Unless leaders act promptly, climate change and environmental degradation will only worsen and cause greater global damage, scientists warn. Credit: Crustmania/ CC by 2.0

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jan 15 2013 (IPS)

A majority of major economies have made significant progress in addressing climate change, with countries like South Korea and China taking aggressive action so they can benefit from energy- and resource-efficient economies, a new report released Monday found.

The study by GLOBE International and Grantham Research Institute profiled 33 major economies in an annual examination of climate and energy legislation. 32 of them, including the United States, made significant progress in 2012, while only Canada regressed.

“The study reveals a major trend is underway. More and more countries are acting on climate,” said Adam Matthews, secretary general of GLOBE International, an organisation of legislators.

While major international climate conferences such as the Conference of the Parties (COP) held in Doha in November and December 2012 have made little progress, cities, states and national governments around the world are taking action.

The political reality, Matthews told IPS, is that local and national climate regulations and legislation must come first. “An environment minister in Doha couldn’t commit his country to an ambitious carbon reduction target unless the country has already decided to chart a new economic course,” he said.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, agreed with Matthews’ analysis. Countries do not have the “political space” to move at the international level unless they have already moved at the domestic level, she said in a statement.

“Domestic legislation is critical because it is the linchpin between action on the ground and…international agreement,” she said.

Wide-ranging discussion at local, regional and national levels will be needed before countries can draft and pass legislation that will actually shift their economies onto a low-carbon pathway.

In many parts of the world, these discussions are already taking place, with the study reporting significant progress in this area by 18 of 33 countries in 2012. South Korea and China are among the 18 countries along with emerging economies such as Mexico and Indonesia.

“What’s happening in South Korea is really impressive. They are striving to be the leader in the shift to a low-carbon economy,” Matthews said.

In 2012, South Korea passed legislation to begin emissions trading in 2015, while Japan introduced a carbon tax. Mexico passed The General Law on Climate Change to reduce its emissions by 30 percent by 2020. Bangladesh passed the Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority Act. Kenya developed its Climate Change National Action Plan.

China has begun to draft its national climate change law, and local legislation was passed in the city of Shenzhen to manage greenhouse gas emissions.

China doesn’t get nearly the credit it deserves for its efforts to reduce carbon emissions, Matthews said. “Careers are being made there on making those reductions,” he added.

The United States made some progress with a regulation change that allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions. Although the fossil fuel industry appealed, courts upheld the decision in late December.

Canada was the only country to reverse course by abandoning its climate obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. “Canada has clearly gone backwards. It is a great shame,” Matthews said.

Countries that take action on climate change understand that their national and local economies will benefit from improved energy efficiency and security, reduced costs and increased competitiveness, said Terry Townshend, co-author of the report.

“There is a major shift in the dynamic around climate. Countries are now seeing great opportunities for their national interests by taking action now,” Townshend said in an interview.

National climate-related legislation has surged in the past three or four years. Although these laws aren’t always designated as climate legislation and instead are measures to improve energy use or reduce air pollution, they do have positive impacts on the climate, Townshend said.

At the last U.N. climate conference in Doha, nations confirmed details for a new negotiation process with the goal of a new global climate treaty ready for ratification in 2015 and entering into force in 2020. If a new international climate treaty is to be ready by 2015, many countries will need to have national legislation in place or pending, Townshend added.

But this upcoming timetable may not take action soon enough. Climate scientists have warned that global carbon emissions must begin to decline before 2020 in order for a two-degree (Celsius) limit on climate heating to remain a reasonable possibility. Many countries, especially the least-developed ones and small island states, want the global target to be less than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

National legislation has a long way to go in order to keep a global temperature rise below two degrees Celsius, Townshend said. In order to help countries, the first GLOBE Climate Legislation Summit is being held this week in London, where senior legislators from 33 countries are meeting to share their experiences of putting domestic climate legislation into place.

“There’s a lot of experience, sample legislation and lessons learned to be shared,” he said. Between now and the end of 2015, GLOBE International hopes to facilitate more bilateral and multilateral meetings in order to help more countries become involved with domestic climate legislation.

“There is an awful lot of work to do, but this is a very positive development,” said Townsend.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), discussing next steps on the climate change agenda. Credit: UN Photo/JC McIlwaine

By Christiana Figueres
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 14 2012 (IPS)

The results of the United Nations climate change conference that closed in Doha, Qatar on Dec. 8 show once again that the international negotiations are moving steadily in the right direction, but alarmingly slow.

At the heart of these negotiations is nothing less than the most challenging energy transformation the world has ever seen.

Past energy transitions have taken a long time to unfold. Firewood was mankind’s first energy source and was not displaced by coal until the 18th century. With an increasing pace of technological advance, it took one century for oil to replace coal as the primary global energy source.

Climate change is not the only motivation to move toward more renewables and enhanced energy efficiency, but it has injected unequivocal urgency into an otherwise normal evolution.

Despite the evident challenge of capital stock turnover in our existing energy systems, time is not on our side. Science tells us that global greenhouse gas emissions must peak this decade and decrease rapidly thereafter. More importantly, peaking of global emissions must occur soon if we are to lessen human costs. Global extreme weather events in every region of the world provide ample proof of the mounting human costs, in particular to the most vulnerable.

The U.N. is the only platform that grants all countries, large and small, access to global decision-making. The shift toward low carbon requires global participation because every single country is already affected by climate change and because of the need to deliberately guide an accelerated global changeover. Furthermore, the scale and pace of economic development driven by technology and the free movement of capital makes global participation essential.

