Delegados cruzan el puente de acceso al centro de convenciones de Durban donde se celebró la cumbre climática Crédito: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 12 dic (Tierramérica) – El mundo se encamina a un peligroso calentamiento planetario. Pero cuando la decimoséptima cumbre climática concluía en Sudáfrica este domingo 11, los gobiernos aceptaron discutir un nuevo tratado global para abatir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero.

Tras dos semanas de intensas y amargas discusiones, a las que se adicionaron otras 29 horas, los 193 países partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (CMNUCC) acordaron un complejo conjunto de documentos técnicos titulado Plataforma de Durban, por la oriental ciudad sudafricana donde se celebró la conferencia.

Los textos incluyen la continuidad del Protocolo de Kyoto, único tratado mundial obligatorio para reducir los gases invernadero, la estructura formal del Fondo Verde para el Clima y nuevos mecanismos de mercado, entre otros asuntos.

Pero el punto medular, logrado en el amanecer del domingo, fue el acuerdo de todos los gobiernos de que debe negociarse un nuevo tratado mundial para abatir las emisiones para 2015. Aunque esto pueda parecer la simple decisión de celebrar más reuniones, esta es la primera vez que todas las naciones aceptan ser gobernadas por un régimen específico en el marco de la CMNUCC.

De momento, las promesas voluntarias de recorte de emisiones formuladas en 2009 por los países industriales, China, Brasil, Sudáfrica, India y otros en el marco del Acuerdo de Copenhague, garantizan que la temperatura media del planeta se elevará 3,5 grados centígrados respecto de la era preindustrial, indica la ciencia climática.

Incluso algunos análisis afirman que la temperatura subiría más, entre cuatro y cinco grados, lo que pondría en peligro la supervivencia de la especie humana.

Pese a las declaraciones políticas de Estados Unidos, Canadá y la Unión Europea, lo cierto es que las naciones en desarrollo han prometido reducciones mayores que el mundo industrial que es responsable de 75 por ciento de todas las emisiones humanas causantes del calentamiento.

“Aún no hay nuevas promesas sobre la mesa, y lo aceptado en Durban en cuanto a elevar las ambiciones y los recortes es incierto en cuanto a su resultado”, dijo Bill Hare, director de Climate Analytics, un grupo asesor sin fines de lucro con sede en Alemania.

La presidenta de la 17 Conferencia de las Partes (COP 17) de la CMNUCC, la sudafricana Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, fue una de las rogaron a los gobiernos hacer a un lado sus intereses “por el bien superior del planeta y de sus pueblos”.

Países ricos como Estados Unidos, Canadá y Arabia Saudita bloquearon las conversaciones en muchos frentes, para frustración y amargura de los países más pequeños y desfavorecidos.

“La triste noticia es que los saboteadores conducidos por Estados Unidos se anotaron el éxito de incluir una cláusula de escape que podría impedir fácilmente que el próximo gran tratado climático sea legalmente vinculante”, dijo el director ejecutivo de Greenpeace Internacional, Kumi Naidoo.

Incluso si en 2015 se aprueba un estricto tratado legalmente vinculante, deberá ser ratificado por los gobiernos para entrar en vigor. El Protocolo de Kyoto se adoptó en 1997, pero no entró en vigor hasta 2005.

Esperar hasta 2020 para efectuar drásticas reducciones de la contaminación obligará a ir mucho más a fondo, con mayores costos, para mantener la esperanza de que la temperatura global no suba más de dos grados, dijo Hare a Tierramérica.

“La aspiración colectiva de reducción de emisiones debe elevarse muy pronto y de manera sustancial”, advirtió Alden Meyer, director de estrategia y política de la estadounidense Unión de Científicos Preocupados.

Varios estudios sostienen que las emisiones mundiales de gases invernadero deberían alcanzar su punto más alto entre 2015 y 2020 y luego declinar, si se busca una posibilidad razonable de controlar la temperatura a un costo alcanzable. Si el pico y la declinación se producen más tarde, los costos y los riesgos se dispararán.

“Los discursos contundentes y las cuidadas elecciones del lenguaje no pueden alterar las leyes de la física. La atmósfera responde solo a una cosa, las emisiones”, dijo Meyer.

Está claro que en las dos semanas pasadas los gobiernos escucharon a las corporaciones contaminantes y no a sus pueblos, sostuvo Naidoo en un comunicado.

La Plataforma de Durban incluye un segundo período de compromisos del Protocolo de Kyoto que debería comenzar en enero de 2013 para evitar una brecha tras el fin del primer plazo, en diciembre de 2012. Su duración y alcance serán discutidos en la COP 18 que se llevará a cabo en Qatar.

Los países en desarrollo insistieron en esta condición, pese a que el Protocolo solo obliga a pequeñas reducciones de los países industriales europeos, Canadá, Australia, Japón y unos pocos más.

Estados Unidos permanece fuera del Protocolo de Kyoto, y Canadá ignoró sus obligaciones y elevó las emisiones y ahora, junto con Japón y Rusia, afirma que no se sumará a un segundo período de compromisos.

La continuidad de Kyoto es “significativa”, dijo la secretaria ejecutiva de la CMNUCC, Christiana Figueres. Los países partes deben presentar sus ofertas de reducción para mayo de 2012.

Pero no hay una adopción formal del segundo período en el texto actual de los documentos, dijo Pablo Solón, exjefe de la delegación de Bolivia ante la Convención. “La decisión real se pospuso hasta la próxima COP”, y el Protocolo sigue “en terapia intensiva”, aseveró.

El único progreso del Fondo Verde para el Clima fue su diseño y administración. Se supone que debe distribuir unos 100.000 millones de dólares de asistencia a los países en desarrollo, a partir de 2020, para ayudarlos a reducir sus emisiones y adaptarse al cambio climático.

