CCBF Blog

Scotand's commitment to reducing emissions 15 Dec 2009

Scotland commits to reducing emissions by 42% by 2020 and is offering any world leader who makes a similar commitment a bottle of the proper stuff: 
 

Robert Gibson

 

Oceans Day at Copenhagen - 14 December 2009

After Forest Day 3 which was a mega jolly affair of 1,500 people, Ocean Day was an intimate affair of about 200 people at the HQ of the European Environment Agency.  This had the advantage that most present were experts on this issue.  

Oceans Day was put together separately from the UNFCCC process which seems to hardly considered ocean issues.

Much was time spent on Ocean Acidification - see graph above.   The implications for the food chain are grave.

Robert Gibson

Creative Circus

 
 

 
 

Ciara Shannon

Welcome to the Circus....

Those of us who arrived in Copenhagen to face the all important second week of what has become Hopenhagen thanks to a well co-ordinated campaign here were faced with the brutal reality that some 45,000 delegates had been registered with the UNFCCC, but that the Bella Centre could only accommodate 15,000 people. Such confusion meant that many of us were held at the gates by police from the early hours of this morning, in sub-zero temperatures, only to be told that registration had closed. I had to use every trick in the book to get access to the Centre itself and after 5 hours of waiting outside, I finally managed to get my delegates' badge. The fun is about to continue tomorrow as delegates will need a so-called 'secondary pass' to enable them to get in from Tuesday as pressure on the organisers mounts. To say the organisation here is chaotic is truly an understatement. In plenary today, we've already seen negotiations temporarily suspended as G77 nations walked out. The talks have restarted and one can only feel that this is the essential part of all of this - the rest, side events, meetings, stunts, exhibits by all and sundry - is simply a sideshow which takes away from the real discussions. With some members of country delegations being denied entry with the rest of us mere mortals outside today, one wonders what impact this may have on the main talks themselves - simply put, some negotiators were not in the room today. One other interesting sidebar - reading through the list of delegates it is immediately obvious the extent to which COP 15 has been dominated by NGOs - everyone from the Girl Guide Association to WWF are here - and in force - some key NGOs have 750 delegates. Business is hardly present and indeed some are saying that business has been excluded. How can this be the best way to achieve genuine dialogue?



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Forest Day: Yvo De Boeur regains hero status

 
 

As Robert said, Forest Day was a fantastic event, particularly as forests and the consequences of different forest management practices are higher on the global political agenda than ever before.

Highlights for me included listening to Rajendra Pachauri (Chair IPCC), Elinor Ostrom (recent Nobel Prize winner), Sir Nicolas Stern, Hilary Benn ((UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and Wangari Maathai.

There was also about 20 negotiators present and apparently negotiations on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) and its extended track "REDD plus" have taken a "positive" turn. REDD is a policy that aims to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries and requires the developed world to finance and incentivise governments of developing nations for preserving forests. However, the Bali Action Plan called for "policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries". This then led to REDD-plus which also provides finances for efforts to conserve forest areas, adopt environment friendly methods or plant new trees - as against REDD, which was just about reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation of forest areas.

Facts: Forests and other land ecosystems currently capture and store more than a quarter of the world’s carbon emissions, deforestation and forest degradation simultaneously contributes up to 17–20% of global CO2 emissions. Major contributions to fighting climate change could be achieved through improved forest management and land use practices.

How might REDD plus be funded? There are many different proposals, broadly they fall into three categories:

1)Market mechanisms: countries that reduce deforestation would gain credits for reducing their carbon emissions, which would then be sold on international carbon markets.

2)Government funds: a large pot of international funding would be set up and play a similar role to the official development aid that flows from rich to poor countries. An example of this is Brazil's Amazon Fund to which Norway has pledged US$1bn

3) A combination of the two

Sir Nicholas Stern was good (spoke with no notes) and stressed that one of the lowest costs way of reversing climate change was to stop deforestation. He said deforestation could be halved at a cost of ball park US$15 billion per annum by 2020. Costs should be shared globally and he stressed that funding from governments alone will not be sufficient.