The low-emission economies of today, even on a per capita basis, can and will become high-emission economies of tomorrow faster than was ever possible unless they are adequately supported and encouraged to engineer clean energy futures for themselves.

Following important steps forward over the last two years at Cancun and Durban, in Doha 37 countries (all European Union members, Australia, Belarus, Croatia, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Norway, Switzerland, and Ukraine) adopted legally binding emission reduction targets bringing them collectively to a level 18 percent below their 1990 baselines over the next eight years. The targets are underpinned by stricter accounting rules and are open to further strengthening by 2014.

In addition, in Doha all countries confirmed their determination to reach an agreement applicable to all by December 2015, based on the latest science.

Governments are clearly steering the world toward a major transformation, but have not yet proven their intent through a robust and immediate implementation of what has already been promised. Governments must and can accelerate climate change action, not because of altruistic reasons, but because it is in their national interest to do so.

The U.N. is the venue for global decision-making, but it is not the driver of domestic decisions. Domestic interests in resource sustainability, stability and competitiveness are the powerful drivers of action on climate change.

The U.N. process is the centre of international engagement, but it is not the circumference of action on climate change. In response to the slow but steady progress in international negotiations, and to capitalise on the new low-carbon economy, 33 countries and 18 subnational jurisdictions will have carbon pricing in place in 2013, covering 30 percent of the global economy and 20 percent of emissions.

By 2011, 118 countries had climate change legislation or renewable energy targets, more than double the number in 2005. There are increasing local, voluntary efforts to reduce deforestation and emissions not covered by the U.N. framework. In 2010, renewables accounted for 20.3 percent of worldwide electricity, compared to 3.4 percent in 2006.

Investment in clean energy has surpassed one trillion dollars and is expected to grow to almost 400 billion dollars annually.

The signs of movement toward low-carbon are everywhere, but are still insufficient. Low-carbon must soon be the norm and not the novelty.

Governments have charted the course, but they are moving slowly. None are at maximum potential. Neither is anyone else. The private sector can and should move more purposefully. The finance sector can and should invest more aggressively. Technology can and must advance more rapidly. No one is exempt from the responsibility, or from the opportunity, to contribute to the solution.

We need maximum effort from everyone. We need to move beyond the zero-sum mentality to cooperative action in pursuit of an urgent shared objective. We need mutually reinforcing efforts to accelerate the momentum toward a low emission economy. Together we can migrate from the politics of blame to the politics of opportunity.

The 2015 agreement must ensure equitable participation of all nations and be responsive to the exigencies of science. Above all, it must be a testament to the will of our generation to act.

Ultimately, history will judge us on whether we have reduced greenhouse gases enough to avoid the worst climate change. The fact is that we can do this right now in ways that both boost the economic sustainability of everyone and at the same time safeguard those most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. And that is why a universal agreement is necessary and possible.

*Christiana Figueres is the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Rich countries came to the U.N. climate talks in Doha intent on delaying needed action on climate change for another three years and a still to be hammered out new global treaty.

Poor communities are often hit hardest by extreme weather events, but have the least say in global negotiations. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

This delay will be extraordinarily expensive and risky.

Every year that fossil fuel emissions fail to decline adds to the cost and reduces the odds that a global temperature rise can be kept below two degrees C.

“Science says emissions need to peak in 2015,” said Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International, as the final plenary of COP 18 concluded last Saturday night, a full day late.

The 195 parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) approved a set of documents called “The Doha Climate Gateway” that does not increase emission reductions or guarantee much-needed financial help to poor countries suffering present and future impacts of climate change.

“Doha is a betrayal of people living with impacts now. And it is a sellout of our children and grandchildren’s future,” said Naidoo.

“The fossil fuel industry won,” said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ director of strategy and policy, who has attended nearly every one of these climate negotiations over the past 18 years.

“The science is clear that four-fifths of known fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground but we continue to burn them like there is no tomorrow,” Meyer said.

“Doha became more of a trade fair…Negotiators protected the interests of corporations and not the needs of people,” he told IPS.

More than 16,000 delegates participated in the two-week conference of the parties (COP) in Doha, Qatar, a country rich in oil and gas in the heart of the Middle East fossil fuel empire.

Meyer, along with representatives from more than 700 civil society organisations, blamed the U.S. for blocking proposals for greater emissions cuts. The U.S. also refused to commit a singly penny to assisting countries hard hit by climate change. U.S. negotiators did acknowledge poor countries were suffering costly damages and losses.

The world has already warmed 0.8 degrees C, altering weather patterns and increasing extreme events which have led to nearly 400,000 deaths and more than 1.2 trillion dollars being lost every year, according a 2011 study.

A delegate from Bangladesh told IPS that climate-related damages cost his country three to four percent of its annual GDP. Climate change, which is also driven by deforestation and land conversion for agriculture, is undercutting development and will push his country’s and other countries’ economies into a steady decline, he said.

To help governments cope, industrialised nations promised to put 100 billion dollars a year into a Green Climate Fund by 2020. To bridge the gap until then, developing nations asked for 60 billion dollars in total by 2015. Britain, Germany and a few other countries promised to contribute six billion dollars.

But the U.S., Canada, Japan and others agreed only to more talks next year.

“The U.S. spends 60 billion dollars on its military marching bands,” said Naidoo.

The only hope is to build a robust grassroots movement to force countries to act in the interest of the public and future generations, he said.

“We have to build a new social movement like (the one) that overcame slavery,” agreed Oxfam International climate change policy advisor Tim Gore.

“We reject what our leaders are doing here. We are more angry, more impassioned to defeat this process,” said Gore.

The COP process is an obstacle because a few big countries can easily block the will of the majority, said Mohamed Aslam, former environment minister and chief negotiator for the Republic of the Maldives.