En Durban no hubo compromisos sobre el origen del dinero. Se acordó establecer un “plan de trabajo” para movilizar recursos de fuentes públicas y privadas. Estas últimas incluyen de manera explícita los mercados de carbono, pues los gobiernos del Norte industrial se escudaron en la crisis financiera y económica que les ata las manos.

La sociedad civil y algunos países en desarrollo destacaron que los gobiernos han entregado billones de dólares a bancos y entidades financieras y que el presupuesto militar mundial supera en más de 10 veces lo que necesita el Fondo Verde para el Clima.

Pese a que el mercado de carbono está en caída, el sector privado es considerado por Estados Unidos, la Unión Europea, Nueva Zelanda y Japón, entre otros, como socio clave para financiar la respuesta al cambio climático.

Los mercados de compra y venta de compensaciones de carbono son un sistema muy polémico y complejo en cuanto a mediciones y propiedad del carbono en el suelo o los bosques, entre otros aspectos. También subsiste el cuestionamiento ético de que los países ricos compensen su propia contaminación comprando bosques o tierras en naciones pobres.

“Mantengan las metas, dejen los mercados”, reclamó Oscar Reyes, de Amigos de la Tierra Gran Bretaña en los últimos días de la COP 17. “Nos preocupa que cuando el Fondo Verde tenga recursos se los prestará al sector privado para impulsar el mercado de carbono”, dijo Reyes a Tierramérica.

“Al mirar las pasadas conferencias, parece más efectivo que sus miembros salgan fuera de los recintos y planten árboles durante dos semanas. Probablemente lograrían más impacto”, dijo el joven de 14 años Felix Finkbeiner, de Alemania.

Finkbeiner lanzó una organización infantil llamada Planta para el Planeta que ahora trabaja en 70 países y ha cultivado casi cuatro millones de árboles en los últimos cuatro años. Su lema es “Basta de hablar, empieza a plantar”.

* Publicado por la red latinoamericana de diarios de Tierramérica. (FIN)

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)

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)

South African Bishop Geoff Davies (L) and Mardi Tindal, Moderator of the United Church of Canada

By Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) - African and international faith leaders urged governments attending the final day of climate change negotiations to do what is right and necessary to keep global temperature from rising no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“The two degrees Celsius target is unacceptable because temperatures in much of Africa will be far higher,” said South African Bishop Geoff Davies.

Oil and coal companies along with other major polluting corporations are engaged in “crimes against humanity and the planet” because they continue to pollute the atmosphere when they have ability to do otherwise, said David Le Page of the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI).

More than 130 African faith leaders have signed a declaration offering specific recommendations based science, honesty, morality and equity. They called on delegates negotiating a new climate treaty here at the 17^th Conference of Parties to live up to the African spirit of “ubuntu” – a way of living focused on people’s allegiances and relations with each other.

The current economic system encourages “people to get as rich as they can and forget about anyone else,” said Davies. “It’s an immoral system.”

“Historic polluters like the United States have to reduce their emissions dramatically” and their position here is “shocking” and “reprehensible”, he said. The children and grandchildren of U.S. congressmen will ask what they were doing to be so selfish and irresponsible, Davies said.

The U.S is the most religious society in the world but their behaviour is “sinful” in their refusal to reduce emissions that causing so much suffering among people, he said.

“When lifestyles of the wealthy hurt the lives of the poor….and future generations it is wrong,” Mardi Tindal, Moderator of the United Church of Canada, the country’s largest Protestant denomination.

“Climate change is a moral, ethical and spiritual issue. We need moral leadership not political leadership,” Tindal told IPS.

“South Africa has had courageous, moral leaders like Ghandi and Mandela. If our leadership shows the same moral courage the people will follow them.”

However, political leaders will have to lead by their deeds and personal examples, not words if they hope to bring people with them, she said.

Davies expressed deep disappointment regarding yesterday’s announcement that South Africa government will invest three billion rand to upgrade the Richards Bay Terminal export 81 million tonnes of coal annually by 2016.

Other countries here are expanding their oil production around the world and that is why climate talks will not bring the agreement we need, he said.

“You cannot underestimate the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry. We know they spend millions of dollars lobbying their governments. They are holding the world to ransom and causing the destruction of the environment.”

The good news is that the economically powerful countries like the U.S., Europe, Brazil, India and China could begin to turn this around in a matter of months with major programmes in renewables and energy efficiency. Money should flow to Africa, who is least responsible for climate change, to help them create low-carbon societies Davies said.

If this doesn’t happen “we all will suffer the consequences.” (END)

DURBAN, Afrique du Sud, 9 déc (IPS) – Les économies émergentes - la Chine, l’Afrique du Sud et le Brésil – ont manifesté leur ouverture aux objectifs légalement contraignants de réduction des émissions de carbone à partir de 2020 lors du sommet des Nations Unies sur les changements climatiques à Durban.

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) - The issue of money is still a substantial part of the negotiations at 17^thConference of Parties in Durban, South Africa. IPS spoke to Marcia Levaggi, manager of the Adaptation Fund Board, on the importance of ensuring that developing countries have the funds to deal with the effects of climate change.

Marcia Levaggi, manager of the Adaptation Fund Board. Credit: Zukiswa ZImela/IPS

The Adaptation Fund was established by the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its aim is to finance adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries.

Q: Talks in the previous COP’s tended to focus on mitigation but now increasingly the conversation is about mitigation and adaptation. Why is it important that developed countries have finance for adaptation plans?

A: First of all adaptation is one of the most pressing needs of developing countries to adapt to climate change. There are things that won’t change. Already the climate globally has changed and that has created difficult conditions for developing countries. There are new conditions in agriculture, there are droughts and food security is threatened. So it is important to address those issues and help those countries.

