Durban leading the African response to climate change? Credit: IPS Africa

By Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9, 2011 (IPS) No one is happy late Friday at the very contentious U.N. climate talks that went into extra time on Saturday. As the lights flicker on a rainy night here, the partial power failure echoes the failure of the multilateral process, according to civil society and some countries.

“If countries agree to the text as it stands, they will be passing a death sentence on Africa,” said Nigerian activist Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International.

And yet African countries and other vulnerable countries might go along because they will be bullied or bribed, said Bassey.

When Bolivia stood up to the United States at the Copenhagen climate meet in December 2009, Washington pulled its development aid the next year.

“Delegates must show that they care about the devastation across the continent and small island states …. or are they going to yield to arm twisting because a few dollars are being hoisted about,” Bassey said.

So far African countries are not blocking an agreement at the 17th United Nations climate change summit, he told IPS.

Thursday night, a select group of ministers and senior delegates from 28 countries met until four a.m. to work on the key components, but failed to reach a consensus. The following day, when all countries began to review the details, wide disagreements arose over many of the same issues.

“Countries won’t agree to a second period of the Kyoto Protocol until the next COP (conference of parties),” said Pablo Solón, former U.N. ambassador from the Plurinational State of Bolivia and former chief negotiator at the Cancun COP 16, the last meeting prior to Durban.

“Kyoto Protocol will lose its heart…it will become a zombie,” said Solon, who had seen the confidential details that weren’t released publicly until late Friday night.

Countries will “only take note” of the science-based need to increase their emission commitments well before 2020. In addition, the key phrase “legally binding agreement” that nearly every country wanted is absent, he said.

“The U.S. is the big winner here…This will lead us to a future with more than four degrees of warming,” Solon warned.

This COP is a” disastrous failure”, said Praful Bidwai, former IPS correspondent and a political columnist and social scientist from India who has just published a book on the politics of climate change. It would be far better for the talks to collapse than to cobble together a “greenwash deal” that pretends to be addressing the climate crisis, he added.

“The U.S. can’t be trusted at these talks. They will never agree to anything legally binding,” Bidwai told IPS.

The U.S. was the chief architect of the Kyoto Protocol during climate talks in the early 1990s, but never ratified the treaty even though it only called for emission reductions of five percent by 2012. At the same time, Canada supported and ratified Kyoto but did nothing to comply, so its emissions soared 24 to 28 percent during the intervening years.

Europe is little better, even though its emissions appear have gone down more than 15 percent. Much of that is due to the collapse of the Eastern European bloc during the 1990s, and the shift to importing its goods from elsewhere and thus avoiding emissions. Spain, Italy, France and others have had major increases, Bidwai said.

“It could all fall apart. Many low-income developing countries are very angry,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

These are the world’s poorest countries, like Mali and small Pacific islands.

At Durban, Canada and the U.S. were awarded the “Colossal Fossil” prize by civil society for doing the most to block progress on a new climate agreement. (END)

Credit: Stephen de Tarczynski/IPS

Busani Bafana

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 8 — Coal currently fuels 40 percent of global electricity needs, according to the World Coal Association, which argues there is a place for the abundantly available fuel even in a future with reduced emissions.

“Just as there are some bad examples of coal, there are good ones as there are many governments around the world that want to use coal in a way to fuel their economic growth and alleviate poverty, ” WCA CEO Milton Catelin told a side event on the role of coal in climate change at the 17th Conference of Parties in Durban.

“The trick from a policy and activity perspective is how do you make companies and governments that mine the coal to gasify it in a way that is environmentally sustainable.”

According to Catelin, the world has an estimated 984 billion tonnes of  proven reserves of coal, but environmentalists have argued that coal should be done away with as energy source because it pollutes the environment.

The current negotiations for a new agreement on climate change hinge on cutting global emissions. The Coal Industry Advisory Board – a group of high level executives which advises the International Energy Agency – says coal is responsible for more than 40 percent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.

Speaking at the same side event in Durban, Norman Mbazima, CEO of mining giant Anglo American, said coal companies support cleaner use of coal. One way to achieve this is to improve the efficiency of coal plants in the world.

“The biggest contribution to emissions reduction comes from efficiency. We must  all have more efficient cars, more efficient ships and more efficient planes, but most importantly more efficient coal-powered power plants,” said Mbazima.

Carbon capture and storage is also being touted as a way to save coal’s dirty face. The concept involves capturing, compressing and storage of carbon emissions from generating plants, preventing them from entering the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. CCS has been identified by the coal industry as a key technology that could help it cut greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal, but it has not yet been demonstrated to be effective. Critics say even if the technique is developed and commercialised, it will likely prove to be prohibitively expensive.

Mbazima told the side meeting that 1.4 billion people in the world still lack access to electricity – 600 million of those in sub-Saharan Africa. He said coal was the answer to providing electricity to these people because it was plentiful and cheap even though it was not clean.

The WCA argues that if current coal-powered plants were replaced with more efficient plants, greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by six percent. Carbon capture would enable further reductions.

But environmentalists say coal has no place in cleaner, greener future – or in the climate change mitigation agenda.

“We see coal as an unacceptable energy resource because of the extreme impacts it has on human health,” said Cesia Kearns, campaign organiser for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. “We need to act now and the negotiators at COP17 need to pay attention to the conversation happening outside the venue and remember how much the weight their decisions will have on people from all nations who are bearing the burden of climate change. They need to get us quickly onto the path of doing away with coal and fossil fuel industries that have created the problem of climate change.”

Kearns said there are numerous alternatives to coal. Africa has abundant in solar and wind resources that should lead the way for green energy.
Jennifer Morgan, Director of Climate and Energy programme at environmental think-tank the World Resources Institute, says the argument about universal energy access depending on electricity from coal-fired plants has no basis.

Taking India as an example, she said the reason more than 400 million of people have no access to electricity is not so much the cost of expanding generation, as it is that urban areas, and industries in particular are prioritised for electricity supply – and in some cases sold power at very low prices, the government depriving itself of resources for rural electrification.

“We do not have time to act as if we have a lot of the atmosphere left,” Morgan warned. Her institute is crafting a policy framework for renewable energy and energy efficiency to help in promoting the development of renewable energy sources.
(Ends)

Kofi Annan says lack of funds must not hold back the fight against climate change. Credit: Zuki Zimela/IPS

By Busani Bafana

Durban, Dec. 7 — The global financial crunch is not a reason to avoid climate-friendly investments that will help Africa’s agriculture grow says former UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan.

“Global leaders are struggling with continuing financial turmoil, rising unemployment and increasing social tension,” Annan said at a panel discussion on climate-smart agriculture on the sidelines of COP 17 in Durban, South Africa.

Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) involves conservation agriculture: this would include crop rotation, agro forestry, better weather forecasting and integrated crop-livestock management. CSA is aimed at environmentally friendly increases in food production, thereby reducing carbon emissions from agriculture. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated emissions from farming to be at 14% of the world total in 2007.
Annan says world leaders cannot ignore the crises faced by food production through climate change.

The former UN chief wants the developed world to own up the $100 billion they pledged in Copenhagen for the Green Climate Fund by 2020.

“The financial crisis has shown the gravity of waiting for disaster to strike before taking action.”

According to the Action on Climate Smart Agriculture policy brief, compiled by the African Union and South Africa’s Ministry of Agriculture, food security, poverty and climate change should be seen as one entity in the fight against climate change.

South Africa’s Minister of Agriculture, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, says transformation of African agriculture is key through Climate Smart Agriculture.

Joemat-Petterson, however, wants the equivalent of a political revolution to deal with climate change.

“We need alternative ideas to overthrow what is holding the continent and the globe at ransom,” said Joemat-Pettersson. “We must end this dictatorship of climate change. We want to make sure that we all have an action plan for CSA. We have done the talking and now is the time for us to pick up our axe, to pick up our spade and roll up our sleeves and do the work.”

The World Bank, which is working with African Union to reach target set in Maputo in 2003 of 10 percent of national budgets spent on agriculture, agreed that climate-smart farming needs greater attention to transform African agriculture.

Finally, adding to the climate-smart agriculture discussions, the Africa Union Commission Chairperson, Jean Ping, wants water management high on Africa’s climate change agenda.

“Let us not neglect water, water is an important resource … we can eradicate famine with the management of water.”
(Ends)

Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

Entire societies will be lost forever if we delay reaching a climate change agreement in Durban, warns Rezaul Karim Chowdhury of the Coastal Association for Social Transformation Trust (COAST).

“Let us not be witness to that unfortunate happening. Extreme events beyond everybody’s expectation are now observed more and more frequently and we know the consequence of that,” Chowdhury said.

Governments of low-lying island states such as the Maldives, the Bahamas, or the Pacific nation of Kiribati say their very physical existence is threatened by sea level rise of one metre – anticipated to take place by 2100.

Chowdhury’s home country, Bangladesh, is also caught in the crosshairs of global warming – rising temperatures and sea levels, changing weather patterns increasing catastrophic flooding from both swollen rivers and storm surges from intensifying monsoons will hit this low-lying, agriculture-dependent country full in the face.

A map produced by the United Nations Environment Programme shows that an area of this South Asian state that is home to 15 million people will be entirely submerged by a one-metre rise in sea levels. Long before then, increasing numbers of floods will erode riverbanks, and destroy homes, farms, roads and other infrastructure while taking longer to recede, hampering agriculture. Lingering floodwater will test public health systems wrestling with waterborne diseases.

The fears of Bangladesh and other low-lying states are an urgent reminder as the 17th Conference of Parties remains unlikely to agree on even a minimal programme of emissions reductions by developed countries – historically the worst polluters – or financial assistance for vulnerable developing nations.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon poured cold water on the talks Tuesday Dec. 6 when he told delegates that a global, legally-binding deal on climate change could well be off the agenda for now. He blamed grave economic troubles in many countries for overshadowing the talks, which are now in their second week but little tangible progress before they conclude on Dec. 10.

South African Bishop Geoff Davies head of the Anglican Church compared rich countries’ behaviour in Durban to apartheid, saying wealthy nations were trying to keep power and wealth for themselves. “Decision makers need to put the needs of people and the planet before profits.”

The parties remain sharply divided. Coastal states, small island nations and the Africa group are pushing for a second commitment by developed countries to reduce emissions to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The U.S. and Canada say any new commitment should be delayed until after 2020. These two governments are also rejecting a legally-binding global agreement. Japan at one point threatened to pull out altogether.

The European Union has taken up a position somewhere in the middle, proposing a second commitment period to start somewhere around 2015. The EU also says this is on condition that other polluters – such as fast-growing China – are brought on board.

“We have committed under Kyoto and we have actually over achieved in the first commitment period,” said Connie Hedegaard, the European Commissioner for Climate Action. “But Europe only accounts for 11 percent of global emissions and that is why we are saying two things. We are ready to agree a second commitment period even though the family of countries who are ready to do so is shrinking; however we need reassurance that if we lay down a bridge to the future, then others will follow.”

The Congolese chair of the Africa Group, Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, says it’s hard to understand why the developed countries are behaving as they are.

“They says they want rules on climate change, but they don’t like the Kyoto Protocol. It’s hard to comprehend. If you want the mango, then you have to like the mango tree also,” he said. “If you want the carbon markets to continue, you must have robust transparent rules to continue – you have to keep the mango tree (binding emissions reduction agreements).”

