UXBRIDGE, Canada, Dec 14, 2010 (IPS/TerraViva) – Development in Africa could falter as climate change grips the continent, increasing the length and severity of droughts and floods by altering precipitation patterns, among other impacts.

The region needs a major shift in its economic development policies and thinking towards decentralised, green economic development, experts now say.

“The world’s big economies are largely living off financial transactions which are unconnected to development,” warns Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary-general of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

“Export growth does not automatically result in green economic growth, we must look at trade for development,” said Panitchpakdi.

In a rejection of failed neoliberal economic policies, Panitchpakdi said strong national policies on investments, taxation, protection of local industries, including subsidies, and changes to less restrictive intellectual property regimes are what is needed to green economies in Africa and elsewhere.

“Green economic development underpins environmental protection, economic growth and development,” he said.

The tentative global economic recovery this year is largely a jobless recovery because the current economic growth model is designed to make “people redundant”, said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).

“It favours large concentrated power grids, for example, which require very few people,” Steiner told IPS.

A low-carbon economy is not for the rich countries, it is for the poorest because it is more resource-efficient, employs more people and brings development at a lower cost, he said, adding, “We have to grow the economies of Africa but only through green sustainable development, delinked from increasing resource use.”

“After 50 years of development, 80 percent of Kenya’s population had no access to electricity. Now, after a 2008 shift to renewable energy, more Kenyans have access to electricity than ever before,” he noted.

Kenya’s feed-in tariff, similar to Germany’s, is expected to produce about 1300 MW of electricity generation capacity from biomass, geothermal, biogas, solar energy, wind, and small hydro this year. A feed-in tariff offers long-term contracts at a set price based on the cost for renewable energy generation.

Germany now employs more than 380,000 people in its renewable energy sector and 1.8 million in its environmental sector – far more than its vaunted automobile sector, Steiner said.

“More than half a billion people in rural Africa have little or no access to electricity,” noted Nebojsa Nakicenovic of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria.

“They pay a large part of their incomes for some kerosene lighting or diesel electric at a cost that is twice that of what the average European pays,” Nakicenovic, a leading energy economist, told IPS. “Or worst of all they are forced to rely on flashlights, which is the most expensive form of lighting available.”

Universal access to modern energy services globally has been estimated to cost between $80 and $100 billion a year in a number of recent studies, including those by the International Energy Agency and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation in Vienna.

“That seems like a lot of money but it is significantly less than the $300 to $600 billion being spent annually to subsidise the fossil fuel sector,” Nakicenovic pointed out.

Technically, it is doable, representing roughly 20 gigawatts of energy generation – less than what countries like Brazil and South Africa have been able to add in recent years.

Increasing energy access in Africa has a huge range of benefits, he says. It would drive economic development, improve the health of millions by reducing indoor air pollution from kerosene and biomass burning, reduce emissions of greenhouse gases like black carbon and reduce deforestation.

Local technology and local energy distribution in the form of small-scale hydro, biomass, biogas, solar, wind and other forms of production are best suited to Africa. The challenge is mobilising the investments needed, he said. These should be national programmes with long-term financial commitments from the international community.

“We don’t need international climate treaties to do this,” said Nakicenovic. “Doing things right will bring green growth and prosperity.”

*This IPS story is part of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network – http://www.cdkn.org.

(END)

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CANCÚN, Dec 11, 2010 (IPS/TerraViva) – If success is measured by delaying difficult decisions, then the Cancún climate meeting succeeded by deferring crucial issues over financing and new targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the next Conference of the Parties meeting a year from now in Durban, South Africa.

Indigenous rights protestors bundled away from negotiations by police. Credit: Nastasya Tay/IPS

International negotiations to address climate change proceeded at a glacial pace in the palatial, over-air-conditioned Moon Palace Resort in Cancún. After two long weeks, final talks dragged on into the early hours of Saturday morning, with Bolivia’s refusal to accept a weak agreement that puts the world on a path that “could allow global temperatures to increase by more than four degrees”, said Pablo Solón, Bolivia’s chief negotiator.

In the end, Bolivia’s continued objections were drowned out by applause and cheering by more than 190 national delegations as the chair of the meeting, Mexico’s foreign secretary Patricia Espinosa, gaveled the meeting to a close declaring “a consensus without Bolivia”.

“The Cancún text is a hollow and false victory that was imposed without consensus,” Bolivia said in a final statement.

Based on the science, Bolivia is not wrong. The World Meteorological Organisation declared last week that the decade will close as the hottest 10-year period on record. The 100+ pages that form the “Cancún Agreements” will do nothing to curb greenhouse gas emissions warming the planet, but did revive the U.N. climate negotiation process after its near death in Copenhagen last year.

And most here believe this agreement sets the stage for a substantive agreement at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban next December.

“I can’t disagree with Bolivia that based on the science, this agreement as it stands means four degrees C of warming,” said Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace.

“The text of the agreement is not good enough, but it does save the process and maybe this gets us to a truly fair, ambitious and balanced treaty in Durban,” Naidoo told TerraViva.

“Governments have given a clear signal that they are headed towards a low-emissions future together,” declared UNFCCC executive secretary Christiana Figueres. The Cancún Agreements represent “the essential foundation on which to build greater, collective ambition”, Figueres said in a statement.

“It’s pathetic the world community struggles so much just to climb over such a low bar,” commented Naidoo, whose hometown is Durban, South Africa. “Our only real hope is to mobilise a broad-based climate movement involving all sectors of the public and civil society before Durban.”

