We lament the fact that the talks have moved away from the overarching principle of “common but differentiated responsibility” where developed countries, in view of their historical emissions, take the lead and responsibility for mitigation and provide financial resources, promote transfer of and access to environmentally sound technologies, as well as meeting costs of adaptation.

Climate justice requires that developed countries fulfill their obligation to foot the cost of much needed adaptation in developing countries, which much of Asia and the Pacific embraces. While mitigation of emissions is a global concern, developing countries require allowance of emissions or a degree of climate space in order to fulfill their respective paths towards sustainable development to cope with. Alas, no firm commitments and agreements have been made along these lines.

In this context, CLIMATE Asia Pacific calls on governments, non government organizations, people’s organizations and movements across the globe to step up efforts on education on climate change—a key instrument in raising awareness, mindsets, values and skills on the grave climate crisis to mobilize people towards thorough-going solutions.

The clamor for wider climate change education, highlighting a scientific and people-oriented education on climate change comes at a time of great danger for the peoples of Asia Pacific and other vulnerable nations and communities—flooding and alarming sea level rise in coastal communities, prolonged droughts, looming food insecurity and critical shortage of water sources.  The people, especially in the developing world have the right to be sufficiently informed of the dangers they confront, its causes and effects, as well as solutions they can strive for.

Studies on the ground have shown the stark irony of how people burdened with the harsh impacts of climate change are not even aware what climate change is, much less about how to deal with it for their families and communities to survive.

We urge the international community to revitalize its program on climate change education to equip communities with the knowledge to act on the climate challenges that they face.

Education on climate change, a concern that even warranted a separate Article in the UNFCCC, Article 6 on Education, Training and Awareness, was conspicuously missing in the main agenda of the Durban talks. This omission is a cause for alarm, for education on climate change is not merely concerned with mitigation, adaptation and technologies. It involves education that enhances people’s understanding of the root of the climate crisis so that the world will never have to tread on the same mistakes ever again and bring about genuinely sustainable societies.

CLIMATE Asia Pacific

December 9, 2010

The provisional agenda of the Conference has yet to be adopted, following informal consultations by the South African COP Presidency on three agenda items raised by India relating to equitable access to sustainable development; unilateral trade measures and intellectual property rights (IPRs). In an unusual approach, Parties agreed to continue work on the other agenda items, pending informal consultations on these outstanding issues.

According to sources, these three issues are still being strongly resisted by developed country Parties and a few developing countries from being addressed in the negotiations. This is done through efforts to defer them from being considered here in Durban or to say that these issues are better dealt with in other fora such as the World Trade Organisation (in the case of unilateral trade measures) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (in the case of IPRs).

Meanwhile, several informal consultations are being held by the COP Presidency on the “bigger picture” under a process called the ‘Indaba’ to address the deadlock over the second commitment period for emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol and the push by developed countries for a new legally binding mitigation treaty under the Convention which will replace the Protocol, with the inclusion of all “major economies” to reflect the “changing economic circumstances and different social and economic development priorities and opportunities”.

As of late Wednesday night (7 December), negotiators were in intense talks in efforts to finalise a decision over the Green Climate Fund (GCF), with the issue of whether and how the Fund is to have legal personality and capacity. According to sources, the United States is resisting efforts by the COP to confer legal personality and capacity to the GCF.

Under the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWGLCA), the Chair, Mr. Daniel Reifsnyder from the US provided Parties with an update of the amalgamation of draft texts at the contact group which met on Wednesday (7 December).

He also provided an overview of the state of the negotiations and suggested possible ways on moving forward, including the need for Ministerial consultations on several issues.

Shared vision

The AWGLCA Chair said the ‘shared vision’ is an example of an issue that Parties may not be able to resolve in further work in the informal group. He said several suggestions have been made by Parties on how to take this work forward. Some Parties urge that all the issues contained in this section be forwarded for further work next year – possibly in a dedicated, more focused process. Others urge that Parties reiterate in particular the need to agree on a long-term global goal (for greenhouse gas emissions reduction) and a time frame for global peaking (of emissions). He believed that this is an issue that would benefit from consultations led by Ministers to help determine the best way forward.

Mitigation

1) Mitigation by developed country Parties: The text on developed country mitigation addresses three areas: biennial reports, international assessment and review, and matters relating to paragraphs 36-38 of the Cancun Agreements (relating to the pledges, level of ambition, accounting rules etc). The Chair said that on matters related to paragraphs 36-38 of the Cancun Agreements, there are several issues arising from the three texts where guidance from Ministers will be required.

The first of these issues relates to clarification of pledges, and a related question of whether these pledges should be translated into other forms. While views differ on the specific activities and timeframe for completion, there is convergence around the need for a continuing process to clarify pledges. However, there is no convergence on translation of these pledges. Some Parties wish to recognize and quantify the ambition gap, while others see no such need.

The AWGLCA Chair believed the way forward may be additional work next year, but Ministerial guidance will also be required on the timeframe for completion and whether this work should focus on the actions of one group of Parties or more broadly.

Similarly on the matter of accounting, he said some Parties call for the development of common accounting rules to guide reporting and assessment of progress toward mitigation targets. Others consider that accounting of targets should be based on national policies and circumstances. His assessment is that a way forward may be found through a work programme to examine specific aspects of accounting for targets, drawing upon ongoing work to clarify pledges.

In the area of biennial reports, his understanding is that the two biggest remaining issues are whether to adopt guidelines at this session, or to defer adoption to next year, and the date of submission of the first biennial reports. He believed that these issues as well as remaining unresolved technical issues can be resolved in our ongoing work in the informal group and do not need to be referred to ministers.

On international assessment and review (IAR), Reifsnyder said there were two major stumbling blocks. First, whether the process involves a compliance assessment and second the accounting framework for the IAR. There are also unresolved technical issues in the text. He believed that work should continue as follows:

On matters related to paragraph 36-38 of the Cancun Agreements, questions related to clarification of pledges, accounting for targets and ambition should be taken up in a consultation led by Ministers. A way forward in each of these areas may be found through elaboration of elements and timeframes for a work program. He recommended that work to finalize text on biennial reports continue under the guidance of the co-facilitators, with the goal of reaching agreement on guidelines that can be adopted at this session. Delegates should proceed with the understanding that the biennial reporting guidelines can be revised in the future to reflect any decision on accounting.

The Chair believed that co-facilitators should continue to work on IAR, with the exception of references in the text to a compliance procedure. Some Parties consider a process to determine compliance a necessary component of ensuring comparability of efforts (between Kyoto Protocol Parties and developed country Parties that are not Parties to the Protocol but are Parties to the Convention), while others consider it fundamentally incompatible with the nature of their pledges. This is a matter on which Minister-led consultations may be needed. (The US is opposed to any discussions on reviewing their pledges and the need for international rules on compliance.)

2) Mitigation by developing country Parties: The amalgamation draft texts contained four areas related to developing country mitigation: matters related to paragraphs 48-51 of the Cancun Agreements (on the pledges), biennial update reports, international consultation and analysis (ICA) and registry.

Reifsnyder said more work on all four of these areas was necessary. Under matters related to paragraphs 48-51 of the Cancun Agreement, Parties generally agree on the need to continue a process to understand the diversity of mitigation actions, but do not agree on the steps or inputs. There are also questions regarding how to enhance mitigation efforts and whether a common approach to measuring the effects of mitigation actions is needed.

On biennial update reports, he said there appeared to be three major options: adoption of descriptive guidelines that elaborate on the elements agreed in Cancun, adoption of guidelines that reference relevant sections of the existing guidelines for national communications of Parties not included in Annex I (developing countries), and deferral of work to next year.

On ICA, key issues are scope, frequency, clarification of the process, and the flexibility accorded to developing countries. The registry text is quite mature, with very few substantive issues remaining, he added.

He believed that matters related to paragraphs 48-51 of the Cancun Agreement should be taken up in Minister-led consultations. His assessment was that co-facilitators should continue with their work on reporting guidelines in the informal group. To ensure balance with progress on developed country biennial reports, the focus should be on agreeing on elements of descriptive guidelines that can be adopted at this session. Although there were a number of unresolved issues that remain under ICA, he believed that co-facilitators should continue to work on them in the informal group.

3) REDD-plus finance (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries), there was no change in the text and the Chair urged Parties to continue discussions.

4) On cooperative sectoral approaches and sector-specific actions, he said Parties had made considerable progress in their consultations on the three main areas under consideration – the general framework, agriculture, and international aviation and shipping.  In his view, this item may benefit from consideration by Ministers, who may wish to consider whether there is yet room to establish a programme of work on agriculture. At the same time Ministers may wish to consider whether to establish a process for further developing elements of a general framework for cooperative sectoral approaches and sector-specific actions and how it will apply to the various sectors, including international aviation and maritime transport.