Q: One of the things stalling establishment and implementation of the Green Climate Fund is the question of where the almost 100 billion dollars per year needed by developing countries will come from?

A: The money comes from the two percent levy on the shares of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). That is an innovative feature of the fund, because it’s a tax on international corporations. We have also received some contributions from developed countries, namely Spain, Sweden and Germany, but our main source remains from the proceeds of the CDM.

Q: Can you give me an example of some projects that have been funded by the Adaptation Fund.

A: The Adaptation Fund started funding projects last year in September and in one year of operation it has funded eleven projects some in Mauritius, Senegal and Eritrea. The project in Senegal is a project about coastal protection. In South Africa we are working the South African National Biodiversity Institute we have heard that they are getting ready to submit a proposal.

Q: The Adaptation Fund relies on agreements made in the Kyoto Protocol. Other countries like Canada, Russia and Japan have already said that they are not going to be signing on for a second commitment period. What will this mean for you in terms of finance?

A:  Well I don’t know, but the situation will not get better if there are no clear signals after this meeting. We really plead with international community to strive for an agreement in Durban to help those countries. (END)

Farmers need help to prosper: but what kind of help? Credit: FISD/IPS

DURBAN, Dec 8 – (TerraViva) Global warming poses a threat to the livelihoods of millions of people who work the land; it is a critical issue for Africa’s climate change agenda. Campaigners agree that changing weather patterns and higher temperatures could spell disaster, but they are arguing for two contrasting responses here at the U.N. climate conference in Durban.

Speakers at a Dec. 3 event titled Agriculture and Rural Development Day called for agriculture to be recognised with a formal work programme in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process, to attract attention and funding for what is termed “climate smart” agriculture.

The key themes discussed included strengthening farmers’ ability to cope with climate shocks, while reducing greenhouse emissions from agriculture and sustainably increasing productivity to meet growing global demand.

The event was attended by numerous researchers and academics, the World Food Programme and U.N. rural agency the International Fund for Agricultural Development, donors like the World Bank and the Rockefeller Foundation and organisations such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

Meeting future demand for food and securing rural prosperity, they argued, requires improving access to markets and agricultural research, the expanded use of inorganic fertiliser to build soil fertility, and credits for agricultural practices that would trap carbon in soil and biomass.

Farmers were represented too, by people such as Stephen Muchiri, of the Eastern Africa Farmers’ Federation. “We want a fixed programme on agriculture. That will open up other possibilities,” he said.

Two days later, land and agrarian reform activists struck a very different tone as they marched in support of “food sovereignty’. This group, led by the global smallholder farmer group La Via Campesina, also recognises the need to reduce emissions and design adaptations to contain the threat posed to agriculture by climate change, but argues that the most vulnerable farmers (and the world’s supply of food) also face a threat from the way the economy and land ownership are set up around the world.

They say large corporations that dominate the production of seed and fertiliser, and in many cases determine the prices food and cash crops fetch are as much of a problem for small farmers as increasing climate shocks. They reject the use of chemical fertiliser or proprietary seed to boost productivity, preferring organic fertiliser and water-saving techniques such as permaculture.

For these campaigners, the key is to prevent agriculture and food production from being further dominated by business principles and big business. They are firmly against any attempts to set up a system to pay farmers to sequester carbon.

“We do not want agriculture in the negotiations because that will make it a business,” Via Campesina organiser Boaventura Monjane told TerraViva, referring to the efforts to get carbon credits for famers. “We farm to feed people not for business. If agriculture is included it will kill small-scale farmers because they will start using methods (simply) to increase carbon credits.”

They want to see measures that would give small farmers more independent control: control over their seed, control over their land, control over their wages and working conditions.

What Monjane wants from the 17th Conference of the Parties is a fresh commitment from developed countries to reduce emissions. “If there can be a treaty to influence the bloc to commit to reducing emissions. No second Kyoto Protocol without a commitment to reduce emissions by at least 50 percent.”

Muchiri, of the EAFF, does not see the Via Campesina approach as feasible. “One hundred percent organic farming is not 100 percent sustainable. If we want to increase output and meet food demands, we have to embrace different ways of improving our farming methods. Otherwise we will end up importing our food.”

They are optimistic that their calls will be heeded. With influential international organisations backing them, and South Africa’s Agriculture Minister, Tina Joemat-Petterson, among the high profile spokespersons pushing their agenda, they hope to make a mark in the conference’s final declaration.

Monjane is somewhat more pessimistic. “We do not believe in the COP. For twenty years leaders have been meeting but nothing has changed. COP is a place where government and corporate meet to use public funds and do business. Why must we believe in it?”

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

(END)

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)

Loopholes in the CDM must be sealed to allow participation of African countries. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 8 (IPS) As the United Nations climate change negotiations comes to a close, environmental experts agree that carbon markets could provide the funds for climate change adaptation and mitigation projects, but only if existing loopholes are sealed to allow participation of African countries.

“When the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was introduced under the Kyoto Protocol, we all knew that it was a fantastic idea because it was, and still is, the only mechanism that enables developing countries to take action against global warming,” said Mithika Mwenda, a climate change expert and the Coordinator for the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance. The CDM allows emission reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits, each equivalent to one ton of CO2. These can be traded.

Currently, there are more than 3,600 registered CDM projects in 72 developing countries worldwide, with about three percent of them in Africa.

However, according to Mwenda, the architectural designs for implementing projects such as the CDM is far beyond the reach to most African organisations, institutions and communities because of the investment cost and the conditions attached.

“It has worked well in other countries like China, but less can be achieved from the African continent, which unfortunately is bearing the biggest burden of climate change,” he told IPS.

Mwenda cautions that there is a danger that the developed world will use carbon credit markets as an excuse to pollute more.

“In many cases under the markets’ architecture, the developed countries are allowed to pollute, and then buy credits from developing countries that sequester carbon from the atmosphere. Yet, what we need first is a commitment to reduce carbon from the atmosphere and to then use the markets as a supplement,” he said.

Lessons about carbon funding projects in Africa can be drawn from the Green Belt Movement, a non-governmental organisation implementing a CDM project in Kenya.

“It is clear that it requires massive investment to kick-start and sustain a CDM project,” Benjamin Kimani Kiuru, the senior project officer in charge of Climate Change and Carbon Projects at the Green Belt Movement, told IPS.

He said there were limiting conditions in the Kyoto Protocol that made it difficult for Africa to benefit from the CDM.

“One of the most limiting conditions as stipulated under the Kyoto Protocol is that the site where trees are to be planted must have been deforested before 1990. Yet given the fact that most forests in Africa have been intact until after the 1990s when people started destroying them, it makes it very difficult for investors to locate appropriate sites suitable for such projects,” said Kiuru.

His sentiments were echoed by David Lesolle, a climate change expert at the University of Botswana’s Department of Environmental Science.

“The way CDM was structured is that you need it only if you are ‘dirty’ (where countries have destroyed their carbon sinks). Yet Africa is not dirty,” he told IPS at the 17^th Conference of Parties.

But he quickly pointed out there is need to continue implementing the CDM because it still plays a role in climate change mitigation.

Also, Africa does not have experts to develop CDM project designs.

“We have to rely on experts from the developed world, which is an extremely expensive affair,” Kiuru said.

Lack of upfront funding from the World Bank for CDM projects was listed as another limiting factor.

So far, the Green Belt Movement has planted 1.5 million trees on 1,500 hectares in Kenya under the CDM, but the first disbursement of money from the World Bank is expected to come through only next year when the project is supposed to be assessed.

“It is important to note that two percent of money generated under the CDM projects worldwide is supposed to be used for adaptation. And today, the Climate Adaptation Fund has over 160 million dollars, which countries and organisations are supposed to apply for – but they haven’t,” said Lesolle.

However, Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change believes the CDM has been successful.

“CDM is a success story of the Kyoto Protocol. It has incentivised investment in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to sustainable development in some 72 countries.

“The object of the dialogue is to reflect on the CDM experience – both the good and the bad – and build on this important mechanism for the future,” Figueres told the media during launch of a high-level policy dialogue on the CDM. (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)

DURBAN, Dec 8 – (TerraViva) After winning the award for best stand at the exposition outside the climate conference, Cape Town’s striking entry is continuing to score big in terms of the number of visitors per day.

Outside the distinctive building made of green and black milk crates and recycled wood, there is a solar-powered stove putting the Durban sun’s rays to good use boiling water and cooking meals. Groups of visiting school children circle the perimeter, exclaiming over the lettuce and spinach growing in recycled two-litre bottles.

The building’s design keeps the interior cool without the use of electricity-hungry air conditioners, and members of Cape Town’s ClimateSmart team are taking advantage to discuss how to carry the project forward.

The outline of Table Mountain is built into the recycled crate walls of Cape Town's exhibition. Credit: Ramatamo wa Matamong/TerraViva

Cape Town’s stand won top prize after assessment by a panel of four judges drawn from various environmental organisations.

“ClimateSmart deserved this acknowledgement as they were harnessing all the power needed for their stand through a wind turbine and solar panels,” said judge Pippa Walker, from the Event Greening Forum.

“They also used plastic bottles and crates to build the walls and the roof of their stand (an innovative example of how one can recycle materials). They did so with no need for sophisticated air conditioning.”

But the team responsible is not resting on its laurels.

“Honestly, the work doesn’t end here,” says Stephen Granger, Green Campaign Manager for the City of Cape Town. “We didn’t build the four walls just for somewhere to meet people, but we built a stand that could tell a message.”

Stephen Lamb, who built and co-designed the stand agrees. “The most important thing is to think about poor people, those who are most affected. The stand can become a creator of climate jobs. In building the stand, we employed and transferred skills to local people. We’ve also used local material,” he said.

“With the support and a mandate from the government, we would like them to try and apply this. It cost literally nothing. It comes from the Mother Nature with love. The scaffolding is the only material that is not natural. This can be converted into a day care centre, an environmental centre or a mobile clinic of some sort.”

Lamb said there has been interest from the office of the mayor in Cape Town which should ensure the stand’s life extends beyond its exhibition at the conference.

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

(END)

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 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)

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.

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)

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)

NUMSA's Philemon Shiburi says jobs and development should be protected as renewable energy sources are introduced. Credit: NUMSA

DURBAN, Dec 2 — (TerraViva) South Africa is the continent’s leading producer of greenhouse gases, largely due to generating electricity in coal-fired power stations. The country must replace these polluting plants with clean energy sources, but it must do so with care, says Philemon Shiburi.
Shiburi, the treasurer of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), is attending the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Durban as a representative of labour.

“South Africa must find other ways of generating energy which are climate friendly,” he said. “As a country, we are feeling the effects of global warming, especially on our agriculture. However, we have to be careful about how this new energy is introduced into our society.”

His statements were echoed by the Minister of Energy, Dipuo Peters. Speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of COP17, Peters said that South Africa was committed to move towards a low-carbon economy.

This commitment, she said, was entrenched when the President pledged that South Africa would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 34 percent – below “business as usual” levels – by the year 2020.

South African ministers speak to the press at COP 17. Credit: Henrietta Mongalo/TerraViva

The current reality, the minister said, is that more than 65 percent of South Africa’s total energy needs are met by coal. “Coal therefore plays the dominant role in our supply of energy, especially in the electricity sector where approximately 90 percent of the country’s electricity is produced in coal-fired power stations and is therefore the country’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Peters.

The Minister noted the significant contribution of the coal mining industry towards the economy; according to Statistics South Africa, contributed about 1.8 percent of GDP in 2010.

Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa, speaking at the same press conference, said the South African government was committed to managing the transition to a climate resilient, equitable and internationally competitive lower-carbon economy and society in a manner that simultaneously addressed South Africa’s over-riding national priorities for sustainable development, job creation, improved public and environmental health, poverty eradication and social equality.

Although the era of using fossil fuel was coming to an end, NUMSA feared that if alternative energy is forced upon South Africa, which is still a developing country, then unemployment would rise and jobs would be shed in the coal mines which are supporting Eskom in generating energy. The union therefore wanted solar energy production to be phased in over time, and for equipment to be manufactured in South Africa in order to create jobs.

Shiburi noted that many rural households still do not have electricity which makes it difficult for them to access the news, have internet access and use many basic household gadgets. NUMSA would like to see more villages being electrified as this would lead to other infrastructure developments, access to information and general improvement of the standard of living of the people.

Speaking to TerraViva, Choma Ramos, a member of Jubilee South Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD), agreed that any action to reduce climate change should not affect jobs.

However, Ramos said that mining depletes natural resources and does not have a long-term positive impact on the people who work in them or in the surrounding environment: “Mines are owned by the big corporates who only want profit. The workers only benefit very little money as salaries but spend the rest of their lives at risk because of climate change and health problems as a result of working in the mines,” she said.

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

(END)

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)

Climate change wreaks damage on infrastructure, ecosystems, livelihoods and lives in developing countries. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

By Tim Ash Vie *

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 1 (IPS) – As climate talks get underway in Durban, South Africa this week, progress on a Green Climate Fund is one of the hottest, most contentious tickets in town. It is also one of the great prizes to be won.

The fund would, in theory, provide a new, substantial source of funds to help developing countries adapt to the negative impacts of climate change and pursue low carbon development; it is meant to be a major vehicle for delivering 100 billion dollars a year in climate finance to developing countries by 2020.

Agreement on the structure of the fund and on sources of cash (at least for the medium term) must be secured in Durban, to keep this ambition on track. Developing country observers believe such an agreement on climate finance is vital. Why is it so urgent?

The Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period expires late next year, and international leaders have not yet agreed a framework to succeed it. With the clock ticking on this legal deal, there will be a gap until any new version is adopted.

As developing countries press for a new global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions, caution dictates that they must prepare to adapt to a world in which climate change wreaks damage on infrastructure, ecosystems, livelihoods and lives.

In the words of Professor Robert Watson, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, developing country decision makers are calling for a “two degree world” – where the average global temperature is curbed at two degrees above pre-industrial levels – but must prepare to adapt to a “three or four degree world.”

For developing countries, this means bracing for rising sea levels that will make atolls and coastal settlements less habitable. Droughts will become more prolonged and frequent, and rainfall patterns far more erratic.

The current drought in the Horn of Africa, and the devastating floods in El Salvador last month and Durban, South Africa this week are indicative of the weather extremes that will become more frequent by mid-century as climate change takes hold. These impacts will be felt even in a “two degree world”, but in a “three or four degree world” they will become even more severe and unpredictable.

Climate finance is not just a story about preparing for the worst, though. Developing countries also recognise opportunities to attract investment in low carbon technologies, which will increase their global competitiveness.

What could be a more compelling prospect that to leapfrog past soon-to-be obsolete technologies that guzzle fossil fuels, and avoid some of the carbon lock-in experienced by industrialised nations?

The Government of Rwanda will launch its National Green Growth and Climate Resilience Strategy at the 17th Conference of the Parties in Durban next week.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said he sees low carbon development as a win-win situation for Rwanda. It could reduce Rwanda’s dependence on foreign imported oil and create an economic stimulus by redirecting payments toward clean energy production at home, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

However, financial support from foreign governments and the private sector will be needed in order to realise such ambitions.

Developing countries’ hopes for progress on climate finance in Durban are set against a background of frustrated ambition. They are approaching the end of the so-called “fast-start finance” commitment period that was agreed in Copenhagen in 2009.

The aspiration set out in the Copenhagen Accord was to raise 30 billion dollars of new and additional funding over the three years until 2012. Have industrialised countries even delivered on this deal?

The trouble is fast-start finance has no easily identifiable form, being typically delivered through existing channels of delivery and disbursement. Therefore, trying to track that funding has proved difficult and confusing.

Even seasoned observers cannot get an accurate handle on how much money has been allocated, and for what ends. While some “new and additional” funding has certainly been allocated, examples abound of projects being re-branded “fast-start” even when they pre-date Copenhagen and there is a large gap between pledges and good intention, and disbursement.

Chair of the African Group of Negotiators in the climate negotiations, Tosi Mpanu Mpanu has simply put it: “Fast start has not really delivered – only 10 percent of fast start is new and additional.”

A new online portal developed by the United Nations may start to address these issues but in the current circumstances, mistrust pervades.

The 2010 to 2012 fast start period was only ever just that: a start. Currently, we do not know where the money is going to come from to reach the loftier ambition to provide developing countries with 100 billion dollars a year by 2020.

Ideas for specific sources of revenue have been proposed, such as an air passenger levy, a tax on financial transactions and a carbon levy on polluting emissions from shipping.

Yet, mobilising such sources could take several years, which raises the prospect of a serious funding gap after the fast start period ends in 2013.

We know for sure that public sources will not fulfil that promise alone, and private sector money will be needed. In the meantime, developing countries expect public sources to lead the way.

The private sector role in the GCF is not a question of syphoning off scarce public funds. It is about using at least some of this public money to catalyse private investment at scale, to accelerate low carbon development. With public funds under pressure in many Annex 1 countries, the private sector role is going to be critical.

As well as hard cash, the institutional set up for financing climate compatible development is important. A good outcome from Durban would be if the GCF were formally established in line with the recommendations put to theUnited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by its Transitional Committee on Finance.

Having the fund’s operational structure agreed would enable commitments made in Copenhagen and Cancun to be taken forward while meeting aid effectiveness principles.

A variety of other climate finance mechanisms already in operation, such as the Adaptation Fund, will also need to be shored up, and this would need to be done in parallel with agreements on the capitalisation of the GCF.

The prevailing economic climate makes discussions of climate finance difficult, but the time to deliver this fund is now.

World leaders must leave Durban with a clearer picture on what climate finance can be delivered between 2013 and 2019, beyond the fast-start period.

The form of the GCF and its capitalisation could be the “crown jewels” of a South African climate conference. They would provide real impetus for developing countries to step up climate action themselves.

* Tim Ash Vie is Head of Negotiations at Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

(END/2011)

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)

Dr. Tomaz Salomão. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

Isaiah Esipisu s’entretient avec DR TOMAZ SALOMÃO, le secrétaire exécutif de la Communauté de développement d’Afrique australe (SADC)

DURBAN, Afrique du Sud, 29 nov (IPS) – Les dirigeants africains ont exhorté la communauté internationale à amener les négociations des Nations Unies sur les changements climatiques, qui ont commencé lundi à Durban, en Afrique du Sud, à un niveau différent, et à prioriser l’adaptation pour le continent.

Le président sud-africain, Jacob Zuma, a indiqué que l’Afrique a fait du chemin depuis que des négociations similaires ont eu lieu à Copenhague et à Cancun, au cours des deux dernières années. Il a déclaré que Durban doit amener le monde vers une “solution qui sauve l’avenir dès aujourd’hui”.

Bon nombre d’experts en environnement se sont réunis à Durban, espérant que la conférence décidera du sort du Protocole de Kyoto. Ce protocole, qui expire en 2012, fixe des objectifs contraignants pour 37 pays industrialisés et la Communauté européenne, visant à réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre.

Dr Tomaz Salomão, le secrétaire exécutif de la SADC, était à la 17ème Conférence des parties (COP 17).

Il a expliqué à IPS pourquoi il était important que la COP 17 s’organise en Afrique, et ce que la région attend de cette plateforme de négociation.

Voici des extraits de l’entretien:

Q: Quelle est l’importance de l’organisation de la 17ème Conférence des parties dans la région d’Afrique australe?

R: Le continent, et en particulier la région d’Afrique australe, est menacé par les effets du changement des conditions climatiques. Les experts ont tout dit. Ils ont prédit une augmentation des conditions météorologiques extrêmes, et les sécheresses sont manifestement devenues plus fréquentes que par le passé récent. Tout le monde est conscient des changements dans les précipitations, qui ont (eu) un effet dévastateur sur des millions de personnes qui dépendent de l’agriculture pluviale, spécifiquement en Afrique.

C’est donc d’un exploit louable pour l’Afrique, pour la région de la SADC, et aussi pour l’Afrique du Sud de faire organiser la COP 17 dans cette région. C’est une indication claire que nous, Africains, savons où nous en sommes, les défis auxquels nous sommes confrontés, et comment les relever. Ce qui est requis, c’est de renforcer nos capacités afin que nous soyons dans une meilleure position pour affronter par nous-mêmes ces défis.

Q: Quelle est l’attente régionale de cette conférence?

R: L’attente est que des recommandations seront formulées pour fournir l’appui financier qu’il faut afin que l’Afrique soit dans une meilleure position pour affronter les défis qui accablent actuellement le continent. C’est mon espoir, et c’est notre espoir.

Q: Y a-t-il une nouvelle approche en termes de position régionale par rapport à la COP 17?

R: Je pense que nous ne pouvons pas changer de position de temps en temps. Nous devons nous concentrer sur les positions que nous avons adoptées lors de la conférence de Copenhague, appelée aussi COP 15. Pour la première fois, les pays africains se sont réunis pour avoir une voix commune, et cela a constitué la position africaine. J’espère que le même esprit prévaudra à Durban.

Q: De quoi l’Afrique a-t-elle besoin pour le moment, afin de lutter contre les changements climatiques?

R: Nous avons besoin de développement. Et nous ne pouvons pas être davantage pénalisés du fait des changements climatiques, qui se présentent comme une conséquence des problèmes qui ont été causés par d’autres. C’est notre point de départ. Et c’est pourquoi nous disons que nous avons besoin de soutien pour relever ces défis. Avec cela, nous ne demandons pas trop.

Q: Pourquoi les négociateurs mettent-ils du temps à conclure un accord qui durera?

R: Ce n’est pas une chose facile à faire parce que le sujet est assez compliqué. Il aborde d’autres aspects très importants qui sont fondamentaux pour la vie. Ils comprennent, entre autres, l’agriculture et la sécurité alimentaire, les questions de santé, et l’emploi. Au même moment, demander aux pays de réduire leurs émissions de gaz à effet de serre effleure directement leurs voies de développement.

 Il existe actuellement un argument selon lequel les voies de développement des pays en développement ne devraient pas être arrêtées à cause des émissions créées par d’autres pays il y a plusieurs années, alors qu’ils étaient sur leur chemin de développement.

Q: Que se passera-t-il si le Protocole de Kyoto n’arrive pas à survivre après la COP 17?

R: Non, je ne pense pas que l’accord de Kyoto soit dans une position de mourir à l’instant. Ce dont nous devons nous rendre compte est que les gens doivent s’unir pour sauver l’humanité, la terre et s’assurer que les générations futures auront un avenir meilleur. (FIN)

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)

MIchelle Bachelet, directrice exécutive de l'ONU-Femmes. Credit: Sriyantha Walpola/IPS

Rousbeh Legatis s’entretient avec MICHELLE BACHELET, directrice exécutive de l’ONU-Femmes

NATIONS UNIES, 28 Nov (IPS) – Impliquer les femmes dans la prise de décisions et la gestion des ressources est une nécessité fondamentale pour toute mesure efficace visant à faire face aux conséquences multiformes, menaçant la vie, des changements climatiques, affirme la directrice exécutive de l’ONU-Femmes.Se tournant vers Durban, en Afrique du Sud, où les dirigeants du monde discuteront des politiques futures de lutte contre les changements climatiques du 28 novembre au 9 décembre, Michelle Bachelet demande aux dirigeants d’assurer que “les paroles deviennent réalité”, pour une participation totale des femmes à tous les niveaux des négociations, et une “conclusion qui répond aux besoins des femmes et fait la promotion de leur autonomisation”.

Les femmes et les filles – qui constituent la majorité des pauvres au monde – ont un accès beaucoup plus limité à l’information et aux ressources financières que les hommes; un fait qui les expose à un risque plus élevé des graves effets des changements climatiques, a souligné Bachelet.

Dans la conception et la mise en œuvre des instruments financiers comme le Fonds vert pour le climat, elle exhorte les délégués des gouvernements, les experts internationaux et les acteurs de la société civile réunis à Durban à retenir une approche sensible au genre pour améliorer le sens de la responsabilité.

“Le financement climatique devrait être équitable et répondre aux besoins pressants de tous les membres de la société, et les questions de l’égalité entre les sexes doivent être prises en compte à toutes les étapes du processus de financement”, a-t-elle déclaré à IPS.

Le risque de blessure et de décès dus aux catastrophes naturelles – telles que les inondations, les sécheresses et les glissements de terrain – est systématiquement plus élevé chez les femmes et les enfants, a-t-elle expliqué. “Dans les sociétés injustes, plus de femmes que d’hommes meurent des catastrophes”.

Spécialement les femmes et les filles des zones rurales dans des pays en développement “portent un fardeau particulièrement lourd des changements climatiques” en raison du stress environnemental et de leur responsabilité d’assurer l’eau, la nourriture et l’énergie pour la cuisine et le chauffage.

Elles passent plusieurs heures par jour à collecter et transporter de l’eau, par exemple, et cela devient beaucoup plus difficile dans les zones touchées par la sécheresse, a indiqué Bachelet. “Pour beaucoup de filles, cela signifie rater l’école et perdre une éducation”.

Entre 1980 et 2010, le nombre moyen d’événements météorologiques extrêmes a plus que doublé, soulignant le “besoin pressant d’investir dans les femmes et les filles et de promouvoir l’égalité des sexes”.

Bachelet a parlé au correspondant d’IPS à l’ONU, Rousbeh Legatis, des besoins des femmes dans le contexte des changements climatiques et de la manière de remodeler la politique mondiale sur le climat.

Voici quelques extraits de l’entretien.

Q: Quels sont les besoins des femmes, et ont-elles un rôle particulier à jouer quand il s’agit des changements climatiques et des stratégies d’adaptation?

R: Les femmes ont besoin de chances égales et de droits égaux. Cela comprend le droit de participer aux décisions relatives aux changements climatiques. Les femmes ont besoin d’être activement engagées dans les processus qui affectent leur vie – de l’urbanisme qui vise à renforcer la résistance des communautés aux chocs climatiques, en passant par la fourniture de services tels que l’eau potable et des projets d’irrigation dans une communauté rurale, au développement d’une technologie d’énergie propre qui vise à réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre.

Trop souvent, les femmes sont exclues des consultations. Elles ne sont pas à la table de prise de décisions et leur absence rend les programmes et stratégies moins sensibles et efficaces. Il existe des preuves empiriques pour montrer que l’implication des femmes dans la prise de décisions et la gestion des ressources peut produire des résultats environnementaux positifs.

Des preuves provenant de l’Inde et du Népal suggèrent que l’implication des femmes dans la prise de décisions soit associée à une meilleure gestion des ressources communautaires, telles que les forêts. Une étude menée dans 130 pays a révélé que les pays ayant une représentation plus élevée de femmes au parlement étaient plus enclins à ratifier les traités internationaux sur l’environnement.

En plus du fait d’engager les femmes dans la prise de décisions, les stratégies climatiques doivent intégrer des considérations de genre qui sont spécifiques à chaque situation. Dans des zones rurales en Afrique, par exemple, il faut tenir compte des besoins des femmes agricultrices, qui sont responsables de 60 à 80 pour cent de la production alimentaire ainsi que de la nutrition de leurs familles. Trop souvent, les femmes agricultrices n’ont pas accès aux droits à la propriété, la terre et au crédit, et cela réduit les rendements des cultures et menace la sécurité alimentaire.

L’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture souligne que l’élimination de l’écart entre les hommes et les femmes dans l’accès aux ressources et aux intrants agricoles augmenterait les rendements dans les fermes des femmes de 20 à 30 pour cent et accroîtrait la production agricole dans les pays en développement de 2,5 à 4,0 pour cent, ce qui pourrait à son tour réduire le nombre de personnes sous-alimentées dans le monde de 12 à 17 pour cent ou de 100 de 150 millions de personnes.

Q: Voyez-vous assez de sensibilisation sur la situation spécifique des femmes, et l’implication des perspectives et expériences des femmes lorsque les décideurs engagent des discussions sur la façon d’affronter les changements climatiques et sur comment s’adapter au changement des circonstances environnementales?

