Climate diplomacy can build the trust needed to secure our common future

Pa Ousman Jarju in a story at the International Institute for Environment and Development: For the past decade I have travelled to meeting after meeting of the UN climate change talks as a national negotiator for The Gambia, as chair of the Least Developed Countries group, and now as Gambia's Special Climate Envoy. This journey has taught me that diplomacy is the key that can unlock the treasure chest of ambition we need to tackle climate change.

The talks, now in their 20th year, are meant to lead to a new international climate treaty for all nations to adopt in 2015. But they are going nowhere fast. Negotiators are entrenched. These civil servants work to defend national interests at all costs, and so progress towards an effective agreement remains woefully slow. What's lacking is political leadership.

In November 2013, it was Warsaw's turn to host the talks. It was a grim meeting. The atmosphere of suspicion was so severe that I thought we would leave without conclusions. While some nations backtracked on their commitments to reduce emissions or provide poorer countries with finance, other nations' efforts to reduce emissions went unacknowledged. Clearly so fractured an environment does not catalyse compromise – the necessary foundation of any UN agreement.

In a speech I gave in Warsaw's national football stadium, I explained that the talks can only succeed if there is trust between developed and developing countries. Trust – plain and simple. Sadly, any news headlines about the Warsaw talks that mentioned trust preceded the word with "lack of", "mis" and "dis". Despite the trials of Warsaw, I continue to believe that trust can end the stalemate. Building it however requires engagement on a political level – and that's where climate diplomacy comes in.

While negotiations are an attempt to reconcile conflicting positions into an agreeable outcome, diplomacy is the art of moving the political boundaries that define what outcomes are possible. Climate diplomacy then is the art of influencing what is politically possible....

Progress on loss-and-damage and tech transfer at COP19

Bhrikuti Rai in SciDev.net: The UN climate talks in Warsaw, Poland, have made progress in several areas, including the contentious issue of loss-and-damage as well as the opening of the Climate Technology Centre and Network, which can now respond to requests from developing countries for advice and assistance on the transfer of technology.

“As nations put in the foundations, walls and ceiling of a new, wide-ranging and universal climate agreement, the Climate Technology Centre and Network represents a further building block towards that low-carbon future,” UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP executive-director Achim Steiner said in a press release (21 November).

...The conference also agreed to establish an international mechanism to provide the most-vulnerable populations with better protection against the loss and damage caused by extreme weather events and the slow onset events such as rising sea levels, with detailed work on the so-called Warsaw mechanism expected to start next year.

A recent report by UN University’s Institute of Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) has put a human face on the highly discussed mechanism on loss and damage by highlighting the constraints people face due to climate-change induced extreme weather events.

“The current levels of adaptation and mitigation efforts are insufficient, so we need to act with urgency to address the aftermath of powerful floods, typhoons, droughts and other extreme weather events,” says Koko Warner, lead author of the study and the head of the Environmental Migration, Social Vulnerability and Adaptation Section at UNU-EHS....

Downtown Warsaw, shot by Marek & Ewa Wojciechowscy, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license

Indonesia reaction to climate talks

Dessy Sagita in the Jakarta Globe: Indonesia expressed mixed reactions following the conclusion of the Climate Change talks in Warsaw, Poland which reached a consensus on the commitment to a global climate change adaptation program.

“With the conclusion we can hope that UNFCCC (The United Nation’s Framework Conference on Climate Change) can provide the opportunity for the developing countries to end our vulnerability when it comes to the climate change adaptation program,” Ari Muhammad, the Secretary Working group on Adaptation to the National Council on Climate Change (DNPI), said.

...In the Warsaw text, negotiators notably replaced the word “commitments” for nationally-determined emissions cuts, with “contributions”. Ari said if developed countries want the developing countries to proceed with their climate change adaptation program, there must be a serious commitment from the richer countries to support their efforts. “Developing countries and the developed countries are in dire need of support and global commitment from developed countries,” he said.

Ari said there was one pressing issue that did not find a solution during the talks. “In adaptation, there are four main agendas — National Adaptation Plan, Lost and Damage, Nairobi Work Program and the Adaptation Committee — that we unfortunately did find an agreement in term[s] of lost and damage,” he said.

Developing countries including Indonesia, he said, believe that an institution specifically dealing with loss and damage because of climate change must be set up while the developed countries think that such an institution will not be necessary. “Regardless the effort to tackle the impact of climate change, loss and damage because of global warming have happened. Look at typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines or the Forest Fires in Riau,” he said...