5) On various approaches, Reifsnyder said that Parties had made great efforts to progress on the work on various approaches to enhance the cost-effectiveness of, and promote, mitigation actions and believed that the informal group should continue to work to agree on an outcome or to develop clean options that can be referred for further consideration in Minister-led consultations. He asked Parties to also consider how best to reflect issues that should be considered if a work programme can be established in this area.

6) On the issue of ‘Economic and Social consequences of Response Measures’, he said that the facilitator prepared a consolidated text on the basis of the six proposals from Parties. He said Parties discussed the consolidated text in the informal group and that it received support from some Parties but that it was not accepted by others. Because of this, and despite the strong urging of some Parties there is still only a facilitator’s text that was not appropriate to be included in the updated amalgamation texts.

He said that it appeared that there were positive developments in the informal consultations being undertaken by the Chairs of the Subsidiary Bodies (SBI and SBSTA) on the impact of the implementation of response measures, with the objective of developing a work programme to address these impacts, with a view to adopting at the 17th session of the COP, modalities for the operationalization of the work programme and a possible forum on response measures.

(The subsidiary bodies of the Convention are the Subsidiary Body on Implementation and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice.)

Adaptation

The AWGLCA Chair said that work on the text on the Adaptation Committee advanced considerably and Parties were able to agree to most of the text thus getting one step closer to bringing the Adaptation Committee to life here at Durban. There were still a number of outstanding technical issues relating to the indicative activities for the Adaptation Committee to undertake. In addition, there are two outstanding issues related to the issue of the membership of the Adaptation Committee and to whether it should report directly to the COP or to the COP through the subsidiary bodies. These were issues he believed would benefit from Minister-led consultations.

Finance

The Chair said that work was progressing well in the informal group on finance and believed that work should continue in the informal group before assessing whether any of the issues with which it is dealing should be taken up at a higher level.

Technology

Reifsnyder said that the informal group on technology managed to narrow down options on the selection process of the host of the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) and the governance arrangement for the CTCN. It has also advanced significantly on the evaluation criteria for selecting the CTCN. The group also elaborated the funding arrangement of the CTCN.  On the question of intellectual property rights, he said that consultations were currently being undertaken by the Presidency on that issue, and suggested that Parties focus on completing the necessary technical work to launch the CTCN in Durban while awaiting the outcome of these consultations.

Capacity Building

The Chair reported that there are very few outstanding points, and believed they could be resolved in further consultations in the informal group.

Review (2013-2015)

On the review, he said there were mainly two outstanding issues which would benefit from consideration in Ministerial-led consultations. First, the scope of the review: whether it should be limited to the adequacy of the global temperature goal and progress toward achieving it as agreed in Cancun or whether it should be defined more broadly. Secondly, the question of who should conduct the review: whether it should be conducted by an expert review body or by the existing Subsidiary Bodies.

Legal Options (on the outcome of the AWGLCA)

Reifsnyder said that the ‘legal options’ was a difficult issue. He said some Parties noted that they did not see this group as the place to discuss future process issues and saw this conversation happening elsewhere (in an apparent reference to the ‘Indaba’ process led by the South African COP Presidency). Many Parties also made links between this issue and the outcomes of the work of the working group under the Kyoto Protocol. He said the question of the future of the multilateral rules-based regime was now being taken up in the Presidential Indaba process and he believed that it was indeed in that broader Presidential process where this issue could now be advanced.

Several countries had reactions to the Chair’s comments.

Venezuela wanted the issue of the level of ambition to be addressed by Ministers, given that the ambition was rather low and was concerned that the new framework for a regime may be legalized with a low ambition level.  On cooperative sectoral approaches, it wanted a broader approach and not just on the sectors currently being discussed. It was also concerned with the bad treatment of the element of economic and social consequences of response measures and wanted a full consideration of all the issues raised in its submission, including the social consequences of response measures. On the issue of market mechanisms, it said that this was linked to the issue of the continuity of the Kyoto Protocol and was a political issue and wanted a ministerial discussion on this.

Saudi Arabiaalso expressed its frustration on the way the response measures were being handled. It said that there is refusal by the developed countries to engage in the development of negotiation texts. It was concerned by the imbalance in the treatment of this issue and said there was no real engagement on substance on this issue. It also did not share the Chair’s positive outlook over the matter being dealt with in the Subsidiary Bodies as developed countries were refusing to engage on substance. This, it said, was a matter for Ministerial consultations. Speaking for the Arab Group, Saudi Arabia said that it was unacceptable to have no outcome on this issue.  On the sectoral approaches, it said that if this issue was passed on to Ministers, it needed to address the general framework that guides the sectoral issues and without this, it was difficult to reach outcomes.

Boliviawas concerned that the mitigation of developed countries did not address increase in the level of ambition and the need for common accounting rules as well as compliance. It said that the Ministerial consultations need to be open and inclusive. There was need for a decision on compliance and a penalty system.

Chinasaid that the intention of referring issues to the Ministers was to seek political guidance on difficult issues that could not be resolved by negotiators and not for the texts to be referred to them. The AWGLCA contact group and informal groups could then act on the guidance given.

On the issues referred to the Ministers, as regards the discussions on the long-term global goal and peaking, it was important to refer to the associated issues of historical responsibility, equity and means of implementation to achieve the global goal and peaking. On mitigation, it agreed with Venezuela on the need to seek guidance from the Ministers on how to deal with the level of ambition.

India said that Ministerial guidance was useful in unlocking many pieces on mitigation and a lot of work needs to be done to capture the options for the consideration of Ministers. India was concerned that some issues were kicked up to Ministers as in ‘shared vision’ with no more meetings scheduled at the level of negotiators. It said that interactions with negotiators in this regard was useful and urged not to close this interaction.

Ecuador expressed concerns that the mitigation of developed countries was confined to only the Cancun decision and there was no reference to the Convention. On REDD-plus, it wanted movement on the financial mechanism.

The Philippines expressed deep concerns on lack of progress on the element of ‘shared vision’ and ‘review’. Determination of the long-term global goal for emissions reductions must be within the context of issues of survival as well as economic considerations, means of implementation and burden-sharing. It also supported the proposal for a study process in order to guide Parties on the consequences of the decisions being made. On the review, it was important to strengthen the Convention and to determine the scope of the review and said that the existing subsidiary bodies could advance further work. On the Ministerial consultations, Philippines hoped that the Ministers would have the opportunity to go back to their constituencies to ensure the provision of political guidance.

The European Union also stressed the need for a high level of ambition as regards mitigation and was concerned that the amalgamation text was not balanced in relation to the mitigation of developed and developing countries. It also wanted clear options on the establishment of market mechanisms, which is key for the EU to commit to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

The US said that a number of areas (in the texts) did not reflect its interests and could therefore not participate in its outcome.

Japan stressed the need for parallelism in relation to the mitigation efforts of developed and developing countries and the current text did not reflect this balance.

The structure of the current global economic system is based in a combination of an international gendered division of labor, exploitation and domination that excludes women from being represented on an equal basis and in equal numbers as men. However, we want socio-economic development not to be driven by market mechanisms, but to ensure people’s right to define how they understand and envision development, based on their own rights, local experiences, needs and responses, in ways that are sustainable for our planet.

Women cannot accept the mere inclusion of gender in market mechanisms that recognise “differences” of gender roles without changing the exploitative and oppressive power relations in it, nor can we accept the use these “differences” to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of these mechanisms to make more and more profit for big corporations and the very few in power. Our feminist approach to climate, gender and environmental justice confirms our understandings that market mechanisms do not transform the current economic paradigm nor construction of equality and justice between men and women and our relationship to nature.

We also stress the importance of human rights based approach and remind the governments of their obligations under the international human rights framework. In order to ensure women’s human rights, including economic and social rights, the major source of funding should be public. Women’s rights to information, resources and technologies must be ensured. We demand that all adaptation finance is provided as grants to avoid burdening indebted developing countries and poor people with debts. Moreover, our experiences of large-scale projects funded by international financial institutions, lead us to reject the proposals that the World Bank takes a central role in administering the climate change financing mechanisms.

We propose that all stakeholders work together towards a new paradigm that is based on realisation of human rights of all, men and women, particularly poor, marginalisd women and indigenous peoples to promote a sustainable partnership with – not domination of – nature and a people-centred economic system.

This was stated at:

Climate Justice Now! Press Conference, Kosi Palm room, Tuesday 6 December, 13:30-14:00

The dominance of “the 1%” corporate elite over “the 99%” of the people is being challenged around the world.  These same tensions and dynamics are at play here at the UNFCCC COP-17, which has been taken over by the interests of corporations. The UNFCCC process is betraying the interests of people globally while providing industry with new opportunities to profit from climate chaos.

Meanwhile, there is great debate in the halls of the ICC about the future of the Clean Development Mechanism, Carbon Markets, REDD+ and the Kyoto Protocol itself.  Should these industry-friendly schemes continue or is the process so corrupt and bankrupt that it needs to be eliminated and replaced by truly just and effective climate mitigation strategies? Climate Justice Now! speakers will address these issues from the perspective of the global climate justice movement and present real, community-based solutions.    

