difficult to give Congresses, Parliaments and other governing bodies time to ‘okay’ these commitments before COP21. Many Parties have voiced that it is very late to still be negotiating texts for the Paris agreement – yet the negotiations must continue.

Any agreement signed in Paris next year will become effective in 2020. This leaves a ‘gap’ of the next five years – many Parties are already suffering from climate change and are calling for a developed nations to make commitments now. The opening session of the ADP on Tuesday allowed G77+China to lead the way in calling for accelerated action by developed countries through financing and technology transfer for developing countries. Although it is early in the process, Parties seem to be mindful, at least, that there is gap.

Sausage-making on a Global Level

Posted on November 27, 2014 by rdavidson

As the first Chancellor of Germany and acknowledged master of complex politics, Otto von Bismark, is known to have said, “To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.”

Yet when thinking about arriving at the UNFCCC COP20 negotiations in Lima – commencing in less than a week from now – I see it as exactly the opposite. The idea of watching the negotiating process – the proverbial sausage-making – play out in real time is an experience I would not want to miss.

For me, it’s truly a “bucket-list” opportunity. The nuances of language, climate diplomacy, and the purposeful ‘constructive ambiguity’ in these upcoming discussions are as intriguing to me as a good mystery novel.

So what is anticipated? Considering the high-stakes global implications, and the relative speed at which agreement among Parties needs to be forged before next year’s development of a new legal framework/agreement, I will be paying particular attention to the challenges surrounding how Parties agree on communicating their intended nationally determined contributions (known as INDCs) by early 2015, what elements those might include, and how Parties will come to the table to increase pre-2020 ambition to meet the below 2˚C objective. From a negotiating standpoint, the positions of developed nations vs. developing nations, the interplay between negotiating blocs, the framework of Common but Differentiated Responsibility under the Convention, and the quality of Equity remain on the forefront of these discussions.

And how do these dialogues play out? Negotiating theory instructs us that there are three basic modes of approaching dispute resolution: reconciling interests, determining who is right, or determining who is more powerful.

The relationship among these can be quite fluid, and the process of resolving disputes may shift from interests to rights to power and back again. As is clear in climate negotiations, not all disputes end with resolution. In some instances, interest-based negotiation (also known as problem-solving negotiation) cannot occur unless rights or power procedures are first employed. Yet, shifting the negotiating paradigm can be particularly sensitive in climate disputes, especially considering the climate impacts already felt by developing countries, and the reluctance of developed countries to assume ‘historical responsibility’.

In negotiating theory parlance, the recent joint announcement on climate change and clean energy cooperation by the U.S. and China marks an interesting shift of positions – from the traditional power play between these two Parties to one which shifts the negotiating paradigm from a power and rights-based dialogue to an increasingly interest-based negotiation. And this is no easy transition.

Reconciling interests involves digging deeper into deep-seated concerns, developing innovative and creative solutions, and sometimes making trade-offs and concessions where interests have previously been opposed.

For instance, China’s announced target to peak CO2 emissions around 2030 (or earlier) and to increase non-fossil fuel shares of energy to around 20% by 2030 represents a shift from the historical G77+China position that developing nations should not have to bear the burden of solving a problem they did not create. This strongly held position by G77 has precluded the adoption of emission targets by developing countries and focused their efforts on obtaining financial and capacity-building assistance from the developed countries to address climate change.

So, China’s willingness to take on these mitigation targets marks a compelling step outside the traditional G77 approach, and is the first time China, as the largest global GHG generator, has agreed to peak its CO2 emissions. China appears to be straying from the line-in-the-sand ‘binary approach’ of the Kyoto Protocol maintained by developing group negotiating blocs, and instead treating the global dispute of responsibility as a mutual problem to be solved by all Parties. Perhaps China realizes that a ‘better’ approach means minimizing transaction costs of inaction on an economy-wide scale, improving relationships bilaterally and internationally, finding better satisfaction with the overall climate outcome, and lessening the recurrence of future disputes.

Considering the comprehensive targets set in the last month by the U.S., China, and the recent E.U. pledge, we now have countries representing more than half of all global emissions making significant mitigation commitments, which in turn can put pressure on others to shift from positions to action, and from rights to interests.

Although in the U.S. the conservative backlash to this deal has been harsh, the fact is that the shift by large emitters and economic powerhouses, such as China, the U.S. and the E.U., can influence the negotiating dynamic in Lima, hopefully breaking the logjam, and allowing the negotiation system design to upturn – to promote the reconciling of interests but also to provide a lower-cost way to determine rights or power for those disputes that cannot be resolved by focusing on interests alone. All of which leads to an increased chance of a global agreement in Paris next December, shifting the world closer to an emissions path that can stabilize CO2 levels and keep total warming as close to 2˚C as possible.

