We will save the markets, not the climate. That is how we can summarize the outcome of the 17th Conference of Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC) which took place in Durban, South Africa between 28 November and 10 December 2011. There is a striking contrast between the rapid response by governments and international institutions at the onset of the economic and financial crisis of 2007-08 in bailing out private banks with public money and the complete immobility they demonstrate in response to climate change. Yet this should not surprise us, because in both cases it is the markets and their accomplices in government who come out as winners.

There were two central themes at the Durban summit; first, the future of the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012 and the ability to put in place mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and, secondly, the launch of the Green Climate Fund approved at the previous summit in Cancun (Mexico) with the theoretical aim of supporting the poorest countries to face the consequences of climate change through projects of mitigation and adaptation.

After Durban, we can say that a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol remains empty of content. They postponed any real action until 2020 and ruled out any binding regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It was the representatives of the most polluting countries, headed by the United States, who argued for an agreement based on voluntary reductions and opposed any binding mechanism. The Kyoto Protocol was already inadequate, and its strict application would lead to a small slowdown of global warming. But now we are on a path that can only make the situation much worse.

With regard to the Green Climate Fund, as a first step, rich countries pledged to contribute up to $30 billion in 2012 and 100 billion per year until 2020. In the first place these amounts are insufficient. Further, no source of public funds has been identified. Therefore, the doors are wide open to private investment run by the World Bank. As has already been noted by social movements, this is a strategy to “transform the Green Climate Fund into a greedy employers’ fund”. Once again they are making profits from the climate crisis and environmental pollution (investment banks have already developed a range of financial instruments to intervene in what is called the carbon market, emissions, etc.)

Another example of the commodification of the atmosphere was the endorsement by the United Nations of capture and storage of CO2 as a mechanism for so-called clean development, whereas this procedure is not intended to reduce emissions and will help to seriously deepen the environmental crisis, especially in developing countries that are candidates to become cemeteries of CO2 in the future.

The results of the Summit therefore cause an increase in green capitalism. South African activist and intellectual Patrick Bond denounced it like this: “The trend towards commodification of nature has become the dominant philosophical point of view in environmental governance.” In Durban, we repeated the scenario of the previous summits, such as Cancun in 2010 and Copenhagen in 2009, where the interests of large transnational corporations, international financial institutions and the elites of the financial world, both North and South, are given priority over the collective needs of the people and the future of the planet.

In Durban, not only our future was at stake, but also our present. The effects of the ravages of climate change are already being felt; including the release of millions of tons of methane in the Arctic, a gas 20 times more potent than CO2 in terms of atmospheric warming. Then there are the melting glaciers and ice caps which is resulting in a rise in sea level. These effects are already increasing the scale of forced migration. In 1995 there were approximately 25 million climate migrants; that number has doubled now, with 50 million. In 2050, this number could be between 200 million and 1 billion people displaced.

All indicators show that we are moving towards an uncontrolled global warming of more than 2°, which could rise to about 4° at the end of the century. Scientists believe this will most likely trigger unmanageable consequences such as a very significant increase of sea level. We cannot wait until 2020 to start taking action.

But with the lack of political will to tackle climate change, resistance does not, however, dry up. In a movement parallel to Occupy Wall Street and the wave of indignados which has reverberated round Europe and the world, many activists and social movements met in a daily forum a few meters from the official conference centre with their initiative called “Occupy COP17.” Participants ranged from farmers struggling for their rights to representatives of small island states like Seychelles, Grenada and the Republic of Nauru (Oceania, Micronesia) who are threatened by an imminent rise in sea level, to activists against debt who are demanding the repayment of ecological debt from the north to the south.

The movement for Climate Justice shows the need to focus our lives and the planet against the commodification of nature and the commons. Capitalism and its elites are unable to provide a comprehensive response to the socio-climate crisis which has led us to a productivist and predatory system. If we are not to exacerbate the climate crisis with all its consequences we must fundamentally change this system. The well-known environmental activist Nnimmo Bassey said very clearly: “The summit amplified climate apartheid, where the 1% richest in the world decided it was acceptable to sacrifice the remaining 99%.”

II-Durban Outcomes.

Without doubt, the Durban COP made some progress on a few potentially significant issues, yet it is also undeniable that there is a huge gap between what nations have agreed to do in Durban and what science is saying is necessary to prevent dangerous anthropocentric interference with the climate system. As we shall see, once again, in Durban resolution of the most important climate issues were deferred to future negotiations.

On a positive note, the major accomplishments of the Durban COP were agreements to:

1. Negotiate an agreement by no later than 2015 that would apply for the first time all parties under the UNFCCC, that is both developed and developing countries, on mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology development and transfer, transparency of action, and capacity building, and that such agreement will come into effect and be implemented by 2020. (UNFCCC, 2011a) 2. Initiate a new Green Climate Fund as the financial mechanism under the UNFCCC in regard to mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.(UNFCCC, 2011b) Several European countries in Durban pledged more than $50 billion in seed money to establish this fund, an amount that is expected to rise to $100 billion per year by 2020.

Durban also produced several other agreements that could eventually be helpful in implementing a comprehensive international solution to climate change on technology transfer, reference standards to be used in the program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+), sources of funding for REDD+, an extension of the Kyoto Protocol for a second commitment period, and procedures on national climate adaptation planning. (For copies of these decisions, see UNFCCC, 2011c)

Despite these accomplishments, strong criticism of the Durban outcome is warranted because the agreement to cooperate on a new binding legal instrument is only an agreement to negotiate an agreement about which almost nothing has been settled and that will not likely become effective until 2020.

Because there is a growing scientific consensus that the world is running out of time to prevent an additional 2 degree C warming, let alone 1.5 degree C or lower warming limits that may be necessary to prevent rapid, non-linear warming, the Durban outcome may be seen as another tragic lost opportunity to put the world on a path that avoids dangerous climate change.

Given that the voluntary greenhouse gas emissions reductions agreed to at COP-16 in Cancun are expected to allow an additional 3.5 degree C warming and that significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions are necessary before 2020 to have any reasonable chance of limiting warming to 2 degrees C, the Durban deal can be seen as almost insuring dangerous warming unless nations agree to make further emissions reductions before 2020, the effective date of the new Durban deal. (For a discussion of the gap between voluntary emissions commitments, and emissions reductions needed to achieve a warming limit of 2 degrees C, see, Holme, et al, 2011)

Although the Durban deal included agreement to create a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, since Canada, Japan, and Russia joined the United States in announcing their unwillingness to accept new emissions reduction targets under an extended Kyoto framework, the Durban extension of Kyoto is not likely to produce significant reductions in the threat of climate change. It is notable, however, that some nations agreed to commit to a second commitment target under Kyoto despite the fact that most of the larger polluters refused to do so, thus recognizing that some nations seem to acknowledge that they must act on the basis of obligation to the planet and not only on the basis of self-interest alone.

Although Durban finalized many of the administrative details of a new mechanism to administer funds for mitigation and adaptation in developing countries, the Green Climate Fund, adequate, predictable, and additional financing at agreed upon levels has not yet materialized in UNFCCC climate negotiations.

III-An Ethical Analysis of Durban

To evaluate what happened in Durban it is necessary to have some understanding of prior negotiations leading up to Durban and in particular the UNFCCC COPs at Bali, Poznan, Copenhagen, and Cancun. This history is necessary to have some concrete understanding of the negotiating positions and their context that nations took coming into Durban and how this history reveals that most nations have been guided primarily by economic self-interest, not international responsibility.