“The signs of global warming are obvious and we know that the safe limit is to stay below 1.5 C…and yet we are failing to act,” Aslam said in a press conference.

The U.N. spends millions of dollars on these negotiations and they are going nowhere, he said. “We are running out of time. (We) need to take this to another fora,” he said.

What is lacking is a real commitment to reduce global emissions, said Christina Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“What needs to change most is political will,” Figueres told IPS.

In Doha, the U.N. secretary-general announced a world leaders’ summit in 2014 to hammer out emission reduction targets to keep warming below two degrees C. The Doha Climate Gateway confirmed details for a new negotiation track to have a new global climate treaty ready for ratification in 2015 and go into force in 2020.

Under this agreement all countries will likely be obligated to make emission cuts, varying in depth and timing. Without additional cuts before 2020, reductions afterwards will need to be rapid and massive, moving to a zero-fossil fuel emission society in a few decades based on the science.

The Doha agreement includes a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol with the European Union, Australia and a few other countries agreeing to cut fossil fuel emissions between 2013 and 2020. However, they did not set new targets, agreeing instead to a mandatory review of targets in 2014.

The nations involved only represent 12 percent of global emissions, and do not include large developing country emitters like China, India and Brazil. The U.S. has never participated, while Canada and Japan have opted out of the second phase but are supposed to make to make comparable cuts but offered nothing new.

“Rich countries think they can protect themselves from the impacts, leaving the poor with no clear pathway to the future,” said Mohamed Adow of Christian Aid.

“Our leaders have let us down. Civil society will have to lead to get the future we really want,” said Adow.

As sea erosion worsens, coastal residents in Nhon Hai commune in Binh Dinh province use rocks and sandbags to protect their homes. Credit: Thuy Binh/IPS

By Stephen Leahy
DOHA, Qatar, Dec 10 2012 (IPS)

The United Nations climate talks in Doha went a full extra 24 hours and ended without increased cuts in fossil fuel emissions and without financial commitments between 2013 and 2015.

“This an incredibly weak deal,” said Samantha Smith representing the Climate Action Network, a coalition of more than 700 civil society organisations.

“Governments came here with no mandate for action,” Smith said in a press scrum moments after the meeting known as COP 18 ended and the 195 parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) approved a complex package called “The Doha Climate Gateway”.

The Doha Gateway creates a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol to cut fossil fuel emissions by industrialised nations from 2013 to 2020 but does not set new targets. There is also no financial support to help poor countries adapt to impacts of climate change – only agreement for more meetings in 2013. Talks will also begin next year to create a “mechanism” to assess damages and costs for countries suffering losses from climate change.

Finally, the Doha Climate Gateway has an agreed outline for two years of negotiations on a new global climate treaty that would go into legal force in 2020.

“It is impossible to get everyone here to smile….I too am disappointed,” said Qatar’s Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, the COP18 president. Al-Attiyah told Tierramérica * he was surprised countries wanted to make so many changes throughout the two weeks and right up to the final hours.

However, this is a “historic” agreement, Al-Attiyah insisted.

Doha will do nothing to cut emissions that are taking the world to four degrees and more of warming. It offers little in terms of finance to help poor countries cope with climate change, Smith said.

Smith singled out the U.S. and Canada for blocking progress on keys issues. Canada was one of the worst, she said. While profiting from its massive oil sands operations, it was “super-obstructive on finance”.

Industrialised countries promised to put 100 billion dollars a year into a Green Climate Fund by 2020. To bridge the gap till then, developing nations asked for 60 billion dollars in total by 2015. Britain, Germany and few other countries promised to contribute six billion dollars but this is not binding. Under the Doha Climate Gateway, countries agreed to further talks on finance in 2013.

The loss and damage debate was among the most intense during closed meetings, featuring the U.S pitted against island states like the Philippines that are badly impacted by stronger cyclones and sea level rise. The U.S. delegates blocked all references that implied compensation or liability, openly admitting they feared a political backlash at home, according to an anonymous source.

“Loss and damage is huge issue for Central America. We are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change,” said Mónica López Baltodano, of Centro Humboldt Nicaragua, an environmental NGO.

“Honduras and Nicaragua are the number one and number three most vulnerable countries in the world according to the Climate Risk Index,” Baltodano told Tierramérica here in Doha.

The Germanwatch Global Climate Risk Index was released here a few days ago. It said those two countries have been the most affected in terms of lost lives and damages over the past 20 years. In 2011, Thailand, Cambodia, Pakistan and El Salvador were the worst affected by extreme weather events in 2011.

In 2010, at COP 16 in Cancun, there was agreement to find ways to assess and reduce losses and damages from impacts of climate change, including extreme weather events and slow onset events like sea level rise, ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity and desertification.

Developing countries wanted a new institution and framework to deal with loss and damage, but the U.S. was opposed to any new institution. The compromise is for a “new mechanism” to be created in 2013.

A new second phase of the Kyoto Protocol will run from 2013 to 2020. Getting this second phase or commitment is considered very important by developing countries because it has hard-won legal terms that commit countries to making cuts as well as methods for measuring and verifying emission levels.

However, only the European Union, Australia and a few other countries are involved, representing just 12 percent of global emissions. The U.S. has never participated, while Canada and Japan have opted out of the second phase.

None of those in the second Kyoto phase increased their emission cuts pledges. They did agree to a mandatory review of their reduction targets in 2014. Rich countries outside of Kyoto promised to make comparable cuts but offered nothing new here in Doha.

“The COP process is very disappointing,” said Baltodano, who has attended two previous ones. “It’s very clear that countries’ economic interests dominate the negotiations.”