I am inspired watching developed and developing Parties create the negotiating space to delve into action-based dialogue and consider the impact and weight of inaction – and the recent strategy brought forward by the U.S. and China. I am inspired watching the dispute resolution system play out in Lima: will it shift from a ‘distressed system’ where few disputes are resolved by interest-based negotiations, to one of an ‘effective dispute resolution system’ where power and rights-based negotiation are lessened, and more Parties are making trade-offs and developing an interest-oriented dispute resolution goal?

We are losing ground on meeting the global 2˚C objective, and rights or power-based positioning by Parties will likely not create the dynamic required to bring all effected countries to the table. Yet, countries are expected to devise their individual contributions early in this upcoming year, and agreement in Lima will be pivotal for development of a new legal agreement/framework planned at next year’s COP meetings.

“Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.” Au contraire, Mr. Bismarck, I am inspired by this process. I couldn’t be more excited to see this global sausage-making in action.

China: Cause for Despair? Or Cause for Hope?

Posted on October 31, 2014 by William Schulte

As the nations of the world wrapped up last week’s ADP negotiations on the key elements of the 2015 Paris agreement, many observers remained focused on China. Simply put, the actions that China takes (or doesn’t take) in the next decade or so could very well determine whether humanity can successfully avoid a full-blown climate catastrophe. Even though China is still considered a developing country under the UNFCCC, the world, and China’s position in it, has changed dramatically in the more than two decades since that treaty was negotiated. China has been the world’s single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions since 2006, it consumes nearly as much coal as the rest of the world combined, and its energy demand is expected to double by 2030. According to an excellent recent Rolling Stone article on US-China climate discussions, China now emits 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, which is expected to increase to over 15 billion tons by 2030. The article quotes Kevin Anderson, deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, expressing his opinion that if this increase happens, the world’s chances of avoiding catastrophic climate disturbance are “virtually zero.”

As such, some may become discouraged by China’s insistence that “developed” countries bear responsibility for mitigating climate change based on their historical emissions. For example, with regard to ADP workstream 2, the ENB’s summary of ADP2-6 noted that a Conference Room Paper submitted by China on behalf of the LMDC’s called for “unconditional commitments by Annex I parties to reduce emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2020.” With regard to workstream 1, the closing statement submitted by the G77+China expressed concern that the ADP Co-Chairs’ draft text on information on INDC’s in the context of the 2015 agreement lacks “central elements” such as the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. In short, China has shown resistance to international pressure to commit to curbing its greenhouse gas emissions based on its belief that the current climate crisis is largely the industrialized West’s fault. Its position: Developing nations such as China should not have to bear the burden of solving a problem they didn’t create. While there is a lot of truth to this argument, it seems to fall short of the reality of the climate challenges the world faces today and into the future.

Nevertheless, China’s recent actions indicate that China’s leaders take the threats associated with climate change seriously and are doing something about it. For one thing, China’s leaders fully recognize that the environmental degradation caused by its breakneck economic growth over the last several decades, most of which was supported by the burning of coal, is not sustainable. This heavy reliance on coal has resulted in untold amounts of damage to the country’s air, surface and groundwater, and soils. Public health has taken a heavy hit as well – a report published last year found that outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010. Accordingly, earlier this year Premier Li Keqiang announced a “war on pollution.” Among other things, this war will consist of shutting down outdated small coal-fired power plants and industrial plants, reforms in energy pricing to boost renewables, and increases in government spending on measures to address water and soil degradation. China is outperforming the United States on renewable energy, which now makes up about 20% of China’s energy mix. China produces more wind and solar power than any other country on the planet, and in 2013 over 50% of new generation was renewable. There are also indications that China’s coal use may peak as early as this year.

China is also a step ahead of the United States with regards to regulating carbon emissions. It has introduced pilot cap-and-trade programs in five cities and two provinces that are designed to be replicated and implemented at the national level sometime between 2016 and 2020. According to a recent study by Resources for the Future, these pilot programs increase the coverage of global emissions by carbon markets from less than 8% to more than 11%. While the study notes that the pilot cap-and-trade programs are not perfect and could use some improvements, they nevertheless indicate that addressing climate change is in fact high on China’s list of priorities.

China is therefore, somewhat paradoxically, the source of both hope and despair when it comes to confronting the challenges presented by climate change. It will certainly be very interesting to see how this paradox plays out in the upcoming climate negotiations on Lima and in Paris.

