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Follow the Nature Conservancy's international policy team as they attend international climate change meetings to urge participants to hammer out the text for the next major international agreement on climate change.
See below for posts from team members, culled from The Conservancy's blog Cool Green Science.
Dispatch from Bangkok: Now It’s Our Turn
By Chrissy Schwinn
Published on October 15th, 2009
The international climate talks in Bangkok, Thailand ended last week with little progress but a clear directive. Political leaders must give their negotiating teams some parameters to enable real negotiations to take place and reach a final agreement in Copenhagen in December.
The talks didn’t really do too much more or less than expected. We wouldn’t expect the political agreements to come during negotiations like those in Bangkok – those will (hopefully) come when ministers or heads of state arrive in Copenhagen for the annual decision-making meeting for the UN climate treaty. But we would have expected the shape of the agreement to start becoming clear in Bangkok, and that is where the roadblocks are. Because the political issues are so great, negotiators are struggling to get the structure of a new agreement in place.
Dispatch from Bangkok: Elephants Take Over Climate Talks
By Chrissy Schwinn
Published on October 5th, 2009
We are headed into Week Two of international climate negotiations here in Bangkok. Progress is slow…but there is some progress. I asked Andrew Deutz, The Nature Conservancy’s director of international government relations, to provide some context on what’s going on…and what it means for a climate-change agreement in Copenhagen this December:
Q: What progress has been made in the first week of these discussions?
Dispatch from Bangkok: Climate Negotiations Resume
By Chrissy Schwinn
Published on October 2nd, 2009
We are back on the negotiating trail, this time in Bangkok, continuing international discussions that happened in Bonn in June and August. I arrived here late last night wondering what I would wake up to in the morning. So much has been happening recently on climate change, from last week’s “Climate Week” in New York City to Wednesday’s introduction of climate legislation into the Senate committee on environment and public works.
There have been some other things happening on climate change too. We’ve been seeing the impacts of climate change first hand – from 500 year floods in Georgia to more intense and frequent fires in southern California. We’ve seen reports on how some ecosystems like coral reefs need urgent action to keep them from their tipping point.
Dispatch from Bonn: Where Things Stand
By Chrissy Schwinn
Published on June 10th, 2009
Here’s a Q&A with Duncan Marsh, the Conservancy’s director of international climate policy, on how things are progressing at the international discussions on climate change now going on in Bonn.
Q: Where do we stand after this first week? Where should the focus be in the last few days?
Duncan Marsh: There has been some steady, gradual movement on the text as countries have put forth some of their reactions. But the big issues still remain. One worry is that the G77 + China has indicated that until there is more progress towards getting developed countries to commit to greater reductions under the Kyoto Protocol, they will hold up progress in other areas, including the crucial discussions on Long-term Cooperative Action.
The challenge with this is that developed countries aren’t likely to put serious concrete targets on the table until they see all of the pieces coming into place, including what other countries will agree to do. It’s unlikely this will really be worked out until the last few days in Copenhagen in December. But there are so many important details to get worked out – this is one of the most complex global negotiations ever undertaken – that if parties don’t keep working through the technical issues, it will be much harder to get a sound final agreement sorted. We learned in Kyoto that we need to get the rules settled now so we know what can count towards targets, and how these rules will be enforced. So continuing talks is absolutely important.
Q: What are the key issues and dynamics that might help keep the negotiations going?
Duncan Marsh: The crux of this whole negotiation is over how the costs of reducing global emissions will be shared. This involves discussions of who bears greatest historical responsibility for emissions to date, and where emissions will be produced in the future, as well as who has the capacity to control emissions and to adapt to climate change.
Training for REDD Helps Countries Get Ready
By Rane Cortez
Published on June 8th, 2009
Here at the UN climate negotiations in Bonn, there is a lot of talk about “getting ready for REDD.” REDD is shorthand for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
For the past year, I have been living in a world of REDD, providing training around the globe — in Indonesia, Peru, Guatemala and the Democratic Republic of Congo — to instill a basic level of knowledge among key stakeholders on the technical, political and implementation aspects of REDD.
In partnership with the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance, Conservation International, GTZ, Rainforest Alliance and WWF, The Nature Conservancy led the development and delivery of this 3-day training course titled An Introduction to Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. Over the weekend in Bonn we announced an online version of this training that will be live next week.
In each country’s training, national and government officials, local NGO members and indigenous people participated together to gain a fuller understanding of what REDD is.