Late Friday night in the hallways, the mood was surprisingly upbeat. Not only had the talks not collapsed, there was formal agreement on a number of issues. These included acknowledgement that emissions cuts needed to be in line with the science ­ 25 to 40 percent cuts by 2020 – and the global temperature rise target should be kept below two degrees C instead of at two degrees C as the target in the Copenhagen Accord.

However, Japan, Canada, the United States and Russia successfully undermined any binding agreement on how to reach those targets by lobbying to abandon the Kyoto Protocol and replacing it with a weak pledge and review system as proposed in the Copenhagen Accord, according to Friends of the Earth International (FOEI). Current pledges under the accord translate into global temperature rises of three to five degrees C by most analyses.

“The agreement reached here is wholly inadequate and could lead to catastrophic climate change,” said Nnimmo Bassey, FOEI chair. Bassey is this year’s winner of the Right Livelihood Award – the ‘alternative Nobel Prize’ – for “revealing the full ecological and human horrors of oil production” in Nigeria, his home country.

Bassey said developed countries need to reduce their emissions by 40 percent under a new Kyoto Protocol commitment period with legally binding commitments.

The current Kyoto commitment to reduce emissions by five percent from 1990 levels ends in 2012. Most developed countries are meeting that target, with the notable exception of Canada, whose emissions have soared 30 percent.

Canada, Japan and Russia have declared they will not agree to a second Kyoto commitment. The U.S. refused to ratify the first Kyoto commitment and rejects the second as well. Those positions nearly derailed the talks since developing countries have long insisted rich countries agree to binding reductions under Kyoto. Agreeing to disagree, the final fight for Kyoto has been punted to Durban.

A Green Climate Fund was also agreed to with a $100-billion commitment by 2020, with a re-commitment of $30 billion by 2012 to help developing countries reduce their emissions and adapt to impacts of climate change. The fund will be managed by a board with equal representation from developed and developing countries with funding channeled through the World Bank for the first three years.

Tropical forest protection may be the big breakthrough coming out of Cancún. Delegates adopted a decision that establishes a three-phase process for tropical countries to reduce deforestation and receive compensation from developed countries, and it includes protections for forest peoples and biodiversity. Deforestation presently contributes 15 to 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

“This is so much better than what we had in Copenhagen,” said Peg Putt of the Wilderness Society, a U.S.-based conservation group.

“There was official recognition of the multiple benefits of forests and ecosystem integrity,” Putt told TerraViva.

Loopholes have been closed and good progress made on tackling the drivers of deforestation, she said. Much work is left to do to strengthen safeguards and work out the details for a new financial tool called REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation).

REDD remains very controversial. It is widely touted as a way to mobilise $10 to $30 billion annually to protect forests by selling carbon credits to industries in lieu of reductions in emissions.

“I’m feeling very good about the prospects for forests,” Putt said in an interview.

Many Indigenous and civil society groups reject REDD outright if it allows developed countries to avoid real emission reductions by offsetting their emissions.

“We reject false solutions like the carbon market mechanisms of REDD,” said Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network.

REDD represents a new set of tradable property rights based on trees and other environmental services, Goldtooth said in an interview.

“If we are going to save the climate, we need to focus on real solutions that assure that forests will be left standing and people’s rights are respected,” he said.

Although Bolivia’s stance will be much commented on, the more than 500 organisations in the Climate Action Network (CAN) once again voted Canada’s radical right-wing government as the most obstructive nation in the world. For its four years in power, Canada’s Stephen Harper government has won the “Colossal Fossil for the year” during climate negotiations for consistent efforts on behalf of its huge tar sands oil sector to block an agreement.

“Canada’s tar sands sector is truly among the global elite, an all- star of greenhouse gas pollution,” a CAN spokesperson said in a statement. “Despite an overall record of climate futility, Canadians should rest assured there’s at least one thing here that Canada is really, really good at.”

La playa se hunde y la arena se va en el "paraíso" de la zona hotelera de Cancún- Crédito: Diana Cariboni/IPS

Por Diana Cariboni, enviada especial *

CANCÚN, 11 dic (Tierramérica/TerraViva) – “Somos el país más frío del mundo…, así que el calentamiento global es bueno para nosotros. Cuanto más tibio, más cosechas… Se habla de detener la deforestación de las selvas tropicales para combatir el cambio climático, pero nosotros no tenemos selvas tropicales”.

La franqueza del legislador ruso Viktor Shudegov expuso una verdad “incómoda”: la aún escasa conciencia sobre el calentamiento global, en una reunión paralela a la conferencia de cambio climático que tuvo como anfitrión a México entre el 29 de noviembre y el 11 de diciembre.

Shudegov sintetizó lo difícil que resulta para la opinión pública de un país como Rusia asumir el desafío del cambio climático, pese a que, según los científicos, se trata del problema mundial más serio que afronta la humanidad en este siglo.

Esa dinámica, en la que predominan los problemas domésticos “urgentes”, como la crisis económica que afecta a casi todo el mundo rico, hace patinar una y otra vez los intentos de adoptar una norma mundial y obligatoria para reducir la contaminación climática.

La 16 Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (COP 16), que tuvo como sede la ciudad turística mexicana de Cancún, no fue la excepción.

Una de las fuerzas motrices de la negociación que conduce la Organización de las Naciones Unidas busca atraer desde hace años al sector privado, ofreciéndole cada vez más oportunidades de negocios en la todavía enclenque “economía verde”.