Countries are mainly influenced by the corporate sector and civil society has very little interaction or influence there, she said. “There is a huge space we don’t reach.”

The Doha outcome puts the world on track for three, four or even five degrees of warming, said the delegate from the South Pacific island nation of Nauru who represents the Alliance of Small Island States in the final plenary.

“We’re not talking about how comfortable your people (in developed world) may live but whether our people live,” the delegate said. “The lives of our people are on the line here.”

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.

Food prices will soar and hundreds of millions will starve without urgent action to make major cuts in fossil fuel emissions. That is what is at stake here on the last day of the U.N. climate talks known as COP 18, scientists and activists say.

Lidy Nacpil of Jubilee South Asia Pacific. Nacpil is based in the Philippines, which is currently experiencing devastation as a result of Typhoon Bopha. Credit: Stephen Leahy/IPS

Carbon emissions are already disrupting the world’s climate, making extreme weather events like droughts, floods and storms more damaging. Agriculture and food production are extremely vulnerable to the impacts climate change, several scientific studies show.

“It is very strange there is no emphasis on food security here in Doha,” said Michiel Schaeffer, a scientist with Climate Analytics.

“There is no question climate change poses a major risk to our ability to produce food,” Schaeffer told IPS.

Climate Analytics, along with Germany’s Pik Potsdam Institute, prepared the World Bank report “Turn Down the Heat” that warns many parts of the world won’t be able to grow food if global temperatures rise by four degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit).

The report also warns humanity is on the path to a four-degree-C world, a world with unprecedented heat waves, severe drought, and major floods, with serious impacts on ecosystems and agriculture.

A four-degree-warmer C world means an average of four to 10 degrees warming over land, too warm for many crucial food crops. Large parts of Africa, China, India, Mexico and the southern United States will suffer declines for that reason, said Schaeffer. There will also be significant changes in rainfall patters and higher evaporation levels.

With just 0.8C of warming there have been widespread droughts, flooding and extreme weather events linked to climate change. Food prices have jumped, as large areas of the U.S. grain belt faced drought this year. Food prices will spike when extreme events occur in food-producing areas in the future, he said.

Research shows that even at two degrees C of warming, there will be serious food production problems at regional levels. If temperatures go beyond three degrees, it becomes a global problem. Without major reductions in fossil fuel emissions, a three- to four-degree C world collides with peak population growth.

“This will be catastrophic,” said Schaeffer.

Negotiations are a “million miles from where we need to be to even have a small chance of preventing runaway climate change,” said Lidy Nacpil of Jubilee South Asia Pacific, a network of faith-based and development organisations.

COP 18 is in its final few hours on Friday with no additional emissions cuts on the table. Talks will go late into the night and perhaps continue on Saturday.

“We cannot go back to our countries and tell them that we allowed this to happen, that we condemned our own future,” Nacpil said in a statement.

“African negotiators are throwing their hands up in despair, and asking why they should even bother coming to the negotiations, if the developed countries continue to wring more demands from us in return for no money or commitments,” said Seyni Nafo of Mali and a spokesperson for the African Group of Negotiators in the U.N. climate talks.

“This cynicism is at its most stark in the agriculture negotiations,” Nafo said in a statement.

Without greater emission cuts, it will undermine our ability to grow food or adapt, said Meena Raman, a negotiation expert at Third World Network, an NGO based in Malaysia.

“There is still a fighting chance here in Doha for something,” Raman told IPS.

One thing that’s needed is the promised financing from industrialised nations to help less developed nations cope and to strengthen their food production systems.

“Finance for adaptation is a key demand of developing countries here at the climate negotiations,” said Doreen Stabinsky, professor of Global Environmental Politics at the College of the Atlantic.

“Without adaptation, global food production is likely to suffer losses of 14 to 30 percent in the three major crops of spring wheat, maize and soy,” Stabinsky said.

Even if action on adaptation is taken soon, there will still be losses ranging from four to 26 percent.

“We need to start increasing local and crop diversity now” to build resilience to extreme climatic conditions farmers are beginning to face, said Teresa Anderson of the Gaia Foundation, the UK partner of the African Biodiversity Network.

Traditional farmers have hundreds of different types of seeds for different conditions, but they are often pushed aside in favour of technological fixes for food security such as hybrid and genetically engineered seeds, Anderson told IPS.

“These farmers can have tremendous diversity even within the same variety of maize, ones that sprout sooner, or flower later,” she said.

That kind of diversity greatly increases the odds of getting a decent harvest, whereas modern monoagricultural approaches only succeed under certain conditions. The latter approach is the one being pushed by agribusiness and governments. If they succeed, there is no question it will be a huge failure under the extreme conditions of climate change, she said.

“I can’t explain why industrialised nations here in Doha can’t see the urgency of all this,” Anderson said.

Two young Arab activists frustrated with Qatar's lack of public leadership at COP18 unfurl a banner in protest on Dec. 6 and are de-badged. Credit: adopt a negotiator/cc by 2.0

By Stephen Leahy
DOHA, Qatar, Dec 6 2012 (IPS)

United Nations climate talks are on the edge of collapse Thursday, according to a coalition of civil society and representatives from half of the world’s countries.

Once again, rich industrialised nations are putting nothing on the table in terms of increased emissions cuts and financial support for poor nations, said Celine Charveriat, director of advocacy and campaigns for Oxfam International.

“This is just like WTO (World Trade Organisation) negotiations where rich countries refuse everything until the very last minute,” Charveriat told IPS.

The atmosphere is tense and angry with less than 24 hours left before the summit known as COP18 concludes on Friday, she said.

