|
|||
|
|
||
|
|
The Nature Conservancy is attending The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland — known informally as COP 14 — to urge participants to hammer out a draft negotiating text for the next major international agreement on climate change.
Throughout the final week of the conference, Karen Foerstel, associate director of policy and media relations, will be posting short dispatches from Poznan on what the Conservancy is doing to shape the future of conservation.
December 12, 2008: The Final Outcome
At the close of the United Nations climate negotiations in Poznan, Poland, Duncan Marsh, director of international climate policy at The Nature Conservancy, issued the following statement:
“While the official meetings here in Poznan have done little to move us closer to an agreement in Copenhagen, important steps were taken by governments outside of the negotiating process.
"Developing countries showed they want to take action to lower their emissions and join the global fight against climate change. Brazil, Mexico and Peru, for example, each announced targets to reduce their emissions in the coming years.
"And Environment Ministers from more than a dozen developed and developing nations signed a joint statement calling for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) to be part of a new global climate agreement in Copenhagen in 2009 – a signal that the political will exists to protect the world’s forests and lower annual carbon emissions.
"The table has been set for reaching a deal in Copenhagen. Developing countries have taken a seat. It’s time for the United States to take its place at the table.
"The United States must show leadership in passing strong climate legislation and building a new green economy.
"Time is running out and there is still a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done. We will have to work tirelessly over the next year.
"Some have said that during this financial crisis, we cannot afford to act on climate change. But the truth is we cannot afford NOT to take action. With each year, the scientific results become more evident: the longer we wait, the higher the cost and the greater the impacts we will all suffer.
"We cannot delay. We can, we must and we will meet the Copenhagen deadline.”
December 12, 2008: Developing Nations Leading the Way
During international meetings like these, it is often the large developed countries — the ones who control the purse strings and frequently dictate the parameters of the negotiations — that grab the headlines.
But over the past two weeks, it has been developing countries that have received much of the attention here in Poznan for the pro-active steps they have been taking to lower their carbon emissions and join the global fight against climate change.
Yesterday, Mexico announced a new national plan to reduce carbon emissions 50 percent below its 2002 level by the year 2050. And Brazil has pledged to cut deforestation by 70 percent by 2017, a move that could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by up to 45 percent over the next decade.
Last week, the G77 and China group, which represents all the world’s developing countries, called upon climate change negotiators to make ecosystem-based adaptation a key element of a post-2012 agreement.
During a brief break in negotiations yesterday, I had the opportunity to sit down with the UN Ambassador from Papua New Guinea, Robert Aisi, to talk about the vocal role developing nations have played during the last two weeks of negotiations.
“Developing nations are the most vulnerable states to climate change. They are the ones who emit the least, but they are the ones who are going to be affected big time,” said Aisi. “If you look at it from their perspective, it gives you an idea why their voice is so strong.”
Aisi said rising sea levels have already forced many communities in his small island nation to relocate ten times or more in recent years to higher lands. And he said ecosystem adaptation is already a key tool being used by people in Papua New Guinea to overcome the devastating impacts of climate change.
“Part of the survival is to protect the natural systems,” he said. “Communities have been doing it and will continue to do it — not because it’s in an agreement, but because it’s survival.”
In recent years, developing nations had insisted that industrialized countries — who are among the world’s largest emitters — must take the first steps to lower their emissions. But the new willingness of developing countries to independently move forward with plans to combat climate change has given negotiators hope that they will be able to reach an agreement in Copenhagen next year.
Now we must act to ensure that developed nations will show similar leadership and follow through on the promises they have made to lower their emissions and fight against climate change.
December 10, 2008: Big Guns Called in as Global Leaders Push Ahead
The big names begin arriving in Poznan today as negotiations ramp up in the final three days of the international climate change meeting and U.S. congressional staffers warn that passage of cap-and-trade climate change legislation may not happen in the next 12 months.
Former Vice President Al Gore is scheduled to speak at the COP this week. Former Presidential nominee John Kerry also will be arriving today, as will UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.
After more than a week of often-contentious debate, the COP will now enter a new — and more intense — phase. Environmental Ministers from nearly 200 countries will descend on Poznan to receive progress updates from their delegations here and then take the lead in the final days of the talks.
And as the international negotiations continue, lawmakers back in the United States are preparing for their own debate on how to stop climate change.
During a panel discussion in Poznan on Monday, aides for Rep. John Dingell and Sens. Richard Lugar, Olympia Snowe and John Kerry said political and regional disputes — along with the complex legislative process — will make passage of a cap-and-trade bill before the COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen next December highly unlikely.
It is in Copenhagen where policy leaders hope to finalize a new climate change agreement to replace Kyoto Protocol commitments that expire in 2012. The new deal needs to be finalized early to give countries the time needed to ratify it.
While the doubt expressed by congressional aides is s bit disheartening it simply means that the Conservancy and other groups must continue to press Congress for a climate change bill this year in order to prepare for the Copenhagen meetings next December.
Congressional aides also note passage of legislation before Copenhagen was not needed to have the United States sign on to a new global climate deal.
