Climate Equity

One might disagree over sources, amounts, governance or beneficiaries, but nobody seriously involved in global climate talks doubts that climate finance, especially how to secure the long-term funding needed for migration and adaptation globally, is — to speak with the words of UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres — “the central propeller that drives climate change action”. 

So, the recent initiative of the Mexican and Swiss governments to convene a two day meeting of  high-level government representatives from 46 countries in Geneva to discuss the sources and governance structure of long-term climate finance in order to prepare the ground (mostly through the building of trust via open dialogue — under the Chatham House Rule) for a far-reaching and binding climate finance agreement at the COP 16 end of November is commendable.  Talk they must, the more open and “out-of-the-box” the better, but the buck (in form of some vague commitments of  future funding some time, somehow)  cannot stop there. 

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On Monday, the climate negotiations go into their next round toward the COP 16 in Cancun, when UNFCCC delegates come together in Bonn.  But the hopes of those expecting a boon in talks for a 2012 post-Kyoto climate regime are likely to be busted.  Already before the meeting starts, it seems certain that the results will be minimal — at best. Turnout of negotiators, in the midst of vacation season, is expected to be low.  Even lower are observers’ expectations: Basically, the only joint approach currently thinkable is one blockading further progress in emissions cuts, in which the industrialized countries and the largest emerging market countries operating as BASIC group (Brazil, India, China and South Africa) seem to be, sadly, in agreement…. 

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This entry was written by Janne Rohe, who works at the Heinrich Boell Foundation’s Regional Office for Mexico, Centralamerica and the Caribbean.

Climate finance has played an important role in the ongoing debates within climate change negotiations and is one of the relevant issues to be discussed at COP 16. Yet the debate has focused so far more on donor than on recipient countries.

Although in Mexico climate finance has been a popular topic at governmental level and for the Mexican delegation within UNFCCC negotiations, the international debate has not yet reached all sectors and local agendas in the country. This is why the Mexican NGO Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental (Mexican Center of Environmental Law) in coordination with the World Resources Institute (WRI), Oxfam Mexico and the Mexican Office of the Heinrich Boell Stiftung (HBS) organized a two-day workshop “Financing the change, without changing the climate” in Mexico City in mid July. Actors from civil society, the private sector and the academic field participated on this occasion and learned about recent international negotiations, finance mechanisms and institutions, open challenges, criteria for a possible agreement and financial options for Mexico. The discussions during the workshop mainly reflected the discourse on the national level. (more…)

Illegal logging and trading in illegally sourced wood products is globally one of the major causes of deforestation and forest degradation in many developing countries.  It not only robs cash-strapped developing country governments of much needed revenues, it also destroys the livelihood of worldwide several hundreds of million of people who depend on forests. The destruction of forests — illegal or government-sanctioned — is also a significant contributor to global carbon dioxide emissions, according to some estimates close to 20 percent.  So, it must be considered good news that a new study by the British Chatham House finds by looking at twelve major producer, processing and consumer countries that illegal logging globally has fallen by 22 percent over the course of the last decade, or more specifically by about 50 to 75 percent in the Brazilian Amazon, by 75 percent in Indonesia, and still by half in Cameroon.

As a result up to 17 million hectares of forest are estimated to have been protected from degradation in the five tropical timber producers studied. This adds up to at least 1.2 billion tons  and possibly many more of avoided carbon dioxide emissions since 2002.  In comparison: in 2009, Germany, globally the sixth biggest CO2 polluter, blasted 760 million tons into the atmosphere. (more…)

It has taken the 192 member states of the United Nations a little while (what, four years?) to come to a decision on how to best promote gender equality within the international institution.  The result, agreed upon by General Assembly in a resolution beginning of July, is a newly formed agency within the UN, the UN Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women.  

Now, ordinarily, one would refer to this UN unit henceforth under its acronym.  Unfortunately, “UNEGEEW”  doesn’t exactly role from the tongue.  Nor does it ring with positive connotations — in US English, “eew” is an utterance of distaste and disgust.  So, with tongue-in-cheek and decidedly unimaginative, the entity will be known in the future as “UN Women” or “ONU Femmes” in French.  One can only hope that this nomen turns out to be a good omen,  even as it downplays the gender dimension of its work…  At least, the new structure provides some clarity and with the expected appointment of the head of the new UN Women agency at the rank of an Under-Secretary-General, directly reporting to the Secretary General and included in all senior-level management circles some much needed authority boost for gender equality issues at the United Nations. (more…)

The German conservative-liberal coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel (who in an earlier incarnation was portraying herself as international climate policy champion) has apparently decided that in the face of budgetary shortfalls and fiscal consolidation its international climate finance commitments can be considered nill and void.  This seems the only explanation for the cabinet’s recent decision to appropriate in its draft budget for 2011 and its projection for 2012 under the budget lines “Climate Protection Measures in Developing Countries” for the Development Cooperation and Environment Ministries only one dismal figure: ZERO.