Bridge building 101: ADP in Lima

Posted on October 29, 2014 by tbach

IISD’s final wrap of ADP2-6 came out in yesterday’s ENB. Summarizing the session’s progress on its three priorities — the content of INDCs, more development of the Paris agreement’s elements, and a decision on enhancing pre-2020 ambition — the reporting service also expressed concern about the slow pace of the meeting and its impact on December’s negotiations in Lima. “Despite a generally cordial atmosphere, many were concerned that parties were clinging to long-held positions, or even walking back from understandings reached in Durban and Warsaw.”

On INDCs, disagreement persisted on the Warsaw mandate’s scope, namely whether to focus on mitigation only (most developed countries’ position) or also include adaptation and tech transfer and finance (the last two being means of implementation or MOI), the position adopted by most developing countries.

In addition to substantive disagreements, ENB underscored the impact of two process issues: the fragmentation of negotiating groups and the lack of accord on work methods. On the first, “some long-term observers” point out that “traditional country groupings are finding it increasingly difficult to reach common positions” as COP21 approaches. Specific examples cited were individual country interventions by Palau, Timor-Leste, and Tanzania, developing countries that would normally rely on their negotiating blocs’ (e.g. AOSIS, LDC, Africa Group, G77+China) positions. One delegate concluded “we were asked to build bridges at this conference, but, as it stands, we are constructing bridges from our own positions and it is hard to see how they will join up, and, if we are not careful we will just build bridges to nowhere.”

The second process disagreement revolved around whether to negotiate in Lima based on the Co-Chairs’ draft texts (specifically the non-paper and draft decisions provided, as well as post ADP2-6 updates), continue a more conceptual discussion, or enter into text-based negotiations in smaller groups. (Read here for more detail on closing plenary statements on point.) ENB concluded that the lack of consensus on how to conduct the negotiations “left some parties talking past each other as some addressed the Co-Chairs’ non-paper and draft decisions, while others focused on conference room papers submitted by country groupings.” ENB predicts that this fundamental process disagreement could “potentially delay substantive discussions” in the ADP’s opening in Lima.

This edition of the ENB began with Christiana Figueres’ exhortation to delegates to “build bridges and find a path forward you can all tread together” and a Jimmy Cliff lyric (“many rivers to cross but I can’t seem to find my way over”). Likewise it ended on this theme of constructing common approaches and the perils for COP20 absent them:

“As the week drew to an end, the importance attached by different groups to each of three Lima pillars made it evident that a successful outcome at COP 20 would require skillful bridge building and balancing of issues, and possibly a much-disliked ‘package.’ While Bonn did not succeed in fully building the necessary bridges, delegates did manage to lay the groundwork for the main pillars of the expected ADP outcome in Lima. With only a few weeks remaining, and a multitude of rivers to cross, delegates will need to do their utmost to explore creative ways to build these bridges together, or failing that, they may need to learn how to swim.”

The road from Bonn to Lima (by way of Copenhagen this week)

Posted on October 27, 2014 by tbach

Looking back on last week’s ADP2-6 special session, it would be easy to echo the notes of pessimism that pervaded Saturday’s press reports. RTCC (Responding to Climate Change) commen ted after last Thursday’s stocktaking session that “much work remains” in the session’s last two days and noted the frustrated ADP Co-Chairs “offering government negotiators a stern reality check.” Artur Runge-Metzger acknowledged that the “ambition to finalize the two decisions is no longer possible in Bonn” because State Parties had “not touched on many important things.” Kishan Kumarsingh put it more bluntly, calling on delegates to “look yourselves in the eye; ask yourself if we are on track.”

Saturday’s Business Insider opened with these words: “Concern was high at a perceived lack of urgency as UN climate negotiations shuffled towards a close in Bonn on Saturday with just 14 months left to finalise a new, global pact. The six-day meeting of senior officials in the former West German capital was meant to lay the groundwork for the annual round of ministerial-level UN talks in Lima in December. In turn, the Lima forum must pave the way to a historic pact which nations have agreed must be signed in Paris next year, to curb planet-altering climate change. But some negotiators and observers expressed concern that the Bonn talks focused too much on restating well-known country positions on how responsibility for climate action must be shared.” BI quotes David Waskow of the World Resources Institute (WRI) saying that while the ADP2-6 talks had been constructive, “there is nervousness that the pace is somewhat slow” and Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) echoing this concern more pithily: “People are starting to panic a little.”

