Climate Change - Bali Blog: Setting a Path for Bali and Beyond

Dr. Andrew Deutz is The Nature Conservancy’s Senior Policy Advisor for UN Affairs. He has extensive experience in international environmental law, policy and negotiation, as well as international conservation and development. He currently heads The Nature Conservancy’s International Institutions and Agreements team, overseeing relationships with a variety of multilateral and bilateral agencies including the UN and multilateral environmental agreements, the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility, and a number of U.S. government agencies.

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Why is The Nature Conservancy involved?

Climate change is the greatest threat to nature. We all rely on nature for survival and now nature is relying on us. As one of the world’s largest environmental organizations, we are compelled to work on the world’s largest environmental challenge. A strong, comprehensive international climate change agreement is the most powerful way we can reduce the impacts of climate change on people, plants and animals.

For more than a decade, the Conservancy has been confronting the nexus between climate change and nature, putting into practice — in six countries, on over 1.5 million acres — nature-based strategies to both reduce emissions and adapt to an already changing world.

Breaking from Bali

In Bali, New Incentive for Developing Nations to Curb Emissions
The Christian Science Monitor discusses the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility with The Conservancy’s Andrew Deutz.
The Nature Conservancy Pledges $5 Million to Tackle Emissions from Deforestation
World Bank-led Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) will Demonstrate New Incentives for Reducing Deforestation and Forest Degradation.
Animals, Plants Need Help Adapting to Climate Change
Reuters talks to the Conservancy’s Stephanie Meeks and Rod Salm about efforts to help animals and humans adapt to climate change.
Palau, GEF, and NGOs Issue Report on Island Nations Facing Climate Change
"Micronesia Challenge" is key to conservation efforts.
The Nature Conservancy Acts on Indonesia’s Call to Save Orangutans and Address Climate Change.
The Nature Conservancy pledges $1 Million for strategy and action plan for the national conservation of orangutans.
Major Steps Taken to Protect Coral Triangle
The region is critical to the livelihoods of more than 120 million people.
Indonesia Vows to Protect Endangered Orangutans.
Reuters talk's with the Conservancy's Erik Meijaard about Indonesia's pledge to save orangutans and forests
Trees Are at Heart of Talks on Climate
The Washington Post talks with the Conservancy’s Duncan Marsh about efforts in Bali to strike a deal that would slow the destruction of tropical forests.
Scrambling to Save Coral’s “Homeland”
The Associated Press talks with the Conservancy’s Annisah Supal about the Coral Triangle Initiative and efforts to establish climate change resilient marine protected areas in the coral triangle.
Indonesia's Corals Threatened by Climate Change
Reuters discusses the coral triangle with Abdul Halim, policy manager for The Nature Conservancy's Coral Triangle Center.
Electricity Revives Bali Coral Reefs
The Associated Press reports on Conservancy coral specialist Rod Salm about bleaching in the coral triangle.
Can We Save the World by 2015? Time magazine talks to Andrew Deutz about the climate change conference.
Climate Meeting Preview: The Conservancy's Roberto Troya previews the conference for The World.

Climate Change: What We Support

Find out how the Conservancy is working with all levels of government — from state and regional initiatives , to U.S. federal policy, to international treaties — to address the impacts of climate change. Our key policy areas include:

December 4, 2007 -- Thousands of delegates from every corner of the world have arrived this week in Bali to begin defining future efforts to reduce global warming. The message is clear, both from the public and from the International Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report: Without concrete action on climate change, people and the natural systems on which they depend will be devastated.

The report also tells us that cost-effect solutions are at hand, and the Stern report concludes that the costs of dealing with climate change effectively are several times less than the costs of ignoring it.

A New Climate For Change

The international discussions on climate change that begin this week in Bali are fundamentally about starting a process to take further action at the international level, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The Nature Conservancy therefore calls on the governments assembling in Bali to establish a clear path and negotiating process that will lead towards new, legally binding international commitments to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Where should that path lead us?

industrialized countries must take on substantial new and formal targets to reduce emissions, looking across their economies to make the greatest reductions possible.
Developing countries — particularly leading emitters — must also be prepared to do their part to constrain emissions, although not the same level or type of commitments as industrialized countries.
Increased aid and technology incentives will also facilitate concrete additional measures by developing countries.

Reducing Emissions From Deforestation

Deforestation contributes about 20 percent of global emissions. So reducing emissions from deforestation (REDD) must also be part of the global solution. If done right, REDD offers the prospect of

Reducing overall emissions;
Motivating concrete action by developing countries;
Transferring significant resources to the South through carbon credit trading;
Conserving biodiversity; and
Enhancing local livelihoods.

Preparing for the Inevitable Through Adaptation

No matter how successful efforts to reduce emissions may be, the climate will warm and some impacts are inevitable. Preparing for those impacts through adaptation must go hand-in-hand with emissions reductions, particularly given the IPCC findings that the most severely affected will be some of the world’s poorest communities — those least able to cope on their own and those least responsible for the problem.

The natural systems on which we all depend — from coral reefs and mangroves to watersheds and forests — will also suffer from climate change. Conservation and sustainable natural-resource management strategies that maintain the health of natural systems will help people and nature adapt and should be built into adaptation policies and measures.

As we work to slow climate change and adjust to its impacts, we must also ensure efforts don’t unintentionally harm natural areas or socio-economic well-being — trading short-term climate-friendly solutions for long-term biodiversity-degrading or livelihood-diminishing problems.

Annual costs of adaptation will be in the tens of billions of dollars, according to Stern report estimates, greatly exceeding even the most optimistic scenarios for overseas development assistance. While development assistance should be significantly expanded and better targeted as part of the post-2012 agreement, incentive systems are needed to fill the remaining gap and generate private financial flows to developing countries to facilitate adaptation efforts.

Collaboration For Global Solutions

At no other time have our choices about the climate been clearer or the path forward more apparent. Over the next two weeks, the world’s governments will choose what path to take. Let’s hope Bali agrees on a roadmap for greater international collaboration and real global solutions to the climate change challenge.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Leila Mead/IISD/ ENB (UN Climate Conference main hall); Photo © Erika Rychwalski (Andrew Deutz).