He said the Africa Group is looking to the rich countries which have enjoyed a certain level of development at the cost of everyone’s atmosphere to now show leadership on climate change.

“They have shown us economic leadership, they have shown us political leadership and sometimes even military leadership, so let’s see them show us climate leadership.”

The pessimsism expressed by Secretary General Ban and COAST’s Chowdhury hangs over the conference venue, but some – like Paul Mafabi, a negotiator from Uganda – say it was already foregone conclusion that a deal would not be struck because of the economic crisis gripping the biggest offenders.

It’s perhaps worth remembering that small island and developing states are threatened not just by economic crisis, but by devastating and permanent disaster. And the real baseline demand of small island and developing states – measures to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and avoid devastating changes in these vulnerable states – is not even on the table.

(Ends)

Credit: Yanethe Gamboa/IPS

Joshua Kyalimpa Interviews JOAO SAMUEL CAHOLO, Deputy Executive Secretary, Southern African Development Community (SADC)

DURBAN, Dec — The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has devised a plan to mainstream water resources management. On the sidelines of the U.N. climate change conference taking place in Durban, there have been efforts to establish water as an agenda item in its own right in climate change negotiations.

Water experts say this will lead to greater focus on developing policy, and attract more resources into the water sector through adaptation programmes.

Q: SADC has been part of efforts to get water into the United Nations on the agenda of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – thus far without success.

A: Questions of climate change are matters of global responsibility, so we shall continue with the issue. There is the Rio+20 conference next year,  there is also COP 18 next year: we should continue to discuss within our constituencies and plan for how the issues of water can be brought to the larger agenda of climate change.

Q: What is SADC’s next step?
A: We already have political consensus, enshrined in the SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourses, so the political commitment in SADC is already there. The next step is for us to establish real institutions to address the issues at the national level and also develop transboundary  water resources.

Q: But how are you going to achieve this when water is not mainstreamed? Where will you get the financial resources to have develop water resources?

A: For us, money is not actually the issue. It’s a question of a commitment to implement what we have agreed upon, because money can be found in different ways. It can come from various international sources, but also it can come from our own treasuries and SADC has best practices in this regard.

Q: What are you doing to raise the general awareness of water issues in the region?

A: As SADC, we have the protocol which recognises the need for transboundary water resources to be managed jointly. That program is being implemented. I don’t want to say that SADC is singling out just one issue with water, but we are confident it will be accorded due attention in future negotiations.

Credit: Tinus de Jager/IPS

By Stephen Leahy

Civil society said negotiations are going backwards with no nation willing to step up and lead the way forward here at the United Nations climate change conference Wednesday.

“No-one is a champion here. Who will step forward and call the other countries’ bluffs?” asked Tove Ryding of Greenpeace International.

Without that champion stepping forward in the next two and half days, “the world is heading to four degrees Celsius of warming while countries are playing a game of poker,” said Ryding.

“We are going backwards here. The EU put out a new mandate today that suggest a 10 year delay for increasing emissions reductions,” said Bobby Peek of Friends of the Earth South Africa.

“Corporate power is in charge here. Governments must act for the benefit of their people,” said Peek.

“There is still time to break the deadlock but need clear commitments from the members,” said Srinivas Krishnaswamy of the Climate Action Network – South Asia.

Big decisions at previous meetings were often made in the final hours, he noted.

China has made an “unprecedented” proposal to agree to binding commitments but the US and European Union are pretending this is nothing new, said Samantha Smith of WWF International.

China, as well other large developing nations, are waiting for the US and other developed countries to fulfill their promises made in the Bali (2008) and Copenhagen (2009) climate talks, Smith said.

But even those aren’t good enough to ensure less than two degrees of warming. Greater emissions cuts are needed from the developed that current pledges. “The climate can’t wait for that in 2020 as the US suggests.”

(Ends)

By Kristin Palitza

DURBAN (IPS) – The goal of a comprehensive and binding agreement may be beyond the reach of the 17th United Nations climate change negotiations, says the organisation’s secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.

Ban was speaking at the official opening of the high-level talks on climate change in Durban, South Africa, on Tuesday.

He cautioned delegates not to set their hopes too high. “We must be realistic about expectations for a break through in Durban,” Ban said. The reasons for more cautious expectations were well known, he added, such as the global financial crisis, which has led to fiscal austerity with countries prioritising national budgets before international needs.

“But none of these uncertainties should prevent us from making real progress here in Durban,” Ban urged, noting that serious proposals and persistence were needed to proceed. “It’s like riding a bicycle. As long as you move forward you keep your momentum,” he explained.

“The future of our planet is at stake,” Ban warned. “Time is not on our side. We are reaching the point of no return and must walk away from the abyss.”

South African President Jacob Zuma stressed that climate change was a global challenge that required worldwide solutions. He said it was critical to find common ground to reach an agreement.

“Different positions still prevail on different points,” he concluded after more than a week of often staggering negotiations, reminding delegates “we all agreed that the earth is in danger and that we must do something about it.”

“We need to show the world that parties are willing to solve problems in a practical manner and forego national interests, at times, for the interests of humanity, no matter how difficult this may be,” Zuma added. He demanded that delegations rebuild trust in each other.

The South African president said that the 17th Conference of Parties is still a decisive moment for the multilateral system, which has evolved over many years under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol.

“The first period of the Kyoto Protocol is about to come to an end. The question left unanswered is the second commitment period. It is clear that if this question is not resolved, the outcome on other matters will become extremely difficult,” Zuma said.

Industrialised nations needed to adopt a second period of the Kyoto Protocol, while developing countries needed to agree on voluntary pledges. “All parties will have to collectively do more, with common but differentiated responsibility,” explained Zuma.

With twelve heads of states and 130 ministers having arrived at the summit on Tuesday, the last three days of the climate change summit are expected to bring about important, far-reaching political decisions. “For the first week, negotiators have been hard at work, but the ministers will have to take leadership,” said Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation and the summit’s chair.

She noted that it was important for political leaders to consider the memorandums written by thousands of concerned citizens, which were handed to the conference leadership throughout the summit: “They expect leadership from us. We have a responsibility not to disappoint them.”

Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, said “good progress” had been achieved on a number of issues, which included headway on financial support to developing countries, particularly regarding adaptation projects, the Green Climate Fund and deforestation. She was also confident that the Durban conference would fully operationalise the Cancun agreements before it ended on Dec 9.

However, Figueres stressed that a number of issues still needed progress and further guidance on a ministerial level. “The time has come to address the thorny political issues before us, such as long-term funding, a second Kyoto Protocol and the framework under the Convention,” she said.

From today on, it was up to the government ministers to develop solutions to the issues at hand. “They need to ensure there is clarity on contours of a second Kyoto Protocol and that gaps are ruled out. We also need clarity on how to avoid an ambition gap and on how funds will be scaled up from now until 2020.”

Connie Hedegaard, commissioner for climate action at the European Commission who represented the European Union (EU) spoke about the need for a new, comprehensive, legally binding international framework. “Only then can we bring the actions to the scale we need, with the speed we need,” she noted. “We would like the D in Durban to be a D for decisions and a D for delivery.”

Hedegaard acknowledged that not all developing countries were ready to commit to legally binding agreements immediately. The EU had therefore made the “significant offer” of a roadmap, which suggests emerging economies come on board by 2020 at the latest.

“All major economies need to commit, of course respecting common but differentiated responsibilities. If they will not commit to an agreement in the foreseeable future, they take on an unbearable responsibility,” she warned.

Speaking on behalf of the African Union, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi urged the EU not to abandon the Kyoto Protocol, no matter what commitments other countries were prepared to make: “The Kyoto Protocol is too important to be sacrificed for tactical advantages on negotiating table.”

Another “top priority” should be ensuring that the agreements reached at the previous climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, will be implemented, Zenawi added, because, for the African continent, funding for climate change mitigation and adaptation programmes were of “utmost importance”. “We are deeply disappointed that fast-track funding promised to us in Copenhagen has largely failed to materialise,” he complained.

Argentina’s Vice-minister of Foreign Affairs Alberto Pedro D’Alotto agreed with Zenawi, while speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 plus China, a bloc of 131 developing countries. He said he was seriously concerned about the “key lack of financial resources” made available to developing countries.

Nauru’s President Sprent Dabwido, who spoke on behalf of the small pacific island states, brought home the urgency of tangible decisions being made at this year’s summit. “For us, climate change is a matter of life and death,” he said. “Unless action is taken, a large part of my region could be rendered uninhabitable within the lifetime of my grandchildren. The time for small incremental steps ended long ago. Great strides must be made.”

The high-level talks will be concluded on Dec 9.

(END/2011)

Poster at the ICC in Durban. Credit: Tinus de Jager/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 6 – South African President Jabob Zuma, leading British economist Sir Nicholas Stern, Nobel prize-winning scientists and leading policy experts have urged negotiators to act on the science of climate change at a special high-level event on the sidelines of the United Nations climate change conference here in Durban.

“We want to inject some positive energy into the climate talks which seem paralysed,” said Johan Rockström, Executive Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute and co-host of the 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability. The brief invitation-only symposium was an unusual gathering of 35 high-level policy makers and experts from around the world.

“We cannot give up on the U.N. process. The pace of change needed to meet the climate and sustainable development challenge is so large we need everyone to move together,” Rockström told IPS in an interview.

“President Zuma called on delegates and their countries to set aside their individual interests to realize collective action,” said Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s Minister of Science and Technology.

“Only when we act globally can we respond to the climate change challenge,” Pandor said in a press conference.

Climate talks here at the 17 Conference of Parties as well recent past ones seem to be in a state of paralysis Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told IPS. That paralysis stems from political situation within and between nations said Pachauri.

Negotiators here must “get away from short term and narrow interests,” he said. “Leaders and the public need to understand there are huge co-benefits to reducing greenhouse gases — health benefits, energy security, more employment, ensure food security, and more.” 

Several government ministers also attended the Symposium, which issued a “Durban Vision” statement. That statement calls on world leaders to “adopt a new mindset to listen to the voice of science…and address the unavoidable interconnections between global sustainability, poverty eradication, social justice and economic development in an environmentally constrained world.”

“The unsustainable growth path we’re on can’t continue forever,” said Stern.
Stern acknowledged that the current financial crisis is being used by some governments for inaction. “Finance can be raised using the right kinds of incentives to make the transition to a low carbon economy.”

Continuing along the same path makes no sense economically, agreed Pachauri. Extreme weather events cost the world hundreds of billions of dollars a year and it will only get worse. Already some small islands states suffer losses amounting to one to eight percent of their gross domestic product, he said.

“It’s time for some nations to wake up to this reality. We have the solutions to address climate change but lack the political will.”

Rockström also said emissions reductions alone aren’t enough for a safe climate future. “We now urgently need a world transition to global sustainability. Conserving biodiversity, sustainable management of our landscapes and seascapes, reduction of pollution … need to be integrated with our responses to climate change,” he said.

“Staying below two degrees Celsius global warming is not just an environmental goal but crucial development goal,” said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Schellnhuber told IPS that there is vital need for more dialogue between science and policy makers. Although he admitted that leaders in countries like the United States and Canada are not listening to their science advisors.

