International Efforts for Green House Gas Emission Reduction and Climate Change:

Post Durban Climate Change Conference & UNCSD 2012

Henry W. WyesDeputy Executive Director CAREC

Introductiona little bit of history…The framework agreementsCancunDurbanFuture Trends Financing opportunities

Why?to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will limit dangerous human interference with the climate system

Why?

extreme weather

phenomena

Why is it so difficult to address the issue of climate change?

• The issue of climate change is transnational in nature and trans-institutional in solution

• The transboundary nature of climate change cannot be addressed by any government or institution acting alone

• Collaborative action among governments, international organizations, corporations, universities, NGOs, and creative individuals is needed

Current status:

• International negotiations on the post-Kyoto framework have shown insufficient progress since the voluntary national reduction targets of the Copenhagen Accord.

• UNEP estimates that these pledges would lead to a 20% overshoot in emissions in 2020 compared with the levels required to limit global warming to 2°C and stabilize at 450 ppm CO2.

• Emissions from increased production of internationally traded products have more than offset the emissions reductions achieved under the Kyoto Protocol.

a little bit of history…

a little bit of history…

• In 1992 194 countries joined an international treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to cooperatively consider what they could do to limit average global temperature increases and the resulting climate change, and to cope with the inevitable impacts.

• By 1995, negotiations to strengthen the global response to climate change were launched resulting in the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.

• In December 2007 at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, 187 countries agreed continued negotiations with the goal of strengthening international efforts to address the problem of global warming.

• In December 2009, 114 countries agreed to the Copenhagen Accord which established the importance of reducing emissions in both developing and developed countries and the need to establish financing mechanisms to support mitigation efforts in developing countries.

• The 2010 UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico adopted a decisions that set governments on the path towards a low-emissions future

• In 2011 the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa produced the Durban Platform.

Building blocks of global response:

The four key building blocks of the Bali Action Plan for strengthening the global response to climate change:

•Mitigation

•Adaptation

• Technology and

• Financing

Climate treaties:

At the core of international efforts to address climate change are

• the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and

• the Kyoto Protocol

The UNFCC

• An overall framework — The UNFCCC sets an overall framework for international efforts to tackle the challenge of climate change.

• Reporting on emissions — Parties to the Convention agreed to a number of commitments to address climate change

• National programmes — The Convention requires all Parties to implement national programmes and measures to control greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol

• Stabilizing greenhouse gases — The 1997 Kyoto Protocol shares the Convention’s ultimate objective to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases at a level that will prevent dangerous interference with the climate system

Binding targets:

For developed countries only

• Although all Parties have agreed to further advance the implementation of their existing commitments under the Convention, only Annex I Parties took on new targets under the Protocol.

• Specifically, these Parties have agreed to binding emission targets over the 2008-2012 timeframe.

Tools to reduce emissions

• the Clean Development Mechanism

• Joint Implementation

• Emissions trading

• Monitoring compliance

the Cancún Agreements:

• Industrialized country targets are to develop low-carbon development plans and strategies and assess how best to meet them, including through market mechanisms, and to report their inventories annually

• Developing country actions to reduce emissions are officially recognized under the multilateral process.

• A registry is to be set up to record and match developing country mitigation actions to finance and technology support from by industrialized countries.

• The Kyoto technology mechanism Protocol's Clean Development Mechanisms has been strengthened to drive major investments and technology into environmentally sound and sustainable emission reduction projects in the developing world.

• The Green Climate Fund under the Conference of the Parties, with a board with equal representation from developed and developing countries, will be established.

• Parties have established a Technology Executive Committee and Climate Technology Centre and Network to increase technology cooperation to support action on adaptation and mitigation.

the Durban agreements:

• A universal legal agreement on climate change not later than 2015.

• Governments, including 38 industrialized countries, agreed a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol from January 1, 2013.

• Governments agreed to the full implementation of the package to support developing nations resulting from Cancun, Mexico:. i.e. – Green Climate Fund, – an Adaptation Committee designed to improve the

coordination of adaptation actions on a global scale, and – A Technology Mechanism.

Durban in detail: Adaptation

The Adaptation Committee, composed of 16 members, will report to the COP on its efforts to improve the coordination of adaptation actions at a global scale.

The adaptive capacities above all of the poorest and most vulnerable countries are to be strengthened.National Adaptation Plans will allow developing countries to assess and reduce their vulnerability to climate change.

The most vulnerable are to receive better protection against loss and damage caused by extreme weather events related to climate change.

Durban in detail: Technology

The Technology Mechanism will become fully operational in 2012.

The full terms of reference for the operational arm of the Mechanism - the Climate Technology Centre and Network - are agreed, along with a procedure to select the host.