Looking at the most recent COP before Durban, the 2010 Cancun COPs goals were modest in light of the failure of COP-15 in Copenhagen the year before to achieve an expected global solution to climate change. Copenhagen was expected to produce a global solution to climate change pursuant to a two-year negotiating process and agenda that was agreed to in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2007.

At the COP-13 negotiations in Bali, Indonesia in 2007, parties to the UNFCCC agreed to replace the Kyoto Protocol with an agreement that would create a new emissions reduction commitment period under the UNFCCC and would include binding emissions reductions for developed countries and new programs on adaptation for developing countries, deforestation, finance, technology transfer, and capacity building. This agreement was referred to as the Bali Roadmap, which also called for articulating a “shared vision for long-term cooperative action,” including a long-term global goal for emission reductions.

The original UNFCCC climate treaty had neither a quantified temperature limitation goal nor a ghg concentration atmospheric stabilization goal. In the Bali Roadmap the international community agreed to negotiate such a goal.

The Bali decision also recognized that developing countries could make contributions to solving the climate change through the development of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), meaning climate change strategies for developing countries. The NAMAs, however, would not constitute binding emissions reduction requirements for developing countries in contrast to the binding obligations of developed countries in the Kyoto Protocol that would be further developed and extended in Copenhagen.

Over the next few COPs, progress was made from the standpoint of the United States and several other developed countries, most notably when US President Obama in 2009 personally negotiated the Copenhagen Accords which were somewhat strengthened by the agreement reached in Cancun a year later in December of 2010. In Copenhagen, President Obama was successful most notably in getting all nations to identify voluntary emissions reductions commitments and getting key developing nations to agree to procedures to that would allow the international community to better verify these commitments. Yet, the US negotiated in Copenhagen, Cancun, and Durban as if it need not commit to reduce its emissions until other nations made commitments.

The United States approached negotiations in Durban as if the United States need not make binding emissions reductions commitments unless it could secure commitments to reduce GHG emissions from high-emitting countries including China and India that had no binding commitments under the Kyoto deal. For this reason, the US pushed for agreement to negotiate a new international agreement that would include all nations, a goal that was achieved in Durban.

In Copenhagen US President Obama led negotiations that appeared to be motivated, at least in large part, by what was politically feasible in the United States. In Copenhagen, Obama was clearly interested in getting China, India, Brazil,and South Africa to make commitments on climate change because the failure to get commitments from major developing countries would guarantee that no climate deal would get ratified by Congress. Most observers would agree that there was little chance of getting US congressional support for an international deal on climate change unless China and India and other high-emitting nations agreed to commitments. For this reason, Obama was focused on getting some developing nations to agree to voluntary emissions reductions, an outcome that he succeeded in accomplishing in Copenhagen. Yet, as we have explained in ClimateEthics before, no nation may deny its duty to reduce its emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions on the basis that others who are contributing to the harm have failed to cease harmful behavior. (Brown, 2009) This is so because no nation or person has a right to continue destructive behavior on the basis that others who are contributing to the harm have not ceased their destructive behavior.

And so what has been politically feasible on climate change in the United States is inconsistent with what ethics and justice would require of the United States. If this is the case, strong criticism of the United States is warranted as long as the US leadership is not advocating among its own people to support positions that ethics and justice would require of it.

The United States and several other countries have been acting in the last four COPs as if they need not commit to impose costs on themselves to reduce the threat of climate change as long as others refuse to commit because other nations who do not impose emissions constraints on themselves would benefit economically by being able to produce goods at lower costs than those who increase energy costs through adoption of climate policies. In other words, the United States has been consistently negotiating as if its economic interests trump its ethical obligations to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to the US fair share of safe global emissions.

As ClimateEthics has frequently explained, as a matter of justice no nation, including the United States, can refuse to reduce its emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions levels on the basis that others won’t act. Yet this is consistently what the United States and a few other nations have done. Making matters worse, the negotiations leading up to Durban beginning at the Poznan COP in 2008 have been plagued by the United States insistence that it would not agree to be bound to a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement that the United States alone among the nations of the world refused to ratify largely because it did not contain emissions reductions commitments for developing nations. This US position ultimately made the negotiations much more complicated than they needed to be by insisting that negotiations continue under two tracks, one for the Kyoto parties and one that would ignore the Kyoto agreement and its architecture. In taking this position, the United States was communicating to the world it need not commit to emissions reductions until others so committed. And so one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases has consistently refused to reduce its emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions on the basis of national economic interest.

The United States and several other nations including Canada, Japan, and Russia have now refused to make a commitment in a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol on the basis that they need not commit to reduce greenhouse gas emission until other nations make equivalent commitments. Although the US has agreed to make voluntary reductions under the Cancun agreements, this was committed to on the basis that developing nations made voluntary commitments under Cancun also. (Brown, 2010a) Also, as we shall see, these voluntary commitments are inadequate to prevent dangerous climate change.

In examining previous COPs, ClimateEthics has proposed ethical criteria that any proposed post-Kyoto regime must meet at a minimum. (Brown, 2010 b) That is any post-Kyoto regime must:

• Require sufficient greenhouse emissions reductions to assure that the international community is on a greenhouse gas emissions reduction pathway that will prevent dangerous climate change harm. This is sometimes referred to as the environmental sufficiency criteria.
• Begin to base differences among national allocations on the basis of equity and justice. This is sometimes referred to as the equity criteria.
• Assure that those responsible for climate change provide adequate, predictable adaptation funding to enable developing countries and in particular the most vulnerable developing countries to do what is necessary to avoid climate change damages in cases where it is possible to take action and to prevent damages, or be compensated for climate change damages in cases where it is impossible to take protective action. We refer to this as the just adaptation criteria.

Although these three criteria, that is environmental sufficiency, equity, and just adaptation constitute the minimum ethical considerations that any climate regime must satisfy, they don’t capture all ethical questions raised by any proposed climate change regime. There are numerous other ethical questions raised by any proposed climate change regimes that go beyond these minimum requirements including issues of fair process, gender issues in policy formation, obligations of sub-national governments, organizations, businesses, and individuals for climate change, human rights issues relating to climate change and many more. This post, however, now looks at Durban in light of the three minimum criteria.

A. Environmental Sufficiency

Durban not only failed to produce an agreement that assures that the international community is on a greenhouse gas emissions reduction pathway that will prevent dangerous climate change harm, it deferred serious implementation of any new commitments in emissions reductions until 2020. Although Durban accomplished the laudable goal of getting all nations to negotiate an agreement with legal force, it did almost nothing to put the world on an emissions reduction pathway that had hope of preventing dangerous climate change. Although the Cancun COP the year before Durban did produce voluntary commitments from the most important developed and developing nations, these commitments leave at the very minimum a 5Gt gap between emissions levels that will be achieved if there is full compliance with the voluntary emissions reductions and what is necessary to prevent 2°C rise, a warming amount that most scientists believe could cause very dangerous climate change, and an amount that has been adopted as the ultimate goal of the UNFCCC. (See for a fuller discussion of this Brown, 2010) There is no reason to believe that future negotiations that were agreed to in Durban will overcome the unwillingness of nations to commit to emissions reductions that are necessary to prevent dangerous climate change. In Durban, the hard issues have simply been deferred to the future.

