Source: Benkamorvan @ Flikr

Nobel Prize winning Al Gore addressed a jam-packed plenary today, to reinforce the urgency of the global climate change crisis we face.

“The road to Copenhagen is clear…”

Gore stressed that the ‘optimism and hope’  we see today are great enough to help us to reach an agreement in Copenhagen, in spite of the obstacles and difficulties along the way.  Sending the audience into a frenzy of cheers, this statement raised the decibels in todays plenary, which has only heard a quiet chatter and less engaging murmer up till now. The message Gore delivered was American in style, and somewhat in content, quoting speeches from President-elect Obama on a ‘green’ global deal. He highlighted the emerging consensus on a synchronised and green stimulus to address the global financial crisis, developing the renewable energy sector, empowering people to be more energy efficient through a behavioural change and creating more green jobs to revitalise the global economy.

He praised developing counties for making bold steps and contributing to address climate change; including Brazil which has launched a new plan to halt deforestation, and is also considering further efforts to reduce emissions. China was congratulated for their efforts, which include a $600m injection into the green economy, and the largest tree planting programme globally, showing that they are ready to lead the way to a more sustainable world.

REDD, reform of the CDM and the adaptation fund (with appropriate financial architecture) remain the key discussion points along the journey to an agreement at Copenhagen. In addition, capacity building in developed countries (as well as developing countries) will enable them to overcome “the paralysis preventing us from acting….we must focus less on the activities of OJ Simpson and Paris Hilton, and more on the moral issue we face today”.

Gore continued to stress this notion of the climate crisis as a moral and spiritual issue, not a political one – “We have a generational mission, a compelling moral purpose and a shared vision to act…”, echoing the sentiments of  a shared vision within the UNFCCC discussions, and also highlighted by Yvo de Boer in Wednesday’s press conference.

In a bold statement, Gore emphasised that we must strive to achieve 350ppm not just 450ppm, claiming that the momentum we could achieve globally in reducing GHGs could make this an easier target for the future. Whilst this statement received further cheers and applause from many research, youth and non governmental delegations pushing for stronger targets, it seems a rather audacious claim to make amid climate negotiations which have, to date, struggled to negotiate the detail of how to deliver any agreement with significant commitments to reach 450ppm. However ambitious the target might be, the overcrowded audience was fully engaged with the speaker’s vision…more so than any other plenary I’d attended over the past 8 days. Could it be that the Academy Award-winning celebrity had us all star-struck?  Whether a good or bad thing, this nobel prize winner certainly raised the levels of frenzy in the corridor. All that remains now are the next 12 months until Copenhagen to work out the details of such bold ambitions.

Gore also runs Generation Investment Management LLP - a London based investment management firm which focuses on sustainability factors including social and environmental responsibility and corporate governance.

The UK’s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Milliband, addressed  the UN Conference of Parties (COP) here in Poznan today, delivering the UK’s ministerial statement on climate change.

Ed Milliband, UK Sectretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, speaking in Poznan today

Echoing sentiments of Gordon Brown and other EU member states over the last week in Brussels, he stressed that the UK must overcome the challenge posed by the global finiancial crisis. The costs of adaptation and mitigation continue to rise the longer we wait – we must up the pace along the road to less discussion and more negotiation for an agreement at Copenhagen next year.

He praised the efforts of developing countries and stressed the need for developed nations to take on stronger targets, based upon the concept of common but differentiated responsibilities. Developing nations must consider substantial deviations from business as usual (BAU) and we must ensure that strong transfer mechanisms exist to support this effort.

The UK’s spirit of intent is reflected in the commitments they have made through the Climate Change Act, adopting challenging targets of 80% carbon reduction and 20% for generation of renewable energy, by 2050. The UK will adopt further commitments as part of the European Climate Package, which is expected to be decided in the next 48 hours. As part of the EU’s recently announced  Renewables Directive (20-20-20) the UK will adhere to plans to increase targets for generation of renewable energy from, 20% to 30% if other countries make significant contirbutions.

Milliband, stressed that “We must go further than 50% by 2050″  as the UK (and Obama) has committed. In addition, the UK is commiting further resources to the UN’s Adaptation Fund, and £100m to forestry issues (a statement on deforestation will be released tomorrow).

