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Green fund for climate-hurts, Cancun summit agrees deal

Afp, Cancun, The Daily Star International

Sunday, 12 Desember 2010

Global talks on climate change yesterday set up a new fund to manage billions of dollars in aid to poor nations in a hard-fought package urging deep cuts in industrial emissions.

Turning the page a year after the chaotic climate summit in Copenhagen, more than 190 countries meeting in Mexico kept ambitions in check and made headway on sticking points instead of seeking a wide-ranging treaty.

In a change from Copenhagen’s venomous atmosphere, the talks in the beach resort of Cancun ended after two sleepless nights with standing ovations for the chief negotiator, Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa.

“We have the chance to build a new story in which economic growth, poverty alleviation and care for the environment are truly compatible,” Mexican President Felipe Calderon said as he closed the two-week conference.

But the talks left much of the hard work to next year’s talks in South Africa — including the crucial question of by how much all nations will cut carbon emissions blamed for global warming.

Bolivia was the main holdout. To the dismay of many tired negotiators, Bolivia’s Pedro Solon took the microphone repeatedly after midnight, saying the deal would not halt climate change but “put more humans in a near-death situation.”

Espinosa overruled him, saying that UN rules for consensus did not give him “veto power.”

The vast majority of countries offered support. Australian Climate Change Minister Greg Combet called the deal a “historic step forward.”

Chief US negotiator Todd Stern said: “Obviously the package is not going to solve climate change by itself, but I think it is a big step forward.”

In a key area, the agreement set up a “Green Climate Fund” to administer assistance to poor nations, which many experts say are already suffering more floods and drought as temperatures steadily mount.

The fund will be steered by a board of 24 members chosen evenly from developed and developing nations. For the first three years, the new international organisation would be overseen by the World Bank — a point of controversy for some activists who distrust the Washington-based lender.

The European Union, Japan and the United States have led pledges of 30 billion dollars in immediate assistance, as well 100 billion dollars a year to start by 2020.

A broader issue is just how wealthy nations would raise the money, with few governments enthusiastic to pledge more money in tough economic times. Some envoys advocated setting taxes on airplane and shipping fuel.

The agreement called for “urgent action” to cap temperature rises at no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and asks for a study on strengthening the commitment to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The proposal says it “recognises that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required according to science.”

The accord at Copenhagen included similar language, but it was never approved by the full UN-led talks.

The Cancun deal also agreed on ways forward on fighting deforestation, a leading cause of climate change, and on monitoring nations’ climate pledges.

But the talks were stuck for days over the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark treaty whose obligations on wealthy countries to cut emissions run out at the end of 2012.

With a new treaty looking distant, the European Union led calls for a new round of commitments under Kyoto.

Japan opposed a new Kyoto round, pointing out that the treaty named after its ancient capital covers only 30 percent of global emissions because top polluters including China and the United States are not part of it.

In a compromise embraced by Japan, the Cancun agreement called for work on a second period of the Kyoto Protocol “to ensure that there is no gap” but did not oblige countries to be part of the new round.

Japan faced intense pressure to compromise, with British Prime Minister David Cameron telephoning his counterpart Naoto Kan, diplomats said.

The Kyoto Protocol makes no demands on emerging economies to curb emissions. China has refused to be subjected to a treaty, although India in a surprise shift in Cancun said it would at least consider binding action in the future.

Environmentalists were mostly positive. Tim Gore of anti-poverty movement Oxfam welcomed the Green Climate Fund and said the draft Cancun accord “breathes new life” into UN-led talks on climate change.

Source from: http://bit.ly/fuTpRn

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Cancún deal leaves hard climate tasks to Durban summit in 2011

Compromise in Mexico keeps UN process alive

Guardian Weekly, 14 Desember 2010

After the catastrophe in Copenhagen came the compromise in Cancún, but one that left the most difficult decisions for Durban next year. The deal reached at the UN’s international climate change negotiations, which ended last Saturday in Mexico, was enough to save the UN process itself from burning out, but remains far short of saving the planet.

