As the United Nations climate negotiations ended with the world’s nations still to agree on a new global treaty to reduce carbon emissions, others urge: "Stop Talking. Start Planting." Credit: Tinus de Jager/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 11 (IPS) – The world is increasingly committed to dangerous levels of global warming with yet another failure by nations of the world to agree to needed reductions in carbon emissions here in Durban. However, as the 17th Conference of Parties ended early Sunday morning, members did agree to talk about a new global treaty to reduce emissions.

After two weeks and an additional 29 hours of intense and even bitter negotiations, the 193 nations participating in the United Nations climate talks agreed to a complex and technical set of documents called the “Durban Platform.” These include the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, a formal structure for a Green Climate Fund, new market mechanisms, and more.

The biggest development reached at dawn Sunday is an agreement to negotiate a new global treaty to reduce emissions by 2015. While this may look like simply agreeing to more meetings, it is the first time all nations have agreed to be governed by a new global emission reduction treaty under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Currently the promised emission reductions by industrialised countries and those of China, Brazil, South Africa, India and others under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord guarantee a world that is at least 3.5 degrees Celsius warmer on average according to climate science. It will be double that over large parts of the world. Some analysis says this global average could be even higher rising to four or five degrees Celsius threatening our species with annihilation.

Despite the political posturing by the United States, Canada and even the European Union, the fact is that developing countries’ promised reductions are greater than the industrialised world that are responsible for 75 percent of the total human emissions in the atmosphere.

“There are still no new pledges on the table and the process agreed in Durban towards raising the ambition and increasing emission reductions is uncertain in its outcome,” said Bill Hare, Director of Climate Analytics, a non-profit climate science advisory group based in Germany.

COP 17 President, South Africa’s Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, and others pleaded with countries to put their self-interest aside “for the greater good of the planet and its people.” Rich countries like the U.S., Canada and Saudi Arabia blocked progress and numerous fronts leaving smaller nations bitter and frustrated.

“The grim news is that the blockers lead by the U.S. have succeeded in inserting a vital get-out clause that could easily prevent the next big climate deal being legally binding,” said Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Executive Director.

Even if a strong legally binding treaty is agreed to in 2015, it will have to ratified by governments before going into force. It took several years to ratify the Kyoto Protocol that the U.S. backed and then failed to ratify following the election of George W Bush.

Waiting until 2020 to make major cuts means those cuts will have to be far deeper and far more costly to have any hope of keeping temperatures below two degrees Celsius, Hare previously told IPS.

“The world’s collective level of ambition on emissions reductions must be substantially increased, and soon,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Various analysis show that global emissions should peak between 2015 and 2020 to earn a reasonable chance of less than two degrees Celsius at doable cost. If the peak and decline comes later costs and risks of exceeding two degrees Celsius skyrocket.

“Powerful speeches and carefully worded decisions can’t amend the laws of physics. The atmosphere responds to one thing, and one thing only – emissions,” said Meyer.

It was clear that our governments these past two weeks listened to the carbon-intensive polluting corporations instead of listening to the people, Naidoo said in a statement.

The “Durban Platform” includes a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol that will begin January 2013, avoiding a gap at the end of the first commitment period finishing next year. The length of the second commitment period is to be decided at COP 18 in Qatar.

Developing countries insisted on this condition because Kyoto is the only legally binding emissions reduction agreement. However, it only asked for small reductions from industrialised countries like those in Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan and a few others. The U.S. opted out and Canada ignored its obligations and increased emissions 24 percent. And now Canada, Japan and Russia have said they will take not take part in the second commitment period.

The continuation of Kyoto “is highly significant” said Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary. Participating countries are to submit their emission reduction offers by May 2012.

There is no formal adoption of a second commitment period based on the actual wording of the documents, said Pablo Solón, former lead negotiator for the Plurinational State of Bolivia. “The actual decision has merely been postponed to the next COP.” Kyoto remains on “life support” he said.

The only progress on the Green Climate Fund (GFC) was on its design and governance. The GFC is supposed to funnel 100 billion dollars in assistance annually starting in 2020 to help developing nations to reduce emissions and help them adapt to climate change. There were no commitments on where the money would come from. What was agreed is to set up a “work plan” to mobilise significant climate funds from both private and public sources.

Private sources explicitly include carbon markets as governments from the rich countries frequently cited the financial crisis has tied their purse strings. Civil society and some developing nations noted that governments have made trillions of dollars available for the bank and financial sector and that world’s military budget is more than 10 times what is needed for the GFC.

Even though the carbon market has crashed the private sector is considered by the U.S., EU, New Zealand, Japan and other countries to be a key partner in mobilising money for climate change. Creating private markets for the buying and selling carbon offsets remains highly controversial and very complex in terms measurement, ownership carbon in soil or forests and more. Then there the ethics of rich countries offsetting their own emissions by buying up forests or land in poor countries.

“Keep the targets lose the markets” Oscar Reyes of the Friends of the Earth UK urged negotiators in in the final days of COP 17. “We’re worried that when the GCF has money it will lend it to the private sector to drive carbon markets,” Reyes told IPS.

“Durban is a disaster” for a fair and functional Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programme said experts with Ecosystems Climate Alliance, a coalition of forest NGOs. REDD is by far the biggest potential carbon market.

“From looking at past conferences (climate COPs) it would be more effective if members of the conference would come outside and plant trees for the two weeks. They’d probably make a bigger impact,” said 14-year-old Felix Finkbeiner of Munich, Germany. Finkbeiner launched an organizaton of children called Plant for the Planet that is now working in 70 countries and have planted nearly four million trees in past four years.

Their motto: “Stop Talking. Start Planting.”

(END/2011)

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)

WWF climate scientist Regine Günther. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

Kristin Palitza spoke to REGINE GÜNTHER, climate protection and energy policy chief at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), about the dangers climate change poses to security and livelihoods.

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) - Despite the high risk, it remains difficult to convince politicians to take immediate action to prevent further climate change and make available the necessary funds to do so. Scientists have warned repeatedly of the effects of climate change: If governments will not act fast, they will cause an irreversible catastrophe.

IPS spoke to Regine Günther, climate protection and energy policy chief at the World Wide Fund for Nature, about the dangers climate change poses to security and livelihoods.

Q: What are the consequences if the 17th United Nations climate change summit in Durban ends without firm results and targets?

A: There are several scenarios. If countries stick to the voluntary commitments to reduce carbon emissions they have made during the last two summits in Cancun and Copenhagen, we will see an increase in average temperatures by between three and four degrees Celsius. If they manage to start a process in Durban that will lead to higher emission reduction targets by 2020, we could succeed in not going above a two degree Celsius rise.

But at the moment, it doesn’t look good. If we continue like before and don’t even implement the voluntary pledges, we will reach a dangerous temperature rise of six or seven degree Celsius.

Q: What happens if average temperatures increase by more than two degrees Celsius?

A: An increase of two degrees Celsius already has negative effects. If we go beyond it, climate change will become dangerous. Glaciers will melt, up to three billion people will suffer from severe water shortages, mainly in the developing world, we might lose up to 30 percent of our biodiversity, droughts will lead to food insecurity, large regions will be permanently flooded, including small islands, and so forth. That’s why climate change is not only an environmental problem. It’s a threat to livelihoods and economies.

Q: Everyone is talking about the drastic effects of climate change in developing countries. What will be the effects on the global North?

A: Think back to the major heat wave in Europe in 2003. It was a very hot summer (with several people dying from heat strokes). If we don’t get climate change under control, the summer of 2003 will be regarded as a normal summer in 2040. By 2060 it will be regarded as a cool summer. The United States have also felt the impact of changing weather patterns this year, with an unusual number of hurricanes and storms. So yes, the industrialised world will also experience a lot of change and will have to adapt.

Q: Will masses of people in developing countries have to migrate, as some scientists predict?

A: That is very possible. And this will effect the global North as well. If droughts and hunger increase in the South, people will be unable to continue living there. If there are thousands and thousands of climate migrants, the question is of course who will offer them refuge. Many will look expectantly to the North.

Q: When will it be too late to act?

A: If you measure the dangers of climate change based on the two degree Celsius limit, we will have to reach the peak of global carbon emissions within this decade. Scientists say that a drastic reduction of CO2 emissions by 2020 would still be an option, but the very last one. I believe, by 2020 it will be too late. Nonetheless, we have to continue making every effort possible, because it makes a big difference if we live in a world that is two, five or six degrees hotter.

Q: Why do you believe emission reductions by 2020 will be too late?

A: The later global carbon emissions peak, the steeper the necessary downward trend of reductions needs to be. Achieving this will not only become very expensive but also extremely difficult. There will be a point in time, when not enough can be done to keep climate change under the two degree Celsius limit. Once we have reached that limit, which means that a certain amount of greenhouse gases sit in the atmosphere, the process of trying to lower temperatures will take decades, because the atmosphere reacts to changes only slowly.

Q: Why does it remain so difficult to convince politicians to act, despite the horror scenarios?

A: The biggest drivers for man-made climate change, the coal, oil and gas industries, are the biggest beneficiaries of our current industrialised economies. They work with major lobbies and large amounts of money against the trend to reduce their share of the economy.

It is also important to note that politicians are elected for four or five years, not until 2040. Within four years, the effects of climate change are not felt very heavily. The big changes lie in the future and happen slowly. As a result, there is a gap between today’s reality and the scientific knowledge of the effects of climate change if we don’t act.

Q: Do climate sceptics influence governments’ hesitant commitment?

A: In the U.S., climate sceptics have massive influence in the debate. In Europe, science has the top hand. That climate change is largely man-made is widely accepted. People have understood that something can be done about it and are more willing to take action. In other countries in the world that’s unfortunately not the case.

Q: How expensive will it become to fight climate change if governments continue postponing mitigation and adaptation measures?

A: According to British economist Nicholas Stern, taking no action will cost up to twenty times more than taking immediate action. Countries like Germany and U.S. have been able to mobilise billions of dollars last year to bail out their banks.

Now, they are trying to tell us that the international community is unable to mobilise 100 billion dollars within a decade to finance climate change adaptation in developing countries. If countries would make climate change as much a priority as the financial system, they would reduce other expenditures to drum up the needed funds. Exactly like they did during the economic crisis. (END)

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) – For the Laibon community, a sub-tribe of Kenya’s Maasai ethnic group, the 33,000-hectare Loita Forest in the country’s Rift Valley Province is more than just a forest. It is a shrine.

Olonana Ole Pulei’s community is a sub-tribe of Kenya’s Maasai ethnic group. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

“It is our shrine. Our Gods live there. We gather herbs from the place. We use it for bee- keeping. It therefore forms part of our livelihood,” said Olonana Ole Pulei, who is in Durban, South Africa, to represent his community at the ongoing 17th Conference of Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

According to Nigel Crawhall, the Director of Secretariat for the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee (IPACC), different African communities have incredible indigenous knowledge that they use in the conservation of forests and biodiversity in general, and this should be recognised during the negotiations in Durban.

“Different communities have different practices that they use in forestry conservation,” he said.

Crawhall gave an example of how the Bambuti and Batwa pygmy communities, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, conserved the forest using traditional methods. Both communities depend on the biodiversity of animal life in the equatorial forests in order to survive.

“Usually, they know how to identify particular trees that can be cut down in order to create a unique opening on the canopy, which attracts light in the closely-packed Congo forests. The light then attracts animals, birds and insects, thus giving them an opportunity to hunt,” Crawhall told IPS.

This helps conserve the biodiversity, as well as the forests because this method can only work if the forest canopy is intact.

In Kenya, the Maasai culture forbids any community member from cutting down a tree, either for firewood or any other purpose. People are also forbidden from interfering with the taproots or removing the entire bark of a tree for herbal extraction.

According to their cultural belief, one can only use tree branches for firewood, and fibrous roots for herbs. If the bark of a tree has medicinal value, then only small portions of it can be removed by creating a “V” in the bark. The wound is then sealed using wet soil.

“We believe that the soil helps in healing the wound on a tree. This is cultural, and we all believe that it is an abomination for one to injure a tree, and not help it heal,” said Ole Pulei.

It is a practice that has been passed down from generation to generation among Maasai community members. Among the Laibon community, it is this indigenous knowledge that has aided in the conservation of the Loita Forest.

“All logging activities observed on Maasai land, including the destruction of the Mau Forest, are done by foreigners because the Maasai culture does not allow such activities. This is the indigenous knowledge that helps in forest conservation,” Ole Pulei told IPS.

Such beliefs make the forests part of the community, where community members have feelings for the trees, and where cutting down a tree could amount to an offence against the Gods and their culture.

“We have several other communities all over the continent who co-exist with forests. They include the Tuareg community in Algeria, Yiaku community in Kenya’s Laikipia region, the Ogiek community also in Kenya, the Kung community in Botswana among others,” said Crawhall.

Though according to Crawhall, all Africans are indigenous although there are some groups who live by hunting and gathering, while other groups practice pastoralism, and others practice dry-land farming.

Despite the fact that there is no standard definition of indigenous people, the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognises that particular communities, due to historical and environmental circumstances, have found themselves outside the state system and underrepresented in governance.

“The Bushmen of the Southern African region, or the Ogiek community in Kenya who live in forests are a typical example of groupings categorised as indigenous,” said Crawhall.

He points out that Africa has more than 40 groupings in different countries that survive entirely on hunting and gathering. However, IPACC works closely with 155 communities from 22 African countries who are recognised as indigenous because of their historical and environmental circumstances.

As a result, representatives from these communities have joined the rest of the world in Durban to have their voices heard, so that their contributions to forest conservation are recognised as part of the climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.

“We believe that African traditional ecological knowledge is the foundation for appropriate and effective national adaptation policies,” said Crawhall.

Through the IPACC secretariat, the 155 community-based organisations in Africa have drafted their position for the Durban negotiation platform. They want the negotiators to come up with a position that is representative to African parties, indigenous African people’s organisations, traditional institutions, traditional authorities and value systems.

They are calling for the formation of a regional body that is legally binding under the United Nations, to handle issues on conservation that are difficult to deal with at national level.

“One of the prevailing gaps in most of the IPACC-member countries is that there is no land tenure for communities who live in forests, or depend on forests,” said Crawhall.

However, different countries have started responding to the needs of their local communities by including them in their national climate change adaptation strategies, with Kenya taking the lead.

The country is in the process of drafting the Climate Change Adaptation Bill. And the indigenous communities will have their say on the bill because according to the constitution, they must be consulted on draft legislation so that they can make contributions.