Key points of the Warsaw consensus

Global Post via AFP: UN climate negotiators reached agreement in Warsaw on Saturday on cornerstone elements for the road to a new 2015 deal to curb global warming. Here are the main points:

Countries reaffirmed the core principle that the deal will be "applicable to all" 195 parties to the UN climate convention -- with no differentiation between rich and poor nations as under the pact's predecessor the Kyoto Protocol.

- Parties should volunteer targets for curbing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions "well in advance" of a Paris conference where the deal must be inked in two years' time.  Those "ready" to do so, must announce their contributions by the first quarter of 2015.

- A draft negotiating text must be ready by next year's round of talks in Lima, Peru.  In the runup to 2020, when the new pact must enter into force, countries are "urged" to do what they can to reduce emissions.

 A separate document agreed after a fortnight of heated negotiations, urges developed countries to deliver "increasing levels" of public finance for climate aid to poor and vulnerable countries up to 2020.  It also calls for "a very significant scale" of initial funding for the recently-formed Green Climate Fund, which is meant to disburse such aid.

 Negotiators agreed to set up the "Warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage" to assist vulnerable countries deal with future harm from climate damages they claim are no longer avoidable.  These include sudden extreme weather events like storms, but also slow-onset events like land-encroaching sea level rise or desertification....

Philippine official blames developed countries for worsening climate change

InterAksyon.com: Every time we attend this conference, I'm beginning to feel that we are negotiating on who is to live and who is to die." This was the statement of Mary Ann Lucille Sering, executive director of the Philippines Climate Change Commission (PCCC), when she delivered on November 20 her message to fellow delegates at the United Nations Climate Summit in Warsaw, Poland.

Sering, also PCCC's vice chairperson, expressed her frustration over the failure of signatories to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to meet the objective of the treaty. UNFCCC's objective is to "stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."

"Nineteen years have passed since the convention came into force. And if we are to review our progress, would it be right for me to conclude that we've failed miserably?" Sering said.

..."Looking at science and how it manifested itself not only in Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), but also other events like Katrina in the United States, the heat wave in France, the wildfires in Australia, and other extreme events occurring after observed increased warming, should we not be all ashamed being here?" Sering said.

Sering blamed developed countries for their failure to meet their commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, which had made extreme weather events such as Yolanda more frequent and intense.

"You see, if the developed countries had shown the leadership to reduce greenhouse gases at the onset of this convention, we, the most vulnerable, would not have to adapt. We would not have to ask or push for adaptation support," said Sering...

Rich countries must end obsession with private climate finance

A press release from Oxfam: Rich countries’ obsession with private finance means millions of poor and vulnerable people could be left to face increasingly extreme and erratic climate alone warned Oxfam today as ministers from around the globe meet in Warsaw to discuss how they deliver on their climate finance commitments.

Rich countries promised to deliver $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poor countries reduce their emissions and adapt to a changing climate. However two US-hosted Ministerial Meetings and pre-COP finance discussions during 2013 have focused almost exclusively on the role of private finance in meeting this target.

The invitation for Ministers to attend today’s meeting also highlighted the need for participants to come prepared to present ideas on how to mobilize funds from the private sector. Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International said: “Private finance is not a panacea. It has a role to play, particularly on projects aimed at reducing emissions, but it will not reach the most vulnerable people in the poorest countries who need help to survive in the face of increasingly extreme and erratic weather.”

“Rich country governments must stop using the private sector to side step their own climate finance promises and seize this opportunity to sort out the public funding mess. Murky accounting and a lack of transparency mean the world’s poorest countries have no idea what money will be available and when. The uncertainty makes it impossible for them to take action to protect their populations.

“Rich countries must make it clear what new money they are putting on the table now and how they will deliver the $100 billion a year they promised by 2020. Kicking this issue down the road again could spell disaster for poor communities who need help to adapt to a changing climate and lead to a breakdown in trust that will bury hopes for agreement on a global climate deal in 2015.”...

Is scientists’ approach to climate change collective madness?

Jan Piotrowski in SciDev.net: According to Albert Einstein, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This raises the question of whether this 20th century giant would see the scientific community’s current approach to the climate change conversation as collective madness.

I say this not to detract from the huge achievements of scientists to further our understanding of climate change — the 2,000-page tome that is the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is testament to this success.

But the tendency of scientists to remain impartial with the belief that it is necessary to protect the objective integrity of their work is misguided and clearly not working. To expect that more evidence will be enough to convince policymakers to take action, is naïve when you consider the limited change that has occurred in the six years since the previous fact-packed IPPC report made a compelling case for the need for urgent action.