Delegates in Cancún cheered deliriously as the agreement was passed, but as the negotiators from 193 nations returned home, the scale of the tasks ahead became clear, from deep cuts in carbon emissions to raising billions of dollars of climate aid. “We can step forward in South Africa if we can continue to consolidate and carry on the spirit of unity and co-ordination formed in the Cancún conference,” said Xie Zhenhua, head of China’s delegation. “But the negotiations in the future will continue to be difficult.” Connie Hedegaard, the EU commissioner on climate action, agreed: “There is a very heavy work programme in the next year.”

Patricia Espinosa, the Mexican foreign minister who presided over the talks, said the result was “the best we could achieve at this point in a long process”. She was praised for her firm but inclusive chairing of the meeting, a critical missing factor in Copenhagen, leading the Indian environment minister to compare her to a goddess. “A global deal on climate change is now back on track,” said Chris Huhne, the UK’s climate change secretary.

The Cancún agreement (PDF) sets out a process towards the global, legally binding deal many observers believe will be essential to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. For the first time, it commits both rich and developing nations to curbing greenhouse gas emissions and sets up a Green Climate Fund to deliver financial aid to poorer nations bearing the brunt of climate change. It sets out in principle deals on tackling deforestation and providing wind turbines, solar panels and other low-carbon technology to developing nations. But the meeting in Durban next year will need to close the gap between the emission cuts offered to date and the much deeper cuts scientists say are needed if the UN’s goal of keeping a temperature rise to under 2C is to be reached. Researchers from the Climate Action Tracker project said existing pledges set the world on course for 3.2C of warming.

The most daunting task ahead appears to be resolving the fate of the Kyoto protocol, for which Durban will be the last-chance saloon. The protocol is the only existing legally binding treaty, but it expires in 2012. However, some powerful nations want to see it killed, as it requires emissions cuts from only 37 of the richest industrialised nations. Japan caused a diplomatic upset in Cancún by declaring it would block a second phase for Kyoto, and was backed by Russia and Canada. Further complicating the issue is that the US never ratified Kyoto so, like China, the world’s other super-polluter, it is not bound by it. Negotiators in Cancún parked the problem: those in Durban will not have that option.

The Cancún agreements on money for adaptation to warming, deforestation and technology transfer all represent good intentions but their success will depend on the details decided in Durban. For example, the Green Climate Fund decision was to set up a “transitional committee” to design the fund, with no agreement on how the $30bn by 2012 or $100bn by 2020 previously promised will be raised. Another sticking point had been how pledged national cuts would be policed. Todd Stern, the US state department climate change envoy, said Cancún had given substance to the notion of an inspections regime: meaning all the difficult details remain to be resolved.

After Copenhagen, Cancún had been billed as a test of multilateralism. “Cancún has done its job,” said Christiana Figueres, head of the UN’s climate treaty under which the talks take place. “Nations have shown they can work together under a common roof, to reach consensus on a common cause.”

The dissenting voices that crashed Copenhagen dwindled in Cancún to just one – Bolivia – following intense diplomatic pressure. The Bolivian delegation’s leader, Pablo Solón, denounced the Cancún deal as ignoring scientific reality: “Its cost will be measured in human lives.”

Next year the Durban summit will have to turn Cancún’s compromise into a real action plan. But some senior observers have suggested progress in combating climate change depends as much – or more – on action outside the UN process in the next year, with nations and regions making their commitments.

Source from: http://bit.ly/eBglBs

Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC) denounces and rejects this outcome of the COP on Climate, which nevertheless will be presented to humankind by the big economic interests as the solution to the climate crisis. ATALC supports Bolivia´s statements that the result of the COP is inadequate and does not respond to the climate reality of the Earth, but favors the interests of big transnational corporations and disregards the dramatic situation of many developing countries.

In addition, we consider that the process of negotiations was neither open nor transparent, and was based on infamous practices known as the “green rooms” (bilateral negotiations between groups of countries), that rule out any possibility to have a discussion by all parties. In consequence, ATALC upholds the Peoples´ Agreement of Cochabamba and will continue promoting it since it includes the real solutions to climate change.

The texts presented at the end of the COP include the continuation of negotiations around a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, but they don´t make any reference as to when these negotiations shall be concluded, nor do they ensure a second period. In fact, they leave the door open to dismantle Kyoto, the only binding climate agreement that obliges rich countries to reduce their emissions.