This call was made by Ambassador Silvia Merega of Argentina, on behalf of G77 and China at the opening session of the AWGLCA held on 29 November in Durban.

Merega said that for a successful outcome in Durban, progress in the work must ensure even treatment of issues and decisive leadership was needed to ensure that all submissions coming from the Parties are discussed and the issues in the agenda are addressed meaningfully and receive a fair and equal treatment.

A serious imbalance in the progress of issues can clearly not be conducive to a successful outcome that is comprehensive and balanced, she added.

Merega said that in Durban, the G77 and China expected an outcome that is comprehensive and balanced, enabling the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention, pursuant to the results of the thirteenth and sixteenth sessions of the Conference of the Parties (referring to the Bali Action Plan and the Cancun decisions), addressing both implementation tasks and issues that are still to be concluded. Such a result must fully respect the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, the two-track negotiation as mandated by the Bali Roadmap, and rendering operational the Cancun decision.

She highlighted the importance of mitigation as part of a balanced and ambitious outcome in Durban. We recall that the appropriate treatment of the issue as determined in the Bali Roadmap demands a decision here in Durban, on the adoption, of the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol and significant and ambitious efforts must be done in this regard. The second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol must be the basis for comparable Annex I emission reduction commitments of Non Kyoto Protocol Parties.

There was need to also address ways to enhance the mitigation ambition of Annex I commitments, as well as the tasks necessary to operationalize the Cancun decisions including the setting up of the registry for support for developing country mitigation actions.

New responsibilities as per Cancun decision, such as measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs), should be accompanied with clear indications on the amount and timing of financial resources that have to be provided to developing countries.

In Panama (the last meeting of the AWGLCA in October), the level of engagement in mitigation was positive, but insufficient in others. The G77 and China reiterated the need for balance, both within mitigation and between mitigation and other building blocks, including adaptation and financing.

Merega emphasized the importance of the issue of economic and social consequences of response measures for all developing countries, and therefore, the need to give full consideration under the AWG-LCA to what actions are necessary to meet the specific needs and concerns of developing countries arising from the impact of the implementation of response measures taken by developed country Parties. In this respect, the Group expected that developed countries engage constructively on this issue in order to have negotiating text to forward for adoption by the COP.

[In Panama, the informal group on economic and social consequences of response measures saw deep divisions over issues raised by a large number of developing countries especially on unilateral trade measures (UTMs). Developed countries were opposed to any texts for negotiations and did not even want the submissions of developing countries to be compiled into a document. Developed countries and Singapore insisted that the UNFCCC was not the proper forum to discuss UTMs but the WTO was the appropriate forum.]

On adaptation, the G77 and China strongly believed that the Cancun Adaptation Framework was one of the main achievements of Cancun in relation to the balanced treatment of mitigation and adaptation. Furthermore, the provisions included in the Adaptation Framework have been incorporated in order to have a coherent approach to adaptation under the Convention. In that sense, the establishment of the Adaptation Committee has been a priority to the Group. The Group welcomed the progress made to define the modalities, composition and procedures of the Committee, and looked forward its operationalization as soon as possible, keeping in mind the importance of creating the proper linkages to other institutional arrangements, in particular to the operating entities of the financial mechanism, as well as to others adaptation related arrangements that are being discussed under the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI).

On the composition of the governance body of the Adaptation Committee, Merega reiterated that it should have a majority of members representing countries of the G77 and China, taking into account that developing countries are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

On the very important issue of finance, the Standing Committee and long-term finance, the Group was ready to work on the draft negotiating texts to achieve concrete results. Merega said that it was clear that without financing, including for technology development and transfer and capacity building, the extent to which developing country Parties will be able to effectively implement their commitment under the Convention will be directly affected.

The Group believed that the role of the Standing Committee is of paramount importance and a decision must be adopted at this COP to fully perform its mandate to assist the COP in exercising its functions with respect to the financial mechanism of the Convention. The linkages between the Standing Committee and the COP as well as the functions of the Committee, in particular, the MRV of support provided to developing country Parties for the preparation and implementation of NAMAS and its reporting, among others, should further be explored and defined.

The G77 and China believed that the main source for long-term finance should be developed countries public funds, so as to ensure the adequacy and predictability of new and additional finance to meet mitigation and adaptation costs, and to redress the historical imbalance in financing for adaptation. Long-term finance should include the initial capitalization of the Green Climate Fund to become operational here in Durban. There was also a need to address the gap in financing for fast-track finance for the period which ends in 2012.

On the development and transfer of technologies, the G77 and China recognized the work done by the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) in its first and only meeting it had so far. In order to fully implement the Technology Mechanism established in Cancun, it was of utmost importance to define the governance structure of the mechanism; a structure where the TEC should serve as the linking body between the COP and the Climate Technology Center and Network (CTCN) to give coherence with other institutional arrangements under the Convention.

The Group expected the TEC to meet as often as necessary next year and have enough time and resources to develop and implement a program of work that fulfill its functions that were adopted by the COP in Cancun.

Other developing country groupings in supporting the position of the G77 and China expressed similar views.

Saudi Arabia for the Arab Group, said there was progress on the mitigation issues in Panama but not on the issue of economic and social consequences of response measures and stressed the need for balance in addressing all elements of the Bali Action Plan. On the form of the legal outcome of the AWGLCA process, it said that content will determine the legal form and not vice- versa.

Grenada, for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) stressed the need for increase in ambition on mitigation. It also called for a mandate for a parallel protocol which sits alongside the Kyoto Protocol (KP) for comparable mitigation actions of developed countries who are not KP Parties and for and actions by developing countries supported by finance and technology transfer.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on behalf of the Africa Group said that the shared vision should be more than just a number and must reflect the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and historical responsibilities. The shared vision is not just about climate stabilization but has to also encompass the means of implementation. On mitigation of developed countries, it said that Cancun was weak on the comparability of efforts of developed countries and was silent on compliance and this needed to be addressed. The International Assessment and Review (IAR) process must be stronger than the KP compliance system and must be rigorous. The MRV regime must ensure comparability of efforts, avoid double counting and ensure environmental integrity.

On developing country mitigation, it said that the NAMAs are voluntary and can be amended according to change in national circumstances and the overarching priority of developing countries was poverty eradication. The implementation of NAMAs also depended on the availability of finance, technology transfer and capacity building.

On the issue of the review, the DRC said that it should be about a review of the implementation gaps to enable the full effective and sustained implementation of the Convention.

Gambia for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) wanted the Durban outcome of the Bali Action Plan to be a legally binding instrument which sits next to the Kyoto Protocol. On the issue of long term finance, it said that there should be no gaps after the fast-start finance and there must be a robust work programme to define the timeline for the mobilization of the $100 billion.

Nicaragua speaking for the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) said that the current mitigation pledges of Annex 1 countries was insufficient and called for the loopholes to be closed. It said that the Green Climate Fund should not be an empty shell and proposed that it should have financial resources of at least 1.5% of the GDP of developed countries.

El Salvador, for the SICA countries (Central American Integration System) expressed concern that there has been slow disbursement of fast-start finance and that only a small proportion of the money was new and additional. It also called for greater transparency in this regard.

Papua New Guinea for the Coalition of Rainforest countries called for the Green Climate Fund to have a window for forest related activities as well as for new market mechanisms.

The European Union stressed the need for Durban to initiate a process for a new global framework that will level the playing field in relation to mitigation. Such a framework should be completed by 2015 so that it can come into force in 2020 and it needed this reassurance for it to undertake a second commitment period of emissions reductions under the KP. It also wanted an expansion of new market-based mechanisms.

Australia for the Umbrella Group and South Korea for the Environmental Integrity Group expressed similar views as the EU.

On the organization of work, Chair of the AWGLCA, Mr. Daniel Reifsnyder of the United States proposed that the substantive work would be resumed under a contact group which will have touch base sessions to have an overview of the work being undertaken in the various informal groups to deal with the issues and this was accepted by Parties.

Saudi Arabia raised the issue that the informal group on economic and social consequences of response measures had no negotiating text and said that it could not accept to move on other issues until there was a text by 30 November. It said that Parties were not negotiating in good faith as a text on this issue was being blocked.

In response, the Chair said that the issue was being discussed in multiple places as in the subsidiary bodies and he wanted the chairs of those bodies to report to the contact group on Thursday (1 December) on the progress made in this regard.

Saudi Arabia said that it could not accept that since the package under the AWGLCA had to be balanced on all the elements of the Bali Action Plan and every issue needed to be treated fairly and equitably as part of a comprehensive package.

The Chair said that in the informal group could use the submissions by Parties which are conference room papers as basis for the discussions.

Parties proceeded to meet in informal groups to advance further work.

African countries, united in the talks as the African Group, intend to use this opportunity to chart a course towards holistic outcomes that curb the growing threat posed by climate change to the African continent, implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, and advance the interests and aspirations of all African countries and peoples.