La inclusión de los sistemas de captura y almacenamiento de carbono entre los mecanismos financiables para reducir la emisión de gases de efecto invernadero es una muestra de esa tendencia.

Se trata de extraer el dióxido de carbono, un gas invernadero, y depositarlo en “sumideros”, que pueden ser océanos, bosques o el subsuelo. Quienes inviertan en estos negocios estarían en condiciones de comerciar derechos de emisión en el mercado de carbono.

Para ambientalistas y científicos, impulsar ese mercado de carbono es una fuga hacia adelante.

“Esta tecnología no ha sido probada, no está lista para ponerse en práctica. Es otra forma de alejarse de las energías renovables y de las acciones de mitigación”, dijo a Tierramérica el nigeriano Nnimmo Bassey, presidente de la red ecologista Amigos de la Tierra Internacional.

“¿Qué es enfrentar el calentamiento? Reducir el lanzamiento de dióxido de carbono a la atmósfera. Entonces, ¿por qué no dejamos el carbono adonde pertenece…, en el suelo?”, cuestionó Bassey, que acaba de recibir el Right Livelihood Award.

Los gases invernadero se liberan por la quema de petróleo, gas y carbón, la deforestación, la agropecuaria, la conversión de suelos silvestres en agrícolas y la producción industrial.

Los grandes contaminadores, encabezados por China y Estados Unidos, no consiguen ponerse de acuerdo sobre una meta mundial de reducción de gases que permita mantener el aumento de la temperatura media en menos de dos grados.

Si se cruza ese umbral, dicen los científicos, el clima planetario llegaría a un “punto de quiebre” que desataría cambios catastróficos.

Adoptar una economía verde, o baja en carbono, implica sobre todo modificar la forma en que buena parte de la humanidad concibe la actividad económica.

A primera vista, resulta más fácil empezar por frenar la tala de las selvas, responsable de 18 por ciento de las emisiones mundiales de gases invernadero.

La iniciativa REDD+ (Reducción de Emisiones de Carbono Causadas por la Deforestación y la Degradación de los Bosques), que despertó enorme atención en la COP 16, prevé que los países ricos financien estas acciones efectuadas en naciones en desarrollo, beneficiando a los actores locales, sobre todo comunidades locales campesinas e indígenas.

La REDD+ atrae tanto “a países ricos como a naciones con bosques” a un tipo de “intercambio de carbono” que permite a los ricos “seguir contaminando” y a los países con bosques “obtener algo de dinero”, describió Bassey.

No es verdadera conservación, sino una forma de “reducir emisiones”. Cuando una selva sea incluida en este mecanismo, se impedirá a las comunidades locales utilizarla como lo hacían para su subsistencia, “pues sea quien sea que esté en ella deberá asegurarse de que retenga el carbono, que será medido y evaluado”, describió.

La clave está en establecer un sistema de controles claros, afirma la abogada Adrianna Quintero, del Consejo para la Defensa de Recursos Naturales (NRDC por sus siglas en inglés), una organización ecologista estadounidense.

Para cumplir la “meta de conservación es crítica la supervisión y la transparencia, lo mismo que para asegurar el respeto de los derechos de indígenas y campesinos”, dijo Quintero a Tierramérica.

Pese a todo, el sistema de negociaciones en las Naciones Unidas sigue siendo el único posible. “El proceso diplomático es un poco lento”, pero ¿de qué otra forma se pueden tomar en cuenta los intereses y posiciones de los 192 países de la Convención?, preguntó.

Para Quintero, en la COP 16 las posiciones se han acercado mucho para llegar a un terreno común que sirva de base a un tratado amplio. Y buena parte del avance obedece a la forma en que el gobierno anfitrión, México, condujo las negociaciones no sólo en Cancún, sino durante todo el año.

Un pilar de ese terreno común es la entrega de fondos a los países pobres para hacer frente a las nuevas realidades meteorológicas, adoptar nuevas tecnologías y solventar las enormes pérdidas causadas por desastres naturales.

En esto, nuevamente, se enfrentan intereses. En la COP 15, realizada hace un año en Copenhague, se prometió la entrega de al menos 30.000 millones de dólares por año, y “ni siquiera esta suma se cumplió”, recordó Bassey.

“Los países ricos hicieron todo lo posible para movilizar dinero, ya comprometido como ayuda, a préstamos como forma de lucrarse de la miseria de los países pobres golpeados por el calentamiento”, describió.

No se trata de buscar dinero, sino de que los ricos “paguen su deuda climática”, indicó. Las naciones europeas “colonizaron durante años la atmósfera con sus emisiones de carbono”, dijo.

Entre la justicia climática reclamada por Bassey y el camino de “lo posible” que siguen las negociaciones oficiales hay una enorme brecha.

Y la cuestión central –cómo frenar la contaminación climática–, sigue siendo inabordable y deberá esperar otro año, hasta la COP 17.

“Las naciones más poderosas no prestan atención a la física ni a la química”, dijo en un pronunciamiento el fundador de la campaña 350.org, Bill McKibben.

La sociedad civil no es “lo suficientemente grande para derrotar a la industria de los combustibles fósiles y sus aliados, pero estamos creciendo”, señaló McKibben.

“¿Cuál es el sentido de estas reuniones de dos semanas?”, cuestionó Bassey. “No vamos a ninguna parte. Y esto muestra la falta de reconocimiento de la gravedad de la crisis”, añadió.