Even some good news from individual countries – foreshadowing their INDCs or intended nationally determined commitments/contributions, the content of which was under negotiation all week in Bonn – did not appear to hearten negotiators. For example, the AFP (L’Agence France-Presse) announced on Thursday that “a European deal on curbing carbon emissions yielded a rare concrete input Friday to UN climate talks, but did little to ease frustration among negotiators demanding progress on a global pact in Bonn.” The EU-28’s agreement to cut GHG emissions by at least 40% by 2030 over 1990 levels (building on the EU’s current projected 20% decrease from 1990 to 2020), along with 27% renewable energy and energy efficiency targets, was hailed in Brussels but downplayed by some developing country negotiators in Bonn.

Claudia Salerno, Venezuela’s lead negotiator at the ADP (pictured at right facing the camera), spoke on behalf of the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) negotiation bloc when she called the EU goals “too little and too late.” Likewise Sweden’s pledge of $550 million to the Green Climate Fund barely took the edge off developing countries concern about the slow progress of all developed countries in meeting their COP15 pledge of mobilizing $100 billion per year of climate finance by 2020. Even though the Swedish government’s press release announced that it is “now choosing to take greater responsibility for Sweden’s climate impact and is making a commitment ahead of Paris 2015 by increasing Green Climate Fund (GCF) financing by approximately USD 550 million (SEK 4 billion) and allocating an additional SEK 500 million to international climate action,” Bloomberg News led its Friday report on ADP2-6 with “a dispute about how to link greenhouse-gas emissions cuts to a promise from the wealthiest nations for $100 billion a year in climate aid emerged as a major stumbling block at UN talks on global warming.” As UCS’s Meyer observed, “there has to be some collective signal from the developed countries that the direction of climate finance will be upwards and not fall off a cliff. You need more clarity on post-2020 finance if you want to get an agreement in Paris.”

Finally, a Greenpeace report noted by the GCCA (Global Call for Climate Action) last week that China — now the world’s largest GHG emitter — had decreased its coal usage this year gained little traction in the Bonn talks. Because China burns almost half of the coal used worldwide each year, the fact that it decreased its coal consumption by about 2% while also growing its economy 7.4% and increasing its energy consumption by 4% indicates that the country is on track to meet the mitigation goals it announced at last month’s UN Climate Summit. This change looks to have resulted from a combination of several “bottom up” initiatives within China, including its National Energy Agency’s proposals to limit coal consumption growth to 2% (by more than doubling wind power capacity and increasing solar capacity fivefold between 2013 and 2020) and regional pledges in 12 of China’s 44 provinces (representing 44% of national coal usage) to limit their coal consumption and the launch of 8 regional carbon markets that prepares China to meet its national emissions trading scheme targeted for 2016.

At the ADP’s closing plenary, State Party delegates spoke out about the road from Bonn to Lima, ignoring the Co-Chairs’ request to end ADP2-6 without individual country interventions. A general theme was sounded by Bolivia speaking on behalf of the G77+China that was echoed by most parties: feeling the political pressure from civil society and wanting to avoid a “take it or leave it” situation in COP20’s final moments, the G77 urged the co-chairs to reorient the ADP’s work in Lima by starting with a clear working text and formal groups that focus negotiation on all core elements of agreement. Ecuador, representing the LMDCs, drew a very clear picture of what it wanted to avoid: “We represent sovereign states. We expect to negotiate with dignity,” not in huddles resulting from a mismanaged process. South Africa, concluding that “the latest version does not reflect the bridges that we’ve built,” additionally called for appointing facilitators to lead these focused groups and working specifically from an updated and reorganized version of the current non-paper. While directing her remarks to the Co-Chairs, the SA lead ADP negotiator reminded everyone in the room – State Party delegates, UNFCCC staff, civil society organizations – that “time is not on our side.” Picking up on this last point, the Swiss ADP lead negotiator, speaking for the EIG (Environmental Integrity Group, the only UNFCCC negotiating bloc to include both developing and developed country members), redirected negotiators’ frustration from the ADP leadership to its membership: “Slow motion this week due to speed limits imposed by parties on themselves, not by co-chairs.” He observed that the week’s focused work on mitigation commitments had been productive, permitting the parties to delve into more detail and nuance, and commended the Co-Chairs for “creating this space.”

Next stop on the road to Lima is this week’s 40th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-40), which began meeting this morning at the Tivoli Conference Center in Copenhagen, Denmark. Its goal: to consider and finalize the IPCC’s Synthesis Report (SYR), which integrates and synthesizes the findings from the three Working Group (WG) reports already published. Taken together, the three WG reports and the SYR will make up the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) that the 196 UNFCCC parties will rely on in Lima. From today until the final gavel on Friday, the IPCC will approve, line by line, the SYR’s Summary for Policymakers (SPM) and adopt the draft SYR – no mean feat, given that more than 800 authors and review editors from 85 countries have had a hand in preparing AR5 during the past six years. Maybe the IPCC’s process could suggest some conflict resolution techniques for the UNFCCC parties?