If this did little to change politicians’ minds, then a new report with similar conclusions is unlikely to either. With this in mind, scientists, as those with the greatest understanding of the consequences of climate change, must get better at communicating not just the results of their studies, but their recommendations for action...

A 1947 portrait of Albert Einstein by Oren Jack Turner

Warsaw – Day 9: One billion Africans in harm’s way

Eco-Business: Africa is already struggling to cope with the effects of climate change and the adaptation costs are so huge that hundreds of millions of people will be put at risk unless richer nations provide $200 billion of aid a year, the United Nations Environment Programme says.

A UNEP report published here, Africa’s Adaptation Gap, paints a grim picture of sea level rise, loss of agricultural production, spreading disease, floods and droughts beyond the power of Africa to deal with.

Launching the report, Mr Tosi Mpanu, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, leader for the African Group of Negotiators here, said the plight of Africa was not of its making. It was the developed countries that had caused the problem and Africa was asking for the funds to help. But so far they had not been forthcoming.

“This report shows that one billion Africans are in harm’s way. We witness instability in rainfall, diseases spreading, sea level rise and floods”, he said. “One of the effects of climate change is to send Africans further and further to seek water. This brings them into conflict with other Africans. We are faced with wars on African soil that are not created in Africa.

“We came to this conference in Poland expecting help with the adverse effects of climate change, but so far there are no signs of the finance that Africa needs. We are hoping that the arrival [in Warsaw] of ministers will signal a strong political commitment to scale up the finance to help us adapt. There are many adaptation projects in the pipeline but the money to do them is running out. We need a top-up for these funds,  but so far there is no sign of it.”...

A NASA image of a dust storm in the Bodélé Depression in Chad. This particular storm was blowing on the afternoon of 18 November 2004, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flew over on NASA's Aqua satellite.

Typhoon carnage in the Philippines spurs passion for poor at climate talks

Mary Sibierski in GMA News via AFP: Negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) rarely show on the public's radar, except perhaps in the scenes of bickering over who's to blame for global warming and who will foot the bill for it.

The talks are as complex as they are important, involving technical issues that lack color and emotion – and for many ordinary people, bewildering or mightily tedious. But this year's round in Warsaw has been jolted into life by the catastrophe that has struck the Philippines, providing a passionate reminder of the life-and-death issues that underpin the grinding UN process.

The spark has come from the Philippines' negotiator, Naderev Sano, whose father's home town is Tacloban, flattened by Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan). As the COP19 conference heads towards its climax, Sano told AFP Monday some his relatives had "perished" and that he was still waiting to hear whether others are dead or alive.

At the start of the 11-day talks, Sano won a standing ovation for a desperate appeal for countries to strike a deal to avert mass tragedies of this kind. Sano put his convictions on the line by going on "a water-only fast" for the duration of the meeting in solidarity with suffering Filipinos and to ramp up pressure on fellow negotiators....

Warsaw climate talks: nearly 3 in 10 countries not sending ministers

Sophie Yeo in the Guardian (UK): According to statistics released by the UN, over 10,000 people will spend the next two weeks swarming through its corridors, busily going about their business of trying to find a solution to climate change. But only 134 of these will be ministers, in spite of the fact that there will be 189 countries attending the conference.

The representative sent by each country indicates the level of importance it places on the negotiations. Australia recently attracted attention by its refusal to send either its environment minister Greg Hunt or foreign minister Julie Bishop to the negotiations. Instead, Australia will send along its climate ambassador Justin Lee as its lead negotiator.

As the world’s top climate officials gather to discuss how to stem emissions and mobilise finance, Hunt will instead be based in the Australian parliament, attempting to fulfill Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s election promise to repeal the country’s carbon tax.

Former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd personally attended the UN climate talks in 2007 during his first term in power, where he ratified Australia’s commitment to the Kyoto Protocol, which committed industrialised countries to reduce their emissions.

This year, two prime ministers and two presidents will be attending the conference, each hailing from some of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, including the Pacific islands of Tuvalu and Nauru, along with African countries Ethiopia and Tanzania....

Ocean acidification set to spiral out of control

Jan Piotrowski in SciDev.net: The continued release of greenhouse gases into the air is set to bring about huge changes to land ecosystems as they are forced to adapt to rising temperatures. But the marine world — which is just as integral to human existence yet receives little attention during climate negotiations — will endure a similarly tumultuous time as emissions rise, scientists say.