“We have traversed the entire country seeking views on this bill, where local communities have been able to give their contributions. Our vision is to participate and lead in the development and implementation of climate change sensitive policies, projects and activities within and outside our Kenyan borders,” said John Kioli, the chairman for the Kenya Climate Change Working Group, who is attending the Durban climate change negotiations.

* This article is one of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (END)

Los países que participan de las negociaciones sobre el clima admitieron públicamente que sus actuales recortes de emisiones contaminantes no podrán limitar el recalentamiento planetario en menos de dos grados. Crédito: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Por Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 8 dic (IPS) – Los países que participan de las negociaciones sobre el clima admitieron públicamente que sus actuales recortes de emisiones contaminantes no podrán limitar el recalentamiento planetario en menos de dos grados.

No obstante, los delegados en la 17 Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (COP 17), que se lleva a cabo hasta este viernes 9 en esta oriental ciudad sudafricana, propusieron encarar la llamada “brecha de emisiones” en la próxima COP 18, que se celebrará en Qatar en 2012.

Documentos negociados en Durban reconocen que la reducción necesaria de emisiones de gases invernadero, según estudios científicos, debe ser de 25 a 40 por ciento para 2020. Esos recortes y plazos son vitales para impedir que el planeta se recaliente más de dos grados, lo que significaría una catástrofe ambiental aun mayor. El borrador señala que esa debe ser la meta definida en la COP 18.

“Necesitamos un acuerdo sobre esa meta, fundamentada en la ciencia, el año próximo a más tardar”, afirmó el ministro de Asuntos Exteriores de Granada, Karl Hood, y representante de la Alianza de Pequeños Estados Insulares.

“Y queremos que esos objetivos sean legalmente implementados antes de 2017″, subrayó.

Hood dijo a IPS que esperar hasta 2020 para cerrar la brecha era “inaceptable” y significaría un “desastre para los pequeños estados insulares”, que ya sufren los impactos del cambio climático.

El mundo tiene apenas meses para poder recortar las emisiones de gases generados por la quema de combustibles fósiles de forma que el recalentamiento planetario no supere los dos grados.

Si esto se demora unos años, las reducciones extraordinarias necesarias para revertir el proceso podrían llevar a la bancarrota a la economía mundial y revertirían avances en el desarrollo en la mayoría de los países, alertaron expertos en Durban.

“Estamos aquí para alertarle a los políticos de que nos acercamos peligrosamente a un punto en el que no podremos alcanzar la meta de menos de dos grados” en el recalentamiento planetario, dijo el científico Bill Hare, director de Climate Analytics, grupo sin fines de lucro asesor en temas climáticos con sede en Alemania.

Los actuales compromisos de reducción de emisiones, acordados en la COP 15 de Copenhague, en 2009, permiten un recalentamiento de hasta 3,5 grados, dijo Hare.

Hoy, esas promesas siguen esencialmente incambiadas, y eso significa que las opciones del mundo para no superar un recalentamiento de dos grados se hacen cada vez más pequeñas, subrayó en conferencia de prensa en Durban.

“Para decirlo claramente, cuanto más esperamos, menos opciones tendremos, más nos costará y mayor será la amenaza para los más vulnerables”, señaló.

Las emisiones mundiales generadas por la quema de combustibles fósiles se incrementaron 49 por ciento desde 1990 y alcanzaron un récord de 48.000 millones de toneladas de dióxido de carbono (CO2) en 2010, con la probabilidad de que lleguen a 50.000 millones este año, indicó el científico.

Gracias al efecto moderador de los océanos, el planeta se ha recalentado solo 0,8 grados en promedio. Sin embargo, muchas partes de la Tierra registraron un aumento de las temperaturas mucho mayor.

La ciencia muestra que las emisiones globales deben caer a 44.000 millones de toneladas para 2020 y seguir disminuyendo dos por ciento cada año, una meta que la comunidad internacional, fuertemente dependiente de los combustibles fósiles, encontrará “sumamente difícil” de alcanzar, pero aun así es realizable, aseguró.

Si los países prefieren limitarse a cumplir los compromisos asumidos en Copenhague, las liberaciones de gases invernadero mundiales probablemente crecerán entre 9.000 millones y 11.000 millones de toneladas por encima de la meta de 44.000 millones, creando una “brecha de emisiones” considerable, alertó Niklas Höhne, director de Políticas de Energía y Climáticas de Ecofys, organización consultora sobre energía.

“Nuestros resultados van de acuerdo con el Informe sobre Brecha de Emisiones del Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente (PNUD), divulgado al inicio de las conversaciones en Durban”, dijo a IPS.

Llama la atención que muchos de los temas de intenso debate en la COP 17 –biocombustibles, agricultura, créditos del carbono para la protección de bosques, captura y almacenamiento de dióxido de carbono– no son considerados importantes por los científicos para reducir las emisiones.

“Con los biocombustibles hay que estar muy seguros de que no deriven en un incremento de las emisiones”, dijo Höhne.

Varios nuevos estudios sobre biodiésel en base a aceite de palma y etanol de maíz indican que sus emisiones netas son más altas que las generadas por la quema de combustibles fósiles cuando se calcula todo su ciclo de vida.

Los biocombustibles no tienen probabilidades de constituir un método significativo para reducir las emisiones, coincidió Höhne, y la agricultura está en la misma categoría. Las prácticas de cultivo pueden ser alteradas para recortar las liberaciones de gases pero, según estudios de diversos escenarios, solo llenarían parte de la brecha.

La brecha de emisiones solo puede ser salvada con una combinación de una mejora de la eficiencia energética en todos los sectores con un significativo incremento del uso de fuentes renovables, incluyendo biomasa, pasando del uso del carbón al gas natural. El costo de este cambio es relativamente bajo: 38 dólares por tonelada de CO2 que no es liberada a la atmósfera.

Pero esperar hasta 2020 sería mucho más caro. Cada dólar que no se destine a la reducción de emisiones del sector energético requerirá una inversión adicional de 4,3 dólares luego de ese año, para compensar todas las liberaciones de gases contaminantes producidas hasta entonces.

Así lo señala el informe “Perspectiva Mundial de Energía 2011″, de la Agencia Internacional de Energía.

Esperar hasta 2020 “es un riesgo que no queremos tomar”, dijo Höhne. Pero los delegados en Durban parecen no comprenderlo. “No actúan como si lo comprendieran”, dijo, señalando que en 17 años de negociaciones no se ha llegado a un acuerdo para reducir sustancialmente las emisiones. (FIN)

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 8 (IPS) – The last hours of the 17th United Nations climate change summit in Durban have begun. Since the arrival of almost 150 ministers and heads of state on Tuesday, negotiations have moved to the political level. They are expected to debate the way forward until late Friday night, or even Saturday morning.

Almost nobody believes that a second, comprehensive commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is still possible. / Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Hopes for a breakthrough, or at least tangible results, are slim. Almost nobody believes that a second, comprehensive commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, the only international legally binding instrument to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which includes all major emitters, is still possible.

For this to happen, emerging economies like China, India, Korea, Mexico and South Africa would have to come on board, as well as the United States, a country which has not even ratified the first period of the protocol. Other major emitters, like Canada, Russia and Japan have already proclaimed their disinterest in a second commitment period.

The initial commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, under which 37 industrialised nations have committed to an average of five percent carbon emission reductions compared to emission levels in 1990, will expire at the end of 2012.

Earlier this week, negotiations briefly looked somewhat promising, when China’s head negotiator Xie Zhenhua announced his country was open to internationally, legally binding agreements. But his statement soon turned out to be part of a strategic game. But Zhenhua did not say that China was willing to “be part of” those binding agreements as well.

Many climate experts believe the U.S. has played a particularly strong role in slowing down the progress of the negotiations.

“The Obama administration has apparently come to Durban not to be constructive, but to hold other countries back. Their excuses for inaction ebb and flow like the tide. Once one excuse is removed, another emerges,” lamented World Wide Fund for Nature spokesperson Caroline Behringer.

Even U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon dampened expectations during the opening of the high-level segment of the summit on Tuesday. A comprehensive, legally binding agreement “could be out of reach”, he said.

While negotiators try to come to a decision, the atmosphere in the corridors of the Durban conference centre, where the summit is taking place, remains tense. Ministers and heads of delegations have retreated to conference rooms to further debate the contents of the 131-page document, the basis for all negotiations. Outside of the closed doors, delegates talk with lowered voices. Until the official announcement of the end-result, everyone is holding their cards close to their chests.

The possibility of concluding with a roadmap for an agreement to negotiate emission reductions from 2015 that will include major emitters and emerging economies, also stands on shaky ground. Under the agreement, all major carbon emitters would agree to internationally legally binding reductions by 2020 at the latest.

“What we are seeing is a lack of political will by some major emitters to reach an outcome in Durban that is fair and ambitious and that saves the lives and livelihoods of millions of poor and vulnerable people who are affected by climate change today,” says Tonya Rawe, senior policy advocate of global humanitarian organisation CARE.

“Some parties are already talking about delaying decisions on a legally binding agreement until 2020. This is a disaster as it can create an entire decade of zero progress,” he added.

Delegates fear that only a non-binding declaration will be reached, through which countries will vaguely declare their willingness to agree to binding reduction goals at some point in the future.

So far, only the European Union (EU) and some other European countries, like Switzerland, have vouched to continue pushing for commitments from major carbon emitters that are currently not part of the Kyoto agreement over the remaining hours of the summit.

“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,” warned Connie Hedegaard, commissioner for climate action at the European Commission who spoke on behalf of the EU.

The negotiations do not only revolve around an extension of the terms of the Kyoto Protocol. Another important subject is the adoption of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) through which financial support for climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts will be channelled to developing countries. By 2020, 100 billion dollars should be mobilised annually from public and private funds.

But the discussions around the GCF, too, have been staggering, after several countries, including the U.S., Bolivia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela announced they were dissatisfied with the draft document and would like to re-open the text for amendments.

In addition, the global financial crisis has slowed down progress on the fund: rich countries, that are supposed to partially finance the GCF, are hesitant to make budgetary commitments. As it looks, the fund is likely to be signed off in Durban, if at all, but as an “empty shell”, without tangible plans on how it will be financed.

“We don’t have any more time to lose to safe those who are most threatened by climate change,” urged Mizanur Rahman Bijoy, a researcher with the Network on Climate Change in Bangladesh. “But instead of taking action, governments are mainly concerned about their national economies. That way, no important and necessary decisions will be made. (END)

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 8 (IPS) – Countries at the United Nations climate change negotiations have publicly acknowledged their current pledges to reduce carbon emissions will not result in limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius.

Reducing carbon emissions will not result in limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela

To bridge their shortfall, delegates at the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) climate talks proposed on Wednesday to address this so-called “emissions gap” at COP 18 in Qatar next year.

Documents under negotiation in Durban, South Africa acknowledge the science-based emissions reduction target of 25 to 40 percent by 2020. Those reductions and that timeline are what is needed to stay below two degrees Celsius. The draft text says this would be the target to be agreed on at COP 18.

“We need agreement on that science-based target next year at the latest,” said Karl Hood, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Caribbean island of Grenada and representing the Alliance of Small Island States.

“And we want those targets to legally come into force before 2017.”

Hood told IPS waiting to close the gap until after 2020 is “unacceptable” and a “disaster for small island states” who are already suffering the impacts of climate change.

The world has months to curb emissions from burning fossil fuels before two degrees Celsius of warming will be impossible to stay below. Delay a few years and the extraordinary emission cuts needed could bankrupt the world’s economy and reverse development gains in most countries, climate experts warned at the largely deadlocked United Nations climate change conference here.

“We’re here to warn policy makers that we are dangerously close to not being able to meet the less than two degrees Celsius target,” said Bill Hare, Director of Climate Analytics, a non-profit climate science advisory group based in Germany.

The current pledges made by countries to cut emissions after the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009 will result in global warming of 3.5 degrees Celsius, said Hare a climate scientist. Two years later, those pledges remain essentially unchanged and that means the world’s options to stay below two degrees Celsius are narrowing Hare said in press conference during the COP 17 negotiations that conclude Friday.

“To put it bluntly, the longer we wait, the less options we will have, the more it will cost …and the bigger threat to the world’s most vulnerable,” he said.

Global emissions of fossil fuels have increased 49 percent since 1990 and reached a record of about 48 gigatonnes (billion tonnes) of CO2 in 2010 and likely 50 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 this year, he said. Thanks to the moderating affect of the oceans, the world has warmed only 0.8 degrees Celsius on average, however, many parts of the world are much warmer than that.

The science shows that global emissions need to fall to 44 Gt by 2020 and continue to decline by two percent per year, a rate that our fossil fuel-dependent world will find “extremely challenging” but still doable, he said.

If countries live up to their pledges made in Copenhagen global emissions are likely to rise nine to 11 Gt above the 44 Gt target creating an “emissions gap” that is quite considerable, said Niklas Höhne, Director Energy and Climate Policy of Ecofys, an energy consulting organisation.

“Our results are in agreement with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Bridging the Emissions Gap Report released at the opening of the Durban climate talks,” he told IPS.

The new UNEP report calculates a similar emission gap and outlines the way reductions can be made between now and 2020 to bridge that gap. Shockingly many of the items under intense debate at here at the COP 17 – biofuels, agriculture, carbon credits for forest protection, carbon capture and storage – are not considered important pathways to reduce emissions by scientists.

“With biofuels you have to be very sure they won’t result in a net increase in emissions,” said Höhne.

A number of new studies of palm oil biodiesel and maize ethanol show their net emissions are higher than fossil fuels when their entire lifecycle is calculated.

Biofuels are unlikely to be a significant method for reducing emissions, agreed Höhne. Agriculture is in the same category. Farming practices could be altered to reduce emissions but based on analysis using various reduction scenarios they would only be a small part of the “bridge”.

The emissions gap can only be bridged with a combination of improving energy efficiency in all sectors, significant increase in renewable energy including biomass power and shifting from coal to natural gas. The cost of making this shift is relatively low at 38 dollars a ton of CO2 avoided.

Wait until after 2020 and costs skyrocket. Every every dollar not invested today to reduce emissions from the power sector will require an additional investment of 4.3 dollars after 2020 to compensate for all the additional emissions between now and then said the International Energy Agency in its “World Energy Outlook 2011″ report.

Waiting till 2020 is “a risk we don’t want to take,” said Höhne. Delegates here do understand all this, he believes. “They don’t act as if they understand,” he said referring to the lack of progress on a deal to substantially reduce emissions despite 17 years of negotiations.

These scenarios do not include potential emissions from natural sources — feedbacks — like thawing permafrost as the Arctic region rapidly warms. Permafrost hold huge volumes of carbon and methane accumulated over the past 750,000 years.