B. Equity Criteria

The second minimum ethical criteria that all post-Kyoto proposals must meet is the requirement that national emissions reduction proposals must be consistent with what “equity” and “justice” demands of nations. That is, equity requires that each nation reduce its emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions. And so, each nation’s emissions reduction levels should be based upon what distributive and retributive justice demands, not on national self-interest. Although there are different theories of distributive justice that lead to different national allocations, many justifications for national ghg emissions allocations voluntarily agreed to under Cancun fail to satisfy any ethical scrutiny. In other words, it is not necessary to know what perfect justice requires to conclude that some voluntary proposals for national ghg allocations under Cancun are unjust and Durban did nothing to change this. These issues have been deferred to future negotiations under Durban.

C. Just Adaptation Criteria

The third minimum ethical criteria for judging any second commitment period under the UNFCCC is that it must provide adequate funding to support adaptation programs in developing countries given that some developing countries have done nothing to cause climate change and must take steps to avoid harsh impacts The Durban agreement did manage to create an Green Climate Fund that will be the financial mechanism to manage adaptation funding and also made some progress on a few other adaptation issues. Yet Durban failed to identify dedicated sources of funding to implement an adaptation agenda that is based upon “mandatory” contributions to “new”, “predictable,” and “additional” sources of funding. Therefore Durban failed to satisfy the ethical criteria for adequate funding for adaptation.

IV Conclusion

To adjudicate the disagreement about whether Durban was a disaster or a meaningful step forward, one must look at Durban’s resolution of the major issues needed to get the world on a reasonably hopeful path that would avoid dangerous climate change, whether nations are agreeing to commit to their fair share of safe global emissions, and whether mechanisms for needed adaptation are in place. Under these criteria, Durban was a huge failure.

It is true, that given what was deemed to be politically possible going into Durban, Durban achieved some important progress. Yet identifying this progress, without recognition of the magnitude and seriousness of the overall failures obscures the message that most needs to communicated to citizens, namely that most nations are failing to live up to their global obligations and this puts tens if not hundreds of millions of people and the resources on which life depends at great risk.

To rectify the failure of nations to take their ethical obligations seriously, strategies need to be developed that turn up the volume on the ethical obligations of nations on climate change. At the top of the list, is a strategy that would require nations to make their positions on major ethical issues entailed by climate change explicit so that they can be reflected on by citizens around the world. ClimateEthics will make more detailed recommendations on how to implement this strategy in an upcoming post.

There is a need to make national positions on climate change’s major ethical issues explicit because nations are frequently taking positions on climate change that are obviously deeply ethically flawed, but citizens around the world or the press have no way of commenting on these positions without speculating on the justification for the national position. Requiring nations to expressly identify their positions on such issues as what is their fair share of safe global emissions would allow critical reflection on what each nation’s position is on a safe global atmospheric concentration stabilization level, given that atmospheric target what that nation believes is an acceptable global emissions reduction pathway to achieve the atmospheric target, what is that nation’s position on its equitable share of future global emissions that will achieve the needed emissions reductions pathway, as well as their ethical justification for all of these issues.

Although nations are likely to continue to resist committing to emissions reductions consistent with what ethics would require of them, making national positions on these issues explicit would create an opportunity to exert global pressure on the most irresponsible nations.

References:

Brown, Donald, 2011, Ten Practical Policy Consequences of Acknowledging That Climate Change Is An Ethical Problem, ClimateEthics.org. http://rockblogs.psu.edu/climate/2011/08/ten-practical-policy-consequences-of-acknowledging-that-climate-change-is-an-ethical-problem.html

Brown, Donald, 2010, An Ethical Analysis of the Cancun Climate Negotiations Outcome, ClimateEthics.org, http://rockblogs.psu.edu/climate/2010/12/an-ethical-analysis-of-the-cancun-climate-negotiations-outcome.html

Brown, Donald, 2010b, A Comprehensive Ethical Analysis of the Copenhagen Accord. ClimateEthics.org, http://rockblogs.psu.edu/climate/2010/01/a-comprehensive-ethical-analysis-of-the-copenhagen-accord.html

Brown, Donald, 2009, The Strong Scottish Moral Leadership On Climate Change Compared To The Absence Of Any Acknowledged Ethical Duty In The US Debate ClimateEthics.org, http://rockblogs.psu.edu/climate/2009/08/the-strong-scottish-moral-leadership-on-climate-change-compared-to-the-absence-of-any-acknowledged-ethical-duty-in-the-us-debate.html

Hertzgaard, Mark, 2011, Durban, Where the Climate Deniers-in-Chief Ran the Show, The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/article/165155/durban-where-climate-deniers-chief-ran-show/

Holme, N, et al, 2011, Negotiations Heading toward a High, High Cost Pathway, 1.50C, http://climateactiontracker.org/assets/CAT_Durban_update_2011_2.pdf

Light, Andrew, 2011, Why Durban Matters, Center For American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/12/why_durban_matters.html

UNFCCC, 2011a, Establishment of an Ad Hoc Working Group on t he Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, Draft decision-/CP.17, http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/durban_nov_2011/decisions/application/pdf/cop17_durbanplatform.pdf

UNFCCC, 2011b, Green Climate Fund-Report of the Transitional Committee, Draft decision-CP.17, http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/durban_nov_2011/decisions/application/pdf/cop17_gcf.pdf

UNFCCC, 2011c, Durban decisions are available at http://unfccc.int/2860.php/

(December 14, 2011) The Climate Change Conference ended two days later than expected, adopting a set of decisions that were known only a few hours before their adoption. Some decisions were even not complete at the moment of their consideration. Paragraphs were missing and some delegations didn’t even have copies of these drafts. The package of decisions was released by the South African presidency with the ultimatum of “Take it or leave it”. Only the European Union was allowed to make last minute amendments at the plenary.

Several delegations made harsh criticisms to the documents and expressed their opposition to sections of them. However, no delegation explicitly objected the subsequent adoption of these decisions. At the end, the whole package was adopted by consensus without the objection of any delegation. The core elements of the Durban Package can be summarized as follows:

1)     A Zombie called Kyoto Protocol

• A soulless undead: The promises of reducing greenhouse gas emission for the second period of commitments of the Kyoto Protocol represent less than half of what is necessary to keep the temperature increase below 2°C.
• This Zombie (second period of the Kyoto Protocol) will only finally go into effect next year (COP 18).
• It is not known if the second period of the Kyoto Protocol will cover 5 or 8 years.
• United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, Australia and New Zealand will be out of this second period of the Kyoto Protocol.
• This will be known as the lost decade in the fight against climate change.

2)     New regime of “Laisser Faire, Laisser Faisser”

• In 2020 a new legal instrument will come into effect that will replace the Kyoto Protocol and will seriously impact the principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
• The core elements of this new legal instrument can be already seen due to the results of the negotiations: a) voluntary promises rather than binding commitments to reduce emissions, b) more flexibilities (carbon markets) for developed countries to meet their emission reduction promises, and c) an even weaker compliance mechanism than the Kyoto Protocol.
• The new legal instrument will cover all the States, effectively removing the difference between developing and developed countries. The principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” already established in the Climate Change Convention will disappear.
• The result will be the deepening of the “Laisser Faire, laisser passer” regime inaugurated in Copenhagen, Cancun and Durban which will lead to an increase in temperature of more than 4°C.

3)     A Green Fund with no funds

• The Green Fund now has an institutional structure in which the World Bank is a key player.
• The 100 billion is only a promise and will NOT be provided for by the developed countries.
• The money will come from the carbon markets (which are collapsing), from private investments, from credits (to be paid) and from the developing countries themselves.