The UN talks continue under the UN Convention on Climate Change and are based on the ‘Bali Roadmap’ agreed in 2007. The key elements are: cutting emissions (‘mitigation’); preparing for and responding to climate impacts(‘adaptation’); compensating loses and paying for action (‘finance’); sharing and transferring technology and capacity building. These were agreed in tandem with negotiations over a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (the existing system of binding emission targets).

This note details the African Group perspective on some of the key issues on the table in Durban including:

1. The severe threat climate change poses to Africa and its food security
2. Addressing the ‘mitigation gap’
3. Addressing the ‘finance gap’
4. Building a strong legal architecture to support a global approach

The African Group of Negotiators is committed to outcomes on all of the issues in the negotiations, not just those listed here. For further information, interviews, briefings or quotes on these topics or others from representatives of African nations at the Durban Climate Summit please contact: Seyni Nafo, +27738235823, mimikaseyni@gmail.com   

For the official documents outlining the African Group of Negotiators’ common position please see:

• African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) Decision on Climate Change
• Bamako Declaration by AMCEN
• AMCEN Key Messages on Climate Change

1. The Situation in Africa

 Africa continues to face numerous severe negative impacts arising from the adverse effects of climate change. Such impacts are hampering Africa’s efforts to attain its development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals.

Therefore adaptation is an essential priority for the African Group and there is an urgent need for immediate and adequate support for the implementation of adaptation measures and actions through the provision of grant-based public resources.

The African Group proposes that adaptation activities should be funded at full cost through a direct and simplified process that is accountable and open to countries. Agreement on the funding of adaptation activities should come as one part of a balanced package on all issues to implement the Convention and its Kyoto Protocol.

There is an urgent need to avoid further loss and damage arising from the adverse effects of climate change on Africa. To do so developed countries must reduce their emissions in line with the most recent science in order to limit the global average temperature increase to well below 1.5°C.

2. Emissions

The African Group enters Durban deeply concerned that the inadequate mitigation pledges, notably by developed countries under the Cancun outcomes, risk an increase in global average temperature of greater than 2°C – and possibly as much as 5°C.[1] Such temperature increases will have catastrophic impacts worldwide, and particularly for Africa due to its high vulnerability to the impacts of climate change and low adaptive capacity.

Of further concern is that the mitigation pledges by developed countries amount to less than the voluntary mitigation pledges by developing countries.[2] In Durban the African Group will stress that developed countries must show leadership by raising their level of ambition to the scale required by science and equity.

The African Group will affirm in the negotiations that equity includes the right to equitable sharing of atmospheric space and resources, taking into account the cumulative historical responsibility and use of such resources by developed countries. The fact that cumulative emissions in Africa remain extremely low means Africa’s share of global emissions will need to grow to meet its social and economic development needs.

The African Group’s position is that developed countries must recognise ambitious mitigation commitments for a second and subsequent commitment periods of the Kyoto Protocol. Developed countries must reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 40% by 2017 and by at least 95% cent by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. To ensure the environmental integrity of these targets offsets should be limited to 10% and existing loopholes should be closed.

The Group stresses the urgency of agreeing a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in Durban and of elaborating measures to avoid a gap between commitment periods.

3. Finance

The Durban talks must find agreement on the scale of public resources to be provided by developed countries from 2013, building on short-term finance commitments and reaching a scale adequate to meet the needs developing countries in 2020 and beyond.

The African Group is concerned by the insufficient transparency and slow disbursement of the financial resources pledged by developed countries as “fast start” finance for the period 2010-2012, particularly as analysis suggests that a small proportion of these resources are “new and additional”. To address this the African Group proposes a common reporting format for finance pledges.

The African Group is focused on ensuring direct access for all developing countries; and equitable allocation through geographical and needs based criteria; a balance between adaptation and mitigation; and grant-based funding for adaptation activities. The Group continues to emphasize that public finance should be the main source of funding to ensure the sustainability, predictability and adequacy of funding, bearing in mind that private and market finance can play a complementary role.

The African Group’s position is that developed countries should provide scaled up financial support based on an assessed scale of contributions that constitutes at least 1.5% of the gross domestic product of developed countries.

  4. Legal Architecture

The African Group understands that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol constitutes the fundamental global legal framework on climate change and that all actions or measures related to climate change must be in full conformity with the principles and provisions of the Convention, in particular those of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.

The Group expects that the Durban talks will produce two outcomes in line with the Bali Roadmap:

1. An agreed outcome on long-term cooperative action to enhance the implementation of the Convention;
2. An amendment to Annex B of the Kyoto Protocol regarding further mitigation commitments of Annex I Parties for a second commitment period from 2013 to 2017 under the Kyoto Protocol.

The United States (which is not party to the Kyoto Protocol) should undertake legally binding commitments under the Convention that are comparable in magnitude and effort and are measurable, reportable and verifiable with regard to mitigation efforts and the provision of financial and technological resources.

In Durban, the African Group will work so a firewall is maintained between the mitigation commitments of developed countries that are legally binding in nature and the appropriate voluntary mitigation actions by developing countries.

The African Group expects a balanced outcome at the end of the negotiations in Durban, including a legally binding outcome on the scale of emission reductions to be undertaken by developed countries through a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, and a legally binding outcome on the various pillars of the Bali Action Plan in accordance with the Bali Roadmap.

We, the undersigned civil society organisations from Africa and around the world, strongly object to a decision in Durban for an agriculture work programme focused on mitigation, which would lead to agricultural soils and agroecological practices being turned into commodities to be sold on carbon markets, or used as sinks to enable industrialised countries to continue to avoid reducing emissions.

African ministers have been urged by the World Bank to endorse this approach, coined as “climate smart” agriculture.  Yet legitimizing soil carbon offsets through a mitigation-based agriculture work programme will further destabilize the climate, fail to tackle the real causes of agriculture emissions, present a major distraction from the need to generate public finance, and exacerbate social injustice by shifting the burden of mitigation onto developing countries – especially their small producers.  Soil carbon offsets also have the potential to drive a new speculative land grab, further undermining food sovereignty and the right to food.

At the Durban COP17 negotiations, African and other developing country leaders must:

1)    Reject soil carbon markets and an agriculture work programme that is framed within discussions on Mitigation.

2)    Demand that Annex 1 countries show political will and honour their legal obligations to new and additional finance to developing countries, for example with direct, annual contributions to the Adaptation Fund, instead of wasting public finances on propping up carbon markets that are doomed to fail.

3)     Demand innovative sources of finance such as a Financial Transaction Tax (to draw a tiny percentage from international financial transactions) or use of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs, issued by the International Monetary Fund).  These could generate billions of dollars for developing countries to address adaptation challenges in Africa and elsewhere.

Soil Carbon Markets will fail our climate, small producers and developing country governments:

·       The difficulty in measuring carbon sequestered in soil means that numbers must be largely based on assumptions instead of being scientifically verified.  The complication and high cost of developing systems for the monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of soil carbon will chiefly benefit carbon consultants and companies in North America and Europe – and not the smallholder farmers and herders in Africa and elsewhere.  Creating the complex infrastructure for soil carbon mechanisms is an expensive and dangerous diversion from directly financing the well-documented adaptation needs of small-scale agriculture.

·       Corporations, governments and industrial agricultural production systems in Annex 1 countries are allowed to continue emitting greenhouse gases while supposedly meeting their mitigation targets through offsets.  This reliance on offsets not only shifts the responsibility for addressing climate change onto developing country governments and small producers, but also distracts from the priority of addressing the serious adaptation challenges resulting from climate change.

·       COP17 approval of such a work programme could pave the way for costly and unproven technological fixes such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and other patented technologies and practices as solutions for “climate smart” agriculture.  These technologies are not only prohibitively costly for developing countries, but also create new forms of corporate control over agricultural plant and animal genetic resources.[1]  Their safety is in doubt, and environmental, social and economic harm has already occurred from their use. They threaten to hinder rather than enhance agricultural adaptation to climate change.

Second, African ministers and other developing countries are falsely being promised agriculture and climate finance through carbon markets.  Yet carbon markets are in crisis, and are clearly failing to generate finance or benefits for developing countries: 

·       Carbon markets are an over-hyped, unreliable, volatile and inequitable source of funding for Africa.  In spite of the vast volumes of money currently associated with carbon markets, only a tiny fraction of this goes to projects on the ground.  In 2009, out of a total global carbon market volume of $144 billion, just 0.2% of this was for project-based transactions[2]. The remaining 99.8% was captured by large consultants’ fees and profits for commodity speculators, who trade carbon on international commodity markets like any other financialised product.

·       Communities and governments’ public funds are expected to bear the huge implementation and pre-financing costs of projects.   The implementation costs of land management methods are many times higher than the returns from the carbon market, while, to judge by Kenya’s pilot soil carbon market project, half of the projected returns are needed to cover transaction costs such as administration.  The financial returns from offsets will barely trickle down to farmers, if at all.  Such projects are therefore either financially unviable, or will continue to need public funding to survive.