Durban in detail: Green Climate Fund

Countries have already started to pledge so that developing countries should get ready to access the fund

A Standing Committee is to keep an overview of climate finance in the context of the UNFCCC and to assist the Conference of the Parties. It will comprise 20 members, represented equally between the developed and developing world.

A focused work programme on long-term finance was agreed, which will contribute to the scaling up of climate change finance going forward and will analyze options for the mobilization of resources from a variety of sources.

2012 - Doha: Support of developing country actions

Governments will agree for a registry to record developing country mitigation actions that seek financial support and to match these with support. The registry will be a flexible, dynamic, web-based platform.

Under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, governments will adopted procedures to allow carbon-capture and storage projects. These guidelines will be reviewed every five years to ensure environmental integrity.

Governments will agreed to develop a new market-based mechanism to assist developed countries in meeting part of their targets or commitments under the Convention.

Funding & support available for developing countries

• Fast-Start Finance • Long-Term Finance • Green Climate Fund • Global Environment Facility • Special Climate Change Fund • Least Developed Countries Fund • Adaptation Fund • Technology • Education & Outreach • Response Measures • Capacity-building • JI – CDM • NAMA

The Funds….

• Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties in implementing the Convention through the Green Climate Fund (GCF)

• To facilitate this, the operation of the financial mechanism is partly entrusted to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) on an on-going basis.

• Two special funds were established: the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF), and the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), both managed by the GEF

• The Kyoto Protocol also recognizes, under its Article 11, the need for the financial mechanism to fund adaptation activities by developing country Parties. Therefore the Adaptation Fund (AF) has been established under the Kyoto Protocol.

• Funding to climate change activities is also available through bilateral, regional and multilateral channels.

The Green Climate Fund

• The urgency and seriousness of climate change call for ambition in financing adaptation and mitigation

• Purpose: Making a significant and ambitious contribution to the global efforts towards attaining the goals set by the international community to combat climate change.

• The Fund will promote the paradigm shift towards low-emission and climate-resilient development pathways by providing support to developing countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

• The Fund will provide simplified and improved access to climate change funding to developing countries, including direct access, basing its activities on a country driven approach.

Rio plus 20

again, a little bit of history: Rio 1992

• Landmark Earth Summit held in 1992 in Rio which resulted in the coining of the term "sustainable development", integrating its three key components of – economic development,

– social development and

– environmental protection

• led to the adoption of an ambitious outcome document, Agenda 21

Rio plus 20

• The objective of the Rio plus 20 conference was to secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development, and

• addressing new and emerging challenges, with a focus on two key themes

– the green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication, and

– the institutional framework for sustainable development.

Rio plus 20 & climate change:

• The UNFCCC convention and its Kyoto Protocol are –unlike the outcome documents of UN conferences, legally binding commitments not of soft law.

• The international climate change regime is premised on a number of key principles, most important of which are the common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.

• Annex 1 countries did undertake to cut their green house gas emissions by specific percentage relative to a base year.

• Developing countries did agree to take specific actions to decoupletheir economic development from their emissions.

• However, in the case of developing countries this is not a legally binding commitment, and is conditional on them receiving financial resources, technology and capacity building assistance from developed countries.

• In addition, actions by developing countries were to take into account the fact that their overriding priority is poverty eradication

Developments @ Rio plus 20

There are differing views as to the future of the international climate change regime:

• Developing countries want to preserve the current international architecture: They all agree on the preservation of the Kyoto protocol for second and subsequent commitment periods.

• The north generally sees the second commitment period as the last one and as a transition to a new regime altogether, not necessarily incorporating all the features of the Kyoto Protocol, only its carbon markets and maybe some of its rules but probably not the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities

Evolution or De-evolution?

Trends from Rio plus 20

Decoupling GHG and GDP:

• The synergy between economic growth and technological innovation has been the most significant engine of change for the last 200 years, but unless we improve our economic, environmental, and social behaviors, the next 100 years could be disastrous.

• Climate change will be addressed seriously when green GDP increases while poverty and global greenhouse gas emissions decrease

Structure

Transforming the greening of industry into the business of greening

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Green economy is based on six main sectors:

• Renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, marine including wave, biogas, and fuel cell)

• Green buildings (green retrofits for energy and water efficiency, residential and commercial assessment; green products and materials, and LEED construction)

• Clean transportation (alternative fuels, public transit, hybrid and electric vehicles, carsharing and carpooling programs)

• Water management (Water reclamation, greywater and rainwater systems, low-water landscaping, water purification, stormwatermanagement)

• Waste management (recycling, municipal solid waste salvage, brownfieldland remediation, Superfund cleanup, sustainable packaging)

• Land management (organic agriculture, habitat conservation and restoration; urban forestry and parks, reforestation and afforestation and soil stabilization

Projected trends in annual GDP growth rate: