adaptation « Climate Equity

Observed around the world with varying degrees of curiosity, high expectations and hopes, skepticism, potential good will or schadenfreude, Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has embarked on probably the furthest reaching energy transformation of any industrialized country by its recent government decision – confirmed by a parliamentary vote end of June – to phase out nuclear energy by 2022.  This will be a costly endeavor, no doubt, a multibillion-dollar experiment to improve the country’s electricity grid and scale up generation and use of renewable energy domestically.  If Germany’s great energy transformation effort succeeds, other industrialized countries will have a harder time arguing that a low-carbon energy transformation will necessarily cost jobs, reduce a country’s economic growth and threaten its global competitiveness. 

Yet, the German experiment can only then be judged a true success, if Germany does not fund its national energy transformation  at the expense of its international obligations and pledges to help developing countries finance their own low-carbon and climate-resilient development.  Funding both the energy transformation at home and internationally at the same time, without short-cuts and excuses:  this  will set Germany apart from the rest of the industrialized world and cement a true German leadership position in climate actions globally ….. (more…)

According to Michelle Bachelet, the former Chilean President and now the Executive Director of UN Women, the UN’s new agency promoting women’s rights and their full participation in global politics, “Women’s strength, women’s industry, women’s wisdom are humankind’s greatest untapped resource.” And in her first 100-day work plan as head of the new entity, she has put one big issue front and center on the agenda: promoting coherence with respect to gender equality and gender awareness within the UN system and its processes.  A good starting point for this endeavour: the UNFCCC and its executive director, Christiana Figueres… (more…)

Now that the political decision was made in Cancun in December to set up a global Green Climate Fund, the task turns to the only seemingly more mundane and less glamorous work of figuring out what the GCF should look like and what it can and should do.  Provided, of course that there will be a significant chunk of money flowing through a new GCF.  However, this seems less than clear and might be the biggest of several major design challenges such as its governance facing the new fund…. (more…)

With just a few negotiation days left and the high-level segment of the COP 16 in Cancun now officially started, ministers and their teams face a stark choice in deciding what kind of global climate fund they should throw their support behind – one that will largely continue the traditional donor-recipient relationship between industrialized countries and developing countries and mimic development aid flows (model of the World Bank climate investment funds) or the one which puts that relationship on a new footing and restores developing countries’ faith in the seriousness of the developed countries commitments (a larger scale and improved Adaptation Fund model).  Given this introduction, it is not difficult to figure out which of the two strongly opposing options I personally favor…. (more…)

Well, let’s start with the good news first: the European Union and its 27 member countries have been good to their word and delivered a summary report on fast-start-finance commitments in time for the COP 16 in Cancun.  It is to be EUR 2.2  billion in 2010. As such, the EU — and the member countries who have taken the exercise serious enough to provide specific individual project information – have to be commended, and I give them a B+ for effort and initiative.  It cannot be easy for the EU Commission to try to bring 27 rascally students, pardon, countries, to order and make them do their homework in time.

Other industrialized countries, such as Japan, the United States or Australia have likewise joined in a mad scramble pre-Cancun — maybe as part of the peer pressure the early EU commitment for such a report created — and offered their take on how they are contributing to fulfilling the collective political pledge  industrialized countries made a year ago in Copenhagen to come up with US$ 10 billion in “new and additional” fast start money for climate change action in developing countries for 2010, 2011 and 2012 respectively.

Alas, the execution of these reporting efforts is still insufficient.  I’ll give the EU effort, the most comprehensive of the FSF reporting by industrialized countries, a C – at present, but hold out hope for, and encourage,  improvement, both short-term (for the next report) and long-term (in the way climate funding is delivered).

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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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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.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U04UOwkX2r4[/youtube]

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…)

Just a few days ago, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the financing arm of the EU and its 27 member countries, formally joined the ranks of other multilateral development banks and the World Bank  in creating its own climate change fund — thus contributing to the proliferation of new climate funds, supporting the claim of other development organizations to be best equipped to manage large climate financing sums and thereby further undermining a future leadership role of the UNFCCC and its  financing mechanisms in the emerging global climate finance architecture.

The new Interact Climate Change Fund, ICCF was established in cooperation with the French development agency (AFD) as well as a group of 15 bilateral European development groups organized in the Association of European Development Finance Institutions (EDFI).  Focus of the new Fund, whose finance volume was not publicly disclosed, are private sector investments in climate change projects in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, Asia and Africa, all to be undertaken in the course of this year, which the ICCF aims to support by matching investment amounts.  The Fund will act as “catalytic lead investor” in renewable energy and clean technology projects to extend energy access and provide energy stability in developing and emerging market economies.

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Last week the so-called Petersberg Climate Dialogue ended after two days of meetings, hosted by Germany and Mexico, which had brought environment ministers and representatives of 43 countries to Bonn, Germany.  Amid a lot of mutual reassurances on the need for strengthening the UNFCCC, the promise of a new momentum in international climate talks as well as urgent calls for a higher level on ambition in emissions reductions, the critical issue of climate change financing received some attention, albeit little new cash.

No, no, this was not a financial coming-out party of the countries present, during which check books were graciously pulled out of the pockets and large checks for adaptation and mitigation efforts written.  Financially, Petersburg provided only peanuts, even if Germany as host felt compelled to promise a small contribution of EUR 10 million to the Adaptation Fund.

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