On these reductions, the new texts continue being based on a system of voluntary offers, or “pledges” by each country, without making reference to an exact number that the parties will have to agree as a common target. Even though the texts do not include emission reduction targets, they do ensure flexibility mechanisms for rich countries, so that they can achieve their “pledges”. Carbon trading and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) are among these mechanisms.

On long-term cooperative action, the new texts continue seeing forests as mere carbon reservoirs (sinks) and are geared towards emissions trading. Also, they don´t ensure the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. In terms of climate finance, a green fund was created, but the World Bank was invited to have a fundamental role in it. With reference to technology transfer, two new institutions to analyze the issue were created, but nothing was said in terms of where the funds for these institutions will come from.

Ricardo Navarro, member of CESTA-Friends of the Earth El Salvador, said: “Only in a Moon Palace does a legal instrument like the Kyoto Protocol end up benefiting rich countries, the ones responsible for climate change, even if they don´t reduce their emissions. What is being discussed at the Moon does not reflect what happens on Earth”, said Navarro.

Lucia Ortiz, from NAT-Friends of the Earth Brazil said: “We reject an agreement on forests that, instead of aiming to preserve them, is putting a price on them according to the amount of carbon they store, and opens the door to more emissions trading to favor the most powerful and polluting countries”.

Meanwhile, Grace Garcia, member of COECOCEIBA-Friends of the Earth Costa Rica, said: “only a gang of lunatics would think it is a good idea to invite the World Bank to receive climate funds, with their long-standing track-record of financing the world´s dirtiest projects and imposition of death-sentencing conditionalities on our peoples”.

Finally, Domingo Lechon, from Otros Mundos-Friends of the Earth Mexico, highlighted: “The texts presented in Cancun do not respond at all to the urgency raised by science and will bring an increase of 5°C to global temperature. Currently, with an increase that doesn´t even exceed 1 degree, the impacts of climate change are already extremely serious. Every year, 300.000 people die due to climate change and the social and natural disasters it causes”.

ATALC denounces that the outcome of Cancun isn´t anything else than the reproduction of the anti-democratic and completely inadequate Copenhagen Accord. “The outcome is a Cancunhagen that we reject”, concluded Ricardo Navarro.

More information:

Ricardo Navarro, CESTA – Friends of the Earth El Salvador: cesta@cesta-foe.org.sv

Lucia Ortiz, NAT – Friends of the Earth Brazil: lucia@natbrasil.org.br

Grace García, COECOCEIBA – Friends of the Earth Costa Rica: graciagarcimunoz@gmail.com

Domingo Lechón, Otros Mundos – Friends of the Earth Mexico: domingolechon@otrosmundoschiapas.org

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Cancún Betrayal: UNFCCC Unmasked as WTO of the Sky

Real Solutions to the Climate Crisis Will Come From Grassroots Movements

Statement by the Indigenous Environmental Network

Cancún, Mexico — As representatives of Indigenous peoples and communities already suffering the immediate impacts of climate change, we express our outrage and disgust at the agreements that have emerged from the COP16 talks. As was exposed in the Wikileaks climate scandal, the Cancun Agreements are not the result of an informed and open consensus process, but the consequence of an ongoing US diplomatic offensive of backroom deals, arm-twisting and bribery that targeted nations in opposition to the Copenhagen Accord during the months leading up to the COP-16 talks.

We are not fooled by this diplomatic shell game. The Cancun Agreements have no substance. They are yet more hot air. Their only substance is to promote continued talks about climate mitigation strategies motivated by profit. Such strategies have already proved fruitless and have been shown to violate human and Indigenous rights. The agreements implictly promote carbon markets, offsets, unproven technologies, and land grabs—anything but a commitment to real emissions reductions.

The Voices of the People Must be Respected

Indigenous Peoples from North to South cannot afford these unjust and false ‘solutions’, because climate change is killing our peoples, cultures and ecosystems. We need real commitments to reduce emissions at the source and to keep fossil fuels in the ground. Because we are on the front lines of the impacts of climate change, we came to COP-16 with an urgent call to address the root causes of the climate crisis, to demand respect for the Rights of Mother Earth, and to fundamentally redefine industrial society’s relationship with the planet. Instead, the Climate COP has shut the doors on our participation and that of other impacted communities, while welcoming business, industry, and speculators with open arms. The U.S., Industrialized nations, big business and unethical companies like Goldman Sachs will profit handsomely from these agreements while our people die.