·       Carbon markets suffer from structural weaknesses that make them highly susceptible to fraud and manipulation, thereby making them unreliable for climate finance and development planning.

·       The global price of carbon is already too low and volatile to deliver reliable finance to projects. Analysts predict that with commodity markets facing turmoil, and carbon markets facing a likely flood of new offset products, the price of carbon will only go down.  This makes them a disastrous solution for food sovereignty, improved rural livelihoods and the agriculture adaptation needs of small producers.

·       Given the technical challenges and scientific uncertainties about the actual sequestration of carbon in soil, this makes for a poor “tradable asset”.  Given these uncertainties, soil carbon offset credits are ineligible for the European Emissions Trading Scheme – representing 97% of the global compliance market – until at least 2020.

Soil carbon and other agriculture offsets will not bring adequate, predictable, additional or reliable finance for adaptation or mitigation in Africa and elsewhere.   Instead these quasi-markets will require massive public funds for pre-financing, and serve mostly to generate profits for commodity speculators in the North.

The focus on carbon markets also provides a distraction from urgent conversations on how to generate public finance to help developing countries to confront climate change.  In 2009, developed countries committed to generate $100 billion per year for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries from public and private sources.  To date, political energy has mostly focused attention on ways to generate and leverage private finance – usually by using public funds to prop up failing carbon markets.  At the same time, developed countries have largely ignored the potential of numerous approaches that could be used to generate public finance (such as a tiny tax on financial transactions, or levies in the shipping and aviation sectors) which could go in part to support smallholder farmers and agricultural systems in developing countries.

The Kenya Project is not replicable without public funds:

The World Bank and SIDA-supported pilot project in Kenya is being used to convince African governments that this is a workable solution for agriculture investment.  Yet even the project proponents admit that farmers will not benefit from carbon payments: they are only likely to earn between $5 and $1 per year.  The World Bank has bankrolled the payment of carbon consultants to develop a “simplified” carbon methodology with the intent to duplicate it elsewhere, while SIDA funding is making up the difference.  The project suffers from high transaction costs (up to half of the estimated revenue), low returns to farmers and uncertain environmental benefits due to the problems with soil carbon measurement. Without the World Bank’s support of guaranteed minimum carbon price and SIDA’s pre-financing, the huge required investment and low returns mean that this model is not replicable for other African countries.

We believe that agroecological practices are a key strategy for adaptation, mitigation and increased yields for African farmers.  But these approaches cannot come packaged with, or be structured for, carbon offset credits.  The critical issues of agriculture, food security and climate change have in fact been assessed at length in the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). Ministers should consider whether IAASTD policy options on climate change and food security, approved by more than 50 governments in Johannesburg in April 2008, are suitable for adoption in their countries. The UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) is also charged with addressing the linkages of climate change and food security in the coming year.  The CFS process is inclusive and allows space for genuine civil society input.

The right to food must be at the heart of any discussions related to agriculture and climate change.  Launching a mitigation-based framework on agriculture and climate change is therefore premature and short sighted.

Sincerely,

The African Biodiversity Network (Kenya)

The Gaia Foundation (UK)

Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy (IATP)

Practical Action (UK)

[1] Seventy-five percent of patent applications worldwide on so-called “climate genes” are held by transnational seed and agrochemical companies such as Monsanto, BASF, DuPont and Syngenta.

[2] World Bank, State and trends of the carbon market 2010.  Project transactions include the CDM, JI and voluntary carbon market

The Ministers, who met to coordinate their views for the upcoming climate talks, emphasized in their joint statement that “the Kyoto Protocol is the cornerstone of the climate regime and its second commitment period (of emissions reduction by developed countries) is the essential priority for the success of the Durban Conference” that will be hosted by South Africa on 28 November to 9 December. The first commitment period will end in 2012.

The 9th BASIC Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change in Beijing stressed that Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol are working under the mandate of the 2007 Bali Roadmap and reaffirmed the need to focus on this mandate.

[Developed countries want a new mandate to negotiate a new single mitigation treaty for all Parties that would replace the Kyoto Protocol and include the developed and developing countries. The United States is not a Party to the Protocol and the mitigation actions of developing countries are under the UNFCCC and not part of the Protocol].

The ministers also underlined the importance of a proposal by India to include the issues of equity, trade and intellectual property rights in the agenda of the 17th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC. They agreed that “discussions on these important issues which are crucial to many developing countries, would contribute to a comprehensive and balanced outcome at Durban”.

Participating ministers were Xie Zhenhua (Vice-Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission of China), Liu Zhenmin (Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs of China), Francisco Gaetani (Deputy Minister of Environment of Brazil), Jayanthi Natarajan (Minister of Environment and Forests of India), and Bomo Edna Edith Molewa (Minister of Water and Environment Affairs of South Africa). Maite Nkoana-Mashabane (Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa) was also at the meeting in her capacity as the incoming COP President.

Representatives of Argentina (as chair of the G77 and China), Egypt (as representative of the Arab Group) and Grenada (as chair of the Alliance of Small Island States) participated as observers in what is called the “BASIC-plus approach”.

The BASIC ministers agreed that Durban should achieve a comprehensive, fair and balanced outcome to enable the full, effective and sustained implementation of the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol, in accordance with the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, and fulfilling the mandate of the Bali Roadmap in the two-track process of negotiation.

[The Bali Roadmap includes two distinct components: First, the Bali Action Plan, which launched a negotiation process under the UNFCCC to enable the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention through long-term cooperative action, now, up to and beyond 2012. Second, there is a separate legal mandate for negotiations under the Kyoto Protocol for the second commitment period of greenhouse gases emissions reduction by developed countries when the current one ends in 2012. The negotiations under the Kyoto Protocol were to conclude in 2009 but developed countries are still resisting an unconditional second commitment period.]

At the recent Beijing meeting, the ministers emphasized the need to implement the Cancun decisions (which were adopted in Cancun, Mexico in December 2010) as well as to address the unresolved issues from the Bali Roadmap. They called upon the Durban Conference to clearly establish the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol.

They further called for the Conference “to accomplish the Bali Action Plan where developed country Parties that are not Parties to the Kyoto Protocol have to undertake comparable quantified emission reduction commitments under the Convention and for developing country Parties to implement enhanced mitigation actions in the context of sustainable development and enabled and supported by finance, technology and capacity building”.

Stressing the “essential priority” of the Kyoto Protocol second commitment period for the success of the Durban Conference, the ministers said that “the continuation of the flexibility mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol is contingent upon the establishment of quantified emissions reduction commitments by Annex I (developed country) Parties.”

[All the Annex 1 Parties want to use the flexibility mechanisms under the Protocol such as the Clean Development Mechanism although they have not made commitments for emissions reductions for the next commitment period. Developed countries such as Canada, Russia and Japan have expressed clearly that they will not undertake further commitments for emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol.]

AMBITIOUS ACTIONS BY DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The BASIC ministers reiterated their support “to work towards the perspective of a comprehensive, ambitious and fair outcome”, ensuring the full, effective and sustained implementation of the two treaties.

They noted that while sustainable development and poverty eradication remain urgent challenges and overriding priorities for developing countries, these countries, in particular the BASIC countries have pledged ambitious actions to reduce emissions at substantial cost to their economies.

The ministers called upon the developed country Parties “to rise up to their historical responsibilities and undertake ambitious and robust mitigation commitments consistent with science and in accordance with the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”.

They highlighted the robust contribution already offered by many developing countries in emission reductions by which these countries have become the active leaders of the global effort against climate change. They stressed that this has come about despite the responsibility, established under the Convention, that developed countries “take the lead”.

POST-2020 IMPLEMENTATION AND REVIEW

In reaffirming the need for the Durban Conference to focus on the Bali Roadmap mandate, the ministers stressed that deliberations and discussions for the further implementation of the UNFCCC beyond 2020 must be firmly based on the principles and provisions of the UNFCCC and consistent with the latest findings of science as per the forthcoming 5th Assessment Report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In this context, they noted the importance of the Review process which is to be completed by 2015.

[In Cancun, Parties agreed to conduct a first review in 2013 to be concluded by 2015.]

On the Review, the ministers said that this must be conducted in accordance with the principles and provisions of the UNFCCC itself. They stressed that the Review must include a review of the adequacy of global temperature goal and effectiveness of ambitious quantified emission reduction commitments by Annex I Parties and the provision of finance and technology support by developed countries to enable developing countries to implement enhanced mitigation and adaptation actions under the UNFCCC.

They also reaffirmed that any outcome on “shared vision” (one of the elements of the Bali Action Plan) needs to be firmly based on the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities.

FINANCING A “PRESSING PRIORITY”

The BASIC ministerial statement underscored that financing is one of the pressing priorities at the Durban Conference. The ministers welcomed the work of the Transitional Committee (tasked in Cancun to design the new Green Climate Fund) and envisaged the consideration and approval of its draft report by the COP.