“A foundation COP” of nuts and bolts

Posted on November 24, 2013 by tbach

A presidential stocktaking during COP19’s final days.

“Stocktaking” is a now a new word in my vocabulary. While I regularly do it, I don’t normally make the time to name it as such. In the polyglot system of the United Nations, awkwardly-formal-but-descriptive terms like this one (and “functions and modalities,” “institutional mechanisms,” “work programmes”) are essential to the process of moving a group forward to action.

So now, speaking of “moving forward” (a common phrase at COP19), let’s take stock of how the media is portraying the outcome of COP19.

Today’s NYT focuses on the ADP and L&M final deals, explaining more about the latter than the former. It led off with the idea that COP19 is “keeping alive the hope” of globally dealing with climate change, but ends on a bummer note: “Treaty members remain far from any serious, concerted action to cut emissions. And developing nations complained that promises of financial help remain unmet.” Both valid points, and the second is a true accounting of what I witnessed in the ADP sessions. But the first one misses the mark on this “foundation COP’s” mission, which the co-chairs stressed during the wee hours of Friday/Saturday’s marathon negotiation session: the ADP’s mandate for COP19 was to establish the elements and timetable for making the legal agreement that will bind countries to emissions reductions, not negotiating the agreement itself.

The NYT also chronicled how the U.S. called out China’s intransigence on future GHG emissions being “applicable to all” and how developed countries recognized their historical responsibility for creating global warming even though they resist being held “liable” for it.

China’s Xinhua news service focused on the glass half full, leading with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s positive view of COP19: “The decisions adopted in Warsaw serve as an important stepping stone toward a universal legal agreement in 2015.” Using the carefully negotiated language of “contributions” (rather than commitments), the article closed by observing that the ADP agreement “was seen as a key step paving the way for all countries to reach an ambitious global climate pact in 2015, and a sign of their desire to avert a breakdown of the climate talks.” It also gave a nod to a next stepping stone, the climate summit hosted by Ban Ki-Moon in September 2014 (on the eve of the U.N. General Assembly meeting): “He has asked world leaders, as well as leaders from business, finance, local government and civil society, to bring bold announcements and actions that will lead to significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions and strengthened adaptation and resilience efforts.”

The head Chinese negotiator for ADP, center background.

Continuing with the stepping stone “path” metaphor for summing up the Warsaw meeting, but offering more “real politick” talk in a separate (but linked) news article, the Chinese delegation noted its disappointments. “There are many issues that we are not actually satisfied with but we can accept,” Xie Zhenhua, head of China’s COP19 delegation and also deputy chief of China’s National Development and Reform Commission. According to him, “to make the meeting a success and the multi-lateral mechanism effective, China has shown the biggest flexibility and made concessions on some issues.”

Interestingly, BusinessGreen provides the more detailed and accurate accounting of COP19 specifics (as I witnessed them), as well as the most nuanced analysis. (I am not familiar with the publication but the comments indicate a very different readership than my regular reading list!) It directly reports that “the eventual agreement resulted in a draft text that requires countries ‘who are ready’ to make ‘contributions, without prejudice to the legal nature,’ ideally by early 2015 at the latest” and acknowledges that this wording represents “significant watering down” of the penultimate draft’s use of “for those in a position” to deliver a climate “commitment” by early 2015.Nonetheless, UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey views this as a sufficient outcome for “all nations have now agreed to start their homework to prepare for a global climate change deal in 2015” (reprising the homework theme of his HLM opening plenary remarks). “While the long negotiations in Poland showed there are many tough talks ahead of us, the determined diplomacy of the UK and EU achieved our aims, building alliances with our friends across the world.”

Jonathan Grant, Director at PwC’s sustainability and climate change team, joins the chorus using sports analogies to characterize the outcome achieved yesterday inside the National Stadium. “By taking us to the brink of collapse, looking over the edge and then pulling back, we come away feeling delighted that any progress has been made at all,” he said. “A victory was always expected, but like the England football team, the COP made this a lot more dramatic than it needed to be. The ‘talks about talks’ phase is now over, as countries agreed to the agenda for the negotiations and the timeline for coming up with some numbers.”

BusinessGreen closes with Nicholas Stern’s dose of reality therapy. The author of the famous Stern Report, who now chairs an institute at the London School of Economics, views COP19’s output as “simply inadequate” compared to the scale and urgency of the risks of climate change: “If the world is to have a reasonable chance of avoiding dangerous levels of global warming, which it is generally agreed would occur if there is a rise in global average temperature by more than two centigrade degrees compared with the late 19th century, annual emissions of greenhouse gases will need to be cut at a much faster rate than is currently planned by countries.”