“Cuando los impactos se multipliquen más allá del punto de quiebre, ni siquiera los ricos escaparán al desastre”, advirtió.

* Publicado originalmente por la red latinoamericana de diarios de Tierramérica.

CANCÚN, Mexico, Dec 9, 2010 (IPS/TerraViva) An entire body of leaders, spearheaded by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is now looking at REDD+ as a panacea to global warming with multiple benefits thrown in.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses the Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico. Credit: UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

“REDD+ is the ‘shortest shortcut’ to address climate change; we will do all we can to support it, ” Ban told a packed audience of dignitaries, heads of state, indigenous community leaders, NGOs, forestry organisations and citizens convened by influential US NGO, Avoided Deforestation Partners.Org, on the sidelines of high-level deliberations at Cancún.

REDD+ stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. It essentially supports developing countries financially and technically to either prevent deforestation or regenerate forests, and is currently not a part of either the Kyoto Protocol or the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

It is, however, being both pushed and deliberated on at the meetings underway currently in Cancún.

“The overall message of REDD+ is that it is progressing well,” said Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. “The personal leadership of heads of state of national governments like Guyana, Brazil and Indonesia has helped. So the main effort is by national governments.”

REDD+ has garnered around $4.5 billion in funds so far through bilateral agreements. Most of the funding currently is from Norway, which is funding both reforestation and avoided deforestation programmes in Guyana and Indonesia.

In May 2010, Norway signed a $1 billion deal with Indonesia, which Dr. Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the head of Indonesia’s government REDD+ Unit, said was a partnership that is the best way to approach the climate change problem and which he hoped would become a worldwide model.

Kuntoro, however, added that the process of REDD+ needed careful consideration in its implementation.

“From an economy that was based on cutting trees, we are now introducing a new way of managing things without cutting. It needs a whole new paradigm of government change,” said Kuntoro.

Kuntoro’s leadership in the reconstruction of Aceh after the devastating tsunami of December 2005, with 93 percent of funds actually seeing direct results on the ground, has been lauded by the international community.

Norway’s PM Stoltenberg also highlighted the political risk involved in staking money on REDD+.

“It’s hard to win elections by raising taxes,” quipped Stoltenberg, “which is why we too are dependent on the success of Indonesia’s efforts. The concept is simple: we pay per tonne of carbon reduced, measured after a year.”

“Besides,” he continued, “as a political investor, transformation is essential.”

Billionaire-philanthropist George Soros, founder of the Open Society Foundation which has given over $50 million so far to REDD+ efforts, says “REDD+ is a method that can be done, and can be done cheaper than any other method.”

International forestry organisations and prominent individuals like Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Wangari Maathai and U.N .Messenger of Peace Dr. Jane Goodall are in strong favour of promoting REDD+.

In a video message to the group at Cancún, Maathai said she saw REDD+ as an excellent livelihood option, apart from its conservation and climate change benefits, while Goodall said conserving and re-generating forests would help save the world’s rich biodiversity.

But in spite of the high-profile support for REDD+, one of its first executors, Guyanan President Bharrat Jagdeo, highlighted in blunt terms the difficulties in getting the international financial institutions “up to speed” on the matter.

“What I have a problem with is I have x tonnes of carbon saved, Norway is paying, but I can’t get the money,” said Jagdeo. The World Bank, in this instance, has mired the Norwegian aid in bureaucracy so deep that Jagdeo feels political will be lost in using this new tool.

“Developing countries run the risk of the same situation as before: if there is no corresponding flow of finance, political capital will be lost,” he said.

Developing nations have been complaining throughout the talks at Cancún that climate financing, either promised or in general, is unforthcoming.

None of the $30 billion promised till 2012 by industrialised nations at Copenhagen last December for adaptation and mitigation in poorer countries has been remitted so far. A further $100 billion was promised for the same along with technology transfer by 2020.

With official funding through the U.N. framework remaining a serious problem anyway, REDD+’s propagation seems to hold out promise through the market, as in the case of the U.S. state of California.

Unlike its national government, California has a law to reduce emissions by 2020 to 1990 levels, with a slew of features like ‘cap and trade’, energy efficiency, clean cars and low-carbon operations. It now uses this to implement its REDD+ market strategy, while it waits to pass its draft REDD+ law.

The vice president of the Pacific Gas & Electric Corporation, Steve Kline, says the system works only because it is both climate-effective and cost-effective.

“So we have renewables, low-carbon operations and together we have offsets with local California companies. But we had to convince our customers first,” explained Kline.

Significant progress has been made so far at the Cancún talks to formulate a REDD+ strategy with components for local community rights, and gender considerations.

But while the drafts on REDD+ are almost ready at the Cancún deliberations, organisations like CARE International urge caution in finalising all REDD+ drafts.

“The critical issue in a REDD mechanism is to have strong safeguards to prevent it from harming the livelihoods and violating the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities,” says Raja Jarrah, CARE’s REDD Advisor.

“The real test will be how the words unfold into implementation on the ground,” says Jarrah.

Via Campesina march. Credit: Diana Cariboni/IPS

By Diana Cariboni*

CANCÚN, Dec (IPS/TerraViva) – The short-cuts that the United Nations system is offering companies to profit from strategies against global warming were the target of loud protests on the Day of Action for Climate Justice.

Two separate demonstrations, of thousands of people each, were held Tuesday as the climate change summit that ends Friday in the southeastern Mexican resort town of Cancún enters the final stretch.