Symposium participants, including Canada’s Minister of Environment Peter Kent, broadly agreed the more than 400 billion dollars in annual subsidies for fossil fuels need to eliminated and there is a need for a price on carbon said Lena Ek, Sweden’s Minister for the Environment.

“When we feel sense of urgency then we make changes. We must bend the growth curve (of carbon emissions) downwards by 2015. That is very little time,” Ek said.
(Ends)

Electric cars reduce urban air pollution. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 6 – Sweden, the United Kingdom and Germany are the top countries to fight climate change, according to the 2012 Climate Change Performance Index, whose results were published at the United Nations climate change summit Tuesday.

Sweden, the country with the lowest emission levels of 50,600 tonnes of CO2 emissions, according to the latest data from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA), and good emission trends worldwide, was ranked 4th.

Experts said they could not award any country with the top three rankings, as no nation was doing enough to prevent climate change.

The three lowest-ranking countries are Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan and Iran. The index is compiled each year by environmental lobby organisation Germanwatch and the Climate Action Network (CAN), which evaluate and compare the climate protection performance of the 58 countries worldwide which are together responsible for more than 90 percent of global energy-related CO2-emissions.

“This year’s results signify that although globally emissions are still growing, none of the big emitters make the real shifts that are needed,” said CAN Europe director Wendel Trio. “None of them is considered as doing enough.”

Sweden’s climate policy was not ambitious enough, while the UK, ranked 5th, had recently shown worrying signs. It had failed to tighten up its carbon budgets, while Germany’s emission levels remained too high for a placement higher than rank 6.

“The average grades for the national and international policies are weak,” said Germanwatch researcher Jan Burck, one of the authors of the report. “Most experts are not satisfied by far with the efforts of their governments with regard to the 2°C limit”, which refers to the rise in global temperatures that scientists have found may not be exceeded if they world wants to win the fight against climate change.

However, within Europe, countries such as Turkey (58), Poland (56) and Croatia (53) hold some of the lowest positions in the overall ranking. This is partly due to their policy evaluations. During its presidency of the European Council, Poland blocked the proposed European Union’s 30 percent reduction target until 2020, for example. Poor emissions trends and poor policy evaluations made the Netherlands (42) lose twelve ranks.

“It is especially worrying that global trend towards burning coal (and oil from tar sands) has not been stopped,” warned Burck. “This is the main reason why we see emissions per gross domestic product (GDP) increasing in many countries.”

Switzerland was ranked 9th, after Brazil and France. Brazil, which used to be among the role model countries, has lost its top ranking because of increasing carbon emissions as well as emissions from deforestation.

The United States has climbed up two ranks to 52, mainly due to its reduction in emissions as a result of the economic crisis. It remains, however, at the bottom end of the index because of poor policy evaluations and a very high emissions level.

Emerging economy India dropped 13 ranks because of a worse overall performance, especially in terms of its emissions trend.

“The index provides hard data and trends in the context of climate negotiations that often remain vague. We hope countries use the index as a motivation to increase their ambitions to fight climate change,” said Trio.

China’s climate performance is full of contradictions, the authors said. While China is one of the world’s largest CO2-emitters, producing 7,7 million tonnes of CO2 according to the EIA, and with dramatically growing emissions, its national emissions reduction policy is rapidly intensifying.

“China is installing about half of the global renewable energy capacity per year,” said Burck. He expects China’s ranking to “dramatically improve” as soon as these positive trends will influence its emissions trend.

China, Mexico, Korea and South Africa are the countries with the best policy evaluation. South Africa has been showing an improved performance in the field of national climate policy each year, but is only ranked 38 because their emissions are still relatively high and the country remains addicted to coal.

Australia has made encouraging steps towards improved climate policy and climbed ten ranks. The experts recognised its new carbon tax as especially positive. But due to its continuously high emissions, the country remains in the last quarter of emitters, on a poor rank 48.

Despite the low ranking, “Australia shows a very positive trend,” said Trio. “It only joined the Kyoto Protocol in 2007 but now adopted important new policies to reduce carbon emissions.”

The countries with the worst score in the indicator ‘emissions levels’ are Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and Estonia.

The UNFCCC has a consensus process to reach agreements on climate change, which, in effect, could lead to countries exercising a veto to stop progress. IPSs Stephen Leahy asks Alden Myer, director of strategy & policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, if the process could ever work.

Tinus de Jager reports from COP 17 in Durban at the start of the high-level meetings on combatting climate change.

By Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec6 – The United States has become the major stumbling block to progress at the mid point of negotiations over a new international climate regime say civil society and many of the 193 nations attending the United Nations climate change conference here in Durban.

“The U.S. position leads us to three or four degrees Celsius of warming, which will be devastating for the poor of the world,” said Celine Charveriat of Oxfam International.

“They are proposing a 10-year time out with no new targets to lower emissions until after 2020,” Charveriat said.

At COP 15 in Copenhagen the U.S. committed to reducing its emissions 17 percent from 2005 by 2020. This is far short of what is widely agreed as necessary: cuts in fossil fuel emissions 25 to 40 percent below those in 1990 by U.S. and all developed nations.

Scientists have repeatedly warned that global emissions must peak by mid-decade and then decline every year thereafter. But U.S. negotiator Jon Pershing said their Copenhagen emission reduction pledge is sufficient until 2020.

“There is a huge failure of ambition. Nothing here will keep us out of catastrophic climate change,” said Jim Leape, Director General of the World Wide Fund for Nature International. The U.S. has already suffered record-breaking losses due to severe weather this year with only 0.8 degrees Celsius of warming, Leape said.

“If they (U.S.) won’t moderate this stance they should step aside,” Leape.

That sentiment was echoed by Greenpeace’s Kumi Naidoo who also said: “Delegates must listen to the people not to certain corporate interests.”

The Obama White House is betraying the American people, as well as the municipalities and companies in the U.S. who are taking serious action to reduce their emissions, Naidoo said.

Pa Ousman Jaru of The Gambia, a delegate representing the Least Developed Countries block, also asked the U.S. to step aside and stop blocking progress for the rest of the final week.

Jaru reiterated the developing world’s commitment to a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol after the first one expires in 2012. Under the Kyoto Protocol all industrialised nations, with the exception of the U.S., are legally bound to reduce emissions five percent from 1990 levels.

Canada’s emissions are close to 30 percent higher than in 1990 and said they will not participate in a second phase. Japan and Russia will also not participate leaving the Kyoto Protocol to regulate only about quarter of current global emissions.

There had been expectations that the Kyoto Protocol would die here in Durban but United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change climate chief Christiana Figueres said it would live on.

Nadioo agreed that the Kyoto Protocol would live but it would be on “life support for the next two years” of additional negotiations.

Jaru said that the other “track” of negotiations to regulate and reduce the remaining 75 percent is vitally important and must result in ambitious reductions. That is the track the U.S. is reluctant to participate in beyond its Copenhagen commitments because China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, refused to agree to binding reductions for itself.

Now, for the first time China said it will agree, a move that Figueres called “very positive”. She said it was part of the progress being made in Durban, which she expected to escalate with the arrival of ministers for the high level negotiations beginning Tuesday.

Another major issue includes the establishment of a Green Climate Fund, which is to scale up to 100 billion dollars a year in funding to help developing countries adapt to climate change. That is bogged down in how to set up and structure the fund. The more difficult issue of where the money is going to come from is on the back burner.

There was progress on talks to reduce deforestation, a major source of emissions. The United Nations programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) negotiation focused on thorny details of how to verify reductions with progress expected by end of the week. Decisions on financing for REDD+ have been postponed until COP 18 in Qatar next year.

La secretaria ejecutiva de la CMNUCC, Christiana Figueres, en la conferencia de Durban. Crédito: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Por Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 5 dic (IPS) Cuando la cumbre de las Naciones Unidas sobre el clima entra en su recta final en la ciudad sudafricana de Durban, Estados Unidos se yergue como el mayor obstáculo para lograr un nuevo régimen climático internacional.

“La postura estadounidense nos puede llevar a un calentamiento de tres o cuatro grados centígrados, que será devastador para los pobres del mundo”, dijo la activista Celine Charveriat, de Oxfam International. “Propone una década muerta sin nuevas metas para reducir las emisiones hasta después de 2020″, dijo.

En la 15 Conferencia de las Partes (COP 15) de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (CMNUCC), celebrada en 2009 en Copenhague, la delegación estadounidense había prometido disminuir las emisiones de ese país de gases de efecto invernadero en 17 por ciento entre 2005 y 2020.

Esto está muy lejos de lo que se reconoce como necesario para controlar el cambio climático: un recorte de emisiones de entre 25 y 40 por ciento respecto de los volúmenes emitidos en 1990 por Estados Unidos y todas las demás naciones ricas.

La ciencia ha reiterado que la contaminación climática –los gases invernadero que liberan actividades humanas como la deforestación, la agricultura, el transporte y la industria– debe alcanzar su punto más alto a mediados de esta década y luego empezar a declinar año tras año.

Pero el negociador estadounidense Jonathan Pershing insiste en que el compromiso de Copenhague es suficiente hasta 2020.

“Así no evitaremos un cambio climático desastroso”, dijo el director general del Fondo Mundial para la Naturaleza (WWF), Jim Leape.

Con el actual aumento de la temperatura media mundial de apenas 0,8 grados respecto de la era preindustrial, el propio Estados Unidos sufrió este año pérdidas sin precedentes por las severas condiciones climáticas en su territorio, apuntó Leape.

Si Washington “no modera esta postura, debería apartarse” de las negociaciones, agregó.

Para el director ejecutivo de Greenpeace, Kumi Naidoo, “los delegados deben oír a sus pueblos y no a algunos intereses corporativos”. El gobierno de Barack Obama está traicionando al pueblo estadounidense y a los municipios y a las empresas que están adoptando acciones serias para reducir sus emisiones, añadió.

Un delegado del bloque de Países Menos Adelantados, el gambiano Pa Ousman Jarju, también reclamó que Washington diera un paso al costado y dejara de bloquear las conversaciones de la COP 17, que comenzaron el 28 de noviembre e ingresarán a partir de este martes 6 en sus segmentos de alto nivel para concluir el viernes 9.

Jarju reiteró el compromiso del mundo en desarrollo con un segundo período del Protocolo de Kyoto, que expirará en 2012 y que establece obligaciones para todas las naciones ricas –excepto Estados Unidos– de abatir sus emisiones de gases invernadero a volúmenes 5,2 por ciento inferiores a los de 1990.

Las emisiones de Canadá son casi 30 por ciento mayores que las de 1990, y el gobierno de este país ya anunció que no se sumaría a una segunda fase de obligaciones. Japón y Rusia tampoco están dispuestos. Y así el Protocolo de Kyoto regularía solamente un cuarto de las actuales emisiones globales.

Había rumores de que el Protocolo adoptado en la ciudad japonesa de Kyoto en 1997 encontraría la muerte en Durban, pero la secretaria ejecutiva de la CMNUCC, Christiana Figueres, lo desmintió.

Naidoo admitió que Protocolo no ha muerto, pero estará “en terapia intensiva en los próximos dos años” de nuevas negociaciones.

Para Jarju, más allá de Kyoto, es crucial el carril paralelo de discusiones para regular y reducir el otro 75 por ciento de la contaminación climática.

Es en este carril en el que Washington se muestra renuente a ir más allá de lo que prometió en Copenhague, porque China, el principal emisor mundial de dióxido de carbono, se negaba hasta ahora a asumir reducciones obligatorias.