It’s been very interesting to see the similar concerns and issues that countries are grappling with as they think about REDD, including:
- technical issues like creating reference levels or baselines for carbon emissions;
- social issues of how to ensure stakeholders are involved and their rights are recognized in the process;
- governance issues that improve the legal, financial and institutional structures for forest management.
Forests and Emissions Reductions Cheaper than Palm Oil
By Karen Foerstel
Published on June 6th, 2009
A new study released this week clearly demonstrates a critical point we are pushing at the international climate negotiations here in Bonn: A global carbon market that values forest carbon will provide countries with the financial incentives they need to protect forests and fight climate change.
The study, written by scientists from The Nature Conservancy and others organizations, found that carbon credits earned through reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) is worth more than clearing forests for palm oil plantations.
The scientists looked at 8.2 million hectares of forests in Kalimantan, located on the island of Borneo, that are slated to become palm oil plantations.
The scientists assumed a price between $10 and $33 for one ton of carbon dioxide. Currently, the rate per ton is around $20, the study said.
In addition to showing that forest conservation could be more profitable than forest destruction, the study said protecting the Kalimantan forests would prevent 2.1 billion tons of carbon from entering the atmosphere.
What does Nature Have to do with Climate Change?
By Trevor Sandwith
Published in Grist on June 5th, 2009
It’s sometimes easy for nature to get lost during the international climate change negotiations here in Bonn. Terms like “technology diffusion,” “financial mechanisms” and “mitigation commitments” often dominate the talks.
But what does nature have to do with climate change and how does nature play into these negotiations?
A group of some of the world’s top scientific experts released findings [PDF] in Bonn this week to help give negotiators those answers.
During a side event [PDF] at the Bonn talks on Tuesday, the expert group - officially called the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Biodiversity and Climate Change and convened by the Convention on Biological Diversity - said nature has a “vital role to play” in helping communities adapt to and overcome the impacts of climate change.
Dispatch From Bonn: A Pathway to REDD Success
By Chrissy Schwinn
Published on June 4th, 2009
BONN, Germany — The Nature Conservancy’s forest carbon team hosted an event here at the Bonn climate talks this week to present an innovative proposal on how to reduce emissions from global deforestation — a crucial part of effectively addressing climate change. I sat down with the team to get their perspectives on the proposal and how it fits into the broader negotiations that are going on.
Climate Talks Continue on Way to Copenhagen
By Chrissy Schwinn
Published on June 1st, 2009
Round Two in the 2009 climate negotiations is now underway in Bonn, Germany from June 1-12 (known among climaticos as “Bonn II,” because Round One was held here in March). I am part of a small team from The Nature Conservancy that is here to push forward on our objectives for a new global climate agreement that will be finalized this December in Copenhagen.
This morning opened the discussions, for the first time, on specific language that will be the basis of the agreement in Copenhagen. This “draft negotiating text” has been compiled from a wide range of inputs from around the world, and reflects an equally wide range of opinions about what must be done.
What’s important now is that the next two weeks ensure that the right options are put on the table and into the text, to set up the talks leading into Copenhagen.
At the end of the day, from the Conservancy’s perspective, those options must include:
- A comprehensive agreement that keeps warming below 2 degrees C;
- Significant emissions reduction targets from developed countries;
- Opportunities for major emerging emitters to participate, include reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD);
- A financial architecture that combines multiples sources of funding to meet multiple needs, and maximizes public and private resources towards reducing global emissions
- Substantial funding from developed countries to help developing countries adapt to the impacts of climate change, with ecosystem-based approaches at the heart of those efforts
U.S. and International Climate Negotiations: The View from Europe
By Sascha Müller-Kraenner
Published on May 28, 2009
Serious negotiations for a new global climate treaty will start in Bonn, Germany, in the first two weeks of June. This new agreement will have to build upon the Kyoto Protocol which was signed in 1997, but was not ratified by the United States and has not significantly altered the trajectory of climate change emissions.
The European Union has long argued that the global climate crisis can only be addressed if all major polluters join legally binding commitments to reduce their greenhouse gases. Such an agreement would necessarily have to include both the United States as well as major developing countries like China, India and Brazil.
This is why European governments hope that the Obama administration brings a new era in international environmental diplomacy. European diplomats expect that unilateral denial of the climate challenge will now be replaced by multilateral action.
Deconstructing Climate Change Legislation
By Eric Haxthausen
Published on May 17th, 2009
I’m Eric Haxthausen, Director of The Nature Conservancy’s U.S. Climate Policy program, and I’ll be blogging over the coming weeks and months about U.S. climate legislation. On Friday, Congressmen Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, the chairmen of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, introduced comprehensive legislation that would address global warming and energy security. This is the first time that a detailed climate change bill has been introduced in the House, and it comes after extensive negotiations with members of Congress representing a diverse array of districts.