One of the protesters’ slogans, “País petrolero, el pueblo sin dinero” (In this oil-producing country, people have no money), referring to Mexico, underscored the main cause of the heating up of the planet: the burning of fossil fuels, a question that has been practically sidelined in the talks at the 16th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP16).

The day began with a march through the centre of the city by rural and anti-globalisation movements from Mexico and other countries of Latin America, meeting in the Diálogo Climático-Espacio Mexicano (Mexican Space for Climate Dialogue). Accompanied by activists from Oxfam and the Hemispheric Social Alliance, they marched down López Portillo avenue to city hall.

Profit-generating policies and programmes, like selling surplus rights to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as part of the so-called carbon market, could be expanded in Cancún.

There is a “near agreement” to include carbon capture and storage under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, and the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programme, under discussion in the COP16, could include market incentives.

But the protesters changed “REDD no, REDD no, REDD no”.

In both marches, labour and indigenous organisations outnumbered and out-mobilised the environmentalists. And their demands and slogans were also broad: ranging from food sovereignty and human rights to protests against the government of conservative Mexican President Felipe Calderón.

“Let’s be tough on that gang that has gathered in Cancún to enslave humanity and ruin the planet,” shouted one Mexican demonstrator with his face partially covered by a mask bearing the logo of the Nestle food corporation.

Less radical, Oxfam activists wore T-shirts reading “Cancún can” on the front and “From small seeds in Cancún, big things can grow” on the back.

What is it that Cancún can do? “We think the conference in Cancun can deliver not just confidence and trust between governments but also between citizens,” Antonio Hill, senior climate change policy adviser at Oxfam in Latin America and the Caribbean, told TerraViva in the march.

“After the disappointment of (the late 2009 COP15 in) Copenhagen we need more than just these talks: we need results that deliver concrete benefits, especially for the communities that are the most vulnerable around the world and those that are already suffering” from climate disasters, Hill said.

The governments “delayed the process in Copenhagen, but they certainly didn’t delay climate change. This year we saw 20 million affected by floods in Pakistan, since August one to two million people in Colombia are living with water just above their waist, and just yesterday (Monday) 120 people died in landslides and the stories are the same” all over the world, he added.

“Cancún can deliver…a fund that can prioritise adaptation and where at least half of the money goes to dealing with climate change impacts that already inevitable,” Hill said.

But some organisations warn that such a fund could also be co-opted by the financial and private sectors.

“I think what is clear is that the richest countries are trying to find ways to escape obligations they have to deliver public funds,” Hill added.

What really stands out, Colombian activist Enrique Daza, secretary of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, told TerraViva, was “the generosity and alacrity to make hundreds of billions of dollars available to bail out the financial systems” compared to the “stinginess” when it comes to making funds available for combating climate change.

“They are fighting for every dollar here,” he said, referring to the negotiations over funds for adaptation to climate change.

“Little can be expected from international conferences on any issue…the paralysis of the multilateral system” is obvious, Daza said.

So how can change happen? “Not like this. Strong social pressure is needed” and “it is our responsibility, as social movements,” to mobilise people, he said.

“There’s no justice in these talks,” said a young activist with the Philippines
Movement for Climate Justice who identified herself simply as Virgi.

The United States is trying to impose itself “in many issues,” such as “the imposition that the World Bank should manage climate change funds. Certainly we don’t want the World Bank to be in charge because it has in the past financed dirty energy projects that have had effects on the climate and added to emissions,” she told TerraViva.

With songs and Bolivian instruments and improvised reggae beats, the bigger demonstration led by the Via Campesina international small farmers movement marched along Tulum avenue towards the outskirts of the city, with the aim of reaching the Moon Palace, the hotel complex that is serving as the venue for the COP16 talks.

But dozens of police decked out in full riot gear blocked the road in front of metal barricades, while a helicopter buzzed overhead.

Peasant farmers and indigenous people from Latin America and the United States, Mexican human rights groups and radical leftist movements, and representatives of organisations like Friends of the Earth marched under the midday sun, chanting slogans like “Time is running out and nothing is being done here”.

The words of European Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard sounded like a response at the start of the high-level segment of COP16.

“Over the last years we have managed to mobilise the whole world and get people from around the planet to acknowledge the urgency of this challenge. Seeing the pictures of palm trees and beautiful beaches, how would they judge us — the governments of the world — if we left Cancun empty-handed?”

“We owe it to them to deliver…We still have 72 hours to do it.”

*With additional reporting by Rosebell Kagumire.

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Vía Campesina march in Cancún. Crédit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Diana Cariboni

CANCÚN, Dec 6, 2010 (IPS/TerraViva) – What some people view as modest but real progress in the climate change talks, others see as no more than smokescreens or “false solutions.”

The Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) announced three advances this weekend. The first is a “near agreement” that carbon capture and storage might be an eligible project activity under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), “provided it complies with stringent risk and safety assessments.”

This involves capturing large volumes of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming, from the atmosphere and storing it in “carbon sinks”, such as the oceans, forests or underground.

Aside from planting and conserving forests, there are several technologies for pumping atmospheric CO2 into the subsoil or under the sea bed. However, little research has been done on them so far, and there are considerable risks.

The CDM allows industrialised nations to partially offset their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in clean energy projects in developing countries.

“We regard carbon capture as a false solution,” Chilean environmentalist Eduardo Giesen, Latin American co-coordinator of the Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance (GAIA) and a member of Chile’s Alliance for Climate Justice, told TerraViva.

