The future generation

Amidst the lobbying, politics and negotiations, we need to remind ourselves we want the next generation to enjoy the world and its environment as we have.

Row over 2020 emissions goal sours Bali talks

The news coming late Tuesday from the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali is not so good. The latest update from the New Zealand website: Stuff.co.nz

The European Union has taken a veiled swipe at the United States at climate talks in Bali over Washington's efforts to remove tough 2020 emissions guidelines for rich nations from a draft text.

The UN-led talks have become dominated by disputes over whether a final text, or Bali roadmap, should omit any reference that rich nations should axe greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Any watering down or outright removal of this non-binding range would anger developing nations, who are demanding rich nations do more to cut their own greenhouse gas emissions.

The row overshadowed the 10th anniversary celebrations of the Kyoto Protocol, which delegates at the Bali talks are seeking to replace or expand from 2013.

"Of course it is crucial for the European Union, and not only for the European Union," EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas told reporters in Bali.

"In order to gather an effective fight against climate change we need this range of reductions for developed countries by 2020," he said.

The Bali talks aim to bind all nations to greenhouse gas curbs from 2013 but poor nations want rich countries to do more before they agree. Negotiators are working hard on a formula to draw in the developing world, particularly India and China.

The annual two-week talks are expected to wrap up by late Friday and negotiations usually go right up to the last minute.

"Good progress has been made but it's not a done deal yet," the head of the UN's Climate Change Secretariat, Yvo de Boer, told a separate meeting of finance ministers.

"It's probably going to take a couple of sleepless nights to bring all countries, rich and poor, on board."

Environment groups are concerned US-led efforts at the Bali talks could lead to the removal of any reference to 2020 guidelines. The United States says including the guidelines would prejudge the outcome of negotiations.

"We need to put a guard rail around the negotiations for the next two years," said Hans Verolme of the WWF environmental group. He said the 25-40 per cent range was needed

Tuesday's update in Bali

With the start of the crucial High-Level segment of the Climate Change Conference in Bali only a day away, agreement has been reached on several important issues under discussion. Of special note was a decision which heralds the launch of the Kyoto Protocol’s Adaptation Fund, set up to finance concrete adaptation projects in developing country Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. Parties agreed on the Global Environment Facility (GEF) as the secretariat and the World Bank as trustee of the Fund, which will become operational with the start of the Protocol’s first commitment period in 2008.

Meanwhile, continuing speculation on the issue of emission reduction targets prompted a detailed clarification from UNFCCC Secretary Yvo de Boer. “25%-40% by 2020 is an emission reduction range, it’s not a target, and it’s something that governments said earlier this year they should be guided by in the context of the negotiations,” he said, adding that “contrary to some reports, these figures do not prejudge the outcome of the negotiations.”

Mr. de Boer continued, ”this range does not represent concrete emmission reduction targets for industrialized countries and this conference will not produce an agreement on specific targets per country,” pointing out that this was not what it had set out to do. What it did aim to achieve, he explained, was to set the wheels in motion in terms of launching a process going into the future.

Competing with Yoko Ono and John Carey at Bali

Caption: A young boy from the Tanjung Benoa village, planting mangroves last Sunday in Bali.

Yesterday afternoon I was invited to be on a panel for the Tsunami in Indonesia and joined Mar’ie Mohammed, Chairman PMI and Kuntoro, head of BRR in the Indonesian Pavilion. The turnout was poor, around 20 journalists. We discovered that at the same time, Yoko Ono and former President hopeful, John Carey were billed together at the same time at a nearby venue.They drew a capacity crowd.

In the main conference, progress is slow, painfully slow. The next few days will reveal more clearly where the negotiations are heading.

Today, the start of the second week of negotiations at the Climate Change Conference in Bali, the various contact groups were intensifying efforts to maximize progress before the arrival of Ministers for the High-Level segment beginning on Wednesday.

Talks on a future agreement continued today, and among the topics under debate was the need for quantified national emission objectives for industrialized countries - guided by the range of 25-40% reductions by 2020 – and the need for emissions to peak in the next 10-15 years. Parties also acknowledged the need to strengthen existing commitments and enhance their implementation, especially with regard to developing countries.

Further discussions focused on technology cooperation to support emission reduction efforts. UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said that "technology must be at the heart of the future response to climate change.” Environmentally sound technologies and sustainable development approaches, he said, could "help developing countries leapfrog the carbon intensive stage of economic development.”

The inclusion of performance indicators for monitoring and evaluating techology transfer activities was also debated today, as well as a proposal for a technology leveraging facility under the auspices of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Its aim would be to turn assessments already carried out on the technology needs of developing countries into concrete project proposals. In this context, Mr. de Boer stated that technology cooperation between developed and developing countries - and increasingly between developing countries themselves - was neeeded “on an unprecedented scale.”

According to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA), fossil fuels will remain dominant in decades to come, accounting for between 72% and 81% of global primary energy in 2030. Mr. de Boer stressed, however, that “we cannot afford to let the industralized countries’ climate-unfriendly growth become the global norm.” With investments and the wide deployment of appropriate technologies such as carbon capture and storage, he said, “the fight against climate change need not be a fight against oil, but rather a fight against emissions.”

He went on to explain that significant emission reductions can be achieved with existing technologies or those that are closing to becoming commercially available, but that more incentives were needed “to push technologies out of the laboratories and into the market." He added that the carbon market was a key tool in achieving this.

Since the private sector will account for 86% of projected investments in 2030, businesses, he said, were “the key to a low-carbon future,” underlining that appropriate government policies were neeeded to create the right conditions for private investors. These could include binding targets, tax incentives and policies to promote the shift to less carbon-intensive energy sources.

According to the Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change, markets for low-carbon energy products are likely to be worth at least 500 billion USD per year by 2050. Mr. de Boer pointed out that the transition to a low-carbon economy could become a platform to new economic growth, new jobs, new manufacturing and service industries and new markets. Responding to climate change, he said, was creating windows of opportunity, and that “instead of closing the shutters, the opportunity must be seized.”

TREE PLANTING IN BALI

MEDIA ADVISORY

Event: Red Cross Red Crescent to plant one mangrove for each of the 10,000 participants at Bali climate change conference

Representatives from Red Cross and Red Crescent societies from all over the world, along with local community members, will be planting mangroves on behalf of the participants of the UN Climate Change conference this Sunday.
The Red Cross Red Crescent is urging participants in Bali to ensure that adaptation to climate change – an effort that would reduce the impacts of climate change on the most vulnerable people – is on equal footing with measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Red Cross Red Crescent is working with communities in more than 40 countries to develop and implement measures that will reduce the impact of climate related disasters that are expected to continue to increase in frequency and intensity. Mangroves can add important protection against storms and tidal surges, reducing the impact that such events have on lives and livelihoods.

Details:
Date: 9 December 2007
Time: 15:30 Central Indonesia Time
Location: Village Tanjung Benoa, less than 10 minutes from the UNFCCC, (pleas find attached map)
Transport: A bus will be available from Westin Hotel starting at 15:00
For further information, or to RSVP, please contact Zach Abraham in Bali on +62 (0) 812 699 2680

END