Hilary Benn then spoke and mentioned that "REDD+ will only succeed if we - as developed countries – do our bit. So as well as contributing finance, that means stopping the purchase of timber from damaging deforestation and supporting the purchase of timber from sustainable sources.  This will send a message and help to change behaviour. It will reduce the risk of deforestation moving from places - which are benefiting from REDD finance - to others which are not. Our responsibility as Governments is to use the power we have – when we buy timber - to help the market for products that don’t have a damaging ‘forest footprint’. And it’s not just about timber; it’s also about sustainable palm oil". He ended by saying: "This year we celebrated 150 years of the publication of Charles Darwin’s, ‘On the Origin of Species’. Darwin revolutionised the way we see and think about our place in  the world – who we are and where we come from. Darwin bequeathed to us this simple advice. He said: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent…. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. He was right. He had the courage to tell us what the science told him. It is up to us to find the courage to secure the world’s future for our children and our grandchildren. And the time to do this is now". (Excellent speaker)

In the afternoon, Wangari Maathai spoke with extraordinary and exciting conviction. She was the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and won it for forming the Green Belt Movement where for nearly thirty years, she mobilized poor women in Africa to plant 30 million trees and reverse deforestation. This woman is phemonenal, but ironically was always dubbed as a troublemaker for speaking out. The president of Kenya called her a "mad woman," and "a threat to the order and security of the country." Her husband abandoned her, filing for divorce on the grounds that she was "too educated, too strong, too successful, too stubborn and too hard to control." Maathai maintained that it was particularly important for African women to know that they could be strong, and to liberate themselves from fear and silence.

At the end of day, Yvo De Boer popped in to deliver the final address. Most noticeable was his passion and ability to empower that was completely absent at the Global Business Day. He began by saying how critical this moment in time in history was for climate change. The strong scientific base, a broad understanding of the challenge, a resounding political will to come to grips with solving the problem, 43,000 people registered in support to COP15, as well as 120 heads of states converging on Copenhagen next week. If we fail to deliver a resounding answer to climate change then the political attention will move elsewhere. Now is the time but he stressed, it is vital to make sure that beyond the political wins of the conference, that we we pay attention to the broader agenda of sustainable development. He powerfully called on us all to be the environmental, ecological and social conscience of the process. Rock on Yvo!

Ciara Shannon

Desmond Tutu: The world expects a real deal

 

A moving candelit vigil led by Mary Robinson and Desmond Tutu (Dec 12th)

Beyond the official open and closed door negotiation sessions and expert led side events there are other more inspiring events. One such was a a candlelit vigil that was part of a global vigil call for peace held on December 12th just outside of the Bella Center (freezing it was).

Tutu arrived in all of his cuteness and said, "You beautiful , wonderful young generation. We the oldies want to leave you a beautiful world. It is a matter of morality. It is a question of justice (huge laugh). If you are responsible for the mess then you are responsible for getting rid of the mess. That is justice." "If you are able to bail out the banks, please just give us a few billion to enable the poor, to enable the poor to use alternative fuels. They can't do it if you ask them to pay for it. Please for your own sake, rich people for the sake of our world, be nice and pay up. We the world expects a real deal." Bye, Bye.

Yesterday Tutu handed a petition to Yvo De Boeur with over half a million signatures, calling for a "fair, effective and binding climate deal.

Campaigners and experts say a real deal on climate is: a) Fair - $200 Billion in climate financing for poorer countries. b) Ambitious - a 2015 peak year for carbon emissions and a safe carbon level of 350 parts per million in the atmosphere. c) Binding - legally enforceable.

Ciara Shannon

Forest Day 3 13 Dec 2009

Forest Day was a fantastic event with 1,500 people and many excellent presentations on ground-breaking work on how to restore forests.

 Jan Heino, R K Pachauri, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Troels Lund Poulsen, Elinor Ostrom where on the openning session. 

Pachauri mentioned, in a personal capacity that 1.5C seems a more appropriate targtet than 2.0 implying the need for perhaps 350 limit and the consequently much tighter caps.

Elinor noted that forests do better as carbon stores when they are managed by local cummunity .

At the end Yvo de Boer reminded us that the UNFCCC treaty is about Sustainable Development rather than just cliamte change.   We need to pay more attention to how communities can be sustained.

Robert Gibson

Kronberg Castle, Elsinor 12 Dec 09

'Hamlet's castle with Tim Flannery holding up a skull and asking the 'To be or not to be question'.  Many of the good assembled and many fine words but rather detached from the action in the Bella Centre.

Robert Gibson