Women and youth in our communities are disproportionately burdened by climate impacts and rights violations. Real solutions would strengthen our collective rights and land rights while ensuring the protection of women, youth and vulnerable communities. While the Cancun Agreements do contain some language “noting” rights, it is exclusively in the context of market mechanisms, while failing to guarantee safeguards for the rights of peoples and communities.

The failures of the UN talks in Copenhagen have been compounded in Cancun. From the opening day to the closing moments of the talks, our voices were censored, dissenting opinions silenced and dozens ejected from the conference grounds. The thousands who rallied outside to reject market mechanisms and demand recognition of human and Indigenous rights were ignored.

The Market Will Not Protect Our Rights

Market-based approaches have failed to stop climate change. They are designed to commodify and profit from the last remaining elements of our Mother Earth and the air. Through its focus on market approaches like carbon trading, the UNFCCC has become the WTO of the Sky.

We are deeply concerned that the Cancun Agreements betray both our future and the rights of peoples, women, youth, and vulnerable populations. While the preamble to the Cancun Agreements note a call for “studies on human rights and climate change,” this is in effect an empty reference, with no content and no standards, that will not protect the collective rights of peoples. The market mechanisms that implicitly dominate both the spirit and the letter of the Cancun Agreements will neither avert climate change nor guarantee human rights, much less the Rights of Mother Earth. Approaches based on carbon offsetting, like REDD, will permit polluters to continue poisoning land, water, air, and our bodies, while doing nothing to stop the climate crisis. Indeed, approaches based on the commodification of biodiversity, CO2, forests, water, and other sacred elements will only encourage the buying and selling of our human and environmental rights.

The Cochabamba People’s Agreement Points the Way Forward

There is another way forward: the Cochabamba People’s Agreement represents the vision of everyday people from all corners of the globe who are creating the solutions to climate change from the ground up, and calling for a global framework that respects human rights and the Rights of Mother Earth.

If any hope emerges from Cancun, it comes from the dramatic demonstrations we saw in the streets and from the deep and powerful alliances that were built among indigenous and social movements. The Indigenous Environmental Network joined thousands of our brothers and sisters to demand real climate solutions based in the rights of Indigenous Peoples, the rights of Mother Earth, and a just transition away from fossil fuels. We will continue to stand with our allies to demand climate justice. The communities on the frontlines of the problem––those who face the daily impacts of the climate crisis––are also on the frontlines of the solutions. Community-based solutions can cool the planet!

The fight for climate justice continues. We are committed to deepening our alliances with indigenous and social movements around the world as we build in our communities and mobilize toward COP-17 in Durban, South Africa. Social movements in South Africa mobilized the world to overthrow Apartheid and create powerful, transformative change. The same mass-based movement building is our only hope to overturn the climate apartheid we now face. We look forward to working with our African brothers and sisters and tribal communities in Durban.

We only have one Mother Earth. As Indigenous Peoples, we will continue our struggle to defend all our Relations and future generations.

Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) is a network of Indigenous Peoples empowering Indigenous Nations and communities towards sustainable livelihoods, demanding environmental justice and maintaining the Sacred Fire of our traditions. IEN brought 17 indigenous leaders to Cancun as part of the Grassroots Solutions for Climate Justice — North America Delegation uniting representatives from fossil fuel impacted communities who are on the frontlines of solving the climate crisis. A complete archive of the delegations statements and activities can be found at http://redroadcancun.org and http://grassrootsclimatesolutions.org

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Dorothy-Grace M. Guerrero

Senior Research Associate

and China Programme Coordinator

Focus on the Global South

4th flr. CUSRI Wisit Prachuabmoh Bldg

Chulalongkorn University

Phyathai Road 10330

Bangkok, Thailand

www.focusweb.org

tel: 66 2 218 7329

(Cancún, 11 December 2010) – The UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico, ended on Saturday with the adoption of a balanced package of decisions that set all governments more firmly on the path towards a low-emissions future and support enhanced action on climate change in the developing world.
The package, dubbed the “Cancún Agreements” was welcomed to repeated loud and prolonged applause and acclaim by Parties in the final plenary.