The first estimate of the near-term volume of global warming gases from permafrost thaw may be 170 Gt of CO2 over the next three decades a team of 40 scientists reported last week. That means global warming could be “20 to 30 percent faster than from fossil fuel emissions alone,” said Edward Schuur of the University of Florida in a release.

“At the moment climate change is not high on the agenda of all heads of states,” said Höhne.

(END/2011)

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: 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)

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 7 (IPS) – Carbon pricing will be the core mechanism to finance the Green Climate Fund and with it climate change adaptation projects in developing countries.

U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said there is a pool of possible financing options for the Green Climate Fund. Credit:Kristin Palitza/IPS

“If you can establish broader and more comprehensive carbon financing, we will attract more private funding,” explained Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who co-chairs the United Nations high-level advisory group on climate change financing.

Carbon finance puts a price on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

According to Stoltenberg, putting a price on carbon emissions would have three key benefits: it will encourage industry to reduce harmful emissions (to avoid being charged for them); it will contribute to the development of clean technologies to reduce emissions; and it will generate revenue, which can be used for government purposes but also to take climate action.

There are already a number of countries that have shown that carbon trading systems or taxes can help reducing emissions while promoting economic growth, said Stoltenberg: “The European Union has a comprehensive carbon trading system through an emission scheme. Australia just introduced a carbon tax. China is introducing carbon pricing, and South Africa also wants to develop a carbon tax.”

It was therefore plausible that carbon pricing could assist in providing urgently needed finance for the GCF as well.

“The beauty of carbon pricing is that you will get less pollution but more finance,” Stoltenberg added.

During the past 10 days of the 17th Conference of Parties, which currently takes place in Durban, South Africa, the question on how to generate funding for the GCF has taken centre stage. The global economic crisis and national austerity measures have reduced the willingness of rich countries to commit to filling the coffers of the fund with public monies.

“The financial and debt crisis, especially in Europe and the United States, have developed further. We therefore have to look for both public funding but also private sources,” stressed Stoltenberg who, as co-chair of the advisory group on climate change financing, recently submitted to the U.N. an analysis of how long-term financing should be generated.

“Our main conclusion is that it is challenging but feasible to mobilise 100 billion dollars annually,” he said, referring to an agreement from last year’s climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, that fast-track financing of 10 million dollars per year between 2010 and 2013 should be scaled up to 100 billion dollars annually by 2020.

“There is no sense in having a fund, if you don’t have money for it,” Stoltenberg said.

U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon agreed that short-term and long-term financing goals could only be reached through combination of public and private resources. This would not mean governments lose political control over the financing mechanism of the GCF, a point some countries said they were concerned about during the climate negotiations.

“There is a pool of possible financing options, such as carbon taxes, transport taxes, and so forth. It will be up to each country to decide which regulations it wants to adopt and implement nationally,” said Ban.

However, this did not release governments of rich nations off the hook.

“Industrial countries must show leadership by injecting sufficient capital immediately,” said Ban. “It’s true that governments struggle with austerity crisis, but climate change is not an option, it’s an imperative. Need unambiguous political commitment and transparency.”

There will be no forward movement in the fight against climate change without movement on climate finance, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi agreed.

“We need to create a price structure that will attract the private sector to invest in climate financing. Carbon pricing will send the signal to the private sector, that green technology will be profitable,” said Zenawi. “The technology of the future is green. There is a race. Who comes too late will be left behind.”

But right now, days of staggering negotiations about the operationalisation and financing of the GCF, have raised doubts among economic experts that governments of industrialised countries are truly willing to make available parts of the finance necessary to fund climate change adaptation in the global South.

“We don’t need any more reports, we need the political will,” said economist and British government advisor Lord Nicholas Stern.

The faster politicians acted, the cheaper it will cost them, agreed Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon, trying to push for the GCF to be operationalised before the end of the climate change summit on Dec 9. “Low carbon economy doesn’t come cheap. It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year, depending on how fast we act. The sooner we act, the less it will cost us,” he said.

Caio Koch-Weser, the vice chair of Deutsche Bank, one of the biggest banking groups worldwide, expressed his concern about the slow progress of establishing the GCF. Industry was ready to invest in the green economy, he said.

“Give us a carbon price, give us a reliable policy, and the private sector will do most of the job. We have already seen great vibrancy from the side of the business community in interaction with governments,” he said. “Of course it’s not yet of the scale and the speed we need.”

Koch-Weser further noted that the current global economic crisis also presented an opportunity for governments and businesses to transform, to find new drivers of growth.

To be able to raise 100 billion dollars annually by 2020 to finance climate change adaptation, “we need new private-pubic partnerships that provide transparent, long-lived and certain frameworks. We hope that the GCF will have a strong private sector facility and will be professionally run,” Koch-Weser said.

(END/2011)

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

During the second and final week of climate change negotiations at COP 17 in Durban, Civil Society is calling for more commitment to fighting global carbon emissions. Zukiswa Zimela reports from the ICC.

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)

SSESE ISLANDS, Uganda, Dec 7 (IPS) – From a distance, Bugala Island in Lake Victoria is a patchwork of green and brown. The pattern is a result of dense forest retreating in the wake of recently planted palm tree plantations.

Workers on Bugala Island work to clear the rainforest to make way for an expanding palm tree plantation. Palm oil production is one of Uganda's rising industries. Credit: Will Boase/IPS

The island, the largest of Uganda’s Ssese Islands, is at the center of one of the country’s newest economic endeavors – palm oil processing – and the formerly lush rainforest has fallen quickly, taking with it some critical jobs for the island’s poorest women.

Now, five years after the first phase of that process was completed, residents are starting to measure the impact of the initiative. Many speak glowingly of the jobs and activity the plantation has created. But for some of the island’s poorest residents – especially widows and the wives of often-traveling fishermen – continued deforestation has robbed them of their sole source of income.

Sarah Namwanje used to collect timber and charcoal from the forests that she could sell to people around the island. Now the 28-year-old mother of seven has no way to make money.

“No timber is seen,” she said. “We’re searching for firewood and trying to get money, but my job has stopped.”

Ahead of the palm oil project’s start, activists had clashed with the government over the potential environmental ramifications of the deforestation. But, with assurances from Bidco –the company behind Uganda’s palm oil industry – that the development would have little environmental impact and a stamp of approval from the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), the dazzle of a new industry and more jobs eventually won out.

What was never communicated to some of the poorest residents was how the project would affect both their livelihoods and their health. Especially the small groups of women who live on an island mostly populated by fishermen.

Some are widows, their husbands lost to AIDS or fishing accidents. Others are left alone for long stretches of time, their husbands chasing schools of fish around the archipelago of 84 islands. Until the men return with money from their catch, the women must scramble for resources.

The available jobs for these women are scarce and Mary Nampomwa, a local health worker, said it is difficult for many of them to get by without resorting to commercial sex work.

Before the palm plantations arrived, women who refused to turn to sex work had small-scale jobs, like gathering firewood. They had relatively free access to the timber in national forests or on privately held, underdeveloped plots, according to Richard Kimbowa, the programme manager for Uganda Coalition for Sustainable Development (UCSD).

But many of those landowners, offered an opportunity to make good money off of unused land, sold out or cleared the forest themselves to create subsidiary palm plantations.

Now the island’s poor women are “being marginalised,” Kimbowa said, in the “craze for expanding this palm.”

Namwanje said the only thing she knows to do is encourage people to start planting more trees, so that she has renewed access to firewood and charcoal. But that is not going to happen anytime soon. Other women have taken up jobs drying small mukene fish on the sand next to Lake Victoria.

What is particularly galling to Edisa Katusime, a single mother of six children, is that local officials had for years been warning residents about cutting down trees. She was told that the forest was critical for preserving the island’s animal life and she had to be secretive about gathering timber.

But the government is “not preventing Bidco because it’s a company,” she said. “They are allowed to cut when the government is telling us the importance of the trees.”

Kimbowa predicts that the small-scale job loss might be only the first of the problems the palm plantations are going to create. Eventually, he said, there are going to be issues with food security as land previously used for raising crops turns to palm trees. And already some of the women are reporting that the absence of forest covering is creating health issues.

The loss of the forest means there is no longer a shield from the strong winds that sometimes blow across Bugala Island. The wind now “sounds as if it’s going to knock the house down,” Katusime said. The dust it carries sometimes leaves her children in coughing fits and has been particularly dangerous for asthmatic residents.

And despite assurances from Bidco that it is following the plan laid out by NEMA to minimise environmental impact, UCSD is still monitoring the situation, concerned about issues like soil erosion and seepage of agrochemicals into Lake Victoria. Despite the jobs that Bidco has brought, most of the people on Bugala still live and die by fishing. If fish stocks are reduced, there will suddenly be a lot more people on the island without a source of income.

For now, the warnings of environmental groups and the complaints of women like Katusime and Namwanje are muted by widespread enthusiasm for the island’s palm oil industry. And it’s still growing. According to Bidco, the palm oil plantation will eventually cover 40,000 hectares and be the largest plantation in Africa.

There is division even within the small group of women infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS that Katusime and Namwanje belong to. Unlike those two women, Annette Nnamukasa was able to harness enough money to take advantage of the palm oil boom. She bought about two acres of land and had it cleared. In its place she planted palm trees and now sells the crop to Bidco.

“It is almost the same,” she said. “The palm trees are almost forests.” (END)

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.

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/

Nalifu Yussif holds a few Bolga baskets at the ongoing COP 17 in Durban, South Africa. Materials for making these hand woven baskets are becoming more difficult to source due to climate change. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 5 (IPS) – Talata Nsor, a 54-year-old woman from Bolgatanga community in Northern Ghana, has been weaving the cultural Bolga baskets, which are named after her community, her entire life.

It has been a successful enterprise for her, and she has even managed to put her children through school with proceeds from her sales.

However, she is concerned that soon her community may no longer be able to continue making the baskets, which are famous in the entire West African region, with a market in Europe and America.

This is because the raw material used to make the baskets, commonly known as elephant grass or Veta vera as it is known scientifically, is becoming extinct due to what Nsor refers to as changing climatic conditions.

“Just 10 years ago, I would walk to any nearby wetland area within Northern Ghana and harvest the grass free of charge. But today, I have to walk very far, or travel to Kumasi, about 400 kilometres away, in order to buy the raw material,” said Nsor.

The elephant grass can only grow in wetlands. But according to experts from the area, people are converting wetlands into agricultural land as a means of coping with the lack of rain and rising food insecurity.

“People prefer turning wetlands into horticultural zones because rain-fed agriculture is failing. Rain patterns are no-longer reliable, and people need to farm in places where they are assured of water for irrigation,” said Nafisatu Yussif, Programme Officer at ABANTU, an organisation that engages policies from a gender perspective in Africa.

She is one of the many women representing their communities from all over the world who have made their way to the ongoing United Nations climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa, in order to have their voices heard.

“We are hosting different women from different walks of life,” said Samantha Hargreaves of ActionAid International, one of the conveners of the Rural Women’s Assembly running alongside the 17th Conference of Parties.

“More than 500 women in this forum are sharing experiences from different countries, suggesting the way forward, and showcasing their best practices. The outcome of the assembly will be presented to the African Group of Negotiators as a common position of women from the world’s poor countries,” said Hargreaves.

However, according to the assembly’s participants, women from poor countries have predicaments that are almost similar.

“In my country, women toil on the farms, but when it comes to harvesting, the men take the responsibility of collecting the money. I have just learnt that the situation is the same in Africa and other Asian countries,” said María Estela Jocón González, who is representing rural women from three rural regions in Guatemala.

The western, southern and northern regions of Guatemala are areas prone to floods, a situation which has worsened in the recent past, González said.

“When the floods come, the water wells get soaked up with dirty flooding water. Yet according to our culture, it is the sole responsibility of a woman to ensure that the family has enough safe water for drinking and other domestic uses,” she told IPS.

She is calling for the international community meeting in Durban to ensure systems are put in place to keep in check the increasing floods.

“I want to hear of commitments for countries to reduce emissions of gasses that cause global warming. It is good to think about development, but development without a sound environment is useless,” she said.

While there is flooding in Guatemala, southern Senegal is experiencing a lack of rainfall. Faty Khody from Kaulak, a rural community found in the southern part of Senegal, told IPS that rainfall in the area has dropped from an average of 900 millimetres in 2001, to between 300 and 400 millimetres currently.

“We used to grow vegetables and sell them in the local market. But currently, this is not possible unless it is done through irrigation,” said Khody, who works as a promotional officer for Interpench, a community-based organisation that brings together over 7,700 women from rural Senegal.

“The rain patterns have changed, droughts have become extreme, and when it rains, it results in floods, which often cause suffering to the rural people, especially women and children.”

With support from the non-governmental organisation Horizon 3000, Interpench has started a project called “One woman, one fruit tree” as a way of adapting to climate change.

“We say one tree because it is the first step. The seedling for the one tree is given out free of charge, and it is named after whoever plants it as a reminder. However, it is supposed to be a motivation for women to participate largely in not only the planting of trees, but planting fruit-producing trees,” Khody said.

“We are hoping that the deliberations at COP 17 will come up with ideas that will support such women- driven climate change adaptation initiatives,” said Hargreaves.

However, she insists that for such projects to succeed, they must be built on indigenous knowledge systems.

“The African Group of Negotiators must not succumb to the pressure from the developed countries at COP 17,” she said.

Similar views were shares by Elizabeth Kakukuru, the Programme Officer for the Gender Unit at the Southern African Development Community.

“Most negotiations have always been done in boardrooms without involving the person on the ground. Yet the recommendations made are supposed to be implemented by a woman who lives in a rural area. Time has come for the affected parties to be involved directly in such important negotiations,” she said.

With regards to the use of technology transfer for climate change adaptation, Kakukuru observed that all projects must be appropriate, and should be developed in consultation with indigenous communities.

(END/2011)

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) 

Only owners of large tracts of land can be expected to benefit from soil carbon credits. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

By Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 2 (IPS) – Civil society has warned of the danger of turning Africa’s food-producing lands into “carbon farms” so that rich countries can avoid making cuts in their carbon emissions.

On Friday, they called on host country South Africa to refrain from forcing so-called “climate smart” agriculture into the United Nations climate treaty negotiations known as the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17).

South African President Jacob Zuma has stated that agriculture should be part of a new climate treaty. South African officials have previously told IPS they want it included so there will be “specific funds and specific actions” for agriculture under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“Putting agriculture into a future climate treaty is supposedly a consolation prize to Africa for failure by rich countries to agree to legally binding targets,” said Teresa Anderson of the Gaia Foundation, an international non-governmental organisation based in London.