4)     A lifesaver for the Carbon Markets

• The existing carbon markets will live regardless of the fate of the Kyoto Protocol.
• Also, new carbon market mechanisms will be created to meet the emissions reduction pledges of this decade.
• It is a desperate attempt to avoid the loss of the carbon markets, which are collapsing due to the fall of the carbon credits, from 30 Euros per ton to 3 Euros per ton of CO2.
• Developed countries will reduce less than what they promise because they will buy Emission Reduction Certificates from developing countries.

5)     REDD: a perverse incentive to deforest in this decade

• If you don’t cut down trees you won’t be able to issue certificates of reduction of deforestation when the REDD (Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) mechanism comes into operation.
• CONSEQUENCES: deforest now if you want to be ready for REDD.
• The safeguards for indigenous peoples will be flexible and discretionary for each country.
• The offer of funding for forests is postponed until the next decade due to the fact that demand for Carbon Credits will not increase until then because of the low emission reduction promises.

ĄAmandla! ĄJallalla!

In the actions and events of the social movements in Durban, two battle cries emerged: “Amandla” and “Jallalla”. The first one is a Xhosa and Zulu word from South Africa which means “power”. The second word is an expression in aymara which means “for life”. “ĄAmandlaĄ °Jallalla!” means “ĄPower for life!”

This is the “power for life” that we must build, that transcends borders, from our communities, neighborhoods, workplaces and place of study in order to stop this ongoing genocide and ecocide.

(*) Pablo Solón, international analyst and social activist. United Nations Ambassador and Chief Climate Change Negotiator from the Plurinational State of Bolivia.

http://pablosolon.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/the-durban-package-laisser-faire-laisser-passer/

Late morning of Saturday, 10 December (as the Durban climate talks were extended beyond Friday), the Chair of the AWGLCA, Mr. Daniel Reifsnyder of the United States, made available to Parties his draft conclusions on the outcome of the work of the Working Group which comprised 56 pages including annexes.

When the AWGLCA met for its final plenary session late evening the same day, Reifsnyder formally presented the document to Parties (referred to as document L4). He also presented another document reflecting the work undertaken in the informal groups as a note by him, (referred to as Conference Room Paper – CRP 39), which he said was to carry forward ideas and proposals in areas in which continued discussions are envisaged next year.

Many concerns raised especially by developing countries during the final session of the AWGLCA were brushed aside with the unusual procedure of transmitting the outcome document to the COP under the authority of the Chair despite it not enjoying any consensus from the UNFCCC Parties.

Several developing countries raised concerns over many specific issues and the lack of balance in the text, especially in relation to mitigation actions of developed and developing countries, with the breaking down of the firewall between them, and the absence of the recognition of historical responsibility and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR).

Many countries were unhappy that there was no expression of the level of mitigation ambition needed by developed countries and there was no provision for the comparability of efforts between the Kyoto Protocol (KP) Parties and the non-KP Parties (the US in particular). Some expressed deep concern that a flexible mitigation regime for developed countries was being set up in place of the KP, and that it did not have any compliance regime or common accounting framework.

The US was opposed to any attempt in Durban to have any process to review its pledge or on how to raise the ambition level of greenhouse gases emissions reduction. It also did not want a common accounting framework or a compliance regime, which was called for by many developing countries and the European Union.

There were concerns also over long-term finance where there was no clarity on how the US$100 billion per year by 2020 as agreed to in Cancun was going to be mobilized or for a roadmap for that to be put in place to ensure predictable and sustainable financial resources to developing countries.

Some developing countries wanted the AWGLCA document to be worked on further to “restore the balance” and proposed that this be done next year and were not ready to support the adoption of the outcome document in Durban.

The life of the AWGLCA was extended for another year through a decision by Parties in the “Durban Platform” document which reads as follows:

“Decides to extend the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention for one year in order for it to continue its work and reach the agreed outcome pursuant to decision 1/CP.13 (Bali Action Plan) through decisions adopted by the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth sessions of the Conference of the Parties, at which time the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention shall be terminated”.

The request to carry on further work on the L4 document next year was ignored by the Chair who proceeded to transmit the document to the COP under his own authority.

There was deep frustration among many delegations. The Venezuelan climate envoy, Ms. Claudia Salerno had to stand on the chair with her country’s name plate to draw the attention of the AWGLCA Chair after he had gaveled the adoption of the report of the meeting.

Salerno said that the AWGLCA document had serious deficiencies. Yet, it was being transmitted to the COP. She disclosed that there were threats that if Venezuela did not agree to the adoption of the text, there would be no second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol and that the multilateral system would not be preserved.

The Chair just ignored Venezuela’s protest and adjourned the meeting.

At the formal session of the COP plenary, Reifsnyder informed the COP that Parties were not able to reach consensus. The text, he said, was rich and comprehensive and harvested important progress. He hoped that it could be adopted by the COP as part of the comprehensive Durban package. The document was adopted as part of the Durban package.

(The package comprises 4 decisions on: (i) the second commitment period for emissions reductions by Annex 1 Parties under the KP; (ii) a decision on the work of the AWGLCA; (iii) a decision on the Green Climate Fund; and (iv) an agreement that establishes a new ad hoc working group on the Durban Platform for enhanced action.)

When the AWGLCA document was first presented to Parties, many concerns were raised.

Saudi Arabia expressed its concerns in a number of areas. The text puts more emphasis on the mitigation elements for developing countries and weakens those for developing countries. For example, on the modalities on international assessment and review (IAR) of developed countries, the need for unified accounting rules is no longer in the text. (Several countries, both developed and developing countries had called for common accounting rules for developed country mitigation but the US was opposed to this).

In the case of biennial update reports (BUR) for developing countries, the mandate from the  (2010) Cancun decision was for such reports to be submitted consistent with their capabilities and the level of support provided for reporting [paragraph 60(c) of the Cancun decision] but the language in paragraph 41(f) of the AWGLCA document (L4) does not reflect that.

[Paragraph 41(f) states: “That non-Annex 1 (developing country) Parties shall submit a biennial update report every two years, either as a summary of parts of their national communications…”]

Saudi Arabia said that there was no link to the capabilities and national circumstances (of developing countries), nor is there any reference to the level of financial support.

It did not see the Chair giving the same treatment on issues in trying to become more ambitious, referring to the issue of ‘economic and social consequences of response measures’. In the Cancun decision, Parties agreed to strive to implement policies and measures to respond to climate change in such a way so as to avoid negative social and economic consequences. The language in the document now urges Parties to give full consideration to the positive and negative impacts of the implementation of response measures which is a downgrading of the Cancun decision. It also attempts to put together some considerations of other issues which go beyond the scope of the AWGLCA.

On finance, Saudi Arabia asked how the Standing Committee under the COP could just be an advisory group. On long-term finance, in relation to mobilizing climate finance, the AWGLCA document (in paragraph 125) refers to assessment criteria in “the report on mobilizing climate finance for the G20”. This (referring to the UNFCCC) is not a G20 forum.

Saudi Arabia said there were many examples apart from these concerns that show that more work was needed on the document as it was presented for the first time in the morning (of Saturday). It reiterated the need for further work on the document before it could be adopted and was flexible on the process on how to deal with concerns raised.