“This is no way to resolve the problem. Instead of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, the idea is to bury it, which only postpones the day of reckoning,” he said. Futhermore, the methods are associated with “a high degree of technological uncertainty.”

The agreement on this point will be presented this week to ministers of the states party to the Convention, who are arriving for high-level discussions at the 16th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP16), due to conclude Friday Dec. 10.

The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol for mandatory greenhouse gas emission reductions expires in 2012. Although that is not far off, the goals have not been met, and humanity has no clear mechanism in sight to deal with a global problem that is likely to be of cataclysmic proportions, according to the scientific community.

But the talks, at least as far as is publicly known, remain bogged down over details.

Another achievement at Cancún was a decision to broaden the mandate of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Expert Group and extend it by five years. The Group provides technical guidance and advice to LDCs on programmes of mitigation and adaptation to climate change. A total of 45 countries have already presented their plans, and 38 have begun to implement them on the ground.

According to the Secretariat, the process has left “a wealth of capacity and awareness across the countries from political levels down to community levels.”

In Giesen’s view, the groups supporting the Convention are promoting “solutions of a corporate nature.” In general, strategies for adaptation in developing countries offer solutions on an industrial scale, which benefits big companies, he said.

In contrast, “developing world movements are calling for aid to be directed to local communities, to increase the resilience of the most vulnerable populations,” he said.

That demand was expressed at a protest march held Sunday Dec. 5 by Via Campesina, Friends of the Earth International and the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance.

As there are few hopeful expectations for the outcome of the climate conference, Giesen said an acceptable outcome would be agreement on a global fund to combat climate change, “omitting the carbon market component.” Implementation of the fund could be left until the next COP. It would also be a good thing to keep negotiations open for reaching new deals within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol, he said.

The third achievement reported by the U.N. was the decision to strengthen education, training and public awareness on climate change through increased funding for such activities, “and to engage civil society more strongly in national decision-making and the U.N. climate change process.”

Expanding education and participation “is positive, but it should be more focused on solutions at the grassroots level,” Giesen said.

“Citizen participation has always been part of the discourse of the Convention,” but at national as well as international levels it is “rather vague, weak and non-binding,” he said, adding that it would be “fantastic” if the political will existed to expand it.

Lawmakers, for instance, do not have the status of COP participants. The Convention Secretariat does offer them special accreditation, but their situation is still unresolved because not all governments have given the green light.

Legislators can only come to the Cancún meeting if they have been accredited as part of a government delegation, or as “non-governmental organisations.” But “we are not NGOs,” complained Barry Gardiner, a British member of parliament who is also vice president of the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE).

GLOBE, whose members include lawmakers from the 16 largest world economies, held a forum Dec. 4-5 in Mexico City with an agenda designed to solve the problems of climate change at the national level, by means of legislation and checks on executive powers.

Proposals from the GLOBE forum are to be presented Tuesday to Mexican President Felipe Calderón.

Meanwhile at the climate conference, the president of COP16, Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa, said that the pre-agreements achieved “clearly show that countries have come to Cancun to negotiate in good faith.”

But Gardiner told TerraViva that the sum total of progress achieved amounts to “next to nothing.”

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Gunter Pauli, author of "The Blue Economy"

Gunter Pauli *

THIMPHU, Dec 6, 2010 (IPS/TerraViva) – A decade ago HM Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, the Queen of Bhutan visited the ZERI pavilion at the World Expo in Hannover, the largest bamboo building in modern times, constructed with a German building permit.

The Pavilion demonstrated new emerging business models, proven to work in Colombia, Brazil, Namibia, and Sweden. As the driving force behind these innovative development models, Her Majesty thought I should come to Bhutan.

I came and was enchanted with the country, its people. I was impressed with the visionary approach of HM Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the Fourth King who not only brought democracy to his Himalayan Kingdom, but who stated early in his reign that happiness is more important than growth.

That vision is now known to the world as Gross National Happiness (GNH). There is no doubt, a nation that enshrines forest protection into the constitution, and establishes every citizen’s right to traditional medicine, embraces a different type of development.

On top of that, the government banned the sale of cigarettes and the use of plastic bags. However, the pressure to grow is high, unemployment poses a new challenge, and access to satellite television and internet entices many to emulate a consumption model desiring junk food that recently has been subjected to a special tax.

After crossing the country from West to East, four extended visits enriched by dialogues with government, private sector, and civil society, I submitted a portfolio of possible initiatives “to grow and be happy”.

Based on my experience in creating initiatives that respond to people’s needs, with what they have, I designed businesses that go beyond cutting costs, and rather generate more value, especially for remote rural communities.

And one of the core values is happiness. A portfolio of 6 top projects emerged, each based on a benchmark somewhere in the world, inspired by pioneers who have demonstrated a sense for competitiveness while having the capacity to reach out to the unreached.

These opportunities offer a platform for entrepreneurship, job generation and investments, provided the government creates the policies to make this happen.

Working sessions with the Prime Minister and his colleagues lead to the formulation of government resolutions to set the stage for implementing this GNH portfolio backed up by an independent GNH Fund.

The Prime Minister’s goal that Bhutan will revert to 100% organic farming, forever. As a first step to achieve that goal, he wishes to decree that all food served in restaurants and hotels must be certified organic.

This guarantees higher income to farmers. The second policy option may even do better: turn Bhutan into the first country committed to bioplastics. An inspirational encounter between HM the Queen with Dr. Catia Bastioli, the founder of Novamont (Italy), who is already converting agro-waste of 600 Italian farmers into bioplastics, set the stage for a promising collaborative effort.