“This consolation prize is a poisoned chalice. It will lead to land grabs and deliver African farmers into the hands of fickle carbon markets,” Anderson told IPS.

Agriculture is a major source of global warming gases like carbon and methane – directly accounting for 15 percent to 30 percent of global emissions. When the entire food production system is included, total agriculture emissions represent nearly half of all emissions. For those reasons there have been previous efforts to incorporate agriculture under a new climate treaty.

Changes in agricultural practices can greatly reduce emissions.  However, the best way to do that is through regulations, not a climate treaty and carbon credits, said Anderson.

“Why are markets now seen as the only solution when less than 10 years ago they weren’t a focus at all?”

The World Bank and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and other organisations favour what they call “climate smart” agriculture that is defined as forms of farming that are sustainable, increases productivity and resilience to changing weather while reducing and/or removing greenhouse gases. It is the latter that civil society objects to.

“This is all about new carbon markets. The North still has not made the necessary emission cuts and want this so they can pretend to reduce their emissions,” said Helena Paul of EcoNexus, an environmental NGO.

“There is a profound danger to agriculture here, with real potential for more land grabbing and expansion of monocultures in order to harvest credits,” said Paul.

African governments see the 144 billion dollars in the European carbon market and think this would be a great source of funding, said Anderson. But in fact very little of this money, much less than one percent, ended up in actual projects, she said.

The very first project to sell soil carbon credits in Africa is underway in Kenya. Funded by the World Bank, some 15,000 farmers and 800 farmer groups are changing their practices to sequester carbon for a 20-year period. The costs to set up the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project along with the costs involved in measuring the carbon and marketing the credits are estimated at more than one million dollars, said Anne Maina of the African Biodiversity Network in Kenya.

At current carbon prices, farmers will get just a dollar a year for their efforts when they were promised much more, said Maina. Only owners of large tracts of land can be expected to benefit. Large landowners and the consultants and other experts will get most of the money, she told IPS.

“Africa is already suffering from a land grab epidemic – the race to control soils for carbon trading could only make this worse.”

The Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project does promote sustainable farming practices such as agroforestry that are good for the land and have increased food production she acknowledged. However, it would be far better to fund these with the adaptation funding that has been promised by developed countries.

“Carbon markets are highly volatile,” said Steve Suppan of the Institute for Trade and Agriculture, a United States-based civil organisation focused on agriculture.

In November the carbon price was just six dollars a tonne, 50 percent of what it was in January largely as a result of the European financial crisis. Carbon prices are simply too unreliable for most investors to consider as long-term investments, said Suppan.

Moreover, measuring how much carbon has been sequestered is extremely technical and uncertain over the long term and so investors like the World Bank discount the value by 60 percent.

“Soil carbon credits will only generate tiny revenues for farmers and allows biggest polluters to continue to pollute,” Suppan said.

What African agriculture needs, is real emissions reductions along with substantial adaptation funding, he said.

“Soil carbon credits are a false solution,” to climate change, agreed Nnimmo Bassey, chairperson of Friends of the Earth International.

Bassey called on rich industrialised countries, which are responsible for the climate crisis, to reaffirm their commitments “to legally binding emissions cuts in line with science and equity.”

At a press conference at COP 17, Bassey and other members of African NGOs called on African delegates to stand together to make sure this meeting ends with radical action to legally binding emissions cuts in line with science and equity.

“South African President Jacob Zuma must stand with Africa and be uncompromising…. We need deep and drastic binding emissions cuts by the rich countries and real, public climate finance, not a mandate for a new wave of financial colonialism through a private sector “facility” in the new Green Climate Fund,” said Bobby Peek of Friends of the Earth South Africa said in a statement.

(END/2011)

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)

Geoffrey Ndung’u earns a living growing watermelons on his dry land. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 1 (IPS) – On a Sunday evening, a track loaded with 10 tonnes of watermelons leaves Geoffrey Ndung’u’s homestead in Kanyonga village in semi-arid Eastern Kenya. It travels past a village shopping centre were people have formed a queue to receive food aid because of a prolonged drought in the area.

While his fellow villagers are feeling the effect of the drought, Ndung’u has turned it into a business and his harvest will earn him 2,000 dollars, from farming just 1.2 hectares of dry land.

“It is now two years since I learnt how to co-exist with the drought, thanks to support from ActionAid International and the Ministry of Agriculture,” says the 56-year-old father of five.

A host of humanitarian organisations in partnership with the government have undertaken to train people from drought-stricken areas in Kenya on how to take advantage of worsening conditions. “We have introduced a new project known as ‘Drought Coping Training’, where we train members of communities from arid and semi-arid areas on how to co-exist with the ever-changing climatic conditions,” says Francis Njoroge, the officer in charge of ActionAid International – Kenya in the larger Embu region.

The need for finance for adaptation measures like this forms part of the African position at the ongoing 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa.

“Africa’s commitment to addressing the change is evident across the continent. We have seen people engage in adaptation projects from the grassroots at personal and community level. Yet we are sure that this can be scaled up to national levels and eventually continental levels,” said the Permanent Secretary for Kenya’s Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources Ali Mohammed.

Kenya’s constitution recognises the importance of protecting the environment. It stipulates that farmers should ensure that at least 10 percent of their farms have trees in order to increase forest cover, while at the same time addressing the issue of climate change mitigation.

“All we need to see in Durban is for the developed world – which consists of countries that hold the biggest responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions – commit themselves to providing funds for adaptation measures, capacity building and technology transfer,” added Mohammed.

The Angolan delegation to COP 17 has also called for funding for adaptation projects. The country wants to focus on agriculture as a means of providing food security, employment and a source of income and is looking for innovative methods of food production that can withstand the changing climatic conditions.

Angola also has an action plan for alternative sources of energy.

“We are championing for the use of alternative sources of energy, especially in rural areas, in order to save forests. We are at the same time encouraging farmers to engage in sustained charcoal farming, so that trees are grown specifically for fuel production,” said Abias Huongo, the head of Angolan delegation. Angola is also seeking funding for climate monitoring mechanisms that will enable the government to put in place early warning systems for climate-related disasters.

However, the African delegation noted that the continent might fail to make further progress if there is no commitment from the developed countries to finance adaptation projects.

“The African Group of Negotiators is concerned by the insufficient transparency and slow disbursement of the financial resources pledged by developed countries as ‘fast start’ finance for the period 2010-2012. To address this, the African Group proposes a common reporting format for finance pledges,” said Seyni Nafo, the spokesperson of the African Group of Negotiators.

Head of Programmes at the Third World Network – Africa, Tetteh Hormek, echoed his sentiments. He said that the developed world should come out clearly to support developing countries to adapt to climate change.

“As the Kyoto Protocol enters into the second phase by the year 2012, we are calling upon the developed world to cut down on carbon financing mechanisms, which are like a double edged sword,” said Hormeku. (END)

Kashmir's rice paddies are giving way to horticulture for water shortages. Credit:Athar Parvaiz/IPS

By Athar Parvaiz *

SRINAGAR, Nov 30, 20112011 (IPS)  Sammad Sheikh of Tangchekh village in north Kashmir cannot understand why the rice fields that his family cultivated for generations are drying up.

“It is a mystery as to why water is getting scarcer in summers,” he says. “This has been happening for the past few years though there have been one or two good summers in between.”

With no assurance of water availability, Sheikh, like his fellow farmers in the region, is looking for alternatives to paddy cultivation.

“I have heard that most of the farmers in central and south Kashmir have switched from agriculture to horticulture. I am now seriously thinking of putting a portion of my seven acres under crops that are not water-intensive,” he told IPS.

Farmers in this Himalayan region have heard of climate change and wonder why the government is yet to step in with improved irrigation facilities to help them tide over the summer months.

“The government has constructed water ponds in some areas for water harvesting, but much more has to be done to cover the entire area,” says Mukhtar Naikoo.  “Anyone can see that the droughts have become frequent and rainfall scarcer and more erratic.”

According to the study ‘Recent Trends in Meteorological Parameters over Jammu & Kashmir (1976 to 2007)’, by A. K. Jaswal and G. S. Prakasa Rao of the Indian Meteorological Department, temperatures are increasing over this state, often likened to Switzerland for its alpine charms and snow-capped mountains.

The study showed an annual increase in the maximum temperature in the Kashmir region from 0.04 to 0.05 degrees Celsius over the period and a corresponding rise in the minimum temperature in the Jammu region from 0.03 to 0.08 degrees C per year.

“Annual rainfall and rainy days are decreasing in both the regions of the state except at Jammu where rainfall trend is significantly increasing (12.05 mm per year),” says the study.

Naikoo has vivid memories of the farmer-friendly weather in Kashmir: “It would rain for days together. And, at times, we would perform a ‘bandar’ (an oblation) seeking God’s pleasure for cessation of rains.”

Like Sheikh, Naikoo is baffled at the creeping dryness. “May be God is not happy with our deeds. We are a sinful lot.”  Naikoo is not yet ready to switch to horticulture. “I am still hopeful that God will not let us down. Things will get better.”

Scientists in Kashmir are worried at the rapid conversion of paddy lands for horticultural use and the mushrooming of commercial establishments and residential colonies in the areas which were farming lands.

According to official figures, 80 percent of Kashmir’s seven million people are directly or indirectly engaged in agriculture and allied sectors. Much Kashmir’s total area of 2.4 million hectares is mountainous or forested.

Official statistics indicate the 151,352 hectares of land that used to be under cultivation in the state, a few decades ago, has now shrunk to 46,943 hectares.

“This is a dangerous trend,” warns Zaffar Ahmad Reshi, a professor in Kashmir University’s Botany department. “The government in Kashmir has no land-use policy and has failed to provide proper irrigation facilities to the farmers.”

Reshi told IPS that one glaring adaptation to climate change required in Kashmir is augmentation of the irrigation network for farming.  Irrigation networks have become all the more important in the wake of climate change.

According to the Kashmir government’s Economic Survey report for 2010-11, only 41 percent of agricultural land is covered by irrigation facilities with the rest dependent on rain.

Reshi stresses that Kashmir cannot afford to lose all its agricultural land to horticulture and built-up areas. “Rice is the staple food of Kashmiris and it is a primary commodity here. We are already importing more than 50 percent of our rice,” he said.

Naikoo has a similar perception, though from a personal point of view. “For generations our family never bought rice in the market. We grow what we need and more in our rice fields. We can’t think of any other way,” he told IPS.

But, other farmers are more adventurous and have been shifting away from paddy to cash crops like apple, almond and walnuts.

“The trend could be a consequence of climate change as farmers find it increasingly difficult to irrigate their rice fields,” says Shafiq Ahmad Wani, director of research at Kashmir’s Agriculture University.

“In the Brang area of south Kashmir, we have observed an almost total conversion from agriculture to horticulture with farmers attributing it to lack of irrigation facilities and the absence of a marketing system.”

According to Akhtar Hussain Malik, a botanist at Kashmir University, the drop in rice and maize cultivation has resulted in a lack of fodder for cattle. “Our animals are already suffering from insufficient fodder with the degradation and shrinking of pastures in Kashmir.”

Farooq Ahmad Lone, director at Kashmir’s agriculture department says the state government has plans to providing bore wells to farmers whose lands are dependent on rains.

“We suffered a 25 percent loss in maize production this year. We intend to mitigate these losses by providing bore well facilities to farmers in the hilly areas,” Lone told IPS.

* This article is one of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

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)

In pastoralist communities, mobile phones are crucial for alerting communities to droughts and reducing food insecurity. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 (IPS) – Francis Mburu used to keep indigenous cattle in Entasopia village in the semi- arid Kajiado region, 160 kilometres southwest of Nairobi. However, increasing temperatures and frequent droughts in Kenya have made this difficult in recent years.

But now, in an area that has never had electricity, where education is not a priority or sometimes not an option at all, residents of Entasopia are using a solar-powered internet facility to adapt to the changing climatic conditions.

The Nguruman community, largely composed of the Maasai ethnic group, now has access to an ICT facility locally known as Maarifa (“knowledge” in Swahili) Centre. Here they are able to access climate adaptation information via the internet, videos and books. The Arid Land Information Network (ALIN), in collaboration with the Kenyan government, founded the project.

According to Samuel Nzioka, the field officer for ALIN, most of the videos shown at the centre are practical lessons in local languages aimed at boosting the understanding of the concepts of climate change and adaptation, and basic dry-land farming knowledge.

“From reading agricultural books, listening to advice from field officers manning the centre, and watching video clips that show what other farmers are doing to adapt to the changing climatic conditions in other arid areas, I have learnt more resilient methods of animal husbandry,” said Mburu, a 56-year-old father of three.

Because of the project, Mburu now keeps a herd of 45 dairy goats, and has a poultry project. He sells the chickens to the ever-growing indigenous chicken markets in urban centres.

The goat’s milk he produces fetches a higher price compared to cow’s milk.

Climate change in East Africa has resulted in higher temperatures and prolonged droughts and has meant that farmers have had to adapt along with these changes.

“We have seen our pastoralists move to higher grounds in Ethiopia in search of greener pastures. We have seen animal species, that we thought could tolerate drought, die as a result of the prolonged drought. It means that it is not business as usual,” said Dr. Miano Mwangi, assistant director for Animal Production at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, and the national coordinator at the Kenya Arid and Semi-Arid Land programme.

It is successes like the one in Entasopia that has experts at the ongoing United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) urging the international community to consider technology transfer as one of the main methods of adapting to climate change.

“In Ghana, we call it climate education, where information communication technology is used to educate people of how to adapt to the new phenomenon,” Atsu Titiati, the Tree Programme director at the Ghana office of Rainforest Alliance, an international non-profit organisation dedicated to the conservation of tropical forests, told IPS.

He said that in northern Ghana, communities rely on community-based radio to know what types of seed to plant during a particular season, and for the market value of their crops upon harvest.

“The government also uses community radio to warn people in advance whenever the weather forecast detects floods,” Titiati told IPS in Durban.

In Kenya, pastoralist communities use mobile phones to determine the market value of their animals.

“We have rolled out a project in Isiolo district with an aim of reducing food insecurity among the communities,” Rahab Mburunga, the data officer at ActionAid International – Kenya, told IPS.

Through the project, information about the market value of various crops and livestock is sent as short messages to subscribers’ mobile phones.

The project has also given mobile phones to community members so that they can distribute the information to other villagers who might not have phones.

“We have tried it and it is working,” Mburunga said.

In February, the Kenyan government developed a National Climate Change Technology Action Plan. One of the main objectives of this was to explore technology transfer opportunities and to establish national technology innovation centres.