Milliband delivered a strong statement in amongst China and Austria, reflecting the UK’s vision to be a pioneer in the fight against climate change, and the large commitments the UK has adopted in the Climate Change Bill. The Committee on Climate Change released their first report (Building a low-carbon economy – the UK’s contribution to tackling climate change) on 1^st December, setting out the analysis which underpinned the target reductions and details of the level of the first 3 carbon budgets – up to 2022.

The Mexican Government just now announced it will reduce its emissions by 50 percent of 2002 levels by the year 2050. It will do so through a national trans-sectoral cap-and-trade programme that would be operational by 2012. It will focus on oil, cement, electricity and steel. The sectoral scheme is being designed in collaboration with the Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP). 

Mexico City

 Sectoral approaches are part of the Bali Action Plan as a pathway for developing countries to establish nationally appropriate mitigation actions. Mexico is a non-Annex 1 country, yet a member of the OECD and NAFTA. It is one of few developing countries that have the capacity to be first movers in joining Annex 1 countries in setting targets and timetables as a means of addressing climate change. The announcement marks progress from this years G-8 summit in Hokkaido where Mexico and other developing countries refused to commit to a halving of emissions by mid-century along with their developed country counterparts

If one had been hoping for clear signs of progress a week-and-a-half into Poznan and on the eve of a European Council meeting, where an ambitious EU climate agenda should have been finalised, this has not been the best week. German enthusiasm for action on Climate Changed has not only waned with the onset of the financial crisis, but, more or less, disappeared completely.

In parliament last week, Angela Merkel reasserted the EU’s ambition to push for an international agreement on Climate Change. She also defended the ‘compromise’ on car emissions as reflecting the need to secure jobs as well as CO² reduction and climate change. Not only did the Greens heckle in response to this assessment, but since then different observers have questioned the purity of Ms Merkel’s intentions.

NGOs ‘Brot für die Welt’ and EED accused her of ‘forgetting about’ the EU action on Climate Change she had herself initiated. In a joint letter, Christian leaders from the UK, Germany and Sweden warned of neglecting action on Climate Change because of the financial crisis. And Klaus Töpfer, a prominent former environment minister and head of UNEP, warned that commitments to tackle Climate Change should be questioned by no-one, least of all Ms Merkel.

Leaders looking for answers

For the moment it seems that, barring a political miracle, the results of the EU Council meeting and Poznan will not meet the expectations of better times. Germany is likely to push for further exceptions to the auctioning of CO² permits for energy intensive industries, such as steelmaking, cement, and aluminium, leading to the Spiegel’s mourning Angela Merkel’s transformation from ‘Miss World’ to ‘Madame No’.

Not much space seems left for the argument Obama and an earlier Merkel have made, namely that action on Climate Change will create, rather than destroy jobs. Bärbel Höhn, the Greens’ environmental spokesperson does, saying that ‘Merkel makes a serious mistake in not seeing the economic potential of Climate Change, and endangers jobs and industries by serving short-term lobby interests.’ The recent German ‘transformation’ does not bode well for action on Climate Change, and that might turn out to be an economic, as well as an environmental, policy error.

Deforestation (credit: energyportal.eu)

Discussions at Poznan on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) managed to come to some sort of conclusion this morning. UN estimates suggest that investments of $17-30bn annually could halve deforestation levels, reducing GHG emissions by 10%, but how should these investments be allocated, and where should the financing come from?

During negotiations, there was finally agreement on the thorny issue of how countries should be rewarded. Previously, Brazil had argued that countries should only be rewarded for simply stopping further deforestation, but now they have agreed to calls from China/India and others that there should be rewards for planting new forests and rehabilitating degraded land as well.

The Brazilians have generally been progressive on many REDD issues at Poznan, setting an ambitious target of reducing their deforestation rate by 70% over the next 10 years earlier this week.

However, there are still sticking points on REDD, mostly relating to social issues and forest monocultures. Several countries (USA, Canada, Aus, NZ) deleted any specific reference to the “rights” of indigenous people from the text, but their “full and effective participation” is still mentioned. This is an issue because historically, “forestry management” has often resulted in indigenous groups being expelled from their lands.

Also, some environmental activists are worried that the draft doesn’t mention biodiversity. This could potentially mean that further deforestation could be allowed as long as the forests are replanted, potentially with biofuel monoculture crops such as palm oil, which have been shown to increase emissions.