“We need raised ambition from developed countries. If not, we will be extinct,” said Emmanuel Diamini, chair of the Africa Group of negotiators.

“Ambition” refers to increased reductions in emissions primarily from burning of fossil fuels. Even if major industrialised economies like the United States, Canada, Japan and the European Union achieve their currently promised cuts, temperatures will likely rise between four and 10 degrees C based on the latest science.

The vast majority of carbon emissions contributing to climate change are from developed nations.

“When we call for increased ambition, they (developed countries) say we are blocking progress,” Diamini said at a press conference.

If there is no increase in ambition in Doha, when will it happen? asked Yeb Sano, head of the Philiphines delegation.

“Hundreds of thousands of my people are homeless and in evacuation centres today after typhoon Bopha,” Sano said.

“We refuse to make this a way of life….We must not do just what our political masters tell us but what seven billion people need, ” he said. “Doha must be the place where we turned things around.”

Much of the acrimony is focused around the U.S. refusal to commit to anything new.

“The U.S. negotiating team should be replaced,” said Kumi Naidoo, head of Greenpeace International. They have spent four years blocking negotiations, according to Naidoo.

“People are dying because of climate change. People are losing their homes, their livelihoods, their source of food. It is saddening to see rich country negotiators actively blocking progress in order to maintain the profits of their coal, oil and forestry industries,” Naidoo said in a press conference.

The U.S. has put the most carbon emissions into the atmosphere and bears the biggest responsibility for acting to reduce emissions and providing financial help to poorer countries already being impacted, he said.

Greenpeace joined with ActionAid, Christian Aid, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam, WWF, and with African and many other nations to say that a Doha agreement must include scaled-up public climate finance from 2013, deep emissions cuts and a mechanism to address loss and damage from the impacts of climate change.

The political and public atmosphere around the financial crisis in Europe won’t allow us to go further, said Kristian Ruby, assistant to the EU chief negotiator.

The EU is proposing a mandatory review of emission cuts in 2014.

“U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is convening a world leaders’ summit on this in 2014. And by then the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) will have released its latest scientific assessment,” Ruby told IPS.

There is progress, but not enough, he agreed, noting that China has been holding up that progress because it wants greater ambition from developed nations.

“One of the keys to success here is to get the U.S. to make some new financial commitment,” he said.

Poor nations say they need at least 60 billion dollars for 2013 to 2015 to help them cope. Those nations have seen the number of extreme weather events increase 600 percent over the past 30 years, according to insurance giant Munich Re.

Governments found trillions of dollars to bail out the financial sector. This is a far greater crisis, said Charveriat.

Canada is also a major villain blocking progress here, she said.

“Canada has become rich and prosperous from its huge fossil fuel industry. And here they are offering absolutely nothing to pay for their pollution of the atmosphere,” she said.

“What has gone wrong in Canada? They used to be a leader. Now they are one of the worst laggards, down at the bottom with the U.S.”

Youth delegates find it "incredibly frustrating" that so little is being accomplished at the Doha climate talks. Credit: Stephen Leahy/IPS

By Stephen Leahy
DOHA, Qatar, Dec 5 2012 (IPS)

While the Philippines copes with the aftermath of powerful super-typhoon Bopha, which killed more than 300 people this week, tempers flared at the U.N. climate summit here.

Developing countries are angry the U.S. and European Union and other rich industrialised countries refuse to increase their carbon emission reduction targets or agree to additional financing here at COP18.

The paralysis in Doha is the result of fossil fuel interests including the world’s richest billionaires, Charles and David Koch, allege activists.

The Koch brothers’ combined wealth is estimated to be 80 billion dollars. They have outspent all other oil companies – including Exxon – to kill U.S. climate legislation through campaign contributions, lobbying, funding denial science, attacking clean air laws, and stopping the shift in subsidies to cleaner energy, according to an analysis by the International Forum on Globalization, a U.S.-based NGO.

“The reason the U.S. doesn’t do more is that the Koch brothers and other fossil fuel interests attack any climate policies,” Victor Menotti, director of the International Forum on Globalization (IFG), told IPS.

The IFG report, “Faces Behind a Global Crisis”, documents the Kochs’ attempts to fast-track permitting of the tar sands oil pipeline from Canada, including the Keystone XL infrastructure, as well as attacks on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s right to regulate carbon, and efforts to stop stronger standards for power plants.

“The Kochs cashed in by polluting our planet – economists would call them free-riders – and now they wield their wealth to rig the rules in their own favour,” the report said.

This report follows the 2011 study that identified 50 of the world’s wealthiest individuals who hold overwhelming influence over today’s global climate crises.

“There is too much power in too few hands. We need to get the money out of politics,” said Menotti.

President Barack Obama must ignore the politics of a few years ago and realise there is a powerful movement among young people fighting for action on climate, said a delegation of youth from the U.S.

“I worked for six months to help President Obama get elected. He knows youth want action on climate change, but we haven’t seen action from him on it,” said Hannah Bristol of Washington DC.

Bristol and four other young people from the U.S. held a press conference at COP 18 to send a message that climate must be a top priority for the Obama administration.

“The hundreds of campuses and communities fighting to move the U.S. beyond coal, beyond oil, and beyond natural gas are making astonishing strides,” said Ian Karra from Athens, Georgia. “But we cannot act fast enough, and we cannot act alone.”

After all the suffering and damage done by Hurricane Sandy in late October, they expressed deep disappointment the U.S. was not taking a lead here in Doha.

“It is incredibly frustrating there is so little action happening here in Doha,” Bristol told IPS.