Bhutan said no to plastic bags. Now it says yes to bioplastics made from left-overs which after use, are composted and returned to soil.

The rise of petroleum imports is hurting the Bhutanese balance of payments. The Prime Minister already declared that the country will be carbon negative. Now he is prepared to commit to eliminate all use of fossil fuel.

He is inspired by the pioneering work of Las Gaviotas, Colombia. Las Gaviotas taps pine trees, and generates all the fuel it needs. Bhutan has a 72% forest cover. We can imagine an army of “happy tappers”, generating fuel from the trees.

The capital city of Thimphu, and emerging urban centers are struggling with an increasing flow of black water, a danger to public health and costly to treat. The Prime Minister is ready to turn Bhutan into the first country committed to eliminate septic tanks, sewage and water treatment.

Instead, Bhutan wishes to opt for the Swedish technology proven to work in homes, schools, apartment blocks and city quarters by the architect Anders Nyquist in Sundsvall. This “dry” approach, that does not smell at all, eliminates viruses at source, recycles water on site, regenerates nutrients and is cheap.

Each policy decision proposed is backed by technologies, competitive business models, investment opportunities, … based on the Blue Economy, a development model that does not require anyone to pay more to be sustainable.

Everyone in the government read my book with the same title, now I realize the power of publishing! These policy decision made on December 7, 2010 inspired me to create the GNH fund with local partners. Over 100 personalities signing a letter of support go beyond the clapping hands and tapping shoulders.

We are delighted to advance on an investment rather an aid strategy and expect the fund will be operational by Spring 2011. Imagine if the big neighboring countries would opt for the same strategy.

* Gunter Pauli author of “The Blue Economy” and entrepreneur. (COPYRIGHT IPS)

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Wangari Maathai

By Wangari Maathai *

NAIROBI, Dec 4, 2010 (IPS/TerraViva) – 2010 A year after much touted climate change summit in Copenhagen, country negotiators from around the world are together again to work out an international response to climate change.

While many believe we should lower our expectations for this year’s climate change summit being held in Cancun, this would be a mistake. As global temperatures rise, so do the challenge’s for the world’s poorest citizens­women, especially those living in developing countries.

Women are living on the frontlines of climate change, and are ready to be active partners in dealing with climate change. The negotiations in Cancun should be an opportunity to empower women and make concrete commitments that will turn some promises of earlier negotiations into a fair, binding and legal document.

From food shortages to forest degradation and new and more complex health risks, as well as an increased likelihood of conflict over resources, the impacts of climate change threaten to further jeopardize the lives of women and girls.

But just as many women are bearing the greatest burden of climate change because of their role as providers for their families, it is women who are developing the solutions that will save our world from the impacts of global warming.

Take, for example, the challenge of ensuring our world shifts to a “low carbon” future. The success of investment in developing states to circumvent development reliant on fossil fuels depends on local co-operation, and capacity on the ground. This is where women are key.

Through its green technology initiative in India, the Self Employed Women’s Association has helped provide over 150,000 women with microcredit and training required to take advantage of new green technology. While the developed world talks about action, women from the poorest sectors of India’s economy are cutting carbon emissions by ending their reliance on coal, re-using forms of solid waste and promoting the merits of alternative energy.

Similarly, in regions where women are able to be decision makers over land-use and resources, they are proving to be a positive force for sustainable change. With women at the forefront, the Green Belt Movement in Kenya has planted ten of millions of trees to restore local habitats and reduce fuel wood reliance on precious finite forest resources.

In Malawi, women farmers have joined together in ‘farmers’ clubs’ where they share information on seeds and cultivation techniques that are able to adapt to the degradation of soil and changes in rainfall patterns caused by global warming. This reduces their vulnerability to climate change induced drought and prolonged crop failure.

But it is not just women in the developing word who are taking on the challenge of climate change. As the research from North America, Europe and India demonstrates, women around the world demonstrate greater scientific knowledge of climate change, show more concern and are more willing to adopt policies that are designed to address global warming.

Internationally, women leaders are at the forefront of a global civil society network working to hold government, international institutions, and the private sector to account for their promises on climate action.

Yet despite their willingness to take political and individual action, entrenched inequality between men and women continues to pose a critical obstacle to global efforts to address climate change.

The most fuel-efficient stove ever produced will do little to bring an end to deforestation or reduce carbon emissions if women do not have access to the training required to use it, micro-credit needed to buy it or the financial freedom to control household expenditure. For example, it was shown that in Zimbabwe in the 1990s solar cooking stoves failed to be adopted largely because men objected to women purchasing or learning how to use the new devices.

In many parts of the world women do not own collective or individual title to the land from which they live. This lack of control means they are less able to implement sustainable agriculture or adapt forest management strategies that contribute to climate change mitigation as their voices are not heard when decisions are made. It also impedes their ability to participate effectively in programs such as REDD+, which offers financial incentives for reducing emissions from deforestation.

REDD+ will only work if policy makers are willing to learn from grassroots women. One of the key lessons is that focusing on carbon as the sole measure of the success of a climate change project has the potential to derail international efforts to combat climate change. Moving forward, we need to also take into consideration community rights to land and carbon, the livelihoods of people in communities, and issues related to governance.