Malaysia said that the approach advanced by the Chair was to defer all issues in the CRP 39 document to next year as these issues were controversial with divergent views, which developed countries and some developing countries were opposed to. These related to issues such as intellectual property rights, unilateral trade measures, equity in the shared vision document are some examples. However, in the AWGLCA L4 document, in cases where developing countries had strong views, their proposals have been ignored especially in relation to the mitigation of developed countries, on cooperative sectoral approaches, various approaches including opportunities for using markets, and economic and social consequences of response measures.

The texts in relation to these aspects reflected the proposals of developed countries and do not reflect the positions of several developing countries. In the case of mitigation by developed countries, there are no numbers on the need for the aggregate emission reductions target for Annex 1 (developed country) Parties as called for by some developing countries. This is a problem as the ambition level of the Annex 1 Parties is completely missing. There is only a reference in the preambular section “acknowledging that there is a gap between the aggregate level of reduction to be achieved through global mitigation efforts.”  Hence, the attempt here is to avoid any Annex 1 aggregate number but to make it a responsibility of all Parties (including developing countries) to meet the mitigation gap.

The issue of comparability of efforts needed among developed countries between those who are KP Parties and those who are not, which was in paragraph 1(b)(i) of the Bali Action Plan (mandate for the AWGLCA) is really missing with only a weak reference in the preamble about recalling in relation to the comparability of mitigation efforts. In reference to the compliance of developed countries, there is reference in the IAR section but is very weak as it says that “… any revision of the modalities and procedures for IAR and review should take into account any future agreement on a compliance regime for mitigation targets…” This really undermines the existing KP compliance system and puts in place a much weaker regime which is to be negotiated in a future agreement. This is completely unacceptable and allows for a weak mitigation regime for Annex 1 Parties and provides for the “great escape” from the KP.

Malaysia said that to make matters worse, the text has in effect made a decision for new market based mechanisms under “various approaches” when this was an issue of controversy. Instead of this issue being deferred for consideration to next year in the absence of agreement in the informal group, the text calls for new market mechanisms.

Further, on the issue of cooperative sectoral approaches it was concerned that the proposals of developed countries have been taken on board while concerns of developing countries have not been reflected.

In the circumstances, Malaysia could not accept the L4 document as a balanced text and wanted the document not to be adopted but to be transmitted for further work under the AWGLCA next year, along with CRP 39.

The Democratic Republic of Congo for the African Group was concerned that on mitigation of developed countries, Parties were merely noting and clarifying pledges with no clear process for raising ambition or ensuring comparability of efforts. The decision should go beyond merely urging countries to do more. This view is held by many including for those Annex 1 Parties under the Kyoto Protocol. There was an apparent lack of balanced text on the mitigation of developed countries and that of developing countries. When reading the text, one wonders if it was for developed countries or developing countries and it does not reflect the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR).

On long-term finance, there is no clear level of commitment for financing when the so-called fast start finance ends (in 2012). The text had strong obligations for developing countries without similar appropriate provisions for developed country mitigation. The text does not reflect that balance as contained in the Convention.

Thailand also raised concerns over the mitigation chapter and said that there was no number for the aggregate emission reductions needed by developed countries and the ambition level was missing. There was no strong text on the need for comparability of efforts among developed countries who were Parties to the KP and those who were not. It was unhappy that a strong compliance regime was absent and found the document unacceptable and called for further work at the next session of the AWGLCA.

The Philippines said it had difficulties with the output of work. There was grave imbalance in the text in relation to adaptation. Adaptation has been regarded a poor cousin of mitigation. Securing resources for adaptation appeared to be a distant reality. It said there was opposition to linking adaptation to finance. This was a process of give and take but developing countries have been giving and giving. On the issue of long term finance, the language is very weak in relation to the scaling up of resources.

India said it shared the concerns raised by developing countries. Two issues of concern for India were on agricultural emissions and trade. It said that detailed discussions took place on views within the scope of mitigation in agriculture as this sector involved the livelihood of millions of people in terms of employment and was not merely an issue of CBDR. The agriculture sector still depended on monsoons and was vulnerable to climate change and is excluded from India’s mitigation targets. The agriculture issue in the document is not mature enough to receive a direction for a decision at COP 18 (in 2013). It wanted this excluded from the text.

On the issue of trade, India said that this was left out of the section on ‘economic and social consequences of response measures’ when there were 3 options from developing countries with one option having the support of about 80 countries. This issue was fundamental and further work needs to take place next year as contained in the document CRP 39 for elaboration.

The AWGLCA Chair confirmed that this issue was still on the table and will be forwarded for further work next year.

Pakistan said while there was good work done, progress had not been made to complete the work (of the AWGLCA). As regards the Adaptation Committee, it said that the Committee should have been given the right status as a subsidiary body of the Convention with more prominence. It expressed sadness that there was no consensus in this regard.

On the Standing Committee on finance, the Committee should have had a strong oversight mandate.  On long-term finance, it was sad that Parties were not able to achieve anything as there was need for a common understanding on how to scale up adequate and predictable resources.

On mitigation, the document was definitely skewed heavily against developing countries and blurring the distinction between developed and developing country obligations. There was need to insert the notion of national circumstances in relation to the submission of BURs and there was no link to finance. Pakistan said that it was at a loss on how the process was going to unfold and would like to see a way to work further.

Venezuela said that the process has downgraded the level of ambition in relation to mitigation and the text was seriously imbalanced. It did not see how the clarification and understanding of the emission reduction pledges of developed countries will serve to improve the trust and confidence in Parties when there is no real ambition in the mitigation targets. The delicate balance between the mitigation of developed and developing countries was crossed when the principle of CBDR has been taken out of the text. There has been a redistribution of responsibilities and the commitments of developing countries are higher than that asked of developed countries. The world appeared upside down and this was not acceptable.

On ‘market mechanisms’ there was reference in the text to “building upon the existing flexibility mechanisms established under the KP” and Venezuela was concerned if there would indeed be a second commitment period under the KP. It did not want a link on the use of markets and the undertaking of mitigation actions.

Venezuela was concerned that once again, Parties were in a take-it-or-leave-it situation (as regards the text), which was given in the morning. There was frustration and fatigue and Parties do not have to accept anything just because it was late and people are tired. This (L4) document was not ambitious enough and there was need to address what the planet needs. It could not accept a document that suits just one country (in an apparent reference to the US for not wanting the level of ambition in mitigation for developed countries to be in the text).

Referring to the Durban package, where Parties potentially lose the KP due to a lack of ambition, it did not believe that the document could be taken seriously as the basis of a future legally binding regime with pledges, flexibilities and market mechanisms to serve a few. It wanted the Chair to tell Parties how to move responsibly to resolve the issues.

Egypt also had concerns over long-term finance as there was need for predictable and sustainable support to enable developing countries to undertake mitigation and adaptation actions. The deal was not done in terms of long-term finance and there was need for further elaboration on the needs of developing countries and on the sources of finance. The Bali Action Plan work was not complete.

Gambia, for the Least Developed Countries said a decision on long-term finance was not reflected in the text. However, it was prepared for the Durban package to be adopted.

China shared the concerns raised by other developing countries. It said that the work of the AWGLCA was not expressed in a balanced manner especially that of the mitigation commitments of developed countries as compared to that of developing countries. There is no reflection of historical responsibility and the level of mitigation targets needed. On long-term finance, it was also concerned that there is no clear vision and provision for how the US$100 billion per year by 2020 was going to be achieved as agreed to in Cancun. No means have been provided in the text to do this. This question needs further discussion.