“The Doha COP caravan is lost in a sandstorm. There is not enough ambition here,” said Ronny Jumeau, ambassador on climate change for the Seychelles, representing the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).

Ambition refers to increased reductions in emissions primarily from burning of fossil fuels. Even if countries achieve their currently promised cuts, temperatures will likely rise between four and 10 degrees C based on latest science

Jumeau said island states and least developed countries not only want pledges from industrialised nations to make bigger cuts, but that those pledges are not voluntary but legally binding.

“We can’t be in a situation a few years from now where some countries say economic circumstances prevent them from meeting their pledges,” Jumeau said at a press briefing.

“It is looking extremely bleak here,” agreed Yoke Ling Chee of the Third World Network, a Malaysia-based NGO providing detailed analysis of the talks.

Ministers are reviewing documents Wednesday that make no commitments to increasing emission targets. However, Britain and Germany did make financial commitments to provide some of the promised finance to help developing countries cope with the current and future impacts of climate change over the next two years.

Industrialised countries have promised to put 100 billion dollars a year into a Green Climate Fund by 2020. To bridge the gap until then, developing nations are asking for 60 billion dollars in total by 2015. At the beginning of this week, there was no money for 2013 to 2015.

“Thank God someone is stepping up,” said Jumeau.

“The U.S. is not obligated to provide any additional financing,” said Jonathan Pershing, head of the U.S. delegation. However, Pershing did say the U.S. did intend to help out.

Three U.S. states damaged by Hurricane Sandy are asking for 83 billion dollars in federal government assistance to help them recover. Typhoon Bopha is the 16th weather-related disaster to hit the Philippines this year, said Jumeau.

“In the global context, is 100 billion dollars a lot of money?” he asked.

A new scientific report shows that global warming can be kept well under two degrees C, but only if most of the known deposits of coal, oil and gas remain in the ground.

Solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy received only 88 billion dollars in subsidies, one-sixth of the amount given to the highly profitable fossil fuels sector. Credit: public domain

The problem is no country is doing anywhere near enough to keep fossil fuels in the ground, according to the Climate Action Tracker released Friday on the sidelines of the U.N. climate change negotiations here in Doha, Qatar.

In fact, countries are going in the wrong direction, spending 523 billion dollars in 2011 in public tax money to subsidise the burning of fossil fuels, said Michiel Schaeffer, a scientist with Climate Analytics that produces the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) with Dutch energy consulting organisation Ecofys and Germany’s Pik Potsdam Institute.

“The 2011 subsidies for fossil fuels were a 30-percent increase over 2010, according to the IEA (International Energy Agency),” Schaeffer told IPS.

By contrast, the IEA said that solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy received only 88 billion dollars in subsidies, one-sixth of the amount given to the highly profitable fossil fuels sector.

Even though 194 states and the European Union are here at COP18 to ensure the heating of the planet stays below two degrees, they are not discussing how to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels. Instead, the five days of negotiations thus far have largely revolved around creating schemes for carbon credits and debates over money to help poor countries survive current and future global warming impacts.

Countries have come to Doha unprepared to make the necessary commitments to actually stay below two degrees.

“There have been a number of voices suggesting (that) keeping temperatures below two degrees C is not possible. That simply isn’t true. It is perfectly feasible,” said Schaeffer.

A two-degree C pathway that is economically feasible would require 15-percent cuts in global emissions by 2020 from present levels. In 2011, emissions rose 3.2 percent, and 5.9 percent in 2010.

Two degrees, and even getting below 1.5 degrees C, remains technically and economically feasible. But “only with political ambition backed by rapid action starting now”, according to the CAT report.

“We have to start now, not wait until 2020 to act,” said Bill Hare, head of Climate Analytics. “If we wait, we won’t have many choices left.”

Rapid action before 2020 means far lower costs – less than one percent of global GDP when spread over a number of years. Delay means far higher costs and dubious strategies like massive biofuel plantations, more nuclear plants, and as yet unproven large-scale carbon capture and storage.

If emissions do not peak and decline before 2020, it is still technically possible to stay below two degrees. However, depending on how high the emission peak is, it could be far too expensive to accomplish, as well as having enormous social impacts, said Schaeffer.

“Delay means dumping the enormous costs of action or the even larger costs from climate impacts on the next generation – our children and grandchildren,” he said.

No country is doing enough to prevent this, said Ecofys director of energy and climate policy, Niklas Höhne. Many nations don’t yet have the policies to meet their promised reductions – which in themselves are inadequate, said Höhne.

The U.S., for example, is not doing nearly enough before 2020. It could easily reduce emissions from its coal-fired power plants, increase investments in renewables, and increase the rather low energy efficiency of its buildings, he told IPS.

Commenting on the current glacial pace of negotiations, Schaeffer said, “In my opinion, it should not be so hard to figure out how to make reductions.”

However, powerful vested interests in the fossil fuel sector are fighting action on climate. They have a strong lobby in governments while the low-carbon energy sector is still a relatively small industry, he said.

“There many in the fossil fuel industry who think they have everything to lose in the needed transformation of the energy sector,” Schaeffer noted.

Severe flooding is one of many devastating effects of climate change, as the Caribbean island nation Dominica experienced in 2011. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Sam Bickersteth
DOHA, Qatar, Nov 30 2012 (IPS)

As United Nations climate talks get underway this week in Doha, Qatar, they show a subtle, unsettling shift in the global climate change debate.

Just four or five years ago, the debate was sharply focused on how much we should cut greenhouse gas emissions to avoid dangerous climate change, and how society could adapt to modest climate change impacts. Now, the most vulnerable countries are discussing how they will cope when climate change causes unavoidable losses of crops and fisheries, infrastructure and homes – and human lives.

The shorthand for this new and growing debate is “Loss and Damage” from climate change. Once unimaginable, Loss and Damage describes the human cost incurred when our efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change fail.

The spectre of Loss and Damage is now frequently raised by the governments of the most climate-vulnerable nations – many of which are classified as “Least Developed” or particularly vulnerable because of their low topography, exposed coastlines, and melting glaciers. It’s not just a political card, either: the scientific evidence for climate-related Loss and Damage is mounting by the year.

This week in Doha, researchers are presenting the results of in-depth studies from across the developing world that reveal the stark reality of Loss and Damage today. Among these new studies is the story of 82-year-old farmer Noren­dranath Mondol and his community in Satkhira district, Bangladesh.

The story of Norendranath and his neighbours in Satkhira is a desperate one: over the years, creeping sea levels and frequent cyclones have damaged the rice harvest. Villagers turned to salt-tolerant rice varieties to preserve their staple food and source of income. This seemed to work for a while, until in 2009 a catastrophic cyclone swept through, causing a spike in the soil’s salt content.

During this and the next two years, farmers lost almost all the rice harvest and the population was thrown back into abject poverty.

“I didn’t get a single bag of rice from my seven acres in 2009 and in the past two years the harvest has also been extremely poor,” said Norendranath.

His fish died when salt water from the cyclone flooded his ponds, and he faces high healthcare costs now that this family is suffering from water-borne diseases.

In Budalangi, Eastern Kenya, climate change is also causing irreparable loss and damage. The River Nzoiya bursts its banks with increasing frequency, and flooding has become more severe in recent decades. Last year, faced with the further loss of crops and livestock, most local residents fled to relief camps for food aid. They tried to recover by selling their remaining livestock for cash, so that they could afford to reconstruct their homes. Now without livestock, they have lost the ‘cushion’ that would help them withstand future disasters.

These studies and other new evidence from the Loss and Damage In Vulnerable Countries Initiative will inform a U.N. work programme that has sprung up to consider the extent of Loss and Damage. The U.N. is even considering whether it should set up a fund that would compensate poor countries for their climate-related losses.

Inevitably, there is a maelstrom of debate on how to apportion responsibility for climate-related disasters and so, who should pay compensation (climate science is making it increasingly possible to determine what proportion of weather disasters is human-induced, and what proportion is natural).

One thing is clear: with their tiny greenhouse gas emissions, the Least Developed and most climate-vulnerable countries do not bear historical responsibility for the weather disasters and slower, more protracted climate impacts that now harm them.

If these harrowing stories of Loss and Damage do anything, surely they must galvanise action by the large emitting countries to make deep, sustained cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. This month, PwC released its Low Carbon Economy Index saying that the world must reduce the carbon intensity of economic output at more than five times the current rate if we are to hold average global warming below two degrees Centigrade, long considered the threshold for a climate-safe world.

Now that we can see how perilous life is for the world’s poorest, even before we reach the two-degree threshold, we know we can’t afford to live in a world that’s any warmer. We must address the climate-related Loss and Damage that’s happening now, but we can’t treat large-scale Loss and Damage as inevitable. It must not become the “new normal”.

We have the power to stop further, dangerous levels of climate change, and that is global leaders’ most critical task.

*Sam Bickersteth is the Chief Executive of the Climate and Development Knowledge Network, www.cdkn.org

The Green Climate Fund is empty: Oxfam opening stunt at COP18. Credit: Courtesy of Oxfam

By Stephen Leahy
DOHA, Qatar, Nov 26 2012 (IPS)

Extreme weather disasters, including floods and droughts intensified by climate change, have totalled many billions of dollars in damages this year.

And much worse is yet to come, warned the World Bank, International Energy Agency and even the big accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited (PwC) in a separate reports detailing the consequences of failing to make major reductions in the fossil fuel emissions that cause climate change.

Those reports also urged all countries attending the U.N. climate change negotiations here in Doha, Qatar to agree to do far more to reduce emissions.

“The U.S. does not anticipate increasing its emission targets beyond what has already been agreed to,” said Jonathan Pershing, head of the U.S. delegation at the U.N. Climate Change negotiations known as COP18.

“We are already making an enormous effort with singular urgency,” Pershing said in a press conference Monday.

The United States pledged to make a three-percent reduction compared to 1990 levels by 2020. Pershing said the U.S. is on track to meet that target. However, the U.S. target is nowhere near the 40-percent reduction scientists say must be made by 2020 to avoid extremely dangerous climate change of more than two degrees.

A newer analysis by climatologist Kevin Anderson at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK suggests that 70-percent reductions are needed by industrialised countries by 2020, with similar reductions by most other countries a decade or so later.

Oil-rich Qatar is a controversial host for the annual two-week U.N. climate change conference. The small nation on the Arabian penninsula has the world’s biggest per person carbon footprint, mainly due to its huge gas and oil industry. With less than 2.5 million citizens, it is also one world’s wealthiest nations.

“I don’t believe in counting carbon on a per capita basis. What matters is how much each country produces, “said Qatar’s Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, the COP18 president.

Hamad Al-Attiyah has an important role in leading the 191 nations participating here through a complex series of negotiations under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

When asked if Qatar has a specific emissions reduction target, Hamad Al-Attiyah said the country has a national reduction strategy and had made and will continue to make investments in emissions reduction. “We are investing a lot of money,” he said. “We are confident that will reach the highest target compared to other countries”

He also pointed out that as an exporter of natural gas, Qatar is helping other nations use a lower carbon energy source compared to oil or coal.