They agreed that the Conference should decide to initiate the operationalisation of the Green Climate Fund with accountability to and under the guidance of the COP, ensuring adequate financial support for developing countries. Therefore, they urged developed countries to capitalize the Green Climate Fund from their public financial resources as soon as possible.

They further said that developed countries should fulfill their commitment of providing US$30 billion as fast start funding, ensuring new and additional funding and transparent information of its performance.

[Developed country Parties had committed to provide US$30 billion for the period 2010-2012 and to a goal of mobilizing US$100 billion per year by 2020.]

On the fast-start funding, the ministers reiterated the importance of ensuring that the accounting of finance is transparent, measurable, reportable and verifiable. They requested developed countries to submit information on the fast-start funding to the UNFCCC secretariat in a common and comparable format to strengthen mutual trust between developed and developing countries. This could serve as the first step in more accurate reporting on long-term financing, generating information to assess progress towards the collective financial commitments by Annex I Parties.

The ministers urged developed countries to honour their commitment to provide US$100 billion per year by 2020 in a predictable manner with specific measures and clear roadmap to be adopted in Durban, ensuring that there is no funding gap from 2013 to 2020. This funding should mainly come from public financial resources, and private and other alternative resources of funding should only be supplementary.

ADAPTATION

The ministers further emphasized that adaptation is the most urgent task in developing countries and supported the African Group’s position on prioritizing this issue in Durban. They called for immediate operationalisation of the Adaptation Committee, which should contribute to adaptation policy development and implementation of adaptation actions in developing countries following the requests of developing countries and respecting a country-driven approach.

They highlighted that the Adaptation Committee should establish effective links with the finance and technology mechanisms to support adaptation actions for all developing countries, particularly small island developing states, least developed countries and Africa.

TECHNOLOGY MECHANISM

The ministers also welcomed the functioning of the Technology Executive Committee and the progress on the set-up of the Technology Centre and Network. They urged a clear definition of the relationship between the two bodies and the link between the technology mechanism and the finance mechanism.

They highlighted the need to address the intellectual property rights issue properly and the early operation of the Technology Mechanism to advance climate-friendly technology transfer to developing countries.

NO TO UNILATERAL MEASURES

The ministers emphasized the need to address emissions from international aviation and maritime transport in a multilateral context and in accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. They highlighted that unilateral measures on climate change, such as the inclusion of emissions from international aviation in the EU-ETS (emissions trading scheme), would violate the principles and provisions of the UNFCCC and jeopardize the effort of international cooperation in addressing climate change.

The ministers stressed their dedication towards consolidating and strengthening the unity of the G77 and China and decided to continue to enhance transparency and inclusiveness (in the BASIC platform) through the BASIC-plus approach. They also reaffirmed their continued full support to the government of South Africa to make the Durban Conference a success in an open, transparent, inclusive and Party-driven process.

The ministerial meeting also received reports on the progress made by the BASIC experts group on Equitable Access to Sustainable Development and supported the publication of the paper as a contribution to the scientific body of knowledge. This experts group meets in parallel with the ministerial meeting.

India will host the next meeting in the first quarter of 2012.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What role will Environmental Rights Action (ERA) and Friends of the Earth International be playing at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP17) in Durban? What will you be pushing for?

NNIMMO BASSEY: While there is a generally low level of expectation from the Durban Conference of the Parties (COP17), we see it as a great moment to stand with impacted peoples and the environmental justice movement and call for a climate tackling regime that understands the depth of the crises and the fact that the impacts are already manifesting. We will push for polluting countries to cut emissions at source and not through offsets and related market mechanisms that help polluters profit from the damage they do. We will push for legally binding emissions reduction targets to ensure that temperature increase is kept below 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. ERA will demand the recognition and payment of the accumulated climate debt due to centuries of exploitation and colonisation of the atmosphere.

Friends of the Earth International will particularly bring to light the negative impacts of carbon markets, dirty energy, dams, agrofuels, plantations/industrial agriculture – all funded or potentially fundable through the carbon markets. We will also highlight land grabs and related issues. Details of our full focus are still being fine-tuned. As you know, we have member groups in 76 countries and each of these is autonomous so we invest time and energy in consultations. You will hear of our detailed plans once they are ready.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Judging from the outcome of the COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico, obtaining a multi-lateral agreement through which those most to blame for causing climate change take responsibility for the damage they are causing to those most affected by climate change, is unlikely to happen at COP17 in Durban, South Africa. But even though this is expected to be the case, why is the Durban event still important for climate justice activists?

NNIMMO BASSEY: You are right to say that we may not expect an equitable outcome from Durban. Nevertheless, Durban will be a great moment to intensify campaigns against the business-as-usual manner [in which] the negotiations have been conducted. Durban has a rich history that will inspire the climate justice movement to get stronger. Remember that Gandhi’s non-violent resistance was more or less birthed in Durban. Some of the most intense organising against apartheid also occurred in Durban. Currently, Durban is the hub of the environmental justice activism in South Africa. This has not occurred accidentally. Durban has some of the most polluted neighbourhoods in the country, with highly polluting refineries and chemical factories located there.

The building rage on the streets of Durban will inspire the Climate Justice movement. For me, the need to resist the planned offshore exploration for crude oil off the coast of Durban, an act that is bound to rub salt in raw injuries, holds an additional pull.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Hypothetically speaking, what in your mind would be the key aspects of a just global climate deal and why?

NNIMMO BASSEY: Getting polluters to accept to cut emissions at source and to the extent required by science to keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius. A regime of voluntary targets would simply translate to roasting Africa and sinking the small island states.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: At other COP events, activists have rallied against market-based solutions such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). What kind of ‘false solutions’ should we be watching out for in Durban and why?

NNIMMO BASSEY: Durban will likely build on the same discredited CDM. We should expect to see more vicious forms of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) that will intensify the land grabs already troubling Africa, Asia and Latin America. In deed, we should expect the addition of soil carbon capture into the matrix. This will aid speculators to begin a pattern of soil grab that will push small-scale farmers into more or less barren lands, thus ensuring an increase of hunger and malnutrition in vulnerable communities.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The north will be pushing for the ‘green economy’: How far is this ‘green’ the colour of dollar bills, and what should be the components of a real green economy?

NNIMMO BASSEY: This is a rather funny but serious question. The green economy concept being pushed through the Rio+20 (Unite Nations Conference on Sustainable Development) discussions and the climate negotiations is template for green washing. It will help brown sectors such as the petroleum and chemical sectors to claim they are green through embarking on token projects. The ‘green economy’ is a worrisome concept that needs careful interrogation, otherwise what we will have is the ignoring of the intrinsic value of nature and the formulation of fictional exchange values on natural systems for profit and to the detriment of the people.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you give any recent examples where you have seen the on-the-ground impact of climate change for Africa? You recently wrote about flooding in Nigeria. What other evidence is emerging and what has been the impact.

NNIMMO BASSEY: The droughts and famine in the Horn of Africa is a very clear example. The tragic consequences are all avoidable if the countries involved had developed and built resilience and coping mechanisms. Rain failure occurred over a period of three years, but the governments and institutions kept blind eyes to that. Analysts saw that due to the warming of the Indian Ocean, rain that ought to fall on the land is now mostly falling on the ocean. This is a clear signal of more disasters to come.

Crop loss and poor harvests are clear evidence already noticed in some areas.

Desertification is impacting at least 13 states in Northern Nigeria and this is expanding. Coastal erosion due to sea level rise is a reality.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The idea of climate debt – that developed countries who have caused the damage to the environment owe developing countries – has been promoted by Bolivia and progressive civil society movements. But at the same time the UK, through the World Bank, is lending money to developing countries for adaptation, locking these countries further into debt. What’s your view of this?

NNIMMO BASSEY: Countries have made the issue of funding adaptation a major point of the climate negotiations, with proposals and designs for climate funding taking huge and unending chunks of time. Climate debt has been a campaign point for environmental and social justice activists for some time now. The promotion of the idea by countries such as Bolivia indicates a possibility of building more points of agreement between states and citizens. Climate debt was also captured as a major demand at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 2010.

If climate debt is accepted and paid, it will right many historical wrongs, provide funds for adaptation and for building of resilience in vulnerable territories and nations/regions. It would also help exploiters and polluters to seek just ways of doing business and of relating to others. It would require a rethinking of our global accounting books. It would show that the so-called poor countries have credited and subsidised the rich nations and that the ‘rich’ nations are actually the debtor nations. The question of lending money to developing countries for adaptation would not arise as the payment of the debt would suffice and probably leave a surplus.

In fact the whole idea of adaptation without halting the causative factors driving the problem to which nations must adapt is unacceptable. The position seems to be that we cannot do anything about climate change and that all we can do is to adapt to it. The fundamental driver of the argument is business as usual. This has made some see climate change not as a crisis but as a business opportunity.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Bolivia has published a declaration on the rights of Mother Earth and even established a ministry responsible for protection of those rights. What is the likelihood of similar declarations in Africa, and what will it take to make that work?

NNIMMO BASSEY: First of all we must applaud Bolivia for taking these steps. To a lot of people the right of Mother Earth is something idealistic and impractical. Even the concept raises barriers that many cannot cross because of the preponderance of adversarial legal systems in the world. When they hear of the rights of nature or the rights of Mother Earth, they wonder how can Mother Earth demand the protection of her rights. If we see ourselves as being children of the Earth, of belonging to her and not owning her, that argument should not arise. Children can speak for their mother.

Will African nations make similar declarations? My answer to that is a yes. They may be slow to come around, but the recognition of the rights of Mother Earth provides one of the best platforms for the defence of the African environment. It would provide the basis for citizens to fight against destructive actions in their countries. At present even environmental rights are merely national objectives in some national constitutions and are not justiciable. This is the case with Nigeria, for example. The best option for seeking justice has been through the use of the African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights ratified and domesticated by many African countries.

Bolivia is equally promoting the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth by the United Nations. If and when this gets to be adopted, African nations will eventually come around to consider and accept this platform. This is an opportunity for socio-political, environmental and other movements on the continent to campaign for the adoption of this important and fundamental right.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Previous climate meetings such as Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancún in 2010 have faced strong criticism for the tendency to silence the voices of Southern countries and civil society organisations. Do you feel that this situation will have improved for Durban, or will it be ‘business as usual’?

NNIMMO BASSEY: The South African government has dubbed COP17 ‘the people’s COP’. We wait to see what will happen. I expect that these voices will be very loud in Durban. Will they be heard? That is another question. In Copenhagen we were muffled. In Cancun we were spatially dispersed. In Durban there may be another structural barrier that the clever neoliberal system is always capable of erecting. We will be pleasantly surprised if the dominant voices will allow others voices to be raised and heard.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: While much of the global South faces the same challenges in relation to climate change, it is often difficult to achieve political unity and speak with one voice. Do you see strong political unions developing between countries around the issue, or are countries likely to push their own positions?

NNIMMO BASSEY: Strong political unions will eventually emerge, but not in Durban. There will still be nations out there with broken drums to ensure that discordant tunes emerge. The game of these truce breakers is that they thrive on crumbs that fall from the tables of powerful countries. It is unfortunate that in place of principled stands for justice and equity, Southern leaders prefer to kowtow to powerful nations, extend empty bowls for crumbs and wear ‘vulnerability’ as a badge of honour. Countries will be glad to be invited into the so-called green rooms and made offers of aid or some other assistance.

Having said that, it must be agreed that efforts have been made by civil society to show the existing negotiating blocks the convergence of their needs and why they should stand together for the sake of the planet. Unfortunately, nations appear to gravitate towards narrow interests that do not even reflect the desires of the mass of their citizens. It appears that strong, united voices will emerge when leaders learn to listen to and hear the led.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: How would you describe the general level of understanding of climate change within government departments tasked with representing their citizens at the COP17?

NNIMMO BASSEY: Unfortunately the level of understanding of climate change within government departments is not based on rigorous interrogation and understanding of the issues. Even where there are excellent technocrats and negotiators within governments, a firewall seems to exist between these and the policymakers. This dissonance erases what may have been gained from the use of available knowledge in such departments. This arises sometimes because the technocrats build knowledge over time. They also build relationship with knowledgeable civil society actors who enrich their resource base over time. The policymakers and ministers on the other hand have less experience on the job, are changed frequently and may represent narrow interests that do not coincide with those of the citizens. This will play out once more at COP17, unfortunately.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: In your view, how successful have African civil society and governments been at communicating the challenges around climate change to wider society across the continent?

NNIMMO BASSEY: Civil society groups through campaigns, mobilisations and community meetings have made good efforts in communicating climate challenges. I am aware of efforts being made with youths and children as well as with women groups. Much more needs to be done by government. People are still being taken by surprise by climate change impacts. The people are not being prepared for the huge challenges rolling down their way. Much more work remains to be done at all levels.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What role will the African Union have in the meeting?

NNIMMO BASSEY: The African Union ought to have a pivotal role in working for the attainment of the aspirations of the peoples of Africa during the meeting. Africa is the least ready to cope with the impacts of climate-induced catastrophes. Yet it is not clear that the AU will be helpful at the meeting. Information that has emerged from sources such as WikiLeaks have shown how compromised some leaders in the AU climate change efforts are. There is no reason for us to be hopeful that the AU will push a strong and principled position that would help the continent. We can look forward to hear pleas for charity rather than clear demands for climate debt to be paid and for the rich nations to stop fuelling conflicts on the continent that further reduce our capacity to stand the climate challenges.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: While media and mainstream discussions around energy consumption in relation to climate change tend to focus on individual use, it is often the activity of corporations which commands a considerable slice of national energy use. What scope will the COP have for debating corporate consumption of energy?

NNIMMO BASSEY: That discussion will be on the outside, in the civil society spaces. These are the spaces where actions for the future will be construction. That is where the fundamental causes of climate change will be dissected and real solutions like pushing for a post fossil civilisation will be made. On the inside of the COP the emphasis will remain on how to give corporations the best conditions for investment. It will be the space for the cheaper access to electricity for corporations. They will seek for and possibly receive the basis for more fossil fuels and related devious subsidies to be guaranteed the corporations through having their ally, the World Bank, playing central roles in climate finance architecture. It will be a platform for the formulation of more carbon offsetting and trading mechanisms to allow corporations intensify their polluting binge while piling up their profits from the ecological and human misery they leave in their wake.

Recently the UN began the process of engaging the eight biggest electricity companies in the world to advice on how to expand access through the Private-Public Partnerships that the UN sees as the solution to the energy poverty in the world. The space will provide the right ‘financial risk-reward atmosphere’ for the companies and help consolidate the position of existing power companies and more to come!

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Much like the threats posed by GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in relation to the global food system, activists are increasingly wary of the corporate backing given to drastic technological solutions such as geoengineering of the sky. Will there be discussion of these risky technologies at the COP?

NNIMMO BASSEY: There will likely be discussions of the risky technologies at the COP especially where they move into discussions on new sorts of REDD. They may not mention geo-engineering by name, but generic discussions will pave the way for carbon credits to be earned through soil carbon storage, for instance. In fact, there are attempts to push genetically engineered crops into the environment in Africa in the guise of supplying climate ready crops that can withstand severe weather events. The false claims of the modern biotechnology continue unabated, driven by huge corporate interests and their shoe-shining governments.

There will be frank and intense debates about these risky technologies at the COP, but, again, these will be mostly on the outside. A big challenge for this and future meeting is on how to build a convergence between the inside and the outside. Indeed, how to make the outside the inside, so that government can be of the people, by the people and for the people.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS AND AFRICAN AGENDA

The climate change meeting in Durban in December is crucial to the future not just of Africans, but of people around the world. Climate justice and climate change are the defining issues of this century.

The challenge of climate change is one that has arisen because of the current dominant system of social, political and economic organisation, whether we call it capitalism or by any other name.

Africa is the most threatened continent when it comes to climate change. At risk are the lives and livelihoods of at least one billion people.

The challenge is two-fold: To prevent what Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the ambassador of Sudan and the former G77 chair of the climate negotiations, referred to as the incineration of Africa from climate change and to ensure that the continent’s responses to climate change, including the climate negotiations, result in an outcome that is fair, just and sustainable.

The negotiations are important because they are defining the allocation of one of the Earth’s last great common resources. Virtually all common resources including land, the minerals, the trees and fish have been allocated.

These negotiations are about allocating one remaining global commons – the Earth’s atmospheric space, the climate system, the capacity of the atmosphere, the oceans and the forests to absorb greenhouse gasses (GHGs). This is a system that humans interact with every day. At stake in the negotiations is whether the benefits of that system are allocated to the rich countries or the poor countries, to large multinational corporations or to the people, to present or to future generations.

The response to climate change has to address certain realities. There are realities that are defined by atmospheric physics and chemistry – it is impossible to negotiate with Mother Nature. There are realities that are defined by present and expected levels of technology and there are challenges that are defined by the political economy of the present socio-economic and political system.

In terms of the science, the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change. All of Africa is likely to warm during this century in all seasons and in all sub-regions.

Crucially, the level of warming in Africa will be around 1.5 times the global average because of its large land mass. If the world warms by two degrees Celsius, Africa will warm by three degrees Celsius. This is crucial because it defines the impact on Africa and African communities.

While it is understood that Africa is the most threatened continent, it is also important to note that the threats are significantly greater than has been previously understood and significantly greater than what was set out in the IPCC fourth assessment report, which is the basis of current negotiations and the basis upon which many African governments are setting their demands.

Some of the most recent research coming out of Stanford University, based on over 20,000 crop trials, demonstrates that, based on historical data and not on models or projections, a temperature rise of a single degree Celsius will cause losses of 65 per cent of the present maize growing region in Africa, and more than 75 per cent of those areas are expected to lose at least 20 per cent of their productivity from a mere one degree Celsius temperature rise.

So, on one hand, in the Cancun outcome countries talked about a two degrees Celsius goal (which in real terms means three degrees Celsius of warming in Africa), and on the other hand, these studies from Stanford show that one degree warming will result in 20 per cent losses continentally of maize production. In effect, at risk are massive levels of food insecurity and all of the associated problems. Africa is already beginning to see these effects – in the Horn of Africa.

The IPCC’s fourth assessment report vastly underestimated the extent of sea-level rise because the UN body merely summarised the existing science. In fact, the necessary research has not yet been undertaken. The IPCC has thus underestimated the rate of ice and glacier loss. As temperatures increases, sea level rises. The IPCC projection for 2100 is around one metre, but given the historical record, the world can expect over the longer-term 20-30 meters of sea level rise. This is consistent with the more recent studies on the loss of ice in the Arctic region. This will re-write the map of the world.

Already there is very substantial warming in Africa. According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), in a study produced this year on what happened in 2010 around the world, temperatures in Africa last year were 1.29 degrees Celsius above the long-term average. The sub-Saharan area was over two degrees Celsius warmer, which was the largest warming ever outside of the polar region.

East Africa, which had never had warming above one degree Celsius of their long-term average, has had it for eight years in a row, contributing to the ongoing drought. So the impacts are already being felt in Africa.

PROJECTED LEVEL OF WARMING

According to the UNEP 2011 emissions report, which evaluates the low and high-end pledges made at the Copenhagen meeting, the world is on course for 2.5 to five degrees Celsius of warming – a catastrophic level of warming for Africa.

Five degrees Celsius of warming globally would be around 7.5 degrees Celsius of warming in Africa and, as noted earlier, a one degree Celsius of warming historically resulted in 20 per cent crop losses for 75 per cent of maize growing regions.

The UNEP report assumes that those pledges are implemented, but what is clearly happening is that there are efforts by various industrial and lobby groups, particularly in the USA, Europe and elsewhere, seeking to undermine those pledges. In the USA in particular, the powerful oil, energy, metals, coal, fertiliser and other industries are undermining effective climate legislation. But if those pledges are not kept, the world may not only warm 2.5 to five degrees Celsius, but based on the present trajectory if left unabated, the Earth is heading for about 900 to 1,000 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. Based on the historical record of the Earth’s warming, global temperatures as a result of similar levels of atmospheric concentrations were around 16 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

What would this mean for present civilisation? A high degree of warming would fundamentally re-write the maps. It would disrupt the circulation of energy, air and water around the planet. Countries would likely be lashed by serious storms, droughts and fires. In a world more than 5 degrees Celsius warmer, many would likely have to live in small fortified settlements – a radical change in the organisation of civilisation.

So, keeping temperatures down is not merely an effort to address the needs of farmers and workers, although it is fundamentally about those needs, but it is also about stabilising the Earth’s climate and preventing serious runaway climate change.

This means that a platform that addresses the latest scientific evidence is urgently needed. However, at the moment the world is in the middle of a very serious contesting in the negotiations between those who want a science-based approach to climate negotiations (demanded mainly by developing countries) and those who want a ‘pledge and review system’ (demanded by developed countries) in which each country would do what it thinks it can do and not what is necessary to save Earth.

In the climate change negotiations there are talks about adaptation and mitigation – the need to reduce GHG emissions and find ways to live with the climate change that is already in the system.

One of the main concerns is about the levels of impact on Africa. What are the various impacts going to be on different sub-regions and different sectors? This depends in large part on the level of warming regionally in Africa. As stated, Africa will warm around 1.5 times more than the global level of warming. So if Africa agrees in the negotiations to two degrees Celsius, the continent is effectively agreeing to three degrees Celsius in Africa, and that has implications for food security, for each of the different sectors where people work, for ecosystems and so forth.

The continent must also be worried about its piece of the pie. There are implications of the mitigation burden on Africa, particularly in each of the industrial sectors where people work and earn their livelihoods, in transportation, in energy production, in the building and construction of infrastructure, waste management and forestry, among others. In effect, if Africa is on less than two tonnes per capita, how much will it have to reduce and what are the implications for transportation or energy sectors? There are questions that have not been answered yet by many African governments.

The level of mitigation action by developing countries is defined by two things: It is defined by the level of global mitigation action that is needed to get to a certain temperature, less the amount that the rich countries contribute. That is to say, if there is a global pie and the rich countries take a certain slice, how much is left for Africa and what does that mean in terms of Africa’s own development pathway in each of the economic sectors where people live and work? If the pieces of this puzzle don’t fit together then there are serious impacts for industrial development and there are serious impacts in terms of safety and stability of the climate and the effects thereof on infrastructure, health, agriculture and all the other issues. It has to add up as a matter of atmospheric physics and chemistry and it has to add up as a matter of economics.

The other two key pieces are finance and technology, and the level of finance and technology that Africa needs is determined in part by what they agree (explicitly or implicitly) to do in terms of the share of the effort that is allocated (i.e. mitigation).

If African countries are going to reduce emissions in the production of energy, shift from fossil fuel to other non-fossil fuel-based energy, what are the costs of that and what are the implications for the continent’s development and for workers and others relying on those energy sources? Again, if African countries are not going to follow the path that was cheap, which was the path that the rich countries followed, and are forced to follow some other path because the path developed countries followed is blocked, how much will it cost and who bears those costs?

The same goes for adaptation: What technologies do African countries need to address the impacts of 1.5 degrees Celsius or two or five degrees Celsius of warming and what level of finance do they need to address the impacts, by compensating people for the loss of their farms or the loss of their property? Any set of demands made by African governments, by civil society and by the justice movement must, in this sense, reflect the physics and the chemistry and the economics and the politics underlying this set of relations.

Then there is a whole set of questions around how countries make this transition in a manner that is just, fair and equitable. How do countries make this transition in a way that empowers people instead of polluters, people instead of capital, how to fashion the transition in a way that creates new opportunities for participation and democratic representation?

All of these elements are important in terms of the global carbon budget and the emissions trajectory that is needed to secure a safe climate for Africa and for the rest of the world and the way that the world community shares that burden. Since the Industrial Revolution, there has been a steady increase in emissions. Those emissions have come vastly from the developed countries to produce roads, schools, buildings, the things that many developing countries have yet to build.

Global emissions have to peak and they have to come down very fast. The problem is that most of that historical budget for emissions was taken by the rich countries. They have taken a large amount and left the developing countries a small amount to get to the total global carbon budget amount up until this point.

What’s their plan? The Annex 1 countries, the developed countries, are planning a budget that they say is for two degrees Celsius globally, but it’s not actually a two degree Celsius budget and it is not a two degree Celsius budget for Africa. It is a three or four degree Celsius budget for Africa. The level of reductions they are calling for by 2050 gives a very low probability of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.

Secondly, the Annex 1 countries are planning to cut their emissions rather slowly, much slower than needed to save the planet. They want a soft landing for their businesses, so for example, the Europeans say, ‘Well, we’ll cut by 30 per cent.’ So what is happening is that Annex 1 countries are going to take a large amount of the remaining global atmospheric space. They are allocating it to themselves and their corporations, leaving almost nothing to Africa and the rest of the developing world for industrial development.

What’s left is the small space between the total global amount of available emissions and the amount that the Annex 1 countries take. And this is the big secret in the climate negotiations that they have not wanted to explain. When developed countries were asked by Argentina what was left for developing countries, Annex 1 countries said they had not done the calculations. Yet their scientists understand the numbers very well.

So the question then facing developing countries, especially in Africa, is what do you need to live well and what are the implications of accepting this particular scenario proposed by the developed countries? Because for all of modern history the response, the approach to development proposed by the developed countries is that developing countries should grow their way out of poverty. ‘We’re not going to allocate our wealth to you, but you can grow,’ they have said. Now developing countries are being told: You can grow but without growing your economies physically; you can grow them economically but in terms of the physical emissions, the view now is that the door has been closed. So developing countries expect a certain level of increasing welfare, but you have to de-link that expected growth from your emissions and you have to find those emissions reductions in each of the sectors where people work.

Crucially, the question is what are the implications of changing what developing countries are going to do? How much it will cost and what technologies would be needed?

In a sense, any set of demands that are science-based and based on principles of equity and justice somehow have to reflect these considerations as core elements. On top of that there is a need for a whole set of transformative solutions that addresses the root causes of the problem, the structural problems, the systems of appropriation and exploitation that have led the world to this situation.

Africa and other developing countries would have to articulate a whole set of specific strategies and alternatives that put humanity on a pathway towards a world that they want and off the present pathway, which is one of massive appropriation of the Earth’s global resources by the rich which risks potentially catastrophic impacts for poor communities around the world.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS AND AFRICAN AGENDA