Download the full document here:

pr_20101211_cop16_closing

UNEP Executive Director.

Climate change represents one of the greatest challenges but also an inordinate opportunity to catalyze a transition to a low-carbon, resource efficient Green Economy.

This report informs governments and the wider community on how far a response to climate change has progressed over the past 12 months, and thus how far the world is on track to meet wider goals.

The pledges associated with the Copenhagen Accord of 2009 are the point of departure for this report. What might be achieved in terms of limiting a global temperature rise to 2ºC or less in the 21st century and in terms of setting the stage for a Green Economy?

And what remains to be done – what is the gap between scientific reality and the current level of ambition of nations? The analysis focuses on where global emissions need to be in around ten years time to be in line with what the science says is consistent with the 2°C or 1.5°C limits, and where we expect to be as a result of the pledges.

If the highest ambitions of all countries associated with the Copenhagen Accord are implemented and supported, annual emissions of greenhouse gases could be cut, on average, by around 7 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 equivalent by 2020.

Without this action, it is likely that a business-as-usual scenario would see emissions rise to an average of around 56 Gt of CO2 equivalent by around the 2020 date. Cuts in annual emissions to around 49 Gt of CO2 equivalent would still however leave a gap of around 5 Gt compared with where we need to be—a gap equal to the total emissions of the world’s cars, buses and trucks in 2005.

That is because the experts estimate that emissions need to be around 44 Gt of CO2 equivalent by 2020 to have a likely chance of pegging temperatures to 2ºC or less.

However, if only the lowest ambition pledges are implemented, and if no clear rules are set in the negotiations, emissions could be around 53 Gt of CO2 equivalent in 2020 – not that different from business-as-usual so the rules set in the negotiations clearly matter.

This report, the result of an unprecedented partnership between UNEP and individuals from 25 leading research centres, underlines the complexity of various scenarios.

The Emissions Gap Report underlines that tackling climate change is still manageable, if leadership is shown. In Cancun action on financing, mitigation and adaptation need to mature and move forward– supported perhaps by action on non-CO2 pollutants such as methane from rubbish tips to black carbon emissions.

Above all, Cancun must demonstrate to society as a whole that governments understand the gaps left by Copenhagen. But at the same time remain committed to counter climate change while meeting wider development goals.

Download the full report here:

EMISSIONS_GAP_REPORT_UNEP

By Margot Roosevelt, Los Angeles Times

December 12, 2010

Reporting from Cancun, Mexico

Delegates from 190 countries ended two weeks of diplomatic brinksmanship over climate change Saturday in a stalemate between rich and poor countries over cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but they pledged to move forward on a set of broad technical measures.

The new pacts envision eventual rules for measuring planet-heating pollution. They would also fund efforts in the most vulnerable countries to combat the effects of rising sea levels, longer droughts and stronger hurricanes.

The Cancun Agreements, crafted by some 9,000 delegates attending the talks at a Mexican seaside resort, rescued the 20-year climate negotiations from what appeared to be imminent collapse after last year’s Copenhagen talks ended in recriminations. China and other nations accused the U.S. of failing to seriously negotiate and then pushing a last-minute nonbinding accord without a broad consensus.

About 3 a.m. Saturday, Mexico President Felipe Calderon emerged from the cavernous negotiation hall to hail the summit as a “thoroughgoing success.” The Cancun Agreements, he said, lifted “the inertia of mistrust” that had threatened to paralyze the effort.

President Obama called Calderon to congratulate him on “Mexico’s excellent work chairing the Cancun conference to a successful conclusion that … advances the effort to address the challenge of climate change,” the White House said in a statement.

The package of agreements reiterates a promise made by industrial countries in Copenhagen for $30 billion in “fast start” money over the next two years to help poor and vulnerable countries defend themselves against climate-related damage. And it includes the intention to raise $100 billion in long-term funds by 2020.

However, the dispersal of the fast-start money remains unresolved, with industrial countries preferring to use the World Bank to make payments. Poor countries say the bank is inefficient and inattentive to their needs.

The Cancun Agreements also include plans for a broad system to prevent the cutting and burning of tropical forests, which are responsible for up to 15% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Details of a forest-carbon accounting and compensation program are to be worked out in next year’s negotiations in Durban, South Africa. Also to be finalized are measures to help developing countries with renewable energy technology and to create a system for monitoring and certifying emissions cuts.