Qatar and the COP president have yet to prove their leadership on the issue, said Wael Hmaidan, director of CAN International, a global network of over 700 non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

“This week, it is up to the president to prove to the world he takes climate change seriously. The best way would be to make a pledge for an emission reduction target for 2020,” said Hmaidan.

“Doha must deliver results,” Christina Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told IPS.

The Doha climate talks are the most complex ever, Figueres said. Three main tasks need to be accomplished during these talks. First is an agreement to reduce emissions from now until 2020 under the Kyoto Protocol framework. “Developed nations must take the lead here,” she said in a press conference.

The second is to lay the groundwork for a new post-2020 global climate treaty that will necessarily mean a rapid reduction of fossil fuel use to create a very low-carbon global society.

The third task is to provide technical and financial assistance to help developing countries reduce their carbon emissions and to adapt to impacts of climate change such as droughts, flooding, loss of agricultural productivity.

Three years ago, at COP 15 in Copenhagen, industrialised countries agreed to provide 100 billion dollars a year in new and additional funding to developed nations by 2020. They also agreed to a Fast Start Finance programme of 30 billion dollars from 2010 to 2012 to take the first steps.

While the fast-start funding has been delivered, only 33 percent can be considered new, according to a report from Oxfam International. The rest of the money was pledged before the Copenhagen conference – and at most, only 24 percent was additional to existing aid promises.

Just 43 percent of known Fast Start Finance has been given as grants. Most of it was in the form of loans that developing countries have to repay at varying levels of interest, the Oxfam report titled “The looming climate ‘fiscal cliff'” found.

There is no money for 2013. At Doha, countries are supposed to pledge new funding through the newly established Green Climate Fund that will be based in Korea.

“If leaders come to Doha with no new money, the Green Climate Fund risks being left as an empty shell,” said Oxfam International Climate Change Policy Advisor Tim Gore.

“Developing countries are heading towards a climate ‘fiscal cliff’ without any certainty about how they will be supported to adapt to climate change risks, (with the fund) being left as an empty shell for the third year in a row,” Gore said in a release.

A new international business report warns fossil fuel use is pushing humanity towards a catastrophic overheating of the planet, with temperature increases of four or even six degrees Celsius. No major developed or developing country is doing anything close to what’s needed to prevent large parts of the planet from becoming uninhabitable, the report found.

“This isn’t about shock tactics, it’s simple maths,” said Leo Johnson, partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited (PwC), one of the world’s largest accounting firms, which wrote the report.

“We’re heading into uncharted territory for the scale of transformation and technical innovations required” to reduce carbon emissions enough to prevent disaster, Johnson said.

With only three weeks until the United Nations climate change conference in Doha, the PwC Low Carbon Economy Index analysis, released Monday, illustrates the scale of the challenges that negotiations in Doha are likely to face.

Since the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, scientists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) alike have called on countries to set higher emissions reduction targets and put policies in place to meet them. Those calls have gone largely unanswered, as the PwC report shows.

The report shows that while there was a .7 percent decrease in global carbon emissions per unit of GDP (a measure known as carbon intensity) in 2011, that amount is a fraction of what is required to meet the international commitment to limit a global rise in temperature to two degrees Celsius.

“We now have to reduce emissions by 5.1 percent per year, every year from now until 2050,” said Jonathan Grant, director of Sustainability and Climate Change at PwC.

“It looks very unlikely that we will be able to achieve those targets,” Grant said in video press conference.

If emission reductions had begun in 2000, the reduction rate would have been 3.7 percent. Even if the recent decline in emissions growth doubles to 1.5 percent per year, global temperatures will still soar above four degrees Celsius, the report concluded.

A four-degree increase means a world that is hotter than any time in the last 30 million years. Ground temperatures will be two degrees Celsius warmer in some places, eight to ten degrees hotter in Canada and parts of Europe, and 15 degrees warmer in the Arctic and other regions. Drought and high temperatures will decimate Africa and many tropical areas of the planet.

A world that is warmer by four degrees Celsius also means a one- to two-metre sea level rise by 2100 that would leave hundreds of millions homeless. Oceans will be too acidic for corals, shellfish and most plankton, and many species of fish will be adversely affected.

The scale of the challenging of reducing carbon emissions is such that the United States would have to convert all of its coal-fired power plants to natural gas in the next eight years to meet its Copenhagen pledge of a 17 percent reduction from 2005 levels. Yet even that pledge is inadequate compared to other industrialised countries.

The United Kingdom pledged to reduce emissions to 34 percent below 1990 levels and is currently 18 percent below 1990 levels. To meet its pledge, all coal-fired power stations in the UK would have to close by 2020, the PwC report suggested.

China, India, Russia and Brazil will also have to make annual reductions ranging from three to seven percent in their carbon intensity in order to meet their pledges.

Even fulfilling those pledges, however, puts the planet on a path to a temperature increase of three-and-a-half degrees Celsius, according to the Climate Action Tracker (CAT). CAT is an independent science-based assessment that tracks the emission commitments and actions of countries.

Limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius is not impossible, despite so many warnings, said Marion Vieweg, a policy analyst at CAT.

Vieweg is critical of the PwC report for simply using past carbon emission reductions as a guideline for what’s possible. “It is only with a coherent strategy of alternative energy sources, technologies, activities, net costs, benefits, etc. can one judge how feasible deep reductions are,” Vieweg told IPS. Such integrated studies have been done and they show the “required deep cuts are feasible and affordable”, she said.

Achieving these cuts, however, is gradually becoming more difficult as serious action continues to be delayed. It has never been a secret that the required reductions are unprecedented historically, she said. “What is important is to understand how to achieve them. And then do it.”