Pero, por primera vez, China ha dicho que aceptaría adoptar ese compromiso a partir de 2020, un cambio que Figueres considera “muy positivo” y que forma parte de los avances que ella espera se acrecienten con el arribo de los ministros a Durban a partir de este martes.

Además de China, otras dos grandes potencias emergentes, Brasil y Sudáfrica, han mostrado su voluntad de sumarse a reducciones obligatorias desde 2020.

India es el único país del grupo Basic –que conforma con Brasil, Sudáfrica y China– que sigue negándose.

La otra gran cuestión es la puesta en marcha del Fondo Verde para el Clima, que debe ofrecer unos 100.000 millones de dólares por año para financiar la adaptación de los países en desarrollo al cambio climático, pero está empantanado porque no hay acuerdo sobre su estructura y funcionamiento, aunque lo más complicado es decidir de dónde vendrá el dinero.

En cambio, hay modestos avances en las conversaciones para abatir la deforestación, una gran fuente de gases invernadero.

La negociación del programa de Reducción de Emisiones Provocadas por Deforestación y Degradación de los Bosques  (REDD+) se ha centrado en asuntos complejos como la verificación de las reducciones, mientras la cuestión de cómo financiar estos planes quedó pospuesta hasta la COP 18, que se llevará a cabo el año próximo en Qatar. (FIN)

By Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 5 (IPS) – Emerging economies China, South Africa and Brazil have indicated their openness to legally-binding carbon emission reduction targets from 2020 during the United Nations climate change summit in Durban, South Africa.

Climate experts say the three countries’ willingness to consider legally binding commitments, even if they will not take immediate effect, was potentially “a great step” to unlock one of the big political issues of this year’s climate change talks.

Only India continues to refuse to commit.

The European Union (EU) proposed a “roadmap” last week, which stipulates that all major economies, including emerging countries like South Africa, Brazil, India and China, generally called the BASIC group – and not only industrialised nations as currently under the Kyoto Protocol – will be subject to legally binding carbon emission targets.

BASIC countries all face developmental challenges but are at the same time significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Major emerging economies and other developing nations already emit more than half of current carbon emissions. Within the next 20 years, they are projected to account for two- thirds.

The 194-nation climate talks, which will wrap up on Dec. 9, are abuzz with speculation on the prospect of emerging economies agreeing on the proposed roadmap.

In a move that surprised many after a tough week of negotiations that brought to the fore deep rifts between different countries’ demands and expectations, China announced for the first time it would accept a legally-binding climate deal after 2020, when current voluntary pledges will run out. After first insisting the demands of the EU roadmap were “too much,” China now seems open to finding a middle ground, especially with Europe.

“But there are pre-conditions,” said China’s top climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua. “A second Kyoto commitment period is a must for rich nations. After (the second period has ended), we need to review what has been done. Based on this assessment can we start negotiating what we shall agree after 2020.”

China laid out five conditions under which it would consider a legally-binding carbon reduction deal. Apart from a second commitment period of carbon-reduction pledges by industrialised nations under the Kyoto Protocol, they include hundreds of billions of dollars in short- and long-term climate financing for developing countries.

China also wants to see the Green Climate Fund signed off during the summit and demands the implementation of a range of agreements outlined at the 2009 Copenhagen summit, which were integrated into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at last year’s climate gathering in Cancun. These include initiatives for technology transfer, adaptation to climate change and new rules for verifying that carbon-cutting promises are kept.

South Africa and Brazil – two countries most vulnerable to the adverse effects of global warming, especially with regards to agriculture and biodiversity – have also shown interest in the roadmap.

South Africa’s Minister of Environment Edna Molewa said the EU roadmap was “seen favourably”, but noted that South Africa would, like China, want to place “conditionalities” on any binding agreements.

“We would like to work towards a legally binding outcome. As South Africa, we’re of the opinion that the seriousness with which we will deal with the level of contributions that South Africa can make in the global arena is understood in the context of articles 4.1 and 2 of the UNFCCC,” confirmed South Africa’s second negotiator Xolisa Ngwadla.

UNFCCC article 4.1 refers to “common and differentiated responsibilities” depending on the gross domestic product (GDP) of each country, while article 2 refers to the stabilisation of greenhouse gas emissions at a level that allows ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner – a point important for countries that heavily feel the effects of climate change.

“Our future commitments will also depend on finance, technology transfers and capacity building,” Ngwadla added.

Contrary to South Africa, Brazil said it is not placing any conditions on committing itself to an internationally legally binding instrument to reduce carbon emissions as long as such a treaty helped the fight against climate change based on scientific studies.

“We could agree already today on an internationally legally binding instrument, but not on any. It has to be robust, respond to what science is telling us is needed and therefore something that will make a difference in the fight against climate change,” explained Ambassador Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, head of Brazil’s delegation. “We would not adapt a legally binding instrument for the sake of it.”

Currently, Brazil has set voluntary carbon reduction targets, which have been passed into national law. Figueiredo said he is aware this commitment will have to increase over time: “We understand that this regime will have to evolve over time. We think voluntary actions alone usually don’t add up to the level of international response that science tells us is needed. We are willing to play our part in the future evolution of the international fight against climate change.”

As part of the Group of 77 and China negotiating bloc, a group of 132 developing countries, Brazil is pushing for the adoption for a second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol before the end of the climate change summit on Dec 9. The country is also lobbying for a sign off of a fully functional Green Climate Fund, which will have short-term and long-term financing mechanisms so that developing nations can adapt to climate change.

Delegates from BASIC countries have repeatedly noted that South-South cooperation is important to them, not only economically but also with regards to decisions made during the climate change summit, and have indicated that they would support each other’s positions.

India, however, the fourth member of the BASIC group, does not seem to fall into line. It has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the EU roadmap, as it is not willing to consider signing a legally binding agreement to cut carbon emissions.

India said it felt implementing its voluntary target of reducing the emission intensity of its GDP growth by 20 percent to 25 percent by 2020, compared to 2005, was sufficient. Having one of the smallest per-capita-carbon footprints in the world, tougher targets weren’t necessary, said India’s lead negotiator J.M. Mauskar: “We are not a major emitter.”

India was only willing to negotiate “mutual reassurances”, he said. “In terms of the Cancun pledges, developing countries’ voluntary pledges by 2020 amount to more mitigation in absolute terms than that of developed countries,” Mauskar further explained, insisting that rich nations, not developing countries and emerging economies must ramp up their commitments.

India has criticised industrialised nations, especially the United States, for not making firm commitments to cutting green house gas emissions. “We are deeply concerned that there has been hardly any progress in achieving a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol,” said Mauskar.

Russia, a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, which belongs with South Africa, China, Brazil and India to the BRICS economic bloc, has blankly refused to consider a second commitment period.

(END/2011)

By Busani Bafana

Durban, 5 Dec. — Negotiators at the 17th Conference of Parties owe it to the world’s more than seven billion people to deliver a deal with a work plan for agriculture, a sector that is expected to be the worst affected by climate change.

Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, CEO of Food Agriculture Natural Resources Policy Advocacy Network told participants at the Agriculture and Rural Development Day (ARRD) event on the sidelines of COP 17 that what was need was a work programme for agriculture. She said she hoped that South Africa’s minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Tina Joemat Patterson would take up the cause.

“We believe she will send the message to the right messenger to make sure we deliver a deal that will talk to farmers, the private sector and everybody who needs food to survive,” Sibanda said.

On behalf of a grouping of agriculture and advocacy organisations, Sibanda presented an open letter to Patterson calling for the inclusion of agriculture as an adaptation approach in the text to be agreed on by climate change negotiators. The groups have warned that COP 17 should be the show time for agriculture, which has been repeatedly taken off the agenda in two previous climate change negotiations.

“The turnout for COP 17 has been overwhelming and we believe we are on the right track,” said Sibanda. “This is a sign of commitment and sign of more ambassadors for our message that we are presenting to the minister to take to the boys and girls upstairs.”

Cash for crops
A work programme for agriculture is a blueprint for action that agriculture groups, farmers and development actors believe will unlock the cash to help agriculture, on which millions of smallholder farmers globally depend for their livelihoods, adapt to climate change.

In a firmly worded letter, the 16 agricultural groups said farmers have demonstrated their resilience to producing food in difficult conditions by experimenting with options for achieving climate-change adaptation and mitigation through more sustainable crop production, livestock rearing and management of soils, water, fish, forests, agro forestry species, and other biodiversity.

“The most vulnerable regions of the world – developing countries – are disproportionately affected by climate change, despite contributing little to carbon emissions,” said the letter. “People in developing countries depend heavily on agriculture for their livelihoods, yet are increasingly challenged in their ability to produce sufficient food for their families and for markets.”

Climate smart agriculture, the letter said, will enable the transformation of agriculture, especially in Africa.

The letter further said that despite agriculture’s potential to provide a solution to climate change, it was underfunded. As a percentage of total investment, agriculture has dropped from 22 percent in 1980 to approximately six percent today.

Fair deal
The groups including the World Bank, CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), FANRPAN, the Global Forum on Agricultural Research, Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) and the World Farmers’ Organisation, said nothing should be short of a fair deal that includes agriculture.

Accepting the letter, Pettersson said agriculture, climate change and food security were inseparable. She cited the need to scale up and transform food and farming systems which need to be supported by
policy change and investment.

“There are people around the world who have come to Durban with a lot of expectations,” Pettersson said. “We would request that whoever goes to the negotiation and who even has the slightest influence on any negotiations will help us make our ambitions a reality and help us make climate smart agriculture a reality.”

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 925 million people in the world go hungry every day. As the ballooning world population set to hit the 10 billion mark in 40 years will need food, the focus is on climate smart agriculture to deliver even though the sector has the lion’s share of global water use.

Speaking at the same event, Ireland’s former President Mary Robinson, who is presentation her foundation which bears her name, said innovation and progress on practical tools for climate smart agriculture are emerging but knowledge gaps underlie the need for more agriculture research.

“This is the logic behind the call for a work programme on agriculture under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,” said Robinson adding that, “This COP must deliver action on the links between climate change and food and nutrition security. I hope that a high-level decision can be agreed which acknowledges the importance of agriculture to Africa and the rest of the world.”

Prior to the ARRD event, the agricultural organisations briefed negotiators on the need for a work programme. During the briefing, questions were raised on what comes first, the text or the work programme.

“We have had meetings on this and we are frustrated by the absence of a work programme,” SACAU CEO, Ishmael Sunga lamented. “We have discussed whether we need to have the content of the work programme before the text or not and we think it does not really matter. The fight for now is to have that defined and we can work on the details later.”

The International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movement (IFOAM) bemoaned that while the discussion of agriculture was important in the climate change negotiations, farmers had to be represented in person.

“How are farmers being involved so that they can actively inform this process?” asked an IFOM representative. “This is like discussing gender issues without having any women in the room that is what it feels like to us and we would really appreciate for a major effort that we are represented physically in this process.”

Senior trade policy advisor in the United States Department of Agriculture, Mark Manis, told the briefing of negotiators organised by the grouping of agricultural organisations that the issue of a work programme had been clearly articulated and agreed on the need to bring farmers into the dialogue through the work programme.