Saying that this was not the last meeting of the AWGLCA, China added that Parties will need to continue to make efforts to reach the outcome of expectations under the Bali Roadmap (the Bali Action Plan and the determination of the second commitment period under the KP). The important questions were what the next steps are and how to make the arrangements.

China asked the Chair to make clear recommendations to the COP on the need for clear arrangements for the work of the AWGLCA since this has not been made clear and many issues under the Bali Roadmap need solutions. On the (L4) document, China said that concerns have been expressed and there was need to decide how to handle this. It asked how the document was going to be submitted to the COP when it did not fulfill the expectations of Parties and was far from being comprehensive and balanced.

Bolivia also expressed concerns over the lack of balance in the text, as the responsibility of undertaking mitigation efforts was falling on the shoulders of developing countries. As some countries were withdrawing from their commitments under the second commitment period of the KP, a weak and flexible regime was being put in place with no compliance regime. The pledges of Parties are not yet commitments and were unfair to those Annex 1 Parties who remain in the KP and who are upholding the instruments and the KP systems.

It expressed regret that the obligations of developing countries to do their national communications (reporting every four years), the BURs and participation in the registry were all expected with their own resources.

Bolivia said the principle of CBDR is not expressed in the text. It was also concerned that the text was opening the door to market mechanisms, which needed further analysis on the impacts of such mechanisms. It said that the document was not balanced and could not be adopted as it is but could be part of the discussions next year and wanted its concerns recorded.

Nicaragua said that the AWGLCA document on long-term finance was all about undertaking further studies on options for the mobilization of resources. There was no roadmap for the mobilization of the US$100 billion per year by 2020. It said that some Parties were proposing no resources during this decade. The Green Climate Fund has been created but it was a Fund with no funds. There is no definition on the sources of finance and it was concerned with references to the G20 report on mobilizing finance when that was an ad hoc forum.

Nicaragua advanced the idea of the use of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) for climate finance. It said that in 2009, the G20 proposed the issuance of US$ 250 billion in SDRs of which US$100 billion was for developed countries.  The International Monetary Fund was responsible for its issuance and this was done with great speed. If such resources could be used to save the banking system, it asked why this was not possible to save mother earth.

Ecuador said that on long term finance, it had made a proposal on the issuance of Special Drawing Rights. It also had proposed financial transaction taxes as well as taxes on imports of oil which could provide the sources for financing. It expressed regret that these proposals were not reflected in the document and there was a lack of consistency in the approach. It asked the Chair to find solutions that did not cross redlines.

Paraguay expressed concerns that the principles of historical responsibility and CBDR should not be diluted. It called for the completion of the Bali Roadmap.

Kenya said that the text fell short for Africa and was weak in adaptation and low on ambition in mitigation. It also stressed the importance of comparability of efforts among developed country Parties and the need to reflect a common accounting framework. The submissions of BURs by developing countries needed support and flexibility in reporting. It called for further improvement to the document before its adoption.

Bangladesh said that the text was watered down and crossed some redlines of the LDCs but it was prepared to accept the text with reservations. It said that the Adaptation Committee was a good way forward.

The European Union said it was disappointed with the AWGLCA document as it had weak language on the (emissions reduction) ambition gap and wanted a process to address this but this was not reflected in the document. The BUR guidelines for developing countries were not strong enough. Nevertheless, it did not want to run the risk of re-opening the balance reached in the document and supported its adoption.

Switzerland said that the document was insufficient in a number of chapters. On ‘shared vision’, it was blind. The paragraphs on ambition level and guidelines for reporting are insufficient. The text on international consultations and analysis (ICA) in relation to developing countries was weak. However, it was prepared to accept the document. The text is something Parties must continue with and develop it further.

The United States said that the negotiations were difficult and Parties needed to move forward on what was achieved and supported the adoption of the text. It said that the guidelines on transparency for the targets and actions were not perfect but if there was delay, Parties would be reneging on the Cancun decision and would unravel the Durban package which was significant.

Japan said that the document was not perfect but was a compromise that it could agree to and called for its adoption in its entirety.

Following the reactions of Parties, the Chair of the AWGLCA said that his sense was that there was a great deal of disappointment with the text. A number of Parties were against the adoption of the document and wanted it forwarded for further work next year. Despite this, he was going to forward the document to the COP with a recommendation for its adoption under his own authority.

He asked Parties to consider the report of the meeting of the AWGLCA for adoption and quickly gaveled, not recognizing Venezuela who had asked for the floor before the gavel.

Venezuela’s Special Envoy for climate change, Ms. Claudia Salerno, had to stand on her chair to get the attention of the Chair when her repeated waving of her country plaque was to no avail.  She said that she had asked for the floor before the gavel came down. Salerno said that the AWGLCA document had serious deficiencies. Yet it was being transmitted to the COP. She disclosed that there were threats that if Venezuela did not agree to the adoption of the text, there would be no second commitment period under the KP and that the multilateral system would not be preserved.

The climate envoy said that such threats were supporting a weak regime which threatens the world through a flexible system with no rules for mitigation and for developed countries to make pledges as they want and do as they want and when they want.

Referring to the goal of mobilizing US$100 billion for climate finance and (developed countries) using this as a bargaining chip, the Venezuelan envoy said that there could be no price for the our future and that of our children. She said that the farce has to stop and there must be an end to a bad agreement.

Despite the strong reaction from Venezuela, the Chair of the AWGLCA simply adjourned the meeting.

When the final formal plenary session of the Conference of Parties convened early morning of Sunday, the Chair of the AWGLCA reported that during the AWGLCA session held earlier, Parties exchanged views and many expressed support for the outcome of the work of the AWGLCA as contained in the L4 document, while others said that the document did not have balance. Parties were not able to reach consensus. The text, he said was rich and comprehensive and harvested important progress. He hoped that it could be adopted by the COP as part of the comprehensive Durban package.

The AWGLCA outcome was adopted a part of the Durban package.

Developed countries engaged in a smoke and mirrors trick of delivering rhetoric but no action, failed to commit to urgently needed deep emissions cuts, and even backtracked on past commitments to address the climate crisis, said Friends of the Earth International.

The outcome of the Durban talks, heralded by some as a step forward, in fact amounts to:

·         No progress on fair and binding action on reducing emissions

·         No progress on urgently needed climate finance

·         Increased likelihood of further expansion of false solutions like carbon trading

·         The further locking in of economies based on polluting fossil fuels

·         The further unravelling of the legally-binding international framework to deliver climate action on the basis of science and equity.

While there was resistance from developing countries to the destructive proposals on the table in Durban, the final Durban outcome amounts to:

1.      A new “Durban Platform” which will delay climate action for a decade. Instead of implementing the existing, ambitious and equitable negotiating roadmap that was agreed in Bali four years ago, a new process to launch negotiations for a new treaty was agreed in Durban. The “Durban Platform” will delay much needed climate action for a decade.

2.      A substantial weakening of the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol is the only existing international framework for legally-binding emissions reductions by rich industrialised countries. These countries are responsible for three quarters of the emissions in the atmosphere despite only hosting 15% of the world’s population.  The second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol has still not been formally agreed and would only cover the European Union and a handful of other developed countries.

3.      Drastically insufficient targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Taken alongside the expansive loopholes agreed to in Durban that serve to help countries avoid emissions cuts, these paltry pledges actually mean a likely net increase in emissions between now and 2020.

4.      A shift of the burden for climate action to developing countries, which have done the least to cause global warming, have the least resources to combat it, and face the additional burden of having to address pressing poverty alleviation and development needs.