In Mozambique, the government and non-governmental organisations use mobile phones to warn residents in flood-prone areas about the possibility of floods to ensure the timely evacuation of people.

“We usually send short messages to particular community representatives so that it is broadcasted to the rest of the community regarding floods, delayed rainfall or any other necessary agricultural information,” said Josh Ogada, the communication expert at Oneworld, a regional environmental organisation based in Cape Town, South Africa.

According to a statement released by the International Telecommunication Union at COP 17, these technologies hold the key to adaptation, but they remain underutilised in most African countries.

“Today’s advanced technologies can transform social, industrial and business processes to effect the changes needed to achieve sustainability. But while the potential of ICTs to make a real difference is widely recognised by the technology community and government ICT ministries, it is still far from being understood and embraced by environmental lobby groups and policymakers,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, Africa is calling for more funding to implement climate change adaptation programmes.

“We have enough resources for adaptation in Africa, and all we need is the technology transfer backed with scientific evidence. However, our people cannot fully exploit them if we do not have access to proper channels of financing such technology transfers for adaptation,” Mithika Mwenda, the coordinator for the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance told IPS. (END)

Tract of rainforest cleared by burning in the state of Acre, Brazil. Credit:Mario Osava/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 29 – (IPS) Organisations working with indigenous peoples living in forests say the United Nations programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) is just another way for big corporates to reap huge profits.

REDD+ has been touted as a global scheme to conserve forests, enhance carbon stocks and support sustainable forest management.

“It is a system where you pour a lot of money into forests that will attract powerful international investors who will make big profits,” warned Simone Lovera, managing director of the Global Forest Coalition, a worldwide network of more than 50 non-governmental organisations and Indigenous Peoples’ Organisations based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. She spoke during the U.N. 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17), which is taking place in Durban, South Africa, from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9.

Lovera does not contest that deforestation and forest degradation are key climate change culprits. Caused by agricultural expansion, conversion to pastureland, infrastructure development or destructive logging, they account for nearly 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.N., more than the entire global transportation sector and second only to the energy sector.

REDD+ is supposed to turn this around. Since it was started in 2005, the programme enables industrialised countries in the North to reward reductions of carbon emissions to nations in the South. It is basically a system of performance-based payments that are financed through global carbon markets. The U.N. predicts that finance for greenhouse gas emission reductions from REDD+ could reach up to 30 billion dollars per year. The money is supposed to go towards pro-poor development, help conserve biodiversity and secure vital ecosystem services.

But indigenous communities say this is not so. It was big, international forestry businesses that ultimately benefited from the carbon deals, not the locals who have lived in and off the forests for many generations. Instead, locals are kicked off their land to make space for large monoculture plantations aimed at offsetting carbon emissions in the north.

Lovera said there are many risks inherent to REDD+ that indigenous communities are unable to address because they lack access to information and education, such as forced, non-transparent contracts and land grabbing. What forest-dependent communities need instead, she argued, are national public policies that support sustainable forest management.

Lovera said the U.N. promise of the scheme generating billions of dollars annually was “a big fairytale”, a way of green washing. “There won’t be big carbon financing for REDD+. Carbon markets are collapsing. It’s a very risky scheme that is creating havoc all over the world,” she cautioned.

Her prediction is likely to be correct. A World Bank draft report, written for a G20 meeting in November and leaked to the Britsh Guardian newspaper in September, confirmed the trouble global carbon markets are in. “The value of transactions in the primary CDM market declined sharply in 2009 and further in 2010 … amid chronic uncertainties about future mitigation targets and market mechanisms after 2012,” the World Bank stated.

In the meantime, the U.N. continues to pump large amounts of finance into REDD+. Last month, for example, Nigeria’s national REDD+ programme received four million dollars in funding, which the U.N. says brought total funding in 14 countries worldwide to nearly 60 million dollars. The funds are aimed at increasing the capacity of national governments to implement carbon-saving strategies together with local groups, such as indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities.

“The U.N.-REDD programme’s support is invaluable because climate change is a global problem and the issues of REDD+, sustainable forest management and sustainable livelihoods cannot be handled by the country alone,” said Salisu Dahiru, national coordinator for REDD+ in Nigeria.

But organisations working with forest-dependent communities say the benefits for local people are minimal.

“We say very clearly ‘no’ to REDD+. Under it, people are being expelled from nature so that big industries can profit from carbon storage,” argued Winnie Overbeek, the international coordinator of the World Rainforest Movement, a non-governmental organisation based in Montevideo, Uruguay.

In Uganda, for example, a case was documented where 22,000 people were violently evicted from the Mubende and Kiboga districts earlier this year to make way for the United Kingdom-based New Forests Company to plant trees, to earn carbon credits and ultimately to sell timber. Similar incidents happened to indigenous peoples all over the world, said Overbeek.

“REDD+ is about making more profit, continuing pollution and disrespecting the rights of forest people all over the world. It’s about land grabbing,” he warned. “It’s time to stop thinking about REDD+ and start protecting local populations and their land rights.”

Marlon Santi, a member of the Quichua indigenous community that lives in the Amazon Region of Ecuador, said he has experienced first-hand how REDD+ took away people’s livelihoods. The scheme has led to mega forestry projects that exist to the detriment of local people.

“Forests have become a negotiating space to make money. They are used as business opportunities. That’s unacceptable to us,” said Santi. “REDD+ projects are hypocritical. We need real political solutions that benefit everyone.”

He hoped the negotiators at this year’s COP 17 will grant an open ear to his people’s needs.

Something like 50 steps are involved in making a bottle of tomato sauce. Credit: Nalisha Kalideen/IPS

Food production is one of the planet’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions producing global warming and will be the primary victim with yields falling as temperatures rise and rainfall patterns shift.

Those realities are not uppermost in the minds of most governments attending the international climate treaty meetings in Durban, South Africa this week according to the authors of new book addressing the challenges of climate, food, water and poverty.

“I’m astonished by how unaware policy makers are about the size of the carbon and ecological footprint of industrial agriculture,” said Michel Pimbert, a leading food and agriculture researcher at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Pimbert co-authors a new book called “Virtuous Circles” published last week in London. (Available as a free e-book)

“We’re inviting disaster with the current food production system,” Pimbert told IPS.

Some 193 nations are in Durban for COP 17 – negotiations for a new climate change treaty under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Industrialised food production wastes huge amounts of energy, water and other resources said Pimbert. Something like 50 steps are involved in making something as simple as a bottle of tomato sauce.

“The various bits that go into (tomato sauce) move huge distances. It makes no sense at all but agribusiness still makes money because they’ve rigged the system to work for them.”

Growing concerns about high food prices and rising numbers of hungry – more than one billion currently – has resulted in a number of high-profile “talking shops” – conferences and symposiums in the last two years said Pimbert. However, the small landholders or women who feed their families with small gardens that account for 85 percent of the world’s farms are rarely invited and their voices go unheard.

“A farmer in Mali told me that the leaders and experts in his own country are disdainful of village life and traditional knowledge. He said they have contempt for local farmers,” Pimbert said.

At big international conferences it is almost always elites talking to each other far removed from reality. Since these experts and professionals represent the status quo, they resist fundamental changes, he said.

“We need to hear other voices, the voices of local people.”

Without a major overhaul of the global food production system the multiple challenges humanity faces – climate change, food security, water shortages, loss of ecosystems and poverty – can never be addressed. That overhaul means a shift to locally-based productions systems that mimic natural cycles to produce food, energy, materials and clean water, writes Pimbert.

Natural systems are based on cycles like the water cycle. There is no “waste” in nature – waste is simply food for another species or converted into something that supports the cycle.

“Circular economy models that reintegrate food and energy production with water and waste management can also generate jobs and income in rural and urban areas,” said Pimbert. “This ensures that wealth created stays within the local and regional economy.”

“Virtuous Circles” arose out of a collaborative research effort with small landholders in Africa, China, Latin America and the Caribbean. The intent the book is to offer a vivid picture of a future that “spirals out” of the current ongoing crisis though sustainable and fair systems that provide food, energy, fibre housing and water, he said.

One example is a system that recycles food waste and chicken manure to feed a worm farm. The worms in turn feed the chickens and farmed fish whose bones are used as fertiliser in a market garden. Human waste via a compost toilet also enriches the garden, whose crops – together with the farmed fish and meat and eggs from the chickens – feed the people.

Havana, Cuba has a wide range of urban, ecological-based forms of agriculture that provides the city of two million people with half of its vegetables. Close to 70,000 hectares in and around the city are cultivated greatly reducing energy use for transport, storage and packaging. It is also a significant source of employment, helps reduce air pollution and improves the quality of life for residents the authors write.

Most sustainable food, water, energy and waste systems have been implemented in isolation. However, greater synergy can be obtained when ecological agriculture, renewable energy systems and sustainable water and waste management systems are all integrated. “This can contribute to food, water and energy security and also to financial security and poverty reduction through localised supply chains and fair trade initiatives,” the authors write.

This is not about going back in time. It is in fact a new, sophisticated approach that integrates traditional knowledge with the latest science. The purpose is to design climate- and planet-friendly systems that provide a better life for people, Pimbert said.

During the two weeks of climate talks in Durban there will be lots of talk about energy, food and water but only in a fragmented way. About 40 to 50 percent of greenhouse gases come from the food and agriculture system especially from industrial he said. Most studies only look at emissions from growing food but fail to include land use changes and deforestation, as well as emissions from food transport and processing. Addressing the food and agriculture carbon footprint can only be done by seeing food production, carbon emissions, water use, and livelihoods as an integrated system.

Existing policies have created the multiple crisis humanity faces largely because they are grounded on false assumptions that there are limitless sources of cheap energy and resources and endless capacity to dump wastes.

Among the needed changes the book recommends is an end to current policies encouraging the “mining of soils” to maximise yields and switch to those favouring the management of nutrient cycles.

Seed patent and intellectual property laws need reform to allow farmers to save seeds and have access to genetic resources. Global uniform standards for food safety that have all but eliminated small and local food processing need to shift to local standards for health and safety. Policies and practices in financial investment that favour land grabs need to change to policies that support local control and use over land.

“We can’t significantly reduce carbon emissions without addressing our food production systems in an integrated way,” Pimbert concluded. (END)

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 28 (IPS) – The European Union plan to save the Kyoto Protocol may meet its greatest obstacle in the developing world.

Durban represents a crucial decision-making point for the world’s fight against climate change. Credit: Nastasya Tay/IPS

Abias Huongo, one of Angola’s negotiators, says developing country blocs of which it is part – including the Africa and Least Developed Countries groups – are not able yet to express support for a global legally binding deal.

“Our partners need to fulfill their responsibilities, and they are running away from their commitments,” he told IPS on the first day of the United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) - the annual international gathering convened to try to make progress on dealing with climate change in Durban, South Africa.

In a curtain-raiser press conference, the EU delegation – viewed as the most enthusiastic about a second commitment period – emphasised it was unwilling to commit unless the rest of the world agreed to a global climate deal.

“The problem is that Kyoto alone cannot tackle the climate challenges we all face,” the delegation’s Tomasz Chruszczow said, “We need 100 percent of global emissions covered by the framework, and 100 percent of those who are emitting.”

The EU wants to see an agreement finalised by 2015, and operational at the latest by 2020.

Durban represents a crucial decision-making point for the world’s fight against climate change – one which many civil society organisations and developing nations regard as a matter of life or death.

“It always seems impossible until it is done.” The words of Nelson Mandela were echoed by U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres at the opening plenary of COP 17.

In previous years, COPs have been plagued by frustration, mistrust and despair. But last year’s talks in Cancun managed to relieve some of the burden of post-Copenhagen disappointment.

This year, the more than 15,000 delegates have arrived on South Africa’s coast somewhat more hopeful about possibilities. But along with hope comes responsibility.

The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in December 2012, and in the absence of new commitments from developed countries, the globe will be left bereft of any legally-binding emissions framework.

Developing countries want Kyoto to succeed, Huongo said.

“We’re in Africa, and we don’t want it to die on our continent,” he added.

He said there would be discussions around a new legally-binding agreement, but outcomes remain opaque.

Huongo told IPS that the developed world must also be more flexible with its funding requirements to improve access to climate financing for the countries that need it the most. He said Angola also needs assistance with capacity building to combat its vulnerabilities.

Already, several countries – including Japan, Russia and Canada – have expressed their reticence at signing on a second time. National media reports that Canada is preparing to announce its retirement from the agreement after the COP 17 talks have been met with consternation.

Alden Meyer from the Union of Concerned Scientists says this would be “the third slap in the face Canada’s given the international community”, after reneging on attempts to meet its commitments, and putting forward weak emissions targets at Copenhagen.

Meyer says Canada is attempting to avoid the scrutiny and criticism it would face if it left the Kyoto Protocol at COP 17, and is acting in bad faith by continuing to participate in the negotiations.

The developed-developing country divide is very much alive and kicking.

South African President Jacob Zuma referred to the plight of developing countries in his address at the opening ceremony, urging negotiators to strive to find solutions. But civil society groups including Greenpeace and Oxfam International said they were unhappy about the lack of ambition he expressed.

Faith groups of different religions gathered on the eve of the talks at a nearby stadium, to pray for concrete, fair and balanced outcomes from the negotiations. They were joined by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who called for the world to prepare itself for the battle against global warming.

Tutu criticised those countries refusing to sign the Kyoto. “God wants us to live in a garden, not a desert,” he told the crowd.

Figueres joined Tutu in addressing the rally, promising progress. “No matter what happens in Durban, it is going to be a step forward,” she said, “But let’s remember, it’s only a step… There will be another COP, and another one. This is a long process.”

The U.N. climate chief has emphasised the importance of looking beyond the Kyoto Protocol at the talks, highlighting the need to operationalise parts of the Cancun Agreements.

Amongst the concrete outcomes possible from Durban is the finalisation of the structure of a Green Climate Fund – a mechanism that will manage and account for climate funds, including the 100 billion dollars annually by 2020, promised by developed countries for adaptation and mitigation measures in developing nations.

Also achievable, Figueres believes, is making progress with the Adaptation Framework, also agreed in Cancun, and the improvement of technology transfer mechanisms, which will allow poorer countries to become more resilient with the onslaught of unpredictable and extreme weather events.

On the eve of the negotiations, unseasonably heavy rain left parts of Durban flooded, and resulted in the deaths of at least six people – a tragic, but possibly apt prelude to two weeks of discussions about climate change.