“Changing oceans will cause massive destruction of coral reefs, which, with their rich biodiversity, are the jungles of the sea,” says Luis Valdes, the head of ocean science at UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC-UNESCO), and co-author of a forthcoming report into ocean acidification.

This is expected to hit marine species used for food and have knock-on effects on coastal communities, especially in developing countries. Business-as-usual carbon dioxide emissions will lead to the acidity levels of oceans rising by 170 per cent by 2100 compared with pre-industrial levels, according to a report to be launched next week at COP 19 (Conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change).

The report will be published jointly by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, the IOC-UNESCO and the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research. As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere rise, some of this extra carbon is absorbed by the oceans and converted into acidic compounds...

A bubble filters the sun, shot by Joe Burch, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Success of climate talks vital for 2°C target

A press release from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research: Achieving a global climate agreement soon could be crucial for the objective to keep global mean temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius. The challenges of meeting the long-term target will otherwise increase drastically both in terms of the required emissions reductions and economic impacts. This is shown by the first comprehensive multi-model-based assessment of so-called Durban Platform scenarios, conducted by a team of international scientists led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) in Italy. The Durban Platform is the current negotiation track at the Warsaw climate talks that aims to reach a global climate agreement by 2015 to come into effect in 2020.

“The negotiations in Warsaw represent an important step in the negotiation process towards a climate agreement by 2015,” lead author Elmar Kriegler from PIK says. “While there are legitimate doubts about whether the Durban Platform negotiations can deliver on their promise, our analysis shows the importance of meaningful reductions in global emissions by 2020 to keep the 2 degree target within reach.” The later emissions get cut, the greater the necessary reduction rates to avoid more than 2 degrees warming, and hence the greater the impact on energy prices and economic growth.

“Even a delay of just 10 years of a climate agreement coming into effect would raise the economic challenges substantially, if emissions reduction efforts remained at their currently moderate level,” Kriegler says. The results are part of the comprehensive LIMITS project (Low Climate lmpact Scenarios and the lmplications of Required Tight Emission Control Strategies) on the implementation of 2 degree strategies in the major economies and will be published in a special issue of the journal Climate Change Economics. The scientists investigated a set of different outcomes of the Durban Platform negotiations process and their implications for reaching the 2 degree target with seven integrated assessment and energy-economy models to ensure the robustness of results....

Flood-prone Pakistan struggles for influence at UN climate talks

Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio at the Thomson Reuters Foundation: Plagued by weak preparations, poor negotiating skills and inadequate political support for its delegation at the U.N. climate talks in Warsaw, Pakistan will struggle to press its case for much-needed support to deal with the impacts of climate change, experts say.

Although Pakistan has suffered climate-related losses and damage worth over $15 billion in the past few years, it has not played a leading role at global climate conferences like that taking place in Poland from Nov. 11-22, also known as COP19.

“It is really disappointing to see how Pakistani negotiators are ill-prepared with their climate vulnerability case for COP19, and how shy they are of putting forward their loss and damage case,” said Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, chief executive of LEAD Pakistan, a non-governmental organisation working on climate mitigation and adaptation issues with community groups.

...Pakistan has sustained economic damage of more than $15 billion as a result of consecutive monsoon floods each year since 2010, governmental officials say. In addition, some 4,000 people were killed by flooding, thousands injured and millions displaced from their homes, according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2011-12....

Typhoon Haiyan and UN climate talks – seeking justice over loss and damage

IRIN: The shadow of Typhoon Haiyan - which has affected close to 10 million people in the Philippines - looms over the UN climate talks in Warsaw. The Philippines’ climate negotiator, Naderev Sano, proceeded with a hunger strike he announced at the start of the conference, which he says he will continue until meaningful action is taken to address climate change.

Scientists are still uncertain whether atmosphere-warming greenhouse gas emissions have caused a detectable change in cyclonic activity, but the typhoon is a “stark reminder that there can’t be any further delay in intensifying our efforts to tackle mounting loss and damage”, said Harjeet Singh, ActionAid's international coordinator for disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation.

ActionAid, Care International the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) released a joint paper presenting a framework for an international mechanism to address the loss and damage experienced by developing countries as a result of climate change.

The paper says evidence is mounting that efforts to adapt to climatic shocks are failing, and that countries need urgent technical and financial support.  The NGOs say global efforts to deal with climate-related loss and damage should include enhancing knowledge and coordination on adaptation efforts, improved disaster risk reduction and management, and more cooperation on technical solutions...

Animation of Haiyan from NOAA