5.      Absolutely no progress on urgently-needed, new and additional public finance for developing country climate action and adaptation measures to protect vulnerable communities from climate impacts.  The Green Climate Fund was approved but with no means by which to fill the coffers and a provision agreed to that could allow multinational corporations and private financial actors to directly access the fund.

6.      The increased likelihood of new opportunities for carbon trading, a destructive false solution to the climate crisis which locks in climate inaction, drives land grabbing and displacement of communities, and could contribute to another global financial collapse.

“Developed countries, led by the United States, accelerated the demolition of the world’s international framework for fair and urgent climate action.  And developing countries have been bullied and forced into accepting an agreement that could be a suicide pill for the world,” said Nnimmo Bassey, Chair of Friends of the Earth International.

“On the eve of the climate talks, hundreds of families in Durban lost their homes and some even their lives in devastating flooding.  From the Horn of Africa to Thailand to Venezuela to the small island state of Tuvalu, hundreds of millions of people are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis they did not create.  The lack of progress in Durban means that we are even closer to a future  catastrophic 4 to 6 degrees Celsius of warming, which would condemn most of Africa and the small island states to climate catastrophe and devastate the lives and livelihoods of many millions more around the world” he continued.

The disastrous Durban outcome is attributable to a combined effort by the governments of rich industrialised countries, most notably the US, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Russia and the European Union.  

The United States is most to blame, as it has been the most powerful driver in the dismantling of the legally-binding framework for developed country emissions reductions.  It refused to take on emissions reduction commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, and has attempted to replace this system with a weaker, ineffective system of voluntary pledges.

Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Australia and New Zealand have pursued a similar agenda of trying to escape their legal and moral obligation to act first and fastest to cut their emissions.  Canada, Japan and the Russia have refused outright to emissions cuts under the Kyoto Protocol second commitment period, and Australia and New Zealand have made their commitments conditional, leaving the European Union and a handful of other developed countries covered by the agreement in Durban.

The European Union, heralded as a climate leader and the saviour of the Durban talks, had an  agenda filled with false promises.  The EU was a key architect of the new “Durban Platform” that will delay action for ten years, lock in low ambition and deliver a weaker, less effective system than the Kyoto Protocol.

The EU’s strategy in Durban was to split the group of developing countries and force emerging economies like India and China, with hundreds of millions of people still below the poverty line, to take on unfair responsibilities for tackling the climate crisis. The EU also blocked progress in closing dangerous loopholes in existing emissions targets, and was the principle driver of the push to expand destructive carbon trading.

The huge influence of corporate polluters and other corporate and financial vested interests over the positions of governments is the underlying reason why Durban’s outcome was so disastrous.  The pressure and influence of these interest groups undermines the ability of ordinary citizens and civil society to hold our governments to account for their action on climate and their positions in the international climate negotiations.

“Developed country governments have connived to weaken the rules that require their countries to act on climate whilst strengthening the rules that allow their corporations to profit from the crisis” said Bobby Peek of groundWork / Friends of the Earth South Africa.

“After bailing out the banks, rich countries at the climate talks refused to commit a single new dollar for climate finance for developing countries.  They insisted on allowing multinational corporations and global financial elites to directly access the Green Climate Fund, and pushed through the opening up of further possibilities for speculation via the dangerous carbon market bubble.  It is clear in whose interests this deal has been advanced, and it isn’t the 99% of people around the world,” he continued.

Many developing country negotiators expressed growing concerns as the talks progressed.  The Africa Group (comprising the 54 countries in Africa), India, Venezuela, Bolivia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Nicaragua and a number of small island states all pushed back against the destructive proposals being advanced. 

But developing countries were coerced into having to accept a “take it or leave it” package to save the Kyoto Protocol and the Green Climate Fund and failed to stand strong and united against the disastrous final outcome of the talks. One of the most vocal critics, India, caved at the last minute to demands by the US and other developed countries that provisions to safeguard an equitable approach to tackling the climate crisis be excluded from the Durban agreement.  

“Ordinary people have once again been let down by governments.  Behind the failure in Durban lies the huge influence of corporate polluters and the disproportionate power of the rich developed world.  The noise of the vested interests has drowned out the voices of ordinary people in the ears of our leaders“, said Sarah-Jayne Clifton, Climate Justice Coordinator at Friends of the Earth International

“It is clear that right now our governments cannot do the job we need them to do.  But outside the negotiating halls, in our universities, our workplaces, and on the streets, vibrant movements are coming together to build a fair and better world. It is in this growing movement – of workers, women, farmers, students, Indigenous Peoples, and others affected by this greedy economic system – where we can find hope of solutions to the climate crisis” she continued.

 WHERE NOW FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE?

Friends of the Earth International believes that we need to radically transform our global economy to create a more just and sustainable world. We need dramatic cuts in emissions on the basis of science and equity and a transformation in our economies to make this a reality.  Developed countries also have a moral and legal obligation to honour their climate debt and provide adequate public finance to developing countries to develop sustainably and protect the vulnerable from climate impacts. 

A strong and fair UN agreement on climate is essential, and to get it we will work with others to strengthen the movement for justice in all countries and hold our governments to account to ensure that politics works for people and the planet, not for profit.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Friends of the Earth International media line: +31-20- 622 13 69 or email: media@foei.org
Nnimmo Bassey, Chair of Friends of the Earth International: +234 803 727 4395 or email: nnimmo@eraction.org
Bobby Peek, Director of Friends of the Earth South Africa / groundWork: +27 824 641 383 or email: bobby@groundwork.org.za Sarah-Jayne Clifton, Climate Justice & Energy Coordinator for Friends of the Earth International: +44 79 12 40 65 10 email: sarah.clifton@foe.co.uk

GENEVA (8 December 2011) – The United Nations Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, Cephas Lumina, urged the international climate change gatherings currently underway in Durban, South Africa, to ensure that finance under the proposed Green Climate Fund does not exacerbate the external debt burdens of recipient countries.
       
Mr. Lumina also called on the Transitional Committee for the Design of the Green Climate Fund and the international representatives at the seventeenth Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to ensure the Fund adopts a country-driven approach and promotes meaningful and effective participation of all stakeholders, including communities, farmers, workers, women and other marginalised groups.

“Climate finance should be provided in the form of grants and not loans, given that many of the potential recipient countries are not only poor but also have high external debt burdens and some have recently benefitted from international debt relief,” the expert said. “Climate loans will add to the existing external debt burdens of recipient countries, many of which simply do not have the capacity to repay further loans without undermining their already precarious development prospects. Loans also have the potential to undermine the enjoyment of human rights by those who shoulder the burden of climate change: women, rural and indigenous peoples and the poor in developing countries.”

Mr. Lumina stressed that funding decisions under the Fund should not be unduly influenced by the Joint World Bank/ IMF Debt Sustainability Framework (DSF). “As the brainchild of two major multilateral creditors, the DSF is biased by its very nature, is based on questionable growth assumptions and is concerned only with capacity to repay, not what the impacts of payments are,” the Independent Expert noted.

At the sixteenth session of the Conference of the Parties in Cancun, Mexico, in December 2010, Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change decided to invite the World Bank to serve as the interim trustee of the Green Climate Fund, subject to review three years after its operationalization. However, that decision and the possibility of the World Bank assuming a key role in the Fund has sparked concern among many climate change activists, human rights groups and some developing countries.