Women need to be part of the decision making process. At present women are vastly under-represented in decision-making roles. In March this year, when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced a climate finance panel expected to mobilize $100 billion dollars a year to help those most affected by climate change, the 19-person panel did not include a single woman.

This is unacceptable. Not only should women be represented on a climate change finance panel. As well, every effort possible must also be made to ensure that women have access to the education, training and finances needed to adopt sustainable technologies and participate in the green economy.

Women and girls also need the land and resource rights to implement progressive forestry or agricultural practices. Last and certainly not least, women need the basic democratic rights that will enable them to vote for and promote green policies at the local, national and international level.

Citizens everywhere are waiting for real action on climate change. If the international community is serious about addressing climate change, it must recognize that women are a fundamental part of the climate solution.

* Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work on the environment and democratic participation in Kenya. She and her five sisters Nobel Peace Laureates created the Nobel Women’s Initiative in 2006 to work on human rights and climate justice. (IPS COPYRIGHT)

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UNITED NATIONS, Nov 25, 2010 (IPS/TerraViva) – On Nov. 29, the 190-member Conference of Parties (COP) will flock to the Moon Palace Hotel, an all-inclusive luxury coastal resort in Cancún, Mexico, to discuss governments’ progress on climate change.

The 16th COP session comes barely a year after the 2009 December meeting in Copenhagen, now widely considered a massive diplomatic failure.

Amidst mounting global panic over states’ consistent inability to forge an adequate alternative to the nearly- expired Kyoto Protocol, the meeting in Cancún is foreshadowed by a deep pessimism after what transpired in Denmark last year.

Nigel Purvis, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, blasted the feeble “Copenhagen Accord” which has no power to hold countries accountable to their never-ending, yet largely empty promises on Green Funds and donations to the Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

“Global climate talks have begun to resemble a bad soap opera,” Purvis said, in an essay entitled ‘Cancún and the End of Climate Diplomacy’. “They seem to never end, yet seldom change and at times bear little resemblance to reality. This is why climate diplomacy as we know it has lost its relevance.”

Earlier this month, the U.N. secretary-general’s High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing released its annual report, which stated unequivocally that a minimum of $100 billion annually must be mobilised towards climate actions in developing countries.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, one of the report’s co-authors, stressed that, “Climate finance is not about funding, but about burden sharing.” He reiterated that without solid agreements from member states, climate action will stagnate, particularly in the LDCs.

Speaking on behalf of the African member-states, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi chastised wealthy countries for shying away from binding agreements, adding that Africa can no longer afford, nor tolerate, to bear the brunt of climate-caused disasters that they have done the least to cause.

“This report can be used for an ambitious deal, or a miserly one,” Zenawi told the press. “It might even be abandoned on the desk of a bureaucrat. But we, as Africans, refuse to give up.”

While the heated debate blazes on, climate-caused catastrophes continue to proliferate into every political and economic realm imaginable.

On Nov. 11, the permanent mission of the Marshall Islands hosted an informal discussion on the particular threat of climate change for Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

John Silk, minister of foreign affairs for the Marshall Islands, reminded the audience that SIDS’ unique condition must be studied not only by those directly affected but by the whole world, for it poses broad questions about existence, security and statehood.

Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law, was also present at the discussion. At the behest of the mission of the Marshall Islands, Gerrard, along with his colleagues at the Columbia Law School, are hosting a conference in 2011 on the severe legal implications of climate-displaced people of island nations due to rising sea levels.

Among the issues to be covered, according to Gerrard, are statelessness; maritime governance in the event of statelessness (for example: regulation of fishing rights); the legal condition of displaced people who are resettled; the practicalities of resettlement; and the applicability of existing legal theories and institutions to their plight.

Gerrard also stressed that while many countries have ceased to exist due to wars, or political agreements, no country has ever disappeared entirely because all of its territory ceased to exist above the waters.

“The existing international agreements are clearly not adequate to mitigate climate change to the extent necessary,” Gerrard told IPS, “or to cope with the disasters that climate change will cause.”

“Had a comprehensive agreement been reached in Copenhagen, the world might have made substantial progress in the direction of necessary action,” he added.

Gerrard also highlighted the dangers of the fusion between political imperatives and corporate incentives.

“The United States, for example, once opened its borders to those fleeing religious and political persecution,” he told IPS. “In recent years, however, the U.S. has become much less receptive to immigration. An international agreement for resettling climate-displaced people, in which each major emitting country agreed to take in a share, could improve matters, but even that is no guarantee of success.”

“Law in the United States is becoming more and more amenable to corporate campaigns,” he added.

While the Columbia Law School struggles to find a mere $50,000 conference budget, millions are being spent on “climate denial” campaigns, emphasising Gerrard’s observations on corporate influence.

According to a report released by Greenpeace International earlier this year, the little-known private corporation Koch Industries has been fuelling a propaganda movement denying the scientific basis of climate change. According to the report, a staggering $30 million has been spent on the campaign every year.

At a press briefing on COP 16 earlier this week, Robert Orr, assistant secretary-general for policy planning in Cancún, dismissed the idea that the climate denial campaign is a force to be reckoned with.

“The notion that climate change is not happening or not caused by human behaviour has no basis in science,” Orr said, “and the secretary-general has taken a firm stand on this from the start.”

“We have asked the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] to really tighten up its systems such that questions about the science cannot be asked in the future,” he added.

Regardless of these somewhat negligible details, the impending crisis looms over Mexico. If Copenhagen was billed as the “last chance to save the planet”, many worry that Cancún’s rating is fated to be even worse.

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