Reaction from environmental groups was mixed. “The texts fall radically short on the crucial question — curbing climate pollution,” said Nick Berning, U.S. spokesman for Friends of the Earth. The failure to make strict commitments to reducing greenhouse gases “could lead to a future in which temperatures rise by up to 9 degrees Fahrenheit,” he said, citing a recent U.N. analysis.

That report, released last month by the United Nations Environment Program, concluded that pledges made in Copenhagen by the U.S. and other industrial nations would fail to cut emissions to the level scientists say is needed to protect the planet from drastic climate change.

Many environmentalists also praised the Cancun delegates for making “incremental’ steps toward an eventual climate treaty. “The outcome in Cancun wasn’t enough to save the climate,” said Alden Meyer, a specialist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, “but it did restore the credibility of the United Nations as a forum where progress can be made.”

The Durban meeting will come nearly 20 years after the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. That treaty pledged to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to “prevent dangerous interference with the climate system.”

So far, it has had little success: concentrations of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels have risen steadily, driven by a growing global population and industrialization.

Scientists say that the effects of climate disruption already are apparent and will worsen unless nations reverse course. “To postpone action … would mean astronomical costs for future generations,” Mexican Nobel Prize winner Mario J. Molina, an atmospheric scientist, warned at the conference’s opening.

Developing nations say it is up to wealthy countries, which have fouled the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, to clean it up.

Last year China passed the U.S. as the biggest emitter. Together, the two countries account for 38% of global greenhouse gas pollution.

The U.S. delegation maintains that nations with rapidly growing economies such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa can afford to chip in — and if they don’t, the U.S. won’t sign any international treaty.

In Cancun the breach widened, with Japan and Russia saying for the first time that without participation from China and the others, they would not sign on to extend the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 agreement in which industrialized nations — the U.S. excepted — agreed to curb emissions by 2012.

Canada and Australia have signaled they will probably follow suit.

“Progress has been made,” the Chinese delegation said in a statement Saturday. But “next year’s negotiation task will be extremely difficult,” Beijing warned, because industrial countries have failed to make additional pledges to curb emissions.

margot.roosevelt@latimes.com

Source: latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-climate-cancun-20101212,0,2849203.story

Climate Wire (12/08/2010)

Lisa Friedman, E&E reporter

CANCUN, Mexico — China’s pledge to reduce the intensity of its carbon emissions will be bound by domestic law, but it is “premature” to demand the country make internationally binding commitments, a top Chinese negotiator said.

Huang Huikang, special representative for climate change negotiations in China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told ClimateWire that China is “poor” and “not at the same level” as the United States and is not yet prepared to agree to mandates.

“It’s going to be, but this time we cannot say legally binding,” Huang said. “In principle we will make our commitment under the convention, but this time it is probably premature to discuss whether China’s commitment is legally binding or not.”

Huang’s comments came after a day of confusion and wild speculation at U.N. climate treaty talks, set off by remarks to Reuters interpreted by many to mean that China will accept legally binding targets. Though the comments appeared to be contradicted by Chinese Vice Minister Xie Zhenhua, analysts described the position as everything from a “game changer” to a key signal of that China intended to be flexible on negotiations in the coming days.

But U.S Envoy Todd Stern early in the day declared that China’s offer to inscribe its existing pledge under a binding U.N. decision contained “nothing new,” saying “That was the Copenhagen Accord, as far as we’re concerned.”

And, Stern said, because China insists that the targets be declared voluntary while U.S. and industrialized nation targets be legally binding, the position “steps backward.”

Meanwhile, Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told ClimateWire, “I couldn’t make head or tail out of the Reuters report.”

With only three negotiating days left, the kerfuffle leaves China and the United States roughly where they began when the 16th conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change opened last week: close to a deal, but it appears not close enough.

If there is an agreement to be unlocked in Cancun — and dozens of ministers insisted yesterday that there is — China and America hold the keys.

Transparency of emissions reports remains key

The central fight is over transparency. That is, America insists that developing countries report on their efforts to cut emissions and also allow expert consultation and analysis of that reporting. China has allegedly agreed to some measure of reporting. The debate, though, is what happens to that report once it is submitted to the U.N.

Those familiar with China’s position say the government is eager to agree to certain principles — like that an international monitoring system should not be punitive or impinge on national sovereignty. But it doesn’t want an expert panel to rigorously truth-squad its methods or numbers, or allow other countries to submit questions about the reports. America, meanwhile, won’t approve agreements on avoiding deforestation, adaptation, technology transfer and other programs worth billions of dollars until it gets specific agreements from China on elements like having an expert review panel.

“We’re looking for genuine balance,” Stern said earlier this week. “That doesn’t mean a great deal of detail on some issues and 50,000-foot level of principles and little else on other issues,” he said.

Yet while the United States is casting China as the linchpin of the negotiations, there is anger aplenty at America inside the Moon Palace resort where talks are being held. Many say the United States is demanding compromise from others while bringing nothing to the negotiating table itself.

“I’m actually more concerned about the U.S.’s transparency,” said Jennifer Morgan, who heads the World Resources Institute’s climate and energy program.

One leading U.S. analyst said every time countries make progress on an issue, the United States reminds countries that it might all mean nothing unless China agrees to transparency rules.

“The U.S. is the problem here,” the analyst said. “Everybody is so pissed off. Here we are with nothing back home, and acting like bullies.”

A ‘non-aggression pact’?

On the surface, though, the mood is one of self-conscious diplomatic niceties. Gone are the finger-pointing and the insults that reached a fever pitch a few months when Chinese negotiator likened Stern’s criticisms to a pig admiring itself in a mirror.

In fact, countries avoided even mentioning one another by name. China has studiously referred to America obliquely an Annex 1 country that is not a party to the Kyoto Protocol. Stern, meanwhile, recently noted that a proposal for a monitoring system has the support of small island nations, Latin American nations and least-developed countries — but “not from everybody who matters yet.” The holdout being, of course, China.

“There seems to be a secret non-aggression pact between the two. They seem to be much gentler with one another, and that’s good,” said Elliot Diringer, vice president of international strategies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

“This time we don’t [point] fingers at each other,” Huang agreed. “We don’t want to criticize each other in public.”

Meanwhile, ministers who arrived yesterday for a high-level plenary session emerged optimistic of a compromise between the United States and China.

“What I can tell you is, I think the Chinese delegation has shown flexibility since they arrived in Mexico, and we hope this would be reflected in the outcome,” said Luis Alfonso de Alba, Mexico’s climate change ambassador.

Ramesh, India’s envoy, agreed. “The Chinese are very constructive on the transparency issue. We have to work out the modalities.” He also maintained that America’s commitment to immediate funds often referred to as “fast start” is inadequate. Nations pledged $30 billion by 2020, and so far the United States has committed $1.7 billion — an amount American officials consider to be serious cash on the table.

Ramesh, though, noted that $400 million of that is export credit, which he called “a very strange definition of fast-start finance.” And, he said, it also includes $26 million of aid to India — which India doesn’t want. Early money for climate change, Ramesh said, should be given to Africa and the most vulnerable countries.

“We don’t want to be counted in the fast-start category,” he said.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who addressed the conference yesterday, said he believes “some decisions are ripe for adoption” including on deforestation, climate adaptation, technology and “some elements of finance.”

Global climate change policy, he said, means balancing the need to provide for a populous earth with the necessity of cutting emissions to levels that will make it possible to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

“We need to fundamentally transform the global economy based on low-carbon clean energy resources,” Ban said.

Source: http://nyti.ms/g0MsWY

–

Without plans to reduce emissions, and specific objectives to reduce emissions by 5 billion tons by 2020, UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun is at risk. Environmentalists and social movements are protesting today in the streets today in Cancun. They call for binding targets to emission reduction and for closing the loopholes in the LULUCF and REDD negotiations, which allowing to private companies speculate on conservation programs to the detriment of local communities and indigenous peoples. Meanwhile, the text proposed by Bolivia at the previous meeting of Tianjin disappeared from the negotiation table.