That, folks, reminds the process-oriented “policy” types that their nuts and bolts are still out of step with the science types’ brass tacks.

Will it be the Warsaw Miracle? ADP and long-term finance adopted at COP 19, just loss and damage to go.

Posted on November 23, 2013 by hcroshaw

Early this afternoon, the ADP adopted draft text after a lengthy “huddle” to decide on 2(b) and 2 (c). Cuba and Bolivia made reservations as they thought the new text did not go far enough under Article 4 of the UNFCCC. In the COP19/CMP9 session, the COP President Marcin Korolec adopted the new ADP text. He almost even smiled! Then, the President moved onto a few other agenda items (check UNFCCC website for new documents). One of them was the third contentious issue over the past few days: long-term finance (#WTF). Amazingly, the President called for the adoption of the long-term finance text. It actually happened.

COP19/CMP9 Plenary begins to discuss Loss & Damage

Then, the President moved onto Agenda item 3(b), Loss and Damage (L&D, not LDM). I make this distinction, because the wording of the L15 draft text houses the “Warsaw international mechanism” on L&D “under” the adaptation pillar of the Cancun Adaptation Framework (CAF) (see para 1). Thus, the current text does not establish L&D as its own separate mechanism (LDM), like the Clean Development Mechanism.

Mr. Yeb Saño makes remarks on loss and damage.

Fiji, on behalf of G77+China, strongly objected to the use of the word “under,” which was supported by the United States. It was a matter of semantics that created the furor in the Plenary room. Then, the Philippines’s Mr. Yep Saño made opening remarks, supporting Fiji’s position. He pleaded that negotiators needed to “think outside of the box” to find solutions and that “loss and damage is beyond adaptation.” He urged that developing countries need help to deal with a problem caused by developing countries’ historical carbon emissions. Adaptation is not enough, Mr. Saño pleaded, and that loss and damage needed to be its own mechanism.

The negotiation blocks of AOSIS, G77+China and others asked the COP President for a huddle. The President permitted a 15 minute huddle. A huge group of High-Level negotiators, including USA’s Mr. Todd Stern, immediately began discussing the word “under.” The huddle centered around Mr. Stern as he talked about the USA’s position on L&D.

Over 30 minutes later, the huddle finally concluded. The COP President announced that the Parties had reached a consensus, but did not elaborate for another 10 minutes. The Plenary patiently waited to hear what the “consensus” embodied. When the COP/CMP session resumed, Mr. Korolec announced that the consensus centered on the word “under,” meaning the L&D would remain under the Cancun Adaptation Framework. However, he explained that this current L&D arrangement would be reviewed at COP22 in 2016, per paragraph 15. Additionally, the Parties presented three amendments to the text in the preambular text, paragraph 1 and paragraph 15. Before the adoption of the text, Mr. Yeb Saño made a reservation on the record that the 2016 review should reconsider the institutional location of the Warsaw international mechanism on loss and damage (aka as a separate international mechanism under the UNFCCC).

Will update more later – my computer’s battery is out of power!

Full video and transcript of Naderev “Yeb” Saño’s plea to UNFCCC #COP19: “It’s time to stop this madness.”

Posted on November 13, 2013 by hcroshaw

“Loss and damage is a reality across the world.” Mr. Saño

http://vimeo.com/79117298

Link to full transcript of his speech: “It’s time to stop this madness” – Philippines plea at UN climate talks – See more at: http://www.rtcc.org/2013/11/11/its-time-to-stop-this-madness-philippines-plea-at-un-climate-talks/#sthash.Vf9RKwgG.dpuf:

Mr. President, I have the honor to speak on behalf of the resilient people of the Republic of the Philippines.

At the onset, allow me to fully associate my delegation with the statement made by the distinguished Ambassador of the Republic of Fiji, on behalf of G77 and China as well as the statement made by Nicaragua on behalf of the Like-Minded Developing Countries.

First and foremost, the people of the Philippines, and our delegation here for the United Nations Climate Change Convention’s 19th Conference of the Parties here in Warsaw, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your expression of sympathy to my country in the face of this national difficulty.

In the midst of this tragedy, the delegation of the Philippines is comforted by the warm hospitality of Poland, with your people offering us warm smiles everywhere we go. Hotel staff and people on the streets, volunteers and personnel within the National Stadium have warmly offered us kind words of sympathy. So, thank you Poland.