Despite these issues, it is certainly welcome that there has been some sort of agreement on REDD, and hopefully the text will survive any last-minute attempts at changes.

Discussions that had been continuing on the incorporation of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) into the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) have now halted.

In an open meeting of the negotiations–itself following several rounds of negotiations–no consensus between the negotiating parties could be found.  Three main camps emerged on potential use of CCS

• Full incorporation with CCS functioning like existing off-setting projects
• No CCS at all
• Use of some pilot projects, but only with assigned companies

The rationale is that CCS could be a major form of reducing emissions globally, but that the cost of doing so would be extremely high.  As an off-setting mechanism, though, CCS does not fit neatly in the CDM’s sustainable development goals; it is not clear, for example, exactly how CCS is development or what economic service it provides for developing countries.

Further, there is the complication of how the long-term aspects of CCS projects could be incorporated in to the CDM process.  At present, CDM projects are registered, implemented and completed: the technology or installed facility performs as installed, and that’s it.  For CCS, this could not be the case.  The capture technology is highly technical and would require ongoing operations from the operating company.  Further, CCS is not a permanent project; each project would have a finite life span, with different technical processes occurring at different stages.  Essentially, these issues ask the question: how can the long term nature of CCS fit into CDM?

Even if these issues could be overcome, there remains a raft of questions about actual operationalisation.  Not least: would CDM companies be prepared to take on such high investment and high risk projects?  The initial investment would be hundreds of millions of dollars.

When looked at through this lens–which is precisely the lens that the negotiating parties were discussing–CCS and CDM are not easily compatible projects.  Not for now at least.  The issue has been tabled until the SBSTA and SBI meetings in Bonn in June next year.

Day 9 has started with a bump after two days of no formal negotiations.  There are number of key items to report:

Canada, Japan, Australia on 25-40% 2020 Target: Canadian media have begun to report that leaked documents from AWG-LCA show that there is growing divisions over the interim targets that the Bali Roadmap Group had been drafting in preparation for the high-level segment of COP-14 this week.  The draft document shows that countries have expressed formal problems (indicated on the document by a ‘hook’) with the language of the interim targets and that the EU delegation has confirmed that Canada, Japan, Australia and possibly Russia are trying to alter the current language that commits parties to the interim target.  

The EU delegation (in the form of the French presidency) are, not surprisingly, annoyed.  Delegates around the centre here are suggesting that the EU will begin applying pressure–whatever that actually means (‘corridor speak’ is always rather ambiguous).

Finance: In the daily UNFCCC statement Yvo de Boer has intimated that the operationalisation of the Adaptation Fund is now in discussion, although whether it will be agreed upon–specifically in terms of how to fund it–is still not clear.  What Mr de Boer did say was that attempts to exclude the World Bank from the adaptation transfer system was like ‘cutting off you nose to spite your face’.

Targets: In addition to the issues regarding interim targets above, it looking increasingly unlikely that there will be agreement on long term targets by the end of COP14.

Deforestation: Discussions are continuing but at a slow rate.  There are still major divisions about the fundamental structure of this project, from what will be protected to who will pay.  It is looking very unlikely that there will be major progress on this by the end of the week.

CDM: there are major discussions about the CDM.  In fact, such discussions have taken up a large proportion of the negotiating time in Poznan.  Inclusion of CCS and nuclear in CDM is now on the table, according to Yvo de Boer.

A key conclusion that is now beginning to emerge is that COP14 is going to be largely a talking shop and foundation-building exercise.  This is not a surprise.  However, today Yvo de Boer has begun using language that frames COP15 in Copenhagen not the as conclusion of negotiations for the second commitment period but as another step along the road.  ’If the fundamentals are in place by the end of 2009 then we can work out the details after’.  

This is similar to the process used after the creation of the Kyoto Protocol, where the CDM was added in at the last minute in 1997 and then subsequently developed between 1997 and 2001.  Such a detail-forming process would not necessarily be bad in terms of the treaty mechanisms that would result; after all the second commitment period begins in 2012.  However, a half-baked Copenhagen Protocol would look less progressive in public, activist, and business eyes.  There has been much discussion, for example, at Poznan about how business needs certainty for post-2012 investments in CDM projects.

What we are seeing here is the UNFCC trying to re-frame the context of Poznan and also now Copenhagen. The implications of this on the COP process is not clear yet, but it is clear that parties are preferring a longer-term view over a focus on the immediate.