R: La sensibilisation s’est certainement intensifiée sur cette question, en particulier parmi les dirigeants et les décideurs politiques. Nous notons des changements dans les attitudes et les politiques. Le secrétaire général de l’ONU, Ban Ki-moon, a encouragé la participation égale des femmes pour relever les défis des changements climatiques en 2009; certains gouvernements parlent des dimensions relatives au genre dans les changements climatiques et l’égalité des sexes est incluse dans l’Accord de 2010 à Cancun.

La prochaine étape, c’est de s’assurer que les paroles deviennent réalité sur le terrain et que les femmes participent aux processus de prise de décisions. Si nous considérons le financement du climat, par exemple, les considérations relatives au genre ont une histoire de ne pas être systématiquement intégrées dans leur conception.

En réponse, l’ONU-Femmes travaille avec des partenaires pour s’assurer que le nouveau Fonds vert pour le climat ne répète pas cette erreur et intègre la question de genre dès le début en incluant le principe de l’égalité des sexes dans ses activités et son suivi des impacts et des résultats.

En plus du niveau de la politique internationale, les femmes doivent être pleinement engagées au niveau national, sur le ‘front intérieur’, où des stratégies nationales sont conçues et mises en œuvre, des budgets sont élaborés, et des services fournis afin d’atténuer ou de s’adapter aux changements climatiques.

Malheureusement, les femmes demeurent sous-représentées dans les parlements nationaux et spécialement dans les ministères qui sont au cœur de la prise de décisions sur les changements climatiques et leur viabilité. Globalement, les femmes occupent seulement 16 pour cent des postes ministériels et parmi celles-ci, seules 19 pour cent sont dans la finance et le commerce; sept pour cent dans l’environnement, les ressources naturelles et l’énergie, et seulement trois pour cent dans les sciences et la technologie.

L’absence des femmes dans les prises de décisions nationales entrave leur capacité à influencer les politiques et les budgets. Cela limite l’inclusion des considérations relatives au genre dans l’agenda sur la gestion environnementale, le développement durable et les changements climatiques. (FIN)

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)

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.

The reality of a globalized economy seems to be that poverty is its only sustainable phenomenon, says entrepreneur Gunter Pauli in this column.

BERLIN, Aug 8 (Tierramérica).- For decades the world economy has been on a path towards globalization. The drive to achieve ever larger economies of scale at ever lower marginal costs pushed manufacturing to standardize, slashing expenses by outsourcing and supply chain management, consolidating suppliers, eliminating unnecessary in-house middle management, pushing for mergers and acquisitions, purging excess to deliver better returns to investors and ever lower prices to customers, thus strengthening their purchasing power and bringing more citizens into the sought-after middle class.

This process of globalization-driven growth is supposed to have a trickle-down effect, bringing wealth to many while more middle class members rise from rags into riches.

But the reality of a globalised economy seems to be that poverty is its only sustainable phenomenon. While one can claim there has been growth and market expansion, the number of people living on less than one dollar a day has never been so high.

Controlling the population explosion has been considered one of the key factors in bringing equitable and social development to everyone on the globe. But population control is simply not enough.

The most critical though least debated action required is changing the business model.

Our economic system has long been driven by efficiency without ever considering sufficiency. Greed, not need, has been the muse of the ranks of business. And the gap between the world’s richest and the poorest has never been so large.

The Blue Economy proposes that we respond to basic needs with what we have. The time has come to stop consuming more than the carrying capacity of our earth.

We have to introduce innovations and technologies that cascade nutrients, energy, and matter the way ecosystems do, so that we can exit the trap of scarcity and enter the world of sufficiency for all living sentient beings, not only the human species.

Amory Lovins and his energy experts at the Rocky Mountain Institute have proven that modern society reached Peak Oil in 2007, meaning that annual extraction of fossil fuels reached its highest point, subsequently beginning a long decline in reserves. With Peak Oil, reducing consumption and searching for renewables became an absolute necessity.

But the end of the age of unlimited access to fossil fuel brings another “peak” with it: Peak Globalization. Companies that have undergone a brutal transformation to become the global players will now face a downturn in their underlying growth dynamics.

The winners will be the small and medium-sized companies, inspired by millions of entrepreneurs who will respond to basic needs for all with what is locally available.

This shift permits the design of a competitive business world where free trade and free direct foreign investment are not the key to economic success.

The new business model will provide opportunities for the local risk taker who is capable of creating a broader coalition of economic and social activities with multiple revenues and multiple benefits, going beyond the straightjacket of the core business and core competence mantra of the highly standardized globalized world and its fetish of discounted cash flow analysis.

The shift away from the Harvard Business School model, which forces management to focus on one product and one process at a time, will insure that David will win against Goliath.

He will win not because of privileged access to global capital, labor, energy, and mineral markets, but because the drive towards globalization has left the giants of industry extremely vulnerable.

And unlike companies listed in the Fortune 500, few entrepreneurs aspire to replace the giants; rather they are happy with the 2-3 percent market share each can nibble off their formidable opponents.

This new paradigm will facilitate the arrival of decentralized production and consumption systems that are now technically and competitively viable in all sectors of the economy. including mining, forestry, agriculture, metals, chemistry, energy, paper and pulp and so many more.

The portfolio of 100 innovations described in The Blue Economy, and their growing successes on the market in all four corners of the world demonstrate that these individual breakthroughs are not isolated cases but are part of a new trend which I call “The End of Globalization”.

While its complete penetration of our social and economic tissue may take another few decades, it is already shaping competitive forces, driven by local needs and local resources.

This will shape a new society in which jobs are generated, the best products for health and environment are cheaper, and social capital is created by simply being more productive and competitive.

After all, that is what is expected of the homo economic: achieving much more with much less. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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