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The real innovative climate financing resource that everybody is looking for might have a name. It could be Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, George Soros or Oprah Winfrey. Forget about carbon taxes, airline levies and cruise line surcharges which a UN High Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing – including billionaire George Soros —  is currently mulling over in an increasingly desperate search to find new finance sources to pay for mitigation and adaptation effort in developing countries. They are controversial and politically hard to implement.  For the real feel-good and quick solution, the 20-member expert panel should look no further than, lets say Seattle, Omaha or New York. 

Especially now that both Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are appealing to their fellow US billionnaires to follow their lead and to donate at least half of their wealth for good causes. It could be done with a simple stroke of a pen (or keyboard, nowadays). In fact, this is probably exactly how those enormous fortunes have ballooned in the age of unfettered financial speculation…

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The good news first: going only by sheer numbers, the European Union is delivering on the fast start funding commitment it gave on behalf of its 27 member countries during the COP15 in Copenhagen as part of the Copenhagen Accord political final declaration. 

The bad news: it is far from certain whether that commitment represents “new and additional” money as promised in the Copenhagen Accord, or rather the ingenious creativity of the European block – very much wanting to be perceived publicly as the “good guys” on the question of delivering money to fund adaptation and mitigation actions in developing countries — in double-counting, recycling, overestimating or blatantly hiding the real figures, as some observers charge. 

During a side event at the Bonn climate talks on Thursday, the representatives of the Commission and several  EU countries delivered ten fast-paced presentations, choke-full of numbers which aimed at knocking out the air – and the many doubts – from the listeners in an already pretty airless overcrowded meeting room.  This was a more detailed presentation than the information gathered from an EU document leaked two weeks ago, which had left observers of fast track climate financing underwhelmed.

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In the end, the appointment for the new UN climate change chief came faster than expected and not for the person that was widely considered — at least in the press speculations of the last weeks — to be the front runner to replace departing Yvo de Boer who had announced his resignation as UNFCCC Executive Secretary just two months after Copenhagen.  In place of Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the former South African Environment and current Tourism Minister, on whose win most climate bookies had placed their bets, Christiana Figueres (pictured at the center), a 53 year old Costa Rican veteran climate negotiator, was chosen yesterday by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon just a week before climate talks are to resume in Bonn. She certainly is a UNFCCC insider having been involved in UN climate negotiations since 1994 in many functions, including repeatedly as contact groups chair for the CDM or emissions trading. But can Christiana Figueres catalyze climate talks with only six months to go to the next crucial COP in Cancun?  

Personally, I hope she has at least a good fighting change, mainly because of some of her strengths and distinct qualifications …  among which I would certainly count the fact that it is MADAME Figueres not MISTER Figueres assuming leadership of the UNFCCC Secretariat.  (more…)

Source: http://kerry.senate.gov

After months of haggling, praying, fearing, hoping, threatening and cajoling, the Senate version of a comprehensive climate and energy bill was finally released just yesterday by US Senators Joe Liebermann (an Independent from Connecticut) and John Kerry (a Democrat from Massachusetts).  The draft bill — no doubt close to the outer limit of the politically feasible in the current US domestic political climate and carefully calibrated to reconcile many diverging domestic views and competing lobbies — is nevertheless a disappointment, particularly for those hoping for a significant commitment of the United States to contribute to international adaptation efforts.

Aptly named the American Power Act (APA), the 987-page behemoth only in a short section and one subtitle in few words mentions international adaptation and instead underscores national interests over international cooperation. Indeed, a 4-page summary of the main sponsors reads more like a glossy sales brochure intend on convincing the American voter that the far-reaching climate and energy legislation proposal will benefit the American consumer, secure American leadership in global climate policy, increase American energy independence and overall ensure the continuation of the American way of life — no word about American responsibility (if one believes in the polluter-pays-principle) to help those people and countries most severely affected by global climate change. (more…)