The arrangements you have made for this COP is also most excellent and we highly appreciate the tremendous effort you have put into the preparations for this important gathering.

We also thank all of you, friends and colleagues in this hall and from all corners of the world as you stand beside us in this difficult time. I thank all countries and governments who have extended your solidarity and for offering assistance to the Philippines. I thank the youth present here and the billions of young people around the world who stand steadfast behind my delegation and who are watching us shape their future. I thank civil society, both who are working on the ground as we race against time in the hardest hit areas, and those who are here in Warsaw prodding us to have a sense of urgency and ambition. We are deeply moved by this manifestation of human solidarity. This outpouring of support proves to us that as a human race, we can unite; that as a species, we care.

It was barely 11 months ago in Doha when my delegation appealed to the world… to open our eyes to the stark reality that we face… as then we confronted a catastrophic storm that resulted in the costliest disaster in Philippine history. Less than a year hence, we cannot imagine that a disaster much bigger would come. With an apparent cruel twist of fate, my country is being tested by this hellstorm called Super Typhoon Haiyan, which has been described by experts as the strongest typhoon that has ever made landfall in the course of recorded human history. It was so strong that if there was a Category 6, it would have fallen squarely in that box. Up to this hour, we remain uncertain as to the full extent of the devastation, as information trickles in in an agonizingly slow manner because electricity lines and communication lines have been cut off and may take a while before these are restored. The initial assessment show that Haiyan left a wake of massive devastation that is unprecedented, unthinkable and horrific, affecting 2/3 of the Philippines, with about half a million people now rendered homeless, and with scenes reminiscent of the aftermath of a tsunami, with a vast wasteland of mud and debris and dead bodies. According to satellite estimates, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also estimated that Haiyan achieved a minimum pressure between around 860 mbar (hPa; 25.34 inHg) and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center estimated Haiyan to have attained one-minute sustained winds of 315 km/h (195 mph) and gusts up to 378 km/h (235 mph) making it the strongest typhoon in modern recorded history. Despite the massive efforts that my country had exerted in preparing for the onslaught of this monster of a storm, it was just a force too powerful and even as a nation familiar with storms, Super Typhoon Haiyan was nothing we have ever experienced before, or perhaps nothing that any country has every experienced before.

The picture in the aftermath is ever so slowly coming into clearer focus. The devastation is colossal. And as if this is not enough, another storm is brewing again in the warm waters of the western Pacific. I shudder at the thought of another typhoon hitting the same places where people have not yet even managed to begin standing up.

To anyone who continues to deny the reality that is climate change, I dare you to get off your ivory tower and away from the comfort of you armchair. I dare you to go to the islands of the Pacific, the islands of the Caribbean and the islands of the Indian ocean and see the impacts of rising sea levels; to the mountainous regions of the Himalayas and the Andes to see communities confronting glacial floods, to the Arctic where communities grapple with the fast dwindling polar ice caps, to the large deltas of the Mekong, the Ganges, the Amazon, and the Nile where lives and livelihoods are drowned, to the hills of Central America that confronts similar monstrous hurricanes, to the vast savannas of Africa where climate change has likewise become a matter of life and death as food and water becomes scarce. Not to forget the massive hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern seaboard of North America. And if that is not enough, you may want to pay a visit to the Philippines right now.

The science has given us a picture that has become much more in focus. The IPCC report on climate change and extreme events underscored the risks associated with changes in the patterns as well as frequency of extreme weather events. Science tells us that simply, climate change will mean more intense tropical storms. As the Earth warms up, that would include the oceans. The energy that is stored in the waters off the Philippines will increase the intensity of typhoons and the trend we now see is that more destructive storms will be the new norm.

This will have profound implications on many of our communities, especially who struggle against the twin challenges of the development crisis and the climate change crisis. Typhoons such as Yolanda (Haiyan) and its impacts represent a sobering reminder to the international community that we cannot afford to procrastinate on climate action. Warsaw must deliver on enhancing ambition and should muster the political will to address climate change.

In Doha, we asked “If not us then who? If not now, then when? If not here, then where?” (borrowed from Philippine student leader Ditto Sarmiento during Martial Law). It may have fell on deaf ears. But here in Warsaw, we may very well ask these same forthright questions. “If not us, then who? If not now, then when? If not here in Warsaw, where?”

What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness. The climate crisis is madness.

We can stop this madness. Right here in Warsaw.

It is the 19th COP, but we might as well stop counting, because my country refuses to accept that a COP30 or a COP40 will be needed to solve climate change. And because it seems that despite the significant gains we have had since the UNFCCC was born, 20 years hence we continue to fail in fulfilling the ultimate objective of the Convention. Now, we find ourselves in a situation where we have to ask ourselves – can we ever attain the objective set out in Article 2 – which is to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system? By failing to meet the objective the Convention, we may have ratified the doom of vulnerable countries.

