With hopes fading for a comprehensive climate treaty as the clock ticks down to Copenhagen, increasing focus will be placed on interim measures and incremental agreements that can be formalised at Copenhagen.  Coming just six weeks before the summit, the United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) is hosting its Global Roundtable in Cape Town.  The first time the event has been hosted in Africa, the Roundtable, which opens this evening, aims to partner environmental groups under the umbrella of UNEP with representatives of the financial sector and provide a forum for discussing and setting new agendas for sustainable finance.

 The summits focus, ‘Financing Change, Changing Finance’ is timely, especially in lieu of flagging momentum for a comprehensive agreement at Copenhagen. Governments and political momentum has illustrated its weakness this year in overcoming major barriers to enacting an agreement at Copenhagen, for example Congress’s inability to implement and legislate binding targets on emissions has resulted in many feeling Copenhagen might be a wasted opportunity before it has begun. This does however mean focus may now shift more in favour of the private sector, which has an opportunity to show what collaborative and innovative financing architecture can achieve. 

The volatility of the finance and evolving capital markets means there is no simple step to implementing sustainable financing mechanism, especially with regards to ecosystem services where there is not a fixed or easily measurable metric or asset. However the planetary implications of climate change and global ecosystem loss mean there is momentum to get discussions on the table and integrate climate, poverty and social dimensions into financing mechanisms.

The Roundtable will have wide representation from major financial institutions including Peter Blom, CEO of Triodos, the Financial Times Sustainable Bank of the Year as well as a host of South African and international private banks, financial analyst firms, global players in the insurance business and suite of the leading global environmental NGOs like the WWF. The event is unique in bringing together top calibre financing institutions and venture capitalists with the leading brains behind innovations in environmental finance like Pavan Sukhdev, the ‘Stern’ of ecosystem services, as study leader for The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).

The timing of the event and amalgamation of speakers and attendees means there is an opportunity to deliver some hope before Copenhagen in working towards incremental financing mechanisms. One hopes the ‘butterfly effect’ of changing finance can inspire the existing political barriers in building momentum before Copenhagen.

This week, many South Africans, like millions of other climate conscious citizens around the world, are preparing for the Global Day of Action on Saturday the 24^th.  The day, which is focused on citizen action and engagement, has been organised by 350.org, an advocacy organisation promoting global action to tackle climate change.

Many parts of South Africa are feeling the increasing impacts of climate change such as shifting vegetation zones, erratic rainfall and seasonal temperature anomalies, particularly evident in arid areas.

The aim of global action day is to engage citizens in the science of climate change, hence the reference to 350 which is used as the recommended baseline with regards to carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere.  Figures for 2009 indicate that levels are already at 390ppm, hence the urgency in curbing emissions growth and aiming for stabilisation at 350ppm.  Although there is much debate within the worlds elite climate modellers’ about correct targets and the use of temperature or concentration, 350.org have used the 350 figure as their campaign theme.  Bill McKibben, organiser of the 350 group is cognisant of the complexity in the climate system dynamics and says the 350 figure gives campaigners a metric to work with.  The 350 initiative has big name support with endorsement from Al Gore, Sir Nicholas Stern and Rajendra Pachuari, it is therefore an effective viaduct between local campaigns and their influence on political action.

The 350 figure will form the centre of many of the global actions planned for the 24^th of October.  South Africans will be engaging in a variety of demonstrations including a meeting at Johannesburg’s Emmerentia dam, where people are encouraged to dress at superheroes to represent the need to save the planet.  At Muizenberg Beach, Cape Town’s surf mecca, giant blocks of ice in the shape of a 350 will be melted and a freeze frame movie made. Cape Town’s largest township, Khayelitsha, located in the Cape Flats region, will be holding a ‘blue under the sea event’ where blue clothing will signify the areas vulnerability to flooding and predicted sea level rise. Activities will also be taking place on the beach front in Durban where sand, art and music will be the focus to inspire action on climate. In addition an open letter will be circulated, lobbying President Jacob Zuma to attend the Copenhagen Climate Summit.

The global day of action, aimed at lobbying the global political agenda is particularly timely and prudent. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently told Newsweek he felt the prospects of states agreeing to anything at Copenhagen was ‘looking worse and worse’.  Consequently the more national citizens can engage with their political leadership the more momentum will grow before Copenhagen. As Gordon Brown, at the recent Major Economics Forum in London reiterated, there is a need to break the leadership ‘impasse’ as there was no ‘Plan B’ in the absence of united firm agreement at Copenhagen.