It is a message that developing countries want to make sure their richer counterparts hear: “We’re the ones who suffer. (END)

Tomaz Salomão, the executive secretary for the Southern African Development Community. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

Isaiah Esipisu interviews DR. TOMAZ SALOMÃO, the executive secretary for the Southern African Development Community (SADC)

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 28 (IPS) – African leaders have urged the international community to move the United Nations climate change negotiations, which started in Durban, South Africa on Monday, to a different level, and to prioritise adaptation for the continent.

South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma noted that Africa has come a long way since similar negotiations took place in Copenhagen and Cancun, over the past two years. He said that Durban must take the world forward towards a “solution that saves tomorrow today.”

Many environmental experts have gathered in Durban hoping the conference decides the Kyoto Protocol’s fate. The protocol, which expires in 2012, sets binding targets for 37 industrialised countries and the European community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Dr. Tomaz Salomão, the executive secretary for the Southern African Development Community (SADC), was at the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17).

He told IPS why it was important for COP 17 to be held in Africa, and what the region expects from the negotiation platform.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

Q: What is the significance of holding the 17th Conference of Parties in the Southern Africa region?

A: The continent, and in particular the Southern African region, is threatened with the effects of the changing climatic conditions. Experts have said it all. They have predicted an increase in extreme weather conditions, and droughts have evidently become more frequent than what was experienced in the recent past. Everybody is aware of the changes in rainfall patterns, which have (had a) devastating effect on millions of people who depend on rain-fed agriculture, especially in Africa.

It is therefore a commendable achievement for Africa, for the SADC region, and also for South Africa to have COP 17 held in this region. It is a clear indication that we Africans know where we stand, what challenges we are facing, and how to go about them. What is required is to build our capacity so that we are in a better position to face the challenges on our own.

Q: What is the regional expectation of this conference?

A: The expectation is that recommendations will be made to provide the financial support that is required so that Africa is in a better position to face the challenges that are currently devastating the continent. That is my hope, and it is our hope.

Q: Is there any new approach in terms of the regional position to COP 17?

A: I think that we cannot change position from time to time. We need to focus on positions we developed at the Copenhagen conference, also known as COP 15. For the first time, African countries came together to have a common voice and that formed the African position. I hope that the same spirit will prevail in Durban.

Q: What does Africa need at the moment, in order to tackle climate change?

A: We need development. And we cannot be penalised further as a result of climate change, which comes about as a result of problems that were caused by others. That is our starting point. And that is why we are saying that we need support to address those challenges. With this, we are not asking for too much.

Q: Why is it taking so long for negotiators to strike a deal that will last?

A: It is not an easy thing to do because the subject is quite complicated. It touches on other very important aspects that are fundamental to life. They include agriculture and food security, health issues, employment among others. At the same time, asking countries to cut on their greenhouse gas emissions touches directly on their development paths. There is currently an argument that the developing countries should not have their development paths halted because of emissions created by other countries several years ago, while they were on their development path.

Q: What will happen if the Kyoto Protocol fails to survive post COP 17?

A: No I do not think the Kyoto agreement is in a position to die at the moment. What we need to realise is that people have to come together to save humanity, the earth and to ensure that the generations to come have a better tomorrow.

(END/2011)

Credit: Claudius/IPS

DURBAN, Nov 28, 2011 (IPS)  Science tells us that we are heading for a climate crisis, yet it is within our means to change course.

However, some very worrying false solutions are on the table in the United Nations Climate talks (UNFCCC), for instance promoting the biofuels currently on the market, such as ethanol.

The term ‘biofuels’ is misleading. These plant-based fuels are better described as agrofuels for they are far from green.

Those who still argue that agrofuels emit much less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels mostly ignore the fact that emissions are released during production, as a result of land-use change, fertiliser application and processing.

Still, many governments, international financial institutions such as the World Bank and multinational agribusiness, oil and transport companies are promoting agrofuels as a solution to world energy needs.

Shifting from fossil fuels to agrofuels is not increasing the poor’s access to energy but aggravating existing problems such as land grabs, and creating particular challenges to food supplies due to a shift from food cropping to fuel cropping. Crucially, agrofuels can divert resources from clean, renewable energies like wind and solar.

Large-scale cultivation of agrofuels, unlike small-scale, locally produced and owned agrofuels activities, is usually accompanied by problematic activities such as intensive use of water, chemicals, fertilisers, and pesticides.

These often result in polluting, depleting and degrading available water resources, which can trigger famines.

Analysts have shown that there is not enough agricultural land on earth to grow agrofuels crops to meet the huge energy needs driven by our current and unsustainable ways of living.

It is worthy to note that a recent 2011 report on the ‘Global Hunger Index’ points to climate change, growing demand for biofuels, and increasing commodities futures trading in global food markets as the causes of price increases in food, which it says were also exacerbating the unfolding food crisis in the Horn of Africa.

Agrofuels are simply not a solution to the climate and energy crisis, although there is evidence that small-scale, locally produced and owned biofuels can be part of the solution when they help meet local needs.

In my country, Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its foreign partners acquired large chunks of land, in almost all the 36 states of the country, for the production of ethanol, from staples like cassava, sorghum and sugarcane.

Some of the agrofuels plantations and production plants are located in communities with pre-existing water shortages, which leave the communities with almost nothing to live on. Researchers from Friends of the Earth Nigeria found during one field visit that local people had not even been consulted by the state government before community lands were appropriated.

Africa looms large on the radar of agrofuels promoters and African governments see in them potentially huge financial benefits for the political and financial elites of the country.

But a substantial and increasing amount of scientific research shows that agrofuels are fuelling deforestation, biodiversity loss and soil degradation, water pollution and depletion and even climate change.

Decision makers must acknowledge that, and the fact that agrofuels have also been proven to fuel food price increases, hunger, land rights violations, conflicts, displacement and human rights abuses.

The fact that agrofuels have triggered a new scramble for Africa is no longer news. Millions of hectares are being grabbed with little concern for the poor who are bound to face displacement and for the impact that this will have on family farms and other small-scale farms and food production on the continent.

Agriculture contributes to more than a fourth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, the UNFCCC texts do not make it clear that the main culprit is industrial agriculture with its dependence on chemical fertilisers and damaging monocultures, including agrofuel crops.

Small-scale farmers, on the other hand, mostly use agro-ecological practices which cool the planet instead of warming it.

Many governments, lobbied by companies, are pushing the UN climate negotiations to support false solutions to the climate crisis, for instance shifting to agrofuels and trading carbon emissions instead of cutting them.

As a consequence, our planet is heading for an average global temperature increase higher than 2 degrees, and the catastrophic consequences that science tells us will come with it.

Addressing the climate crisis requires binding targets for emissions reductions, targets enforced without so-called carbon offsetting, which is just a smokescreen to hide pollution-as-usual.

Voluntary emissions reduction targets such as those included in the Copenhagen Accord and the Cancun agreement are simply ineffective.

We have to stop all false solutions, including large-scale agrofuels. We should instead urgently invest in the real solutions, such as reducing consumption, improving energy efficiency, switching to clean renewable energy and to sustainable local food production.

While the official UN negotiations on climate change continue to progress at a snail’s pace, the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia in April 2010 made some headway and issued a ‘Peoples Agreement’ describing and demanding real solutions to the climate crisis.

* Nnimmo Bassey is the current Chair of Friends of the Earth International and the executive director and founding member of Environmental Rights Action.

BLANTYRE, Nov 28, 2011 (IPS) – As Daniel Chakunkha and Mussa Abu talk on the side of a dirt path in Makunje village, Malawi, a steady stream of bicycles loaded with charcoal passes by. The men stand at the halfway mark between Mwanza, a small city in the country’s southwest, and Blantyre, Malawi’s commercial hub.

Charcoal production in Malawi is done inefficiently using traditional methods and tools that lead to large areas of land being felled. Credit:Travis Lupick/IPS

The 50-kilometre-long road joining the two is a figurative energy highway; a constant stream of bicycles heavily laden with oversized bags of charcoal.

“We are forced to walk this distance,” Chakunkha said. “It’s not like we chose to go to (Mwanza) village, but it is the only place where some trees are left.” Informal charcoal makers like Chakunkha and Abu travel to Mwanza because of the easy availability of trees here. Here they use the trees to produce charcoal and then transport it back to Blantyre for sale.

Chakunkha and Abu have both worked as charcoal producers since the 1970s. They recounted how the industry has steadily consumed trees and pushed production sites further away from densely-populated urban areas.

Resource depletion and environmental degradation are serious problems in Malawi. This sub-Saharan nation is geographically small and relies heavily on natural resources to meet demands for both food and energy.

It is the fifth most-densely populated country in Africa, 80 percent of its 14.9 million people rely on subsistence agriculture, and 85 percent of households surveyed by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in 2007 reported using charcoal for cooking.

Michael Mmangisa, national project manager for the Poverty-Environment Initiative in Malawi, an initiative of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme, described a whirlwind of forces currently working against a sustainable environment.

The two big ones are deforestation and rapid agricultural expansion, he explained.

“Excessive degradation is clearly attributable to poverty, population growth, infrastructural development, inappropriate management, poor policies (especially in the past), and limitations in governmental capacity in policy implementation and legislation enforcement,” Mmangisa said.

It is not something Malawians are unaware of. “We are well aware of the effects of deforestation on the environment but we are forced by circumstances,” Abu lamented.

“Yes, we are feeling the effect of these self-inflicted injuries,” Makunje interrupted. “When we had enough vegetative cover, the soil was very fertile and strong because of the leaves and roots. Nowadays, our farmland has become useless.”

Citing government figures, Mmangisa said that each year Malawi loses 2.6 percent of its forests and between 10 to 57 tonnes of soil per hectare across the entire country.

“There is a need to have well-detailed and enforced legislation in the management of the environment,” Mmangisa said.

His concerns were echoed by Bright Sibale, executive director for the Centre for Development Management, a research organisation that works with forestry stakeholders in Malawi.

“Charcoal production in Malawi is done inefficiently using traditional methods and tools that lead to large areas of land being felled to produce a limited amount of charcoal,” Sibale explained. “Deforestation increases the rate of soil erosion, which causes siltation of major water systems.”

One possible solution, he suggested, is the adoption of “community-managed forests.”

Sibale described the scheme as a “mechanism of empowering local communities to own and manage a forest under an agreement with some authority.”

He noted that most forest areas in Malawi are either publicly or customarily managed, which deprives communities of formal rights to access resources. “The end result is the feeling that each community would like to extract their piece, before the next person does so.”

Community-managed forests would encourage their sustainable management, Sibale said.

There are other similar efforts being made to safeguard Malawi’s natural resources. The Malawi Environmental Endowment Trust, Malawi Environmental Health Association, Rainwater Harvesting Association of Malawi, and a host of international non-governmental organisations are at work in the country.

There are also laws aimed at governing the country’s formal and informal charcoal industry which, according to an IIED report, employs upwards of 93,000 people.

However, there are complications with this. Section 81.1 of the Forestry Act states that charcoal can only be produced with a license issued by the Forestry Department. But, according to several stakeholders interviewed, the government has not issued licenses in years.

Furthermore, according to another IIED report: “The complexity of writing a forestry management plan, and the lack of clarity over who has the right and responsibility to produce (charcoal), has effectively criminalised all charcoal producers.”

Malawi’s Director of Environmental Affairs, Yanira Ntupanyama, maintained that efforts are being made to lessen the country’s reliance on charcoal. She said that biogas is being introduced as an alternative to charcoal, and that government is promoting income-generating activities that will hopefully act as incentives for people to leave the charcoal industry.

As governments and world experts meet in Durban, South Africa on Monday at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Ntupanyama went on to draw attention to the world’s changing climate, which has compounded Malawi’s problem of environmental degradation.

“Malawi’s total emissions (averaging 23,487 gigatonnes annually) are insignificant at the global level,” she noted. “Yet we do suffer from the consequential adverse effects of climate change that include intense rainfall, floods, droughts, dry spells, cold spells, strong winds, thunderstorms, landslides, hailstorms, mudslides and heat waves, among others.”

Ntupanyama described climate change as a direct threat to the country’s socio-economic development, and therefore a government priority. “We have set ambitious goals under the Green Belt Initiative,” she boasted.

Yet if Malawi’s illegal but booming charcoal industry is any indication, there is much work to be done. Furthermore, while deforestation and soil erosion may be the country’s most pressing concerns today, it is possible there are even greater threats on the horizon.

Lake Malawi plays home to more species of fish than any other freshwater body on the planet. It also provides a livelihood for tens of thousands of fishermen, and acts as a major tourist attraction. Yet in October, UK-based Surestream Petroleum was awared a license for oil exploration in the lake.

The possibility of oilrigs on one of Africa’s most celebrated natural resources has inevitably attracted the ire of environmentalists. But proponents of the project contend that Malawi is an impoverished nation in dire need of external revenue.

That argument that was echoed by charcoal producers in Makunje village.

“We feel the effects of deforestation,” Chakunkha said. “If you ask any charcoal producer, no one will try to justify it. We are only doing this out of desperation.” (END)

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 25, 2011 (IPS) – Involving women in decision-making and resource management is a basic necessity for any effective plan to address the multi- layered and life-threatening consequences of climate change, says the head of UN Women.

Looking to Durban, South Africa, where world leaders will discuss future climate change policies Nov. 28 to Dec. 9, Michelle Bachelet is calling on leaders to ensure “that words become reality”, for full participation of women at all levels of the negotiations, and an “outcome that responds to women’s needs and advances women’s empowerment”.

Women and girls – who make up the majority of the world’s poor – have much more limited access to information and financial resources than men, a fact which exposes them to a higher risk of severe climate change impacts, underscored Bachelet.

In devising and implementing financial instruments like the Green Climate Fund, she urges government delegates, international experts and civil society actors gathering in Durban to retain a gender- sensitive approach to improve accountability.

“Climate financing should be equitable and respond to the urgent needs of all members of society, and gender issues must be taken into account at all stages of the financing process,” she told IPS.

The risk of injury and death from natural disasters – such as floods, droughts and landslides – is systematically higher among women and children, she explained. “In inequitable societies, more women than men die from disasters.”

Especially rural women and girls in developing countries are “carrying a particularly heavy burden of climate change” due to environmental stress and their responsibility to secure water, food and energy for cooking and heating.

They spend many hours a day collecting and transporting water, for example, and this is becoming much more difficult in areas impacted by drought, Bachelet pointed out. “For many girls, this means missing out on school and losing an education.”

Between 1980 and 2010, the average number of extreme weather events more than doubled, underscoring the “urgent need to invest in women and girls and advance gender equality”.

Bachelet talked with IPS U.N. Correspondent Rousbeh Legatis about women’s needs in the context of climate change and how to reshape global climate policy-making.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: What are women’s needs and do they have a particular role when it comes to climate change and adaptation strategies?

A: Women need equal opportunities and equal rights. This includes the right to participate in decisions related to climate change. Women need to be actively engaged in the processes that affect their lives – from urban planning that aims to build resilience of communities to climate shocks, to the delivery of services such as clean water and irrigation plans in a rural community, to the development of clean- energy technology that aims to reduce green-house gas (GHG) emissions.

Far too often, women are left out of consultations. They are not at the decision making table and their absence makes programmes and strategies less responsive and effective. There is empirical evidence to show that women’s involvement in decision making and the management of resources can have positive environmental outcomes.

Evidence from India and Nepal suggests that women’s involvement in decision-making is associated with better management of community resources such as forests. A study of 130 countries found that countries with higher female parliamentary representation were more prone to ratify international environmental treaties.

In addition to engaging women in decision-making, climate strategies need to integrate gender considerations that are specific to each situation. In rural Africa, for instance, consideration must be given to the needs of women farmers, who are responsible for 60-80 percent of food production as well as the nutrition of their families. Too often, women farmers lack access and rights to property, land and credit and this reduces crop yields and threatens food security.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation points out that eliminating the gap between men and women in access to agricultural resources and inputs would raise yields on women’s farms by 20-30 percent and increase agricultural production in developing countries by 2.5-4.0 percent, which could in turn reduce the number of undernourished people in the world by 12-17 percent or 100-150 million people.

Q: Do you see enough awareness of the specific situation of women, and the involvement of women’s perspectives and experiences when policy-makers enter into discussions about how to confront climate change and how to adapt to changed environmental circumstances?

A: Awareness has definitely increased on this issue, especially among leaders and policy-makers. We are seeing changes in attitudes and policies. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged women’s equal participation in addressing the challenges of climate change in 2009, some governments are talking about the gender dimensions of climate change and gender is included in the 2010 Cancun Agreement.

The next step is ensuring that words become reality on the ground and women participate in decision-making processes. If we consider climate financing, for example, gender considerations have a history of not being systematically integrated in their design.

In response, UN Women is working with partners to ensure that the new Green Climate Fund does not repeat this mistake and integrates gender from the start by including the principle of gender equality in its operations and monitoring of impacts and results.

In addition to the international policy level, women must be fully engaged at the national level, on the ‘home-front’, where national strategies are designed and implemented, budgets are formed, and services delivered to mitigate or adapt to climate change.

Unfortunately, women remain underrepresented in national parliaments and especially in Ministries that are central to decision-making on climate change and sustainability. Globally women occupy only 16 percent of ministerial posts and of these only 19 percent are in finance and trade; seven percent in the environment, natural resources and energy; and a mere three percent in science and technology.

The lack of women’s presence in national decision-making hinders women’s ability to influence policies and budgets. This limits the inclusion of gender considerations in environmental management, sustainable development and the climate change agenda.

Q: What is needed to enhance women’s participation in climate policy- making and protection from adverse climate change impacts?

A: It is important to support women’s organisations to participate in consultative processes for the development of climate change strategies, especially at the local and national levels. This requires outreach to affected groups and targeted efforts to ensure inclusivity. Within formal processes, special measures such as quotas, even if temporary, can provide the impetus needed to increase women’s participation and leadership.

We also need better sex-disaggregated data to inform gender responsive climate policies. All too often that information and data cannot be found and this is blocking progress in disaster risk management, urban planning and agricultural reform.

(END)

Campesinas and organisers at the Rural Women Against Climate Change Public Hearing. Credit:Mariela Jara /IPS

Huatay and four other campesinas or peasant women from different regions of Peru gave their personal accounts at the Rural Women Against Climate Change Public Hearing, held Thursday Nov. 10 in this city 1,105 km southwest of Lima.

The forum, organised by the Centro Flora Tristán women’s rights group, formed part of the Gender and Climate Justice Tribunals organised by the Feminist Task Force and Global Action Against Poverty (GCAP) since October in 15 developing countries.

The aim of the tribunals is to gather and compile the testimony and suggestions of women in the developing South and channel them to the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held Nov. 28-Dec. 10 in Durban, South Africa.

Some 200 people, including local authorities, farmers and representatives of civil society, were moved by the accounts of the women who spoke at the hearing held in an auditorium of the state government of the south-central Andean province of Cuzco.

The five peasant women were Huatay, who is from a village in the northern province of Cajamarca; Sonilda Atencio from the southeastern highlands province of Puno; María Ibárcena of the southern Andean province of Arequipa; Bertha Berecho of the coastal province of Piura in the north; and Hilara Yanque of Cuzco.

The five indigenous or mixed-race women talked about the impact of climate change on their lives, economic situation, family relations, and physical and mental health.

They exemplify the reality of poverty and neglect experienced by tens of thousands of families in a country that has enjoyed years of high economic growth that has not been felt by everyone – overall, more than 30 percent of Peru’s 29 million people continue to live in poverty, and the rate is as high as 70 percent in some rural highland areas.

The rural poor receive less than one percent of the state budget, although they produce seven of every 10 tons of food consumed in the country.

“In my community, women still wear ‘polleras’ (traditional native skirts), we know nothing about shoes, we use our ‘ojotas’ (rubber sandals), we cook with firewood and we sleep on animal skins on the floor,” Atencio, a 35-year-old mother of three, told IPS.

“We have been hunting, farming and grazing our animals since we were just girls,” she said.

The campesinas who gave their personal accounts in the hearing, sitting in the front row. Credit:Mariela Jara /IPS

In her rural community, Pacha Ccaccapi, located 3,810 metres above sea level, crop freezes have gotten worse and worse over the last few decades, as a result of climate change. Temperatures drop to 33 degrees below zero, destroying crops and pasture alike, and leading to the death of livestock by hunger.

“We work hard in the countryside, and all it takes is one night of intense cold for us to see nothing but dried-up plants the next day. We feel like pachamama (mother earth) is upset because we are destroying nature; the balance has been broken, and we have to fix things,” Atencio said.

Her story was similar to that of the other campesinas, even though each one of them came from very different regions in one of the most megadiverse countries in the world.

Peru is also highly sensitive to the impacts of climate change, a global phenomenon caused by the actions of the countries of the industrialised North, it was emphasised in the hearing.

Although the abrupt climate swings affect the population at large, poor rural women are the most exposed to the risks, which have further undermined their economic, social and cultural rights.

Ibárcena was unable to harvest any of the fruit or flowers she planted this year, because they were destroyed in the freezes, and the worry and despair over the loans she owes to the bank have thrust her into a state of depression.

Participants at the hearing in Cuzco. Credit:Mariela Jara /IPS

Huatay lost her potato, corn and bean crops due to drought, which forced her children to move to other parts of the country to find work. Meanwhile, she stayed in the village, raising her grandchildren, and she is constantly overworked and stressed out, she commented to IPS.

For Yanque, uncertainty about the future has caused her anxiety since the Lucre river flooded and swept away her house and belongings.

And Berecho has not yet got over the loss of her crops and seeds to flooding caused by frequent torrential rains.

When the women shared their pain and frustration with the auditorium, their voices would break momentarily. But when they talked about their suggestions and ideas, the strength with which they have withstood the climate injustice that has made their difficult lives even tougher shone out.

Their resilience is enormous, despite the fact that they live in times when everything seems to have turned upside down and knowledge handed down over generations can no longer be relied on because of climate change.

For example, the seasons of the year, which determine agricultural and water cycles, are no longer predictable.

“We don’t want to be given money; we are asking for training support to get ahead using our own skills and tools; for our areas to be reforested to create microclimates that buffer against the freezes; for the biodiversity to be preserved; and for organic farming to be fomented,” said Atencio.

Blanca Fernández, head of the Centro Flora Tristán’s rural development programme, told IPS that the state is not doing much to fight climate change. She said that while there are some initiatives in different regions, there is no national policy, let alone a gender perspective.

“The government has committed itself to include a focus on climate change and sustainable development in all of its development policies; we as civil society will be closely watching to make sure women and their organisations are included in the policies,” she said.

Tania Villafuerte, a provincial government authority in Cuzco, acknowledged that the state is still “blind, deaf and dumb” regarding climate change and that it has yet to face the challenge of “bringing policies down to earth, and rooting them in people’s lives.”

“This phenomenon does not affect everyone alike, it’s not neutral,” she said. “Women have to be protagonists in the process of taking care of natural resources because they have the ancestral knowledge that has made it possible to care for and preserve biodiversity, such as in the case of native seeds.”

Skills training among women farmers for the efficient use of water, improvement of soil and organic farming were key proposals presented by the five women who gave their testimony at the hearing. Another was the establishment of farm insurance that also covers women.

They also called for afforestation efforts in highlands areas, to generate microclimates to attenuate the freezes, as well as sustained policies to promote the conversation of biodiversity.

Rosa Montalvo, who commented on the women’s proposals at the hearing, said they were all viable, if gender policies complete with budgets are established, “taking into account the different impacts of climate change on men and women.”

“The ancestral knowledge of women farmers should also be recognised and strengthened with modern technologies, and enforcement of the laws and equal opportunity plans should be ensured at all levels of the state,” the gender expert said. (END)

Beatriz Vásquez speaks out about the impact of the construction of a dam in the state of Veracruz. Credit:Emilio Godoy/IPS

“Because of the lack of water we’ve been plagued by rats, lice and cockroaches. And the poor quality (of the water) causes dermatitis and other infections,” Salazar, 51, told the People’s Tribunal on Climate Justice, which drew people affected by climate change in several states to Mexico City Nov. 10.

The meeting, sponsored by the NGOs Mexicanos Contra la Desigualdad (Mexicans Against Inequality) and Comunidad en Movimiento (Community in Movement), held three parallel hearings on natural and social disasters, the countryside and food sovereignty, and uncontrolled urbanisation, unsustainability and loss of natural resources by local communities.

At the hearings, whose theme was “Climate Justice; Mexico’s Communities Raise Their Voices”, participants talked about being displaced because of ecological problems like increased drought, water scarcity, loss of natural resources and socioenvironmental conflicts caused by hydroelectric dams.

Unlike other public hearings held since October in Latin America, the one in Mexico did not focus on women as a group particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming, which was criticised by some of the women taking part.

Beatriz Vásquez, an activist with the Comité Defensa Verde, Naturaleza para Siempre (Green Defence – Nature Forever Committee), came from Amatlán de los Reyes, 450 km southeast of the capital, to protest the construction of the El Naranjal hydroelectric dam, which will affect eight municipalities in the east-central state of Veracruz due to the diversion of the Blanco river.

“The river is heavily polluted,” Vásquez said. “By redirecting its course, there is a risk that contaminated water from the river will leak into the groundwater we depend on. Furthermore, the cemetery and sports field will vanish, and the river will run through urban areas, dividing communities.”

Opponents of the dam created the Committee and have gathered 8,500 signatures against it in 26 regional assemblies. But the state authorities have turned a deaf ear to their protests.

This Latin American country of 112 million people is suffering the effects of global warming in the form of worse droughts, stronger hurricanes, heavy flooding and a rise in the sea level.

But while women are particularly affected by the impacts of climate change – because they have to walk further to fetch firewood or water, and they have to care for sick children with respiratory diseases – they are missing from government programmes to tackle the issue, civil society groups complain.

“We have to talk more from a gender perspective, about how climate change affects women in their daily lives. They are the first to organise and to raise their voices,” Humberto Jaramillo, coordinator of Mexicanos Contra la Desigualdad, told IPS.

“We want them to expose their situation and set forth proposals, to organise and to fight for climate justice,” said the representative of the organisation, which is a GCAP (Global Action Against Poverty) partner.

Participants in the Mexican hearing on climate justice. Credit:Emilio Godoy/IPS

The hearings form part of the Gender and Climate Justice Tribunals organised by the Feminist Task Force and GCAP since October in 15 countries of the developing South, including Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Mexico and Peru in Latin America.

One of the aims of the Tribunals is to influence the negotiations at the Nov. 28-Dec. 10 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa. Climate justice will be one of the key issues at the international conference.

They also hope to influence the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June, 20 years after the first Earth Summit in that Brazilian city.

Xochimolco, a district on the south side of greater Mexico City that has a network of canals and artificial islands built by the Aztecs, also has water problems. The San Lucas Xochimanca dam, which has been operating there since the 1940s, pollutes the environment in five of the city’s 14 neighbourhoods.

“The dam and reservoir receive sewage from slums, which is dumped into the river that feeds them. The main problem is the air pollution,” Esther González, a 50-year-old retired nurse, who gave testimony on the diseases suffered by people in the area, told IPS.

The community has come together in the San Lucas Xochimanca Committee, to defend and preserve the local culture and environmental health.

Iztapalapa and Xochimilco are two of the 16 “delegaciones” or boroughs into which the Federal District is divided. (Greater Mexico City, comprised of the Federal District and adjacent municipalities, has a total population of 22 million.)

The two boroughs share the fear of pollution of their groundwater supplies, deforestation and unplanned construction.

“We have organised to save and haul water. We are waiting for the government of the capital to authorise us to install rainwater collection systems and the use of solar cells,” said Salazar.

The results of the hearings will be incorporated in the environmental portion of the activities of the Mexican chapter of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, which was launched on Oct. 21 and is to hand down a verdict two years from now.

“We suffer from droughts and floods that ruin the crops. The question of climate justice can help raise awareness and help people to organise,” said Vásquez from Amatlán de los Reyes, where people in her community depend on street vending, domestic work and the cultivation of coffee, sugar cane and fruit.

In 2010, the Mexican government, academics and representatives of civil society produced the Mexican Declaration on Gender and Climate Change, which called for policies with a gender focus, adaptation and mitigation efforts, and the necessary funding. However, little progress has been made in that direction.

“Now there are more skin, respiratory and gastrointestinal ailments, because of exposure to the sun, and air pollution. If we achieve climate justice, our health and quality of life will improve,” said González, the retired nurse from Xochimolco.

The hearings, which are collecting denunciations and proposals on climate justice from women, are also backed by Greenpeace International and the international news agency Inter Press Service (IPS). (END)

NOAKHALI, Bangladesh, Nov 10 , 2011 (IPS) – Char Nongolia village is a basket case when it comes to climate change impacts such as increasing salinity, frequent cyclones, tidal surges, erratic rainfall and extended droughts.

Arzu Begum testifies at the climate hearings for women in the deltaic village of Char Nongolia. Credit:Naimul Haq/IPS

Yet, the 40,000 people of this village, sitting on a delta that drains the sub-continent’s major river systems, have endured the creeping devastation of their homeland in southeastern Bangaldesh with no help from anywhere.

There is no drinking water supply, no land to grow food crops on, no healthcare facility, no roads, no jobs and absolutely no sign of any security or authority. Any natural protection afforded by forests has long ago been stripped away.

“Today we have nothing left. Even the last piece of land we had was lost to river erosion,” said Salma Khatun, 72, narrating at a climate hearing for women in this village, late October, how her family steadily lost its farming lands to erosion.

“We moved to this place from nearby Hatiya island about nine years ago after we lost our ancestral home to river erosion. After settling here the same disaster hit us five more times,” said Arzu Begum, 35.

Arzu and her husband Anwar Hossain and their extended family of ten lost all their belongings to river erosion and floods and now live in a flimsy bamboo hut perched on the river bank.

Khadiza Akhtar, 24, moved with her husband to Char Nongolia five years ago, hoping to build their lives here. But, last year’s flood and the incessant river erosion washed away all her dreams.

“We had a decent living with steady earnings from selling milk,” said Akhtar. “We had three dairy cattle and about four dozen ducks. All of them disappeared when the floods inundated our village.”

Rumani Akhtar,27, said: “About 15 years ago my husband used to earn about Bangladeshi taka 25,000 to 30,000 (327 to 392 dollars) every season by selling paddy cultivated on leased land. He gave up farming due to increasing soil salinity and we now live a hand-to-mouth existence.”

Several other women, victims of climate change, told stories of lost livelihoods to a mock jury at Char Nongolia organised by a local non-government organisation, Noakhali Rural Development Society and the People’s Forum on the Millennium Development Goals with support from the Global Call for Action Against Poverty.

Lawyers from Noakhali town patiently heard the women’s stories of sufferings amid a crowded audience at a site where many victims had lost their homes. The women hope that their voices will reach the United Nations climate conference starting in Durban on Nov. 28.

“How many more times do we have to suffer? We have lost all our belongings eight times in the past three years. I cannot take it any more, God help us,” cried out Jannatul Ferdous.

Ferdous, 26, lives on a piece of land not far from the river bank with her husband and two young daughters. Once a successful fisherman, Ferdous’s husband has been reduced to penury.

“No one comes to inquire about our miseries,” said Shumi Akhtar. “This place is hell. We are being tested to see how we much more of this torture we can tolerate.”

Once known for its rich forests, Char Nongolia is now barren and surrounded by similar islands of accumulated silt. Farming is now rare, although riverbeds and embankments are known to be naturally fertile.

For centuries, the people in this area coped with cyclones, floods and droughts but the adaptation to increase in frequency and intensity of adverse climatic events has reached the limit.

“We never had extreme cold or high temperatures. In fact, we never experienced drought and fog during our childhood,” said Nurul Islam, a 74-year-old shopkeeper.

Char Nongolia and the surrounding dried-up riverbeds (locally called char), were once famous for an abundance of freshwater fish. People would sail in from all over the country during the peak season to buy up the fish.

“We used to sell several tons of fish every season and the cash would flow in. But now the catch has reduced drastically,” said Syed Abdullah, 68, who now puts out to sea to continue with his profession.

“During those days people in Char Nongolia were relatively well-off. But look at what nature has done to us. Today we have no work,” Abdullah said.

Most of the able-bodied men have migrated to the port city of Chittagong to find jobs, leaving the women to fend for themselves. Even the microfinance institutions that have helped women across Bangladesh is missing from these parts.

The district commissioner, Sirajul Islam, told IPS that he would soon launch ‘vulnerable group feeding’ entitlement cards for the poor in Char Nongolia to enable them to survive. A reforestation campaign to protect the survivors from cyclones and river erosion is also on the cards.

“I have already requested the concerned officials to release the funds,” said Islam.

Islam admits that even basic needs have been neglected for decades and promises that the “families of the local fishermen would be given food entitlements on an emergency basis.”

But past promises on reforestation and the construction of embankments, to mitigate natural disasters and the effects of climate change events remained unfulfilled.

Such is the air of helplessness in the coastal regions that Bangladesh’s junior minister for environment, Hasan Mahmud, admitted at a recent public meeting that close to 30 million people are likely to be displaced soon by the relentless loss of land.

According to the United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, given a business as usual scenario, 17 percent of Bangladesh would be submerged uder seawater by 2050 with several hundred million people forced to migrate from the coastal zone.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Nov 10, 2011 (IPS) – Countries have chained themselves to a fossil fuel train that is headed straight off a cliff, warns the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The signpost in Switzerland warns of glacier retreat. Credit:Ray Smith/IPS

Without a bold change of policy direction, the world will lock itself into an insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system, the IEA said Wednesday in London on the release of the 2011 World Energy Outlook.

Sounding very much like Greenpeace, the conservative IEA called for urgent action by governments to massively shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy and boost energy efficiency. Without a major shift in priorities in the next five years, there will be enough fossil fuel infrastructure in place to guarantee a two-degree C rise in temperatures, it warned.

“Governments need to introduce stronger measures to drive investment in efficient and low-carbon technologies,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven.

“We cannot continue to rely on insecure and environmentally unsustainable uses of energy,” van der Hoeven said in a release.

“Delaying action is a false economy,” the World Energy Outlook report emphasises. Every dollar of investment in cleaner technology before 2020 avoids the need to spend an additional 4.30 dollars after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions, it said.

No climate scientist considers a two-degree C temperature increase “safe”. In fact, many experts, along with more than 100 countries, want overall global warming to be limited to less than 1.5 degrees C.

The burning of fossil fuels has already pushed the global average temperature 0.8 C higher, triggering a number of documented large- scale changes, including record numbers of extreme weather events, record melt of Arctic sea ice, spring arriving two to four weeks earlier, and much more.

The IEA’s urgent recommendations come on the heels of a U.S. Department of Energy announcement last week that global carbon emissions jumped six percent in 2010, the biggest increase ever. That puts the world on the road to a worst case scenario of six degrees C of global warming by 2100.

The IEA is anything but radical or unconventional. Created in 1974 by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) after the 1973 oil crisis, its focus was providing reliable and scientific information on the global oil supply. The Paris-based IEA now provides information and research on all forms of energy. In 2007, it awoke to the role energy plays in the climate change crisis.

“Every year, the IEA moves closer and closer to our energy scenarios,” said Sven Teske, senior energy expert at Greenpeace International.

However, it still under-represents the role of energy efficiency and over-represents the role of nuclear and carbon capture and storage in meeting future energy needs, Teske told IPS.

“IEA has been driven by political agendas to keep a prominent role of nuclear power and CO2- capturing coal power plants in its scenarios, despite their obvious failure to deliver against false expectations,” he said.

The IEA World Energy Outlook is a projection of world energy demands from 2010 to 2035 and offers scenarios on how government and industry can meet those demands.

The first main scenario is a “New Policy Scenario” that assumes current government commitments to limit carbon emissions are met, combined with a 33-percent increase in global energy demand. Nearly all of that increase in energy will be from non-OECD countries.

The “New Policy” scenario is by no means a worst case scenario, but it still results in global temperature increase of 3.5 degrees C by 2100. Doing nothing brings us to a cataclysmic six degrees C, it acknowledges.

The other IEA scenario, called the “450 Scenario”, has the goal of keeping global temperature increases to a maximum of two degrees C. It calls for the same levels of renewable energy infrastructure as the Greenpeace basic “Energy [R]evolution” report projection, Teske told IPS.

The Greenpeace report offers a detailed blueprint for cutting carbon emissions while achieving economic growth by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and energy efficiency.

“The IEA is still moving far too slow,” Teske said. It continues to underplay the role of solar, and the idea that carbon capture and storage (CCS) can adequately reduce emissions from coal is nonsense, he said.

Most CCS pilot projects have been shuttered due to high costs and it is almost impossible to pump carbon underground in Europe.

“It is illegal to do it in Germany,” he noted.

However, the IEA continues to foster the perception that there is still a major role for the fossil fuel sector in meeting the world’s energy needs for many decades to come. That indirectly assures the financial industry that continued investments in existing and new fossil fuel infrastructure are a good bet, Teske said.

The European Union and countries like China are shifting quickly to renewable energy sources. Wind and solar now account for 11.4 percent of China’s electricity, and that figure will be 20 percent by 2020, Liu Qiang, a researcher at the Energy Research Institute of the National Development Reform Commission in China, told IPS previously.

Other detailed energy studies have found that 100-percent renewable energy for the entire planet is doable by 2050. The cost is about two to three percent of global GDP (gross domestic product) from now until 2035, and then the costs decline and begin to generate a return, said Niklas Hoehne of Ecofys, an energy consulting company based in the Netherlands.

Ecofys published a technical study in 2010 called “The Energy Report” that demonstrates how the world could reach 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.

“If you ask me one single policy item which could help us to get there, I would say (eliminating) the fossil fuel subsidies in major non-OECD countries,” said Fatih Birol, IEA chief economist.

The World Energy Outlook has previously called on governments to end their annual 409-billion-dollar subsidies handout to the fossil fuel industry. However, no governments have substantially reduced those subsidies, demonstrating one of the major challenges of getting off the fossil fuel train.

“As each year passes without clear signals to drive investment in clean energy, the ‘lock-in’ of high-carbon infrastructure is making it harder and more expensive to meet our energy security and climate goals,” concluded Birol.

Emissions at a manufacturing complex in North America. Credit: UN Photo/Kibae Park

In contrast, carbon emissions from natural gas use increased by six percent. The net effect of these trends was that U.S. carbon emissions dropped seven percent in four years. And this is only the beginning.

The initial fall in coal and oil use was triggered by the economic downturn, but now powerful new forces are reducing the use of both. For coal, the dominant force is the Beyond Coal campaign, an impressive national effort coordinated by the Sierra Club involving hundreds of local groups that oppose coal because of its effects on human health.

In the first phase, the campaign actively opposed the building of new coal-fired power plants. This hugely successful initiative, which led to a near de facto moratorium on new coal plants, was powered by Americans’ dislike of coal.

An Opinion Research Corporation poll found only three percent preferred coal as their electricity source – which is no surprise. Coal plant emissions are a leading cause of respiratory illnesses (such as asthma in children) and mercury contamination. Coal burning causes 13,200 U.S. deaths each year, a loss of life that exceeds U.S. combat losses in 10 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The campaign’s second phase is dedicated to closing existing coal plants. Of the U.S. total of 492 coal-fired power plants, 68 are already slated to close. With current and forthcoming U.S. Environmental Protection Agency air quality regulations on emissions of mercury, sulfur, and ozone precursors requiring costly retrofits, many more of the older, dirtier plants will be closed.

In August, the American Economic Review – the country’s most prestigious economics journal – published an article that can only be described as an epitaph for the coal industry. The authors conclude that the economic damage caused by air pollutants from coal burning exceeds the value of the electricity produced by coal-fired power plants. Coal fails the cost-benefit analysis even before the costs of climate change are tallied.

In July 2011, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a grant of 50 million dollars to the Beyond Coal campaign. It is one thing when Michael Brune, head of the Sierra Club, says that coal has to go, but quite another when Michael Bloomberg, one of the most successful businessmen of his generation, says so.

The move to close coal plants comes at a time when electricity use for lighting will be falling fast as old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs are phased out. In compliance with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, by January 2012 there will be no 100-watt incandescent light bulbs on store shelves.

By January 2014, the 75-watt, 60-watt, and 40-watt incandescents will also disappear from shelves. As inefficient incandescents are replaced by compact fluorescents and LEDs, electricity use for lighting can drop by 80 percent. And much of the switch will occur within a few years.

The U.S. Department of Energy projects that residential electricity use per person will drop by five percent during this decade as light bulbs are replaced and as more-efficient refrigerators, water heaters, television sets, and other household appliances come to market.

Even as coal plants are closing, the use of wind, solar, and geothermally generated electricity is growing fast. Over the last four years, more than 400 wind farms – with a total generating capacity of 27,000 megawatts – have come online, enough to supply eight million homes with electricity. (See data at www.earth- policy.org.) Nearly 300,000 megawatts of proposed wind projects are in the pipeline awaiting access to the grid.

Texas, long the leading oil-producing state, is now the leading generator of electricity from wind. When the transmission lines linking the rich wind resources of west Texas and the Texas panhandle to the large cities in central and eastern Texas are completed, wind electric generation in the state will jump dramatically.

In installed wind-generating capacity, Texas is followed by Iowa, California, Minnesota, and Illinois. In the share of electricity generation in the state coming from wind, Iowa leads at 20 percent.

With electricity generated by solar panels, the United States has some 22,000 megawatts of utility-scale projects in the pipeline. And this does not include residential installations.

Closing coal plants also cuts oil use. With coal use falling, the near 40 percent of freight rail diesel fuel that is used to move coal from mines to power plants will also drop.

In fact, oil use has fallen fast in the United States over the last four years, thus reversing another long-term trend of rising consumption. The reasons for this include a shrinkage in the size of the national fleet, the rising fuel efficiency of new cars, and a reduction in the miles driven per vehicle.

Fleet size peaked at 250 million cars in 2008 just as the number of cars being scrapped eclipsed sales of new cars. Aside from economic conditions, car sales are down because many young people today are much less automobile-oriented than their parents.

In addition, the fuel efficiency of new cars, already rising, will soon increase sharply. The most recent efficiency standards mandate that new cars sold in 2025 use only half as much fuel as those sold in 2010. Thus with each passing year, the U.S. car fleet becomes more fuel-efficient, using less gasoline.

Miles driven per car are declining because of higher gasoline prices, the continuing recession, and the shift to public transit and bicycles. Bicycles are replacing cars as cities create cycling infrastructure by building bike paths, creating dedicated bike lanes, and installing sidewalk parking racks. Many U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, and New York, are introducing bike-sharing programmes.

Furthermore, when people retire and no longer commute, miles driven drop by a third to a half. With so many baby boomers now retiring, this too will lower gasoline use.

As plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars come to market, electricity will replace gasoline. An analysis by Professor Michael McElroy of Harvard indicates that running a car on wind-generated electricity could cost the equivalent of 80-cent-a-gallon gasoline.

With emissions from coal burning heading for a free fall as plants are closed, and those from oil use also falling fast – both are falling faster than emissions from natural gas are ramping up – U.S. carbon emissions are falling.

We are now looking at a situation where the seven percent decline in carbon emissions since the 2007 peak could expand to 20 percent by 2020, and possibly even to 30 percent. If so, the United States could become a world leader in cutting carbon emissions and stabilising climate.

*Data and additional resources available at www.earth-policy.org. Lester R. Brown is president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of “World on the Edge”.