Regardless of what happens in Congress, policy makers, environmental groups, community advocates and others will work intensely over the next year pushing for the creation of a comprehensive climate agreement.
“The next year will require engagement in both international and domestic processes far beyond what The Nature Conservancy has ever done before,” said Andrew Deutz, Director of International Institutions and Agreements for the Conservancy who is here in Poznan. “The financial crisis has led some to say we can’t afford to move forward on a global climate change agreement. The reality is we can’t afford not to. Science shows us that every year we delay action, the costs of reducing emissions rises and the damage we will suffer increases.”
December 7, 2008: Ecosystem-based Adaptation Emerges as Key Component of Climate Change Negotiations
As the second and final week of COP 14 kicks off in Poland today, developing countries have called for ecosystem-based adaptation to be a critical part of a post-2012 climate change agreement.
During government negotiations last week, delegates with the “G77 and China” group, which represents all of the world’s developing countries, said ecosystem-based adaptation was necessary in fighting the devastating impacts of climate change.
“Although adapting to climate change may sometimes require ‘hard’ infrastructure, such measures will be insufficient to address the full scope of climate change impacts,” said the Sri Lankan delegation.
As an example, Sri Lanka — which was severely hit by the deadly tsunami in 2004 — described how healthy coral reefs and mangroves can serve as life-saving buffers to increasing storm surges and rising sea levels while also providing communities with income from fishing and tourism.
Developing nations agreed that incorporating ecosystems into adaptation plans offers a triple-win strategy that supports conservation, development and poverty alleviation.
The Nature Conservancy — along with the IUCN, WWF, Conservation International, BirdLife International, Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee, Practical Action, WILD Foundation, Wildlife Conservation Society, Fauna and Flora International and Wetlands International submitted a joint proposal to the United Nations last week outlining how ecosystem-based adaptation should be included in the next global climate change agreement that is being developed here in Poland and is scheduled to be finalized during the COP 15 negotiations in Copenhagen next year.
“Climate change directly threatens the services ecosystems provide including food, clean water, coastal protection, fuel-wood, soil stability, and pollination,” the joint proposal said. “Ecosystem-based adaptation provides a cost-effective strategy…. and is especially effective at local levels with community involvement. Ecosystem-based adaptation may also contribute to climate change mitigation through the preservation or sequestration of carbon.”
December 5, 2008: Tackling REDD
This morning, Duncan Marsh, director of international climate policy for the Conservancy, led a panel on why reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) is a critical part of the climate change solution.
Among the speakers were Ambassador Hans Brattskar of Norway, Benjamin Karmorh from Liberia’s Environmental Protection Agency, Nur Masriputin of Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry and Natalia Calderon of Fundacion Amigos de la Naturaleza (FAN), the Conservancy’s partner in the Noel Kempff Climate Action Project in Bolivia — the world’s first forest carbon project to have its carbon emission reductions verified by a third party.
All talked about how deforestation and degradation — which produces about 20 percent of the world’s annual carbon emissions — must be stopped if we are to win the battle against climate change.
But perhaps the most moving member of the panel was Gilberto Arias of the Kuna Yaba indigenous community of Panama.
Arias — who had a translator with him as he spoke in his indigenous language — described the need to protect the world’s “tree spirit,” not just to stop climate change, but also to ensure the forest resources local communities rely upon for survival remain healthy and productive for future generations.
It’s only been a few hours since I arrived in Poznan, but I’ve already been overwhelmed by the passion demonstrated by people from all walks of life and from all over the world to come together in search of a common solution to climate change. I can’t wait to see what happens next week!
December 5, 2008: Time.com on Avoided Deforestation and Climate Change
Guest post by Robert Lalasz
Time.com has a nice piece up on the promise of avoided deforestation projects and their benefits in combating climate change — and it spotlights the Conservancy’s avoided deforestation work in Bolivia’s Noel Kempff Mercado National Park.
Time’s Bryan Walsh writes that “projects like this may represent one of the most promising ways to simultaneously slow the destruction of tropical forests and the pace of climate change.”
How do these projects work? At Noel Kempff, the Conservancy and its partners have helped calculate the carbon embodied in 1.5 million acres of the park’s tropical forest that is threatened by timber harvesting and deforestation.
Developed world energy companies then paid Bolivia millions for the tradable carbon credits embodied by the forest. Bolivia, in turn, is enforcing a deforestation ban in protected areas within the park by reducing slash-and burn agriculture and initiating alternative income programs for nearby communities.
The result? A project that conserves biodiversity, helps local people and fights climate change.
Since its inception in 1997, the project has stopped over 1 million tons of carbon stored in the forest from being released into the atmosphere. Actually, Noel Kempff Mercado was the first forest emissions reduction project to be verified by a third party based on international standards used in the Kyoto Protocol.
And since at least 20 percent of annual global carbon emissions come from deforestation, projects like this could be incredibly important in coming decades.
“We need to take advantage of the opportunity to reduce deforestation,” Duncan Marsh, the Conservancy’s director of international climate policy, told Walsh. “We have no choice.”
Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Hendrik De Bruyne (poznan map); Photo © Karen Foerstel (Karen Foerstel).
Join The Nature Conservancy on