The text included four points:

* Guarantee rights of indigenous peoples under the basis of international normative instruments and local communities,

* Not be market mechanisms on forest related actions

* Not be offset mechanisms that implies that developed countries will use emission reductions that were made by developing countries in order to fulfill their emission reduction commitments

* Proposals shall not be considered that allow industrial scale logging or that involve conversion of natural forests to plantations or other commercial or infrastructure activities and projects that damage the environment or violate the rights of local communities

It also included reference to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Free Prior and Informed Consent.

This should have been the text to be discussed in Cancun, but shortly before the meeting in Cancun started, the chair of the working group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA), Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe, released a note, where the Bolivian text has disappeared.

In the lack of transparency, no surprise that the Cancun meeting risk to fail, hijacked by vested interests and dirty negotiations.

Taken from source: http://bit.ly/dGD7zU

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By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent Charles J. Hanley, Ap Special Correspondent – Tue Dec 7, 6:49 am ET

CANCUN, Mexico – It may not last, but a spirit of compromise seems to have settled over the annual U.N. climate conference as negotiators enter its final days looking for agreements on secondary tools for coping with global warming.

The open sniping between the U.S. and China that marked periodic talks earlier this year was not in evidence Monday as the second week of the two-week meeting got under way.

“There were heated discussions at Copenhagen. Here the atmosphere is relatively mild,” China’s climate chief, Xie Zhenhua, told reporters.

He was referring to the intense talks in the Danish capital last December that failed to produce a hoped-for binding pact requiring substantial cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other industrial, agricultural and transport gases blamed for global warming.

No such overall emissions deal is expected at the negotiations under the U.N. climate treaty here, where environment ministers and other negotiators from the 193 treaty nations are to wrap up their talks on Friday.

They are aiming to reach agreements on such side issues as laying the groundwork for a “green fund” of $100 billion a year by 2020. Financed by richer nations, the fund would support poorer nations in converting to cleaner energy sources and in adapting to a shifting climate that may damage people’s health, agriculture and economies in general.

Underlining the climate challenge, the U.N. Environment Program on Monday reported on the impact of global warming in Latin America.

“The effects of climate change in the region are already significant,” it said, citing a surge in extreme climatic events, with a sharp rise in the number of people affected by extreme temperatures, forest fires, droughts, storms and floods growing from 5 million over the 1970s to more than 40 million in 2000-2009.

It also said that malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases that 40 years ago afflicted just a few countries in the Caribbean and Latin America can now be found, with warming, in the vast majority.

Cancun’s spirit of compromise may be most needed in the coming days’ debates over limited gestures proposed in the area of emissions reductions.

The U.S. has long refused to join the rest of the industrialized world in the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 add-on to the climate treaty that mandates modest emissions reductions by richer nations, and whose commitments expire in 2012. The U.S. complained Kyoto would hurt its economy and should have mandated actions as well by such emerging economies as China and India.

For their part, those poorer but growing nations have rejected calls that they submit to Kyoto-style legally binding commitments — not to reduce emissions, but to cut back on emissions growth. Their first obligation, these governments say, is to develop their economies, not hobble them.

“We still have 150 million people under the poverty line,” Xie told reporters Monday.

In a nonbinding Copenhagen Accord last December, an agreement not accepted by all treaty parties, the U.S. and other industrial nations announced targets for reducing emissions by 2020, and China and some other developing nations set goals, also voluntary, for cutting back on the growth of their emissions.

Many parties now want to have those voluntary targets “anchored” more formally in a document emerging from the Cancun talks. At the same time, developing countries are pressing for the industrial nations to commit in Cancun to a second Kyoto period, further mandatory cutbacks beyond 2012 — a demand resisted by Japan, Russia and others who won’t submit to more legally binding emissions cuts until the U.S., China and some others take on binding targets under treaty.

It’s the kind of negotiating impasse custom-made for creative diplomacy and lawyerly wordcraft.

Late Monday, looking for a middle ground on these post-2012 commitments, diplomats searched “for some kind of a political message from Cancun included in the Cancun final decision that there will be a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, although no numbers will be decided upon at this stage,” said Brazilian negotiator Sergio Serra.

The wordcraft was already being practiced by China’s Xie. With linguistic sleight-of-hand, he told reporters that his country’s ambitious energy-efficiency plans represented “binding” targets — although the obligation will be owed only to China’s National People’s Congress, not to the international community.