“The Bank should not have a central role in the new climate finance mechanism,” the expert said. “Its problems  with unsuccessful projects, history of forcefully encouraging developing countries to implement economic policies that have an adverse social impact, and its record of financial support for projects harmful to the environment that may have contributed to climate change, suggest  that it may not be the most legitimate institution for managing and delivering climate finance.”

Mr Lumina also underscored the need to avoid over-reliance on private capital and market-based instruments for climate finance as these would cause the public interest to be subordinated to the unfettered pursuit of profit.

“Climate finance is not as a matter of charity, and should be seen as a legal obligation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and a moral responsibility on the part of those that have contributed the most to it,” the Independent Expert stressed.

Mr. Cephas Lumina is an Advocate of the High Court for Zambia and an Extra-Ordinary Professor of Human Rights at the University of Pretoria. He was appointed Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2008. He is independent from any government or organization and serves in his individual capacity. The mandate covers all countries.

Learn more about the mandate of the Independent Expert, visit: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/development/debt/index.htm

Check the Independent Expert’s 2010 report to the UN Human Rights Council:  http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G10/131/56/PDF/G1013156.pdf?OpenElement

For further information and media requests, please contact Boris-Ephrem Tchoumavi (+41 22 917 9622 / betchoumavi@ohchr.org) or write to ieforeigndebt@ohchr.org).

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At 15h00 local time in Durban, SA (8am EST), dozens of protesters gathered inside the International Conference Centre where the COP17 negotiations are entering their final hours.

Protesters have said they are prepared to stay all night, and that they will ensure their voices are heard.

They are calling for the World Bank to be taken out of climate finance, a reference to the predominance of private financing and market mechanisms in all funding solutions for climate change reduction projects being discussed at the conference. A central piece of what is being negotiated in Durban is the Green Clmate Fund, with a goal of raising $100 billion for adaptation and mitigation projects. Most of the funding is being linked to programs like carbon markets and offsets, which critics say allows companies to continue polluting and ignores the need to drastically reduce our use of fossil fuels, and not simply try to offset them with other projects.

Protesters are also calling for a recognition of historic climate debt: that developed and Northern countries have predominantly been the cause of man-made green house gas emissions, and that they have the responsibility to take a frontline position in cleaning up the problem. This historic reality was included in Kyoto Protocol, but Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent recently called such demands “guilt money.”

Updates to come.

UPDATE: The protest is down to two people. After a decision was taken to sit down and not leavve, a separate proposal was made encouraging people to hand in their accreditation in protest. Many protesters, when asked by security, got up, turned in their badges and left. More details soon.

UPDATE 2: The protest finished early in the evening, with the last two people participating being removed by security (one being carried out). Both were stripped of accreditation, but were not detained. They both went to the Speakers Corner outside the conference centre, where protesters are participating in an all-night vigil.

£150 million, the largest part of today’s announcement, will go to the World Bank’s Clean Technology Fund. UK money previously given to this fund helped finance private sector projects including a wind farm in Mexico which violates the rights of indigenous people and does not increase energy access, instead selling all of its electricity at a discounted rate to US multinational Walmart.

But campaigners welcomed the announcement that £10 million would be given to the UN Adaptation Fund, to directly help people in developing countries cope with the effects of climate change. The UK has until now given no money to the UN fund, which is threatened with closure if contributions from developed countries do not increase.

World Development Movement policy officer Murray Worthy said today:

Giving further loans to developing countries like Mozambique and Nepal will only increase those countries’ debt burdens, driving their people deeper into poverty. Richer countries like the UK are largely responsible for causing climate change, and we must take responsibility for ensuring that poor countries, which have contributed very little to global carbon emissions, are able to deal with its effects.

Chris Huhne’s announcement that £10 million will go to the UN Adaptation Fund is welcome, but this is a fraction of the amount he is planning to lend. In order to meet its responsibilities the UK should be giving all of its climate finance as grants, not as loans through the World Bank.

The extra money announced for the World Bank’s Clean Technology Fund, which has financed disastrous development projects that have only benefitted multinational companies, will also do little to help the world’s most vulnerable people deal with climate change.’

Read the World Development Movement’s media briefing on the Durban talks
For more information please contact:
Miriam Ross in London on (+44) (0)20 7820 4913 or (+44) (0)7711 875 345 or email miriam.ross@wdm.org.uk
Murray Worthy in Durban on (+27) (0)83 968 9917

“Paying the Polluters” is one of the principles that they want the Green Climate Fund to be based on. Their efforts to ensure that the private sector be able to access funds directly from the GCF succeeded with the Transitional Committee’s proposed design that includes a private sector facility. Attempts from developing countries during the TC process and now in the COP17 process to ensure that the role of the private sector is subject to country-defined policies and priorities are being met with intense opposition.

Despite the World Bank’s long track record of promoting and financing fossil fuel projects and other programs that exacerbate the climate crisis, developed countries succeeded in entrenching it as the “interim trustee” of the GCF. Not content with this, they want to keep the door open for the World Bank or similar institutions whose governance structures they control, to be appointed as permanent trustee and/or play critical roles in the operations of the Fund.

They have blocked efforts to ensure that the GCF design and operations be concretely in accordance with the Climate Convention with clear accountability to the Conference of Parties. This is consistent with their actions in the negotiations on emissions cuts – turning their back on Convention principles and agreements to avoid and escape from their responsibility for the climate crisis and their obligations to the peoples of developing countries and even their own citizens.

Their stance in the talks on the Green Climate Fund, the public pronouncements of developed country governments and their less public messages point to a blatant attempt at blackmail – OUR TERMS OR ELSE – NO GCF, or NO FUNDS for the GCF!

We urge developing country governments not to be cowed, not to sell us out. We laud the efforts of those who have valiantly and brilliantly fought for our rights.

The outcomes of Durban – whether in climate finance or on emissions cuts – are looking very dim. But we will continue to fight in Durban and beyond.

Jubilee South – Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development and its members

Bangladesh

• Equity & Justice Working Group (EquityBd)
• Unnayan Onneshan
• VOICE
• SUPRO
• Bangladesh Krishok Federation
• Jatiyo Sramik Jote
• Community Development Library (CDL) Trust
• Nabodhara

India

• River Basin Friends, mines, minerals and People (mmP)
• National Hawker Federation
• Indian Social Action Forum
• Himalaya Niti Abhiyan
• Nadi Gati Morcha
• Adivasi Mulvasi Astitva
• Kerala Independent Fishworkers Federatiion

Indonesia

• Koalisi Anti Utang
• Solidaritas Perempuan
• Institute for Essential Service Reform
• KRUHA
• Debt Watch
• WALHI (Friends of the Earth)
• Serikat Petani Indonesia

Malaysia

• Monitoring Sustainability of Globalisation

Nepal

• Rural Reconstruction Nepal
• Human Rights Alliance
• Jagaran Nepal
• GEFONT
• All Nepal Women Association
• All Nepal Peasants Federation

Pakistan

• Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee
• Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum

Philippines

• Freedom from Debt Coalition
• Kalayaan
• Solidarity of Filipino Workers
• Tambuyog Development Center
• Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement
• Makabayan Pilipinas
• Koalisyong Pabahay ng Pilipina
• Sanlakas
• Philippine Movement for Climate Justice

Sri Lanka

• Centre for Environmental Justice

Regional

• ARENA
• LDC (Least Developed Country) Watch
• South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication
• Migrant Forum in Asia
• Asian Migrant Center
• SEAFISH for Justice

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.