And if we have failed to meet the objective of the Convention, we have to confront the issue of loss and damage. Loss and damage from climate change is a reality today across the world. Developed country emissions reductions targets are dangerously low and must be raised immediately, but even if they were in line with the demand of reducing 40-50% below 1990 levels, we would still have locked-in climate change and would still need to address the issue of loss and damage.

We find ourselves at a critical juncture and the situation is such that even the most ambitious emissions reductions by developed countries, who should have been taking the lead in combatting climate change in the past 2 decades, will not be enough to avert the crisis. It is now too late, too late to talk about the world being able to rely on Annex I countries to solve the climate crisis. We have entered a new era that demands global solidarity in order to fight climate change and ensure that pursuit of sustainable human development remains at the fore of the global community’s efforts. This is why means of implementation for developing countries is ever more crucial.

It was the Secretary general of the UN Conference on Environment and Development, Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro, 1992, Maurice Strong who said that “History reminds us that what is not possible today, may be inevitable tomorrow.”

We cannot sit and stay helpless staring at this international climate stalemate. It is now time to take action. We need an emergency climate pathway.

I speak for my delegation. But more than that, I speak for the countless people who will no longer be able to speak for themselves after perishing from the storm. I also speak for those who have been orphaned by this tragedy. I also speak for the people now racing against time to save survivors and alleviate the suffering of the people affected by the disaster.

We can take drastic action now to ensure that we prevent a future where super typhoons are a way of life. Because we refuse, as a nation, to accept a future where super typhoons like Haiyan become a fact of life. We refuse to accept that running away from storms, evacuating our families, suffering the devastation and misery, having to count our dead, become a way of life. We simply refuse to.

We must stop calling events like these as natural disasters. It is not natural when people continue to struggle to eradicate poverty and pursue development and gets battered by the onslaught of a monster storm now considered as the strongest storm ever to hit land. It is not natural when science already tells us that global warming will induce more intense storms. It is not natural when the human species has already profoundly changed the climate.

Disasters are never natural. They are the intersection of factors other than physical. They are the accumulation of the constant breach of economic, social, and environmental thresholds. Most of the time disasters is a result of inequity and the poorest people of the world are at greatest risk because of their vulnerability and decades of maldevelopment, which I must assert is connected to the kind of pursuit of economic growth that dominates the world; the same kind of pursuit of so-called economic growth and unsustainable consumption that has altered the climate system.

Now, if you will allow me, to speak on a more personal note.

Super Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in my family’s hometown and the devastation is staggering. I struggle to find words even for the images that we see from the news coverage. I struggle to find words to describe how I feel about the losses and damages we have suffered from this cataclysm.

Up to this hour, I agonize while waiting for word as to the fate of my very own relatives. What gives me renewed strength and great relief was when my brother succeeded in communicating with us that he has survived the onslaught. In the last two days, he has been gathering bodies of the dead with his own two hands. He is hungry and weary as food supplies find it difficult to arrive in the hardest hit areas.

We call on this COP to pursue work until the most meaningful outcome is in sight. Until concrete pledges have been made to ensure mobilization of resources for the Green Climate Fund. Until the promise of the establishment of a loss and damage mechanism has been fulfilled; until there is assurance on finance for adaptation; until concrete pathways for reaching the committed 100 billion dollars have been made; until we see real ambition on stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations. We must put the money where our mouths are.

This process under the UNFCCC has been called many names. It has been called a farce. It has been called an annual carbon-intensive gathering of useless frequent flyers. It has been called many names. But it has also been called the Project to save the planet. It has been called “saving tomorrow today”. We can fix this. We can stop this madness. Right now. Right here, in the middle of this football field.

I call on you to lead us. And let Poland be forever known as the place we truly cared to stop this madness. Can humanity rise to the occasion? I still believe we can.

Update

During his speech, Sano added an unscripted pledge to fast during the conference, until meaningful progress had been made. He said:

“In solidarity with my countrymen who are struggling to find food back home and with my brother who has not had food for the last three days, in all due respect Mr. President, and I mean no disrespect for your kind hospitality, I will now commence a voluntary fasting for the climate. This means I will voluntarily refrain from eating food during this COP until a meaningful outcome is in sight.”

– See more at: http://www.rtcc.org/2013/11/11/its-time-to-stop-this-madness-philippines-plea-at-un-climate-talks/#sthash.Vf9RKwgG.dpuf