More information to follow after today’s plenary sessions.

90% of 12-18 year olds in China, Brazil , Africa, Russia and many other countries believed that world leaders should do everything they can to address climate change in a recent UNEP survey. Yvo de Boer stressed our global responsibility and commitment to finding a climate change solution yesterday in his address to The Climate Group’s Climate Leaders Summit.

From where we stand today, a deal at Copenhagen still needs a lot of support, however, Boer stressed the need to establish agreement on the fundamental elements, encouraged that the rest will follow. He added that the monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) aspects must be effective, and we must create a practical and effective “agreement with legs” to drive us to a lower carbon and more sustainable development. In a press conference today, he highlighted his expectations for a successful deal at Copenhagen – clarity on advancing the climate change agenda, clarity on commitments (targets), financial resources and the financial architecture for developing counties. Devloped country leadership and ambition, and the transfer of financial and technology support for the developing countries will be crucial issues. 

Boer commented on the global economic crisis and its impacts on the global climate negotiations too, highlighting that many countries are seeing the current financial climate as an opportunity to address environmental issues, and referred to the EU and US packages which include reference to cleaner energy. He stressed the role business has to play in a Copenhagen deal – climate change solutions must be economically effective. 

Key discussions focus on market mechanisms for finance (including the Adaptation Fund) and technology transfer, discussions over CDM reform – equity issues and debate over whether this should include CCS; the issue and REDD; x. A Copenhagen deal needs to address the debate the financial aspects – and clarify who will decide where the money is spent? How much, and on what? Key questions that the delegations continue to debate here in Poznan.

There is a significant role for cities and regions to contribute to this agenda, particularly in determining the MRV procedures and communicating the agreement in local governance. Reflecting local commitments to supporting this agenda with practical actions, the Summit (Chaired by Premier Rann of South Australia and with a video address from the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger), produced an a statement/Action Plan to influence the ongoing negotiations and support the UNFCCC secretariat to ensure attention is paid to a cooperative effort to defining the MRV actions, public policy and mechanisms to achieve this.

The road to Copenhagen is in sight, all that remains for discussion is the detail of how to get there.

Increasingly, attention here in Poland is focusing on determining the mechanisms and transfers that will underpin the more contentious issues around targets that have largely been deferred to COP15.  Specifically, one of the Bali Road Map groups (focused on long term cooperative action) has been almost exclusively focused on questions about regional and North-South transfer.

In the Plenary session of AWG-LCA that took place on Saturday delegates from parties were invited to give their viewpoints on financial mechanisms for transfer.  Bernarditas Muller, the chair of this section of the G77 and China grouping, told delegates that both new and existing technologies need to be transfer to the South, and that the speed of this transfer needs to be accelerated.

As Mr Muller himself said, these are not new claims–in fact they precipitated the development on this AWG last year.  However, Saturday’s plenary session also went further to flesh out some details about what the G77 and China maybe asking for in the closed sessions.

For example, in the statement Muller suggested that something needed to be done about the barrier to transfer created by Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs).  He suggested that one method for this was a more institutionalised transfer framework, where states in the North and indeed the UNFCCC transfered funds for technology, rather than simply leaving it to the private sector and so work in the IPR system.

Such suggestions are unlikely to be agreed upon easily.  There are two main issues. Firstly, financial transfer would essentially be an development aid package; with it would come questions about efficiency, such as it would be more difficult to see precisely where money was being used and what technology transfer was taking place.  Secondly, centralised transfer would be extremely complex to administer.  Would the collection of funds take place through state contribution?  How would the funds be distributed among recipients? 

Some of these questions are connected to similar debates in the Adaptation Fund (AF)–the session that followed the technology transfer session.  However, tech transfer is far more complicated because–unlike the AF–the scale of money being talked about is currently much larger (potentially billions USD) and the scale of the administration would be considerably greater.  Further, the role of the private sector even in a publicly-administered financial transfer remain unclear: would developing countries use the money to employ companies?  What would companies be asked to do?  These questions tends to worry states in the North as they suggest to them that their contribution may have to be higher yet.  

Nevertheless, while this looks like a rather bleak discussion with four days to go, it is in fact one of the more likely outcomes of the final week in Poznan, simply because of the volume of discussions taking place on it.