“In terms of the negotiating positions, we are here to get a deal and are willing to talk and will do our best to make that happen,” said Manis. “We can spend a lot of time on what we think should be in the work programme but this has been article and should not be an impediment to initiating the exercise. But if we do not get a decision here there is nothing and frankly that is not acceptable and on the basis of a positive note we are going upstairs to make it happen.”

Bruce Campbell, Director, CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security told IPS that momentum is building for the inclusion of a Work Programme on agriculture at the climate negotiations this year. He said this was clear from the more than 500 participants at this year’s Agriculture and Rural Development Day that this is the single priority issue that needs to be addressed.

“Leading agricultural groups, from farmers and researchers to policymakers and development organisations, have all come together to call on COP17 negotiators to address the need for a Work Programme on agriculture,” Campbell said. “Now, it is up to negotiators to heed our joint call-to-action and allow agriculture to play its part in building resilience amongst vulnerable populations, helping farmers adapt to more unpredictable and extreme weather conditions and mitigating future climate change.”

End/

photos by Khanyisa Sinqe – Zithethele Community Newspaper*

DURBAN, Dec 4 – (TerraViva) “Unite against climate change” was the order of the day on Dec. 3, when Greenpeace successfully coordinated a march through the streets of Durban. Several thousand people took part, including both South African activists and campaigners from around the world who have come to Durban to make their voices heard on the issue of responding to global warming.

“World leaders are discussing the fate of our planet, but they are far from reaching a solution to climate change,” said Desmond D’Sa, a Durban environmental activist and one of the protest’s organisers.”

“Never trust a COP”, “Climate Justice Now” and “Ensure the survival of coming generations” were just some of the messages held aloft by demonstrators.

The march had to overcome an early conflict at its outset in Durban’s Botha Park, when a group of young people dressed in the green tracksuits issued to COP 17 volunteers attempted to take up a position at the head of the procession. They said they represented the African National Congress Youth League and had come to show support for President Zuma who they felt was being unfairly targeted by some of the placards and banners posters displayed by protesters.

Marshals managed to contain briefly violent confrontation between this group and members of the Democratic Left Forum; organisers negotiated an agreement that the Youth League group would march further back, with the steadying presence of members of the Rural Women’s Association between them and the DLF marchers.

The march route led through the city centre, pausing outside the International Convention Centre where the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) deliberating over global climate treaty is taking place. Here marchers listened to speeches from representatives of youth, organised labour and the environmental movement.

A list of demands was presented to COP 17 president Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres.

Responding to the marchers’ call for greater attention to adaptation and strong support for women who form the backbone of Africa’s food production, Figueres acknowledged the importance of civil society to the process. “These are the voices we hear from the developing countries. We will make sure that the decisions taken at COP 17 will take adaptation forward.”

On her part, Nkoana-Mashabane promised the summit would be run in a transparent and manner inclusive manner. “We will ensure that we use this gathering to make sure that the demands of the many people you are representing are heard.”

* Community media coverage of COP 17 is being supported by the Media Development & Diversity Agency of South Africa, which is promoting the participation of local journalists through a programme of training and reporting on climate change.

(END)

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 4 (IPS) – The combined effects of ballooning populations, poor productivity and threatened water resources present fresh pressures on agriculture to deliver food, money and livelihoods in Africa.

The food system needs urgent reform in the face of climate change which accelerating the speed of change on the farms and on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

Kanayo F. Nwanze, President, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) told IPS reporter Busani Bafana that changing the course means a new agriculture revolution that delivers smart solutions to the current challenges posed by climate change.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

Kanayo F. Nwanze

A: The whole discussion we are having right now is basically how to achieve a climate smart agriculture which essentially means getting the maximum out of smallholder farmers who make up the large population of farmers in Africa and who are mostly women. They have to have access to basic inputs and financial services. If it will be climate smart, it has to respond to all the current issues that have to do with the impact of climate change on agriculture.

We have to talk about sustainable agricultural systems. The Green Revolution was successful because it focused on very clear messages: increase fertiliser use, increase improved seeds and irrigation. But we found out in the long term that it is not sustainable. So now we need to look for sustainable approaches to production that do not destroy the environment and are available to a wide spectrum of farmers in Africa and in the world as a whole and that help farmers to adapt to climate change and to be able to mitigate by their own activities. This is sustainable intensified agriculture.

A new green revolution is needed to meet the challenge of feeding more than nine billion people in 2050. There is no magic bullet for eliminating hunger overnight because I do not believe that ideas can feed people. Ideas for a new green revolution are needed and climate smart agriculture can deliver those ideas.

Q: Agriculture is threatened by many factors, what is the first step to make it sustainable?

A: The first step we need to take is on the policy agenda. We must have a commitment from the highest level of policy makers of government to say agriculture is a priority and they must put their money where their mouth is.

Q: You have expressed concern with the slow progress of negotiations. What are your expectations?

A: We are dealing with an issue that transcends what we call simple equations. You are dealing with an issue that brings a lot of political arguments and then people lose the sense of priority. It becomes very slow.

We are negotiating a political issue and there are a lot of things at stake. We are negotiating simple issues that are founded on facts and are fact-based arguments. Some people today are still denying there is climate change. How do you negotiate with someone who does not believe? That is the problem we have. We need real leadership. South Africa is doing a fantastic job leading this whole argument of putting agriculture on the agenda.

One sentence on agriculture is key. What is it? Agriculture drives economic growth and social development.

It is impacted by climate change but agriculture is also a solution to climate change because agriculture is at the cross roads of food security and climate change. So we cannot ignore it in climate smart business.

Q: Agriculture is facing challenges, but what have we done well in agriculture development in Africa?

A: Ten years ago you would not hear people talking about agriculture because it was always at the bottom of the pile but with the events of 2007/8 with the (food) price hikes and volatility, with riots, now people say agriculture equals food security, food security equals political stability and global peace. With that kind of linkage, you cannot ignore agriculture and that is something we have done well.

(Ends)

By Kristin Palitza

Dubbing Saturday the “Global Day of Action”, demonstrators from international and national non-governmental groups as well as labour, women, youth, academic, religious and environmental organisations came together to highlight civil society’s demands for politicians all over the world to take serious action to fight climate change.

“We are asking for 100 percent change. Today will be the beginning of a strong movement that is going to challenge the rich nations of the world,” said Global Day of Action subcommittee convenor Desmond D’Sa. “World leaders are discussing the fate of our planet, but they are far from reaching a solution to climate change.”

Protesters said it was time for climate change negotiators to listen to the voices of ordinary people. They marched holding banners which said: “Never trust COP17”, “Unite against Climate Change”, “Climate Justice Now” and “Ensure the survival of coming generations”.

There was a general feeling that ordinary people remained largely excluded from important debates on important issues that directly affected their lives.

“We want to ensure that the one percent on the inside [of the conference] will hear what the 99 percent on the outside have to say,” explained Bobby Peek, one of the organisers of the protest and director of Friends of the Earth South Africa. “We demand immediate, drastic emission cuts by rich countries that have caused climate change.”

Widespread anger could be felt about the slow progress made during the first week of the climate change negotiations, mixed with fear that the summit will end without tangible results.

Peek said he was gravely disappointed about the outcomes of the first week of negotiations. “It was generally a disastrous first week. There is no evidence of moving forward on [emission reduction] targets.”

Greenpeace international executive director Kumi Naidoo agreed, lashing out at the United States for never having ratified the Kyoto-Protocol, the only global, legally binding instrument to cut carbon emissions: “This is not a dress rehearsal. A week of belligerence, bickering and backstabbing needs to now give way to real deals about the future of our planet. Those who are not interested in saving lives, economies and environments, like the US, must now stand aside and let those with the political will move forward.”

Chanting slogans and signing protest songs, a large throng of demonstrators walked from Durban’s city centre to the entrance of the International Convention Centre where the climate change summit is being held, to hand over a list of their demands to Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Civil society requests that governments meet the following targets by the end of the conference on December 9:

• Ensure a peak in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2015.
• Ensure that the Kyoto Protocol continues and provide a mandate for a comprehensive, legally binding instrument.
• Deliver the necessary finance to tackle climate change.
• Set up a framework for protecting forests in developing countries.
• Ensure global cooperation on technology and energy finance.
• And ensure international transparency in assessing and monitoring country commitments and actions.
Activists criticised rich, industrialised nations for using the global financial crisis as an excuse to give national interests priority before international ones. After a week of negotiations, it remained unclear how money to finance climate mitigation and adaptation projects – measures particularly important to developing nations – will be generated.

“So far we don’t even know where the money will come from. There is a real risk we walk away from Durban with empty pockets. And that failure will be measured in lives, economies and habitats,” warned Tove Ryding, Greenpeace co-ordinator for climate policy. “If governments don’t move forward, the final agreement will be stripped of any possibility of protecting the climate.”

Demonstrators voiced strong concern about a lack of political commitment to put in place legally binding and comprehensive agreements. The protest march was therefore particularly meant as a message to the heads of state and ministers from around the globe, which are expected to arrive at the summit on December 5.

“We demand urgent and strong action on climate change. We can’t just keep talking and keep wasting time,” said ActionAid international climate justice coordinator Harjeet Singh. “We march today to show our outrage. We want to give the ministers, who will arrive next week, a clear message: You cannot continue to make excuses.”

(Ends)

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 3 (IPS) – The world’s oceans are becoming hot, sour and breathless – threatening a vital source of food for a billion people mainly in the developing world experts warned today at a special Oceans Day event at the UN climate negotiation.

Oceans are home 80 percent of all life on the planet and emissions from fossil fuels are turning them increasingly acidic, raising water temperatures and reducing the amount of oxygen in some regions said oceanographer Carol Turley from Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the UK.

“We don’t know what all the consequences will be. We suspect the combination of all three will be far worse than one alone,” Turley told IPS in an interview on the sidelines of climate treaty negotiations known as COP 17.

It was only a few years ago that researchers realised that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) was making the surface waters of oceans more acidic. The oceans naturally absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and have now absorbed about a third of all human emissions. That has kept the climate from warming faster but the additional carbon is altering the oceans’ chemistry making them 30 percent more acidic.

One documented impact is that shell-forming creatures like plankton produce thinner shells in more acidic ocean waters. These species are often very important parts of the marine food chain. As emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere increase the more the ocean sours.

In less than ten years at least 10 per cent of the Arctic Ocean surface waters will be too acid for shell-forming species like plankton. By 2040 most of the Arctic Ocean will be too acidic as will significant areas of the Antarctic Ocean said Turley.

The cold waters of the polar regions allow more CO2 to be absorbed faster. The oceans haven’t seen a rapid change like this in 60 million years, she explained.

“But there will also be strange impacts. New research is showing changes in growth, behaviour and reproduction in a variety of non-shell forming species.” 

Estuaries and ocean upwelling zones that are often important fishing grounds are also regions where acidification is fastest. Those areas are also subject to low oxygen levels and increasing temperatures creating new conditions in the oceans that no marine species has ever had to cope with.

Oceans are also absorbing most of the extra heat trapped by the additional CO2 in the atmosphere. Again, without this land temperatures would far higher and extreme weather events far worse.

“There is some evidence that some crab species cannot tolerate higher temperatures when ocean is more acidic,” she said.

The changes in the oceans are very worrying for developing countries who will be most affected and have little capacity to cope with this she said.

The only solution is to cut emissions although it may be possible to grow algae to absorb carbon and then remove it and use it for food or biomass or some other purpose that keeps the carbon out of the ocean or atmosphere she said.

Despite their fundamental importance and role in the planet’s climate system, oceans have not been part of previous climate negotiations. Efforts are being made to include oceans in the formal negotiations of COP 17. Not that will help the oceans without commitment to make significant cuts in CO2 emissions which reached their highest level ever in 2010.

“Some countries are fighting like the devil here in Durban against emission targets that the science says we need. You have to ask in whose interests are they working for,” said Nick Nuttall spokesperson for the UN Environment Program (UNEP).

Those counties need to be publicly held to account for “not doing the right thing”, Nuttall said.

Another thing that needs to change are the more than 600 billion dollars a year in public subsidies governments spend on fossil fuels. Stop the subsidies and use the money to improve fuel efficiency and fund alternative energy Nuttall said.

“Ocean plankton provides 50 percent of the oxygen we breathe – far more than tropical forests,” said Philippe Vallette, co-President, World Ocean Network. 

Despite these huge environmental challenges humanity can find ways to live sustainably and ensure the health of the world’s ecosystems.

“This is very exciting moment for humankind. We need to reinvent a world taking into account the limits of the earth,” Vallette said.

(Ends)

By Joshua Kyalimpa

DURBAN, South Africa, 2 Dec (IPS) – Civil society organisations are urging Africa to remain steadfast in its demands for a commitment to the Kyoto Protocol and not to be bulldozed into a new agreement.

“The African nations are watching you,” Bobby Peek, of Friends of the Earth, told the Africa group during a press conference in Durban. The conference, led by Friends of the Earth and the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, comes as negotiators continue to struggle to reach an agreement.

“People in Africa are already paying the price of two hundred years of industrial pollution by the developed world. Africa must fight to ensure that developed countries deliver on their legal and moral obligation to cut the emissions that are putting the lives of millions of people at risk,” said Peek.

Tetteh Hormeku, of the African Trade Network, says if Africa were to shift its position, the consequences could be grave. Hormeku says targets in the expiring protocol are not adequate and should have been raised, but the biggest emitters are looking to hinder the process.

There are also fears that South Africa, the biggest polluter on the continent, may attempt to side with the developed world. Michele Maynard, of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, says: “South Africa has a leading role to play, as the chair of these talks here in Durban.

“The South African chair of the talks must not let South Africa down. African nations must stand shoulder-to-shoulder to deliver radical action to cut emissions, and substantial finance to allow Africa to adapt to the impacts already being felt.”

Augustine Njamushi, of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, says Africa is already feeling the impacts of climate change and delays in agreeing to a legally binding document means the continent will continue burning as others benefit. “The future of African agriculture, food and survival is at stake that is why it’s important that the continent sticks to its position.”

Martin Khor, of the South Centre, says developing countries are already doing quite a lot compared to the developed world. “It’s not fair to treat the developing countries with big populations like developed countries when their per capita carbon is incomparable.”
(Ends)

By Kristin Palitza

Figueres expects the week to close with good progress on the negotiation package that will define ways to adapt to climate change – an instrument very important for developing countries, especially Africa, which will suffer most from climate change.

There has also been further clarification on the “how” of a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, she noted.

Figueres’ statements sent a positive signal, and gave some hope that hurdles surrounding the Kyoto Protocol and Green Climate Fund can still be overcome.

This second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol, which will expire at the end of 2012, was being considered even though the European Union (EU) had placed “certain conditions” on a successful agreement. “We have discussed this week what those conditions are and how they can be met. By Tuesday, we will bring all options on the table and converge on a limited number of options,” the executive secretary said.

Moreover, the EU proposed new amendments to the Kyoto Protocol this week to make it easier to increase countries’ “level of ambition” to reduce greenhouse gases. “We try to up the pledges, not only for the small numbers of countries that are included in the Kyoto Protocol already, but also for all other countries,” explained Artur Runge-Metzger, the European Commission’s lead negotiator.

The EU is pressing for firm commitments from all countries not only in the distant future, but starting today, he added: “It is not only important to think about a legally binding framework in the mid- and long-term, but also important to do something before then, because current pledges are not sufficient to keep temperature increases under two degrees Celsius.”

Scientists say global average temperatures may not rise by more than two degrees Celsius if the world wants to put a stop to further climate change.
Runge-Metzger argued countries had no more excuses not to reduce their carbon emissions, as there are numerous solutions available to help close the gap between the current level of carbon emissions and emission reduction targets, such as renewable energies and energy efficiency mechanisms, among others. “It is technologically feasible and economically affordable,” he said.

The argument that those new technologies are too costly and stand in the way of economic growth and development, urgently needed in some countries, did not hold, the chief negotiator said. The EU had already proven “that we can do both at the same time: grow economy and reduce emissions. Our emissions have been going down in EU, and are now lower than they were in 1990, while our gross domestic product has been going up,” said Runge-Metzger.

The bloc also remains clearly opposed to a “bottom-up” approach to emission reductions, where countries are allowed to set targets themselves. “A ‘free for all’ is not going to work. Some countries are pushing [for this],” Runge-Metzger said in reference to the U.S. “What is important is to get enough political will next week to go against the ‘free for all’ approach.”

Instead, the EU is forcefully demanding clear timelines for setting new carbon emission reduction targets. “We need a new legally binding instrument with a clear perspective that will eventually have all emitters on board, [so that we can address] a hundred percent of emissions globally. The Kyoto Protocol on its own is not sufficient,” said EU negotiator and head of the Polish delegation Tomasz Chruszczow.

“The idea [of including all emitters into binding reduction targets] is getting a lot of traction with other parties,” he believed. “They can see that waiting until 2015 or longer to start discussing next steps [to reduce carbon emissions] would simply be too late.”

The EU also wants to introduce a midterm review of the Kyoto Protocol targets, which would take place between 2013 and 2015, so that parties’ progress can be assessed more frequently. “The current protocol has a terribly complicated amendment procedure. We propose an easier way so that it doesn’t take years and years until [changes] take effect. We want to make it as easy as possible for countries to raise the level of their ambitions,” explained Runge-Metzger.

To what degree the EU’s demands on the Kyoto Protocol and other discussion points will be met will only become apparent next week, when ministers and heads of state will arrive at the conference and take the discussions to the next – the political – level.

(Ends) 

Busani Bafana speaks to the former head of the former Head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) OzonAction programme, RAJENDRA SHENDE.

Hailed as one of the most successful international environment agreements and a model for global cooperation, the Montreal Protocol has been signed by 196 nations – a feat not achieved by any other green treaty to date. The Montreal Protocol has galvanised governments all over the world to act on Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) which have been blamed for the thinning of the ozone layer – a layer of gas 25km above the atmosphere protecting the earth from the harmful ultra violet rays from the sun. To date 95 percent of ODS have been phased out. In 2012 the Montreal Protocol turns 60 when the first commitment phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires.

As the Kyoto Protocol awaits its fate at the Durban COP17, negotiators can take a leaf from the Montreal Protocol on taking action, says the former Head of the UNEP OzonAction programme, Rajendra Shende.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

Q: Can the Montreal Protocol contribute anything to the current negotiations for a climate change agreement?
A: The Montreal Protocol is older compared to the climate change treaty but today the Montreal Protocol is considered a sort of young brother and the Kyoto Protocol a big brother. The reason being that the climate change issue is much larger and encompasses the reduction of carbon dioxide along with other gases. At the same time, climate change is attracting more attention mainly because, in my view, nothing much is happening whereas we need to take urgent action to reach an agreement and action is what the Montreal Protocol can share with negotiators in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations.

Q: What kind of action?
A: We need to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, mainly carbon dioxide. Such actions are not difficult but take time and yet we are wasting time. For the last 20 years we have not done much; instead of reducing, these gases are increasing.

Q: What then have we learnt from the inaction?
A: One of the things that Kyoto Protocol can teach is to start small. When the Montreal Protocol was agreed, it was decided that it would reduce the production and consumption of Ozone Depleting Substances by only 50 percent – they did not think of 100 percent because people were not confident enough and were doing it for the first time. But then people started getting confident and it became bigger and tighter and a 100 percent phase out was achieved. Today in the climate change talks we are not even starting small. We are just debating and negotiating. The Montreal Protocol teaches us to get on the job because we know it will benefit mankind – which is what the Montreal Protocol did.

A second lesson from the Montreal Protocol is that there has to be global participation. Everyone has to take part and you cannot say I am not part of it. For example, the United States is not part of the treaty but if a country like the US is not part of the treaty, while not blaming the US, action is not possible because consensus is not possible.

Q: Should the current talks on Kyoto Protocol and the whole process be stopped then?
A: There are various ways of doing it. Negotiation is one thing and action is another. We either break with the Kyoto Protocol or have a new one or we continue beyond 2012. Coming from the private sector which implemented a successful model like the Montreal Protocol, what is needed today is tough action. We need a sort of action summit as a way forward.

Q: Are you then saying the Montreal Protocol produced a template from which the Kyoto Protocol can work on?
A: Yes it did. When we stated we wanted the Montreal Protocol to be the single focused multilateral environment treaty to protect the ozone layer. As we went along we got new technologies and found there are a multitude of benefits. It is not only the issue of protecting the ozone layer but the Montreal Protocol has helped save money. Remember CFCs are also greenhouse gases which are infact 5,000 to 10,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide. But getting rid of CFCs fully as we did on 1 January 2010 helped in mitigating against climate change.

Q: Are you hopeful about a deal in Durban?
A:I am hopeful about people taking action on climate change, I may not be so hopeful about governments striking a deal. Maybe governments will strike a deal when they face disaster. I feel countries in Africa can start taking action. Whether you meet in Bonn, Cancun or Durban, people will not care about the future, they will start to take action because that matters.
(Ends)

Ann-Kathrin Schneider

Kristin Palitza speaks to ANN-KATHRIN SCHNEIDER, climate change coordinator of the German public body for environmental protection BUND, about the current state of the negotiations and the chances that COP17 will end with firm, binding commitments.

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 2 (IPS) – As the 17th United Nations Climate Change Summit in Durban, South Africa, moves into its second week, two key decisions are being hotly debated: Will the Green Climate Fund, which is meant to support climate change mitigation and adaptation projects in developing countries, be signed off during the conference? And, how can a second period of the Kyoto Protocol – the only international, legally-binding pact that sets carbon emission targets in industrial countries – be secured?

Ann-Kathrin Schneider, climate change coordinator of the German public body for environmental protection BUND, says Canada’s decision to leave the Kyoto Protocol is a negative signal, but does not feel that it will throw the current negotiations off course.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Q: What key topics have emerged during the first few days of the conference?
A: The most important theme is financing. The question is how we can achieve to mobilise annually 100 billion dollars for the GCF. At the moment, it doesn’t look good. It remains unclear where the money will come from and how much will be generated by public and private channels.
Importantly, the climate fund still needs to be signed off. Our hopes that the document will be agreed upon in Durban have shrunk, because countries like the United States, South America, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela want to reopen and change the document. Egypt and Nigeria are also unhappy with the current draft.

Q: How does the European Union (EU), potentially one of the biggest financiers, position itself?
A: The EU continues to support the current draft document, but has made clear that it regards a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, a mandate for a long-term, wide-ranging agreement for emission reductions that encompasses all countries as well as climate financing as a package deal. The effects of a failed GCF on this package deal remain unclear. But there are no signs from the EU that it would consider climate financing for developing countries without the GCF.

Q: How will the negotiations proceed from here?
A: The question is how much progress the delegations and their negotiators can achieve before next Monday [the second week of the summit] when the ministers will arrive, and which aspects of the negotiations are mainly regarded as political decisions. If there is too much disagreement among the delegates and they are unable to achieve anything, the future of the fund will be decided on the next, the political level. Supporters of the climate fund should have created more momentum to ensure it doesn’t come that far.

Q: What is the likelihood of a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol being signed off?
A: I am forcefully positive. Most discussions about the length of a second period revolve around the decision if a second period should be five or eight years long. I interpret this as a sign that it’s about the “how”, not the “if”. The EU says, however, that it will only commit to a second commitment period if all countries agree to a mandate for an encompassing, legally-binding agreement by 2020 at the latest. This would include emerging economies. That’s an important decision that needs to be made here, in Durban.

Q: Will it be enough to set firm emission reduction targets for all countries only from 2020 onwards?
A: No, by 2020 it will be too late. The danger is that climate change will worsen until then and that reduction targets will then need to be much stricter than today’s assessments to avoid an increase in temperature by more than two degrees Celsius.

Q: What emission reduction targets can we expect for a second Kyoto period?
A: That’s still in the open. No new reduction targets have been set – neither for Kyoto, nor for the mandate that is expected to come into play later. At the moment, delegates are discussing the legalities of the protocol, but they mustn’t neglect the protocol’s content. If they set weak reduction targets in Durban, it won’t be enough. In that case, we won’t be able to stem climate change.

Q: What are strategies to calculate the new emission targets? 
A: That’s the big question: who has to reduce emissions by how much? There are two options how to calculate this. There is the “bottom-up” approach, where countries can decide for themselves how many emissions they want to reduce. That strategy is supported by the US, for example. Then there is the “top-down” approach that is based on scientifically drawn up global carbon budgets that define reduction plans for each country.

Q: How would a “top-down” strategy be calculated?
A: One suggestion is to calculate a reduction plan based on per capita emissions. The US emits, for example, 18 tonnes of carbon per capita per year, Germany nine tonnes, Sweden six tonnes, China five tonnes and India only one tonne. Scientists say we need to keep emissions around two tonnes per capita per year to keep up the much talked about two degree Celsius border.

Q: Would India not need to set any reduction targets in that case?
A: No, they would have to, because one mustn’t ignore industrial development. In industrialised nations, the trend is going towards emission reduction, while emerging economies experience incredible growth and with that come increasing emissions. If you want to make long-term plans, you have to consider such trends.

Q: What does the EU, the biggest Kyoto supporter, expect from emerging economies?
A: The EU hopes for a positive signal from emerging economies that they will in future be willing to sign a mandate for an international, binding protocol, even if they are not prepared to sign immediately. Emerging economies have never officially promised to participate in emission reductions based on their development level.

Q: What impact is Canada’s potential resignation from the Kyoto-Protocol likely to have on a second commitment period? 
A: Canada’s decision is a negative signal, but I don’t have the feeling that it will throw the current negotiations off course. Like Japan and Russia, Canada already announced its unwillingness to recommit to Kyoto before the start of the summit. However, if Canada abandons Kyoto, pressure on emerging economies will increase.

Q: How are the negotiations around a second commitment period of the Kyoto-Protocol likely to proceed from here?
A: There are three options. The worst is that the decision will be postponed until the next climate change summit. The second best option is that a vague, political decision is taken, without detailing emission reductions. The best option would be that, through changes of the rules of the protocol here in Durban, a second period with concrete emission reduction targets is decided upon. Right now, there is still hope that the best option is possible.

(ENDS)

By Busani Bafana

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 3 (IPS) – A new protocol on climate change, with bigger emission-reduction targets, will boost global investment in wind power, a relatively emission-free energy that can help fight climate change.

This is the view of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). The council says wind power could meet up to 70 percent of emission pledges made at Copenhagen in 2009. The projection is based on the growth rates and projections for putting wind power in place around the world in the next eight years.

“A second commitment to the Kyoto Protocol, but with more ambitious emission targets and a continuation of Clean Development Mechanism, will boost investment in wind power,” Steve Sawyer, GWEC Secretary General, told IPS on the sidelines of the launch of a new report, Wind Energy and Climate Policy by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) at COP17.
 
Sawyer says that while climate change negotiations are slow, wind power is racing ahead. Driven by private sector investment, investment was up 31 percent to $96 billion in 2010.

According to GWEC, wind energy saved 29 billion tonnes of Co2 in 2009. This corresponds to nearly 21 percent of the Kyoto target for Annex 1 countries. Wind energy is expected to produce 766 TWh of electricity in 2012, when Kyoto expires. This should take an estimated 430 million tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the air. There are about 160 000 wind turbines producing electricity in 70 states around the world.

The GWEC said science findings leave no doubt that global emissions need to peak and start to decline before 2020. A dramatic increase in renewable energy deployment is urgently required to make this happen.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, industrialised countries committed to cut 5.2 percent of their greenhouse gases emissions, with different targets for individual countries. Success has been mixed and completely off the mark for some countries.

“Wind and other renewable technologies are playing a larger role than anyone could have anticipated a few years ago,” Sawyer says. “But we need ambitious emission reduction targets in order to reach our full potential and spur other measures necessary to close the emissions gap.”

China was leading wind markets in Asia. There are substantial investments in Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia and stronger growth projections for Africa in the long term. South Africa has a lot of potential.

“If the South African market takes off the way … we do not see a reason why it should not be one of the big manufacturers. The complicated bit in South Africa is the price of steel … which makes manufacturing expensive, but it cannot be more expensive than shipping turbines in,” Sawyer says.

In its 2011 World Energy Outlook report, the International Energy Agency said the world has five years to turn the tide. If it did not, the two degrees global warming cap could be out of reach. As leaders sit down to the 17th round of global negotiations, the EWEA said wind power alone will contribute to 31 percent of the emission reductions required by the current European Union climate target.

The EWEA has called on the EU and other countries in the negotiations to raise their ambitions, as the contribution of wind power showed that Europe could at 10 percent to its reduction target.

“Ambitious climate targets are key to maintain Europe’s leadership in the wind power industry in an environment of fast growing global competition from manufacturers in China, America and Asia,” said Remi Guet, EWEA’s senior advisor on climate and environment.

“Renewable targets up to 2030 and increased climate targets inside the EU would provide much need political certainty to energy investors.”
(Ends)

Burial ground ... Protesters form the Sierra Club declare carbon dead outside the ICC today. Credit: IPS/Zukiswa Zimela

By Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 1 (IPS) – Just a few days into the United Nations climate change negotiations, deep divides on the conference’s key issues have arisen.

Serious doubts about the adoption of the Green Climate Fund have cropped up, while a second period of the Kyoto Protocol looks more and more unlikely.

A number of South American countries, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Nigeria and Venezuela have voiced reservations about signing off on the GCF, stating the need to revisit some of its clauses. The European Union (EU), which continues to stand behind the fund’s draft document, urged countries not to delay its progress, but so far with little success.

“It should be possible to agree on the draft instrument as it stands. It is a good compromise. In its current form it would attract significant funding,” said EU negotiator Tomasz Chruszczow. “It would be counterproductive to undertake further technical discussions on the instrument.”

Non-governmental organisations and climate activists agree that reopening the negotiating text would seriously undermine the chances of finalising the GCF before the end of the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) summit.

“This would mean that there is no instrument into which money could flow. We understand there are concerns from some parties, but this negotiating text represented a finely balanced political compromise and took months to finalise,” lamented World Wide Fund for Nature international climate strategy chief Tasneem Essop.

More than 190 countries at the global climate talks in Durban were expected to sign off on the GCF, which is meant to help developing countries with 100 billion dollar a year by 2020 to adapt to the effects of climate change.

In an attempt to create consensus, COP 17 president Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said she would reach out to various countries through “transparent and informal discussions” over the next few days. There is, however, no definitive process or timeline for those talks. Supporters of the GCF now wait with baited breath for her report-back.

Some experts suggest that instead of reopening negotiations, there should be an additional text to the draft document that resolved some of the most pressing concerns, while other issues could be taken up by the GCF board, once elected.

Economics of adaptation

Immediate funding for adaptation and mitigation will not only help countries to confront climate change but also make sound economic sense. The World Bank and the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that economic losses worldwide from natural disasters in the 1990s could have been reduced by 280 billion dollars, if only 40 billion dollars had been invested in disaster prevention.

But two years after committing to mobilising 100 billion dollar per year for climate adaptation and mitigation, at COP 15 in Copenhagen, developed countries have yet to indicate where any of the promised public funds will come from. Instead they have focused on ways to mobilise the private sector.

“If the fund comes with an empty vault it will be meaningless,” warned Ilana Solomon, policy advisor at ActionAid USA. “We know financial aid times are tough and budgets are tight,” she said in reference to the Eurozone crisis, “but the truth is that rich countries can bring up the money.”

The difficulties to secure funding for the GCF are alarming, because even if countries eventually bring up the entire budget, it will not be enough. Recent estimates by the European Commission and World Bank show that at least double the amount that will be raised for the fund is needed for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. Other experts note the world will need 5.7 trillion dollars by 2035 to deal with the effects of climate change.

Climate change experts also stress that action is needed now, because it will cost seven times more to reverse negative impacts of climate change, than to invest in prevention.

“It sounds like we’re talking about a lot of money, but the cost of inaction is far higher than the cost of action,” said Oxfam International - Australia climate change policy adviser Kelly Dent. “We need money to fill the fund. And we need it up and running quickly.”

Up until now, countries have not been able to agree on a single mechanism to draw public funds.

Kyoto – a cop out?

Amidst heated discussions about the climate fund, the chances of countries agreeing to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which will expire at the end of 2012, have become slim as well. Aside from the EU, no other industrial nation currently stands behind an extension. The U.S., Russia and Japan have clearly stated their disinterest, while Canada caused a public outcry this week when it became known it wants to abandon the protocol, probably to avoid fines for not reaching its emission reduction targets.

“We cannot let the distraction of Canada’s move take our focus away from very real progress that can be made with the EU and others, as a crucial pathway forward for a legally binding regime and emission reductions,” urged Dent.

Even the EU has been slightly changing tack. It now wants the world’s largest emitters to agree by 2015 to a binding pact to be enacted in 2020 at the latest and offers in exchange an extension to its carbon- reduction goals under the Kyoto Protocol. The EU said it hopes to break the deadlock in the talks and find “common ground” with China and other emerging economies.

But climate change experts believe waiting until 2020 to set firm emissions reduction targets is leaving it too late. “We need ambition to increase emission reduction targets from after 2012. 2020 is too late,” said Dent.

Developing countries, especially Africa where climate change will be felt most severely, keep their hopes pinned strongly on the EU being able to convince other industrialised nations to commit to Kyoto from 2013 onwards.

“For us, a lot is at stake,” said Raymond Lumbuenamo, central Africa regional coordinator of the World Wide Fund for Nature. “We already experience real impacts of climate change. We are the victims of a climate change that we didn’t cause. Africa does not want to be the burial ground of this treaty.”

(END/2011)

David Lessole (left) with Phera Ramoeli

By Busani Bafana

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 (IPS) — The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) wants water to be tabled as a standalone item on climate change negotiations – describing it as too important to leave on the periphery.

Water – of which agriculture is the largest consumer – has been identified by scientists as a victim of climate change. Growing populations, pollution and unfair distribution have also added to water stress in southern Africa.

“Adaptation is the main priority,” South Africa’s Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa told delegates at the launch of the SADC Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) Strategy for Water during the United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa.

“We know that discussions around mitigation are important but we believe we need to do much more work in relation to adaptation so that as a continent and as SADC we can adapt to the impacts of climate change whose daily impacts we are beginning to see,” said Molewa.

Molewa called for comprehensive and integrated actions to tackle the impact of climate change on the precious water resource. Some of the actions include flood management and water use.

The SADC strategy on water is meant to improve climate resilience in the region and will guide member states with negotiations at COP 17 where pressure is on for global leaders to put the brakes on global warming by cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

“We cannot sit back and say we are seeing the impact of climate change but we cannot do something,” said Molewa, adding that, “something has to be done in the talks, COP 18, and COP 19 and … we hope we will not reach COP 28 without a solution. But, in the meantime, we need to adapt.”

The U.N. Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is responsible for the overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge of climate change. It recognises that the climate system is a shared resource whose stability can be affected by industrial and other emissions of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. After 17 years of discussions, carbon emissions are still growing.

Professor Mark New, director of the Africa Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town, said while water was important and should be highlighted, it must be integrated with other issues.

“I think that the desire to make it water stand alone stems from an important perspective that water is one of the important factors around climate change adaptation. Making it stand alone means that water is separated from many other issues it is linked with,” New told IPS.

“Water is important for energy and agriculture. In Africa, specifically in terms of coping with the changing demographics as we move from a rural society to a more urban society, we have to be thinking in a integrated manner about the way climate change will impact and how decisions we make in one area, around water, will interact with other sectors we are interested in.”

New said the underlying principle of the climate convention is to avoid dangerous climate change and water was therefore implicitly included because the impacts of climate change will affect water along with all other sectors.

During September 2011, SADC ministers responsible for water instructed the SADC Secretariat to push for the inclusion of water as a standalone agenda item under the UNFCCC negotiation. There is debate on the challenges and opportunities of having water as standalone agenda in the negotiations.

Phera Ramoeli, Head of Water Programmes, Infrastructure and Services at the SADC Secretariat told a panel discussion after the launch of the CCA strategy that having water as standalone agenda item for UNFCCC negotiators would raise its profile to attract funding for adaptation.

“We feel it is important that water is a specific agenda item on climate change debate because water is an engine and catalyst for socioeconomic development and is linked to the GDP in most of our countries where GDP is increasing by three percent where there is more water and less than one percent where there is less,” Ramoeli said.

However, David Lessole, a negotiator for Botswana, differed. He said there is need to see water as a broad issue before putting up as a major agenda items for UNFCCC.

“For something to become major agenda it has to benefit me as well,” said Lessole. “As a negotiating partner I must see something in it, for example, in the case of agriculture I can sell you technology, you get more food and become climate resilient and therefore it’s a win-win but for water no, why should I do the job that your government should be doing.”

Lessole argued that there was plenty of water but it was being wasted and was not included in development planning. Hence until such a time that water was seen as broad issue and people were ready to talk about water technologies, they should not be pushing it on the UNFCCC agenda.

(END/2011)

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) wants to put water as a standalone agenda item on the COP17 agenda.

By Joshua Kyalimpa

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 (IPS) – Managing the impact of increased disasters due to climate change will only be possible if such efforts are led by local communities, say non-governmental organisations working in climate change.

“We cannot use the excuse of money – or the lack of it – not to do anything. Yes, developed countries have to make financial commitments, but what if they don’t?” asks Charles Hopkins of the charity CARE International in Ethiopia, an international humanitarian organisation.

A deal on climate change at Durban might still be a far-fetched dream, but climate change-related disasters are already taking a toll around the globe.

According to a report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), increases in some extreme weather and climate events have already been observed and further increases are projected over the 21st century.

The Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, evaluates the role of climate change in altering characteristics of extreme events. It assesses experience with a wide range of options used by institutions, organizations, and communities to reduce exposure and vulnerability, and improve resilience, to climate extremes.

Speaking at a press conference at United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties in Durban, South Africa, IPCC executive director Dr. Kristie Ebi highlighted that while total economic losses from natural disasters could be high in developed countries; economic losses expressed as a proportion of GDP could be higher in developing countries.

Ebi says the IPCC will soon start meeting policy makers and politicians around the world to urge them take up measures for disaster reduction: “We are committed to outreach events over the coming months with a hope that politicians and policy makers will be encouraged to advance climate change adaptation.”

According to the IPCC report, deaths from natural disasters occur much more in developing countries. Information obtained from 1970 to 2008 by the experts’ shows that more than 95 percent of deaths from natural disasters were in developing countries.

Most governments have, however, not put in place policies for disaster risk reduction. Hopkins says governments, especially those in Africa, have to take to protect people and their property.

“People have to be given the right information because information on disaster reduction remains at the top and often the affected people don’t even get it,” says Hopkins

Professor Richard Klein, of the Stockholm Environment Institute and a member of the international panel of experts, says people actually don’t have to rely on international agreements.

“Local actions by the people need to be supported because they are the most vulnerable and are more likely to put effort into adaptation measures,” says Klein.

Klein says risk management works best when tailored to local circumstances.

But Nurudeen Adebola Olanrewaju of the Human and Environmental Development Agenda, a Nigeria- based policy centre, says that while the report talks about what people are already experiencing, more was needed to drive action.

“Risk management requires actions, ranging from improving infrastructure to building individual and institutional capacity, in order to reduce risk and respond to disasters but these require money which politician must make available,” says Olanrewaju.

A separate report released by the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC), the technical arm of the Climate for Development in Africa programme, based at the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa shows that of the 29.2 billion dollars pledged since 2009, only between 2.8 and 7.0 billion dollars is “new” (i.e. not previously pledged).

The total amount of funds that are both “new and additional” (i.e. on top of aid budgets) would be less than 2 billion dollars. While 97 percent of the promised 30 billion dollars has been pledged, only 45 percent has been “committed”, 33 percent has been “allocated” and only about 7 percent has been “disbursed”.

The report released today on the sidelines of the climate talks here in Durban finds that there are many lessons to be learnt from the current “fast start finance” system. This system, agreed at the Copenhagen climate conference, was supposed to deliver 30 billion dollars in “new and additional” funding to developing countries.

Launching the report, Yacob Mulugetta, senior energy and climate specialist at the ACPC said: “The experience with the ‘fast-start’ pledges and discussions of the 100 billion dollars promise suggests that the adequacy and predictability of climate finance may remain very low if the future climate finance architecture reflects current practice.”

(END/2011)

Farming in Gabon, West Africa

By Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 (IPS) – Global climate change can now be observed from space. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) launched a new technology that can survey the world’s forests via satellites and provide a more accurate, global picture of common threats to the environment, such as deforestation, degradation or illegal logging.

Using a remote sensing surveying technology, FAO has taken and analysed more than 13,500 high-resolution satellite images in 102 countries. These images will help nations to accurately assess the state of their forests. Monitoring change in forests has important implications for biodiversity conservation, carbon storage and human livelihoods.

The losses in forests all around the world can now be quantified for the first time, FAO announced at the U.N. 17th Conference of the Parties climate change summit, which is taking place from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9 in Durban, South Africa.

“It’s a very comprehensive study of the world’s forests. For the first time we have consistent and comparable global and regional long-term data on forest loss land use. Up until now, most available data has come in numbers, not maps (based on satellite images),” explained FAO forest monitoring scientist Adam Gerrand.

As a result, very few countries have been able to monitor the impact of climate change and human intervention on their forests consistently over time.

“We have been lacking good data on deforestation and urgently needed more details about the dynamics of forest loss. We didn’t get the whole story until now,” Gerrand added.

The initial findings from the high-resolution satellite data show that the world’s total forest area shrank by an average of 14.5 million hectares per year between 1990 and 2005. It largely occurred in the tropics, likely attributable to the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural land.

“The rate of forest loss has increased from four million hectares in 1990s to six million hectares between 2000 and 2005,” said Gerrand. “We are losing vital carbon storage, biodiversity and other values forests provide.”

There is some good news, too, however. The survey shows that deforestation does not happen quite as fast as countries have been reporting. The new data showed a net loss of 73 million hectares between 1990 and 2005 compared to previous net loss estimate of 107 million hectares for the same time period.

During that time, the loss of forests was highest in the tropics, where just under half of the world’s forests are located, followed by Africa. Asia was the only region to show net gains in forest land-use area in both periods. Deforestation occurred here as well, but the extensive planting that has been reported by several countries in Asia, mainly China, exceeded the forest areas that were lost.

All satellite images are taken a hundred kilometres apart and comprise 10 square kilometres. They are classified, labelled and then passed on to the countries where they have been taken, so that governments can review and confirm the data.

“It’s a framework countries can use to improve forest resources,” explained Gerrand.

Some countries have already benefited from the new satellite technology. In Papua New Guinea, a small country in Oceania, for example, which is to 65 percent covered with forests, 41 satellite images were taken to establish the impact climate change had on its forest cover.

“Our country didn’t have the technology to assess forest degradation. The new satellite imagery improves the credibility of data,” said Dr. Joe Pokana, head of Papua New Guinea’s national climate change office. “We now plan to establish a robust national monitoring system that will help us to understand the level of degradation and inform policy.”

Similarly, Angola has started to survey the threat of deforestation via the photographic maps provided by the satellites. Forests currently make up 43.4 percent of the southern African country.

“We how have important information about how our forest resources are utilised, carbon stocks, environmental problems, causes of degradation and deforestation,” said Mateus Andre, the head of Angola’s forestry department. “For the first time, we have quality information on which we can base decisions.”

The new data are particularly important for developing regions like Africa, where existing information is often out-dated or of low quality due to lack of capacity. They differ from previous FAO findings in the Global Forest Resources Assessment of 2010, which were based on a compilation of country reports that used a wide variety of sources.

“Deforestation is depriving millions of people of forest goods and services that are crucial to rural livelihoods, economic well-being and environmental health,” said Eduardo Rojas-Briales, FAO assistant director-general for forestry. “The new, satellite-based figures give us a more consistent global picture. Together with the broad range of information supplied by the country reports, they offer decision- makers at every level more accurate information.”

Further remote sensing studies are expected to reveal changes occurring since 2005. “Eventually we will be able to assign biomass to each site for the estimation of forest carbon emissions,” explained Frederic Achard, a scientist from the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission who helped to develop the new imaging system.

Until then lies a long way ahead. Currently, the satellite technology can provide some important data, but not all. Admitted Gerrand: “We still have several decades worth of development ahead.”

(END/2011)

Hans-Holger Rogner of the IAEA

More than 190 countries have sent delegates to Durban, South Africa, to take part in COP 17 and thrash out a new deal on energy and climate change. One of the options to reduce carbon emissions, however unpopular, is nuclear power. Tinus de Jager asked Hans-Holger Rogner, of International Atomic Energy Agency, about the current negative global attitude towards atomic energy.