Next week, members will attempt to pass the bill out of the committee, with the hope of completing their work before Memorial Day.
Why does The Nature Conservancy care about this and what do we think of the bill?
As Congress considers climate legislation, the Conservancy has been focused on three fundamental questions:
- Will the bill have emission reductions that are strong enough to give us a chance to avoid the most devastating impacts of global warming, sea level rise and acidification of the oceans?
- Will the bill recognize the enormous role that forests can play in storing carbon, and provide the funding and incentives that will be essential to reverse the course of deforestation in places like Brazil and Indonesia and restore areas that have been previously reforested?
- Will the bill recognize the enormous task ahead to protect vulnerable ecosystems and communities from sea level rise, drought, temperature and rainfall shifts, and the many other big changes that we are already beginning to experience?
Here’s how the bill stacks up in these key areas:
Dedication to Our Natural Systems
By Bob Bendick
Published on May 17th, 2009
On May 15, the House Energy and Commerce Committee released the text of the American Clean Energy and Security Bill, which will go to markup by the committee next week. With the determined leadership of Congressman John Dingell of Michigan and others, the bill includes dedicated funding to, in the language of the bill:
Use all practicable means and measures to assist natural resources to become more resilient and adapt to and withstand the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification.
(Read the Conservancy’s detailed take on the bill here.)
What does this really mean and why is the inclusion of dedicated funding for this purpose in the bill so incredibly important? (Dedicated funding is money that does not have to be specifically appropriated by Congress each year, but is certain to come for the designated purpose over the many years covered by the Clean Energy Bill).
The best science indicates that global warming, now underway, will produce more intense storms, more droughts and floods, rising coastal waters, more widespread wildfires, and dramatic changes in habitat for plants, fish and wildlife.
Such changes will have profound impacts on the health, safety and way of life of people in the U.S. and across the world.
In developing countries hundreds of millions of people depend on healthy environments for their everyday survival. Here in the United States the vast majority of Americans are so removed from contact with our natural resources that we have literally lost sight of the fact that our lives, our economy and our way of life also depend upon healthy natural systems.
Conservation by Convention Center
By Chrissy Schwinn
Published on May 8th, 2009
As the manager of communications related to the Conservancy’s international policy efforts, mine is the world of the everyday convention center; the hallowed acronym; the sought-after “bilat” (”blilateral agreements,” for those of you not accustomed to policy lingo); the prickly position paper; and if I’m really lucky, the extremely rare head-of-state dinner.
My first (and to this day still my only) head of state dinner was when the president of Palau and colleagues from five island governments launched the Micronesia Challenge, an ambitious regional initiative to conserve 20 percent of their land areas and 30 percent of nearshore areas. This in and of itself was and remains a tremendous achievement, inspiring conservation action across Micronesia, and inspiring me by how much can be accomplished through political will and convention centers.
A Message from My Daughter: ‘It’s the People, Dad’
By Bob Bendick
Published on May 6th, 200
For the past month or so, my Nature Conservancy colleagues in U.S. government relations and I have been working hard on energy and climate legislation, as have a lot of other folks in the environmental community.
As we work through the details of this process, I sometimes worry that we are not conveying a clear and compelling message on the need to pass the Waxman-Markey Bill energy-and-climate-change bill or something like it.
Admittedly, altering how we produce and use the energy that supports our economy is not an easy sell in these difficult times. It will cost more in the short run, and most people are concerned about other very real and immediate problems — the economy, wars and even the new strain of flu. Elected officials reflect those concerns and have always had difficulty acting in the present to avoid future disasters.
Thinking that I needed a new, more personal way to argue for climate-change legislation, one evening last week I called my daughter, Becky, an earth scientist and college professor who keeps up on climate science and has done a lot of field research in parts of the world likely to be affected.
Recognizing People as Well as Forest Carbon
By Chrissy Schwinn
Published on April 30th, 2009
Last week, leaders from around the world gathered in Alaska at the Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change to form a strategy around their participation in December’s UN climate change meeting in Copenhagen and discuss how various communities are adapting to climate change.
The meeting coincides with a growing concern that indigenous communities are being left out of the decision-making process when it comes to climate change agreements — particularly those concerning projects designed to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation, commonly referred to as REDD.
The theory behind these concerns is that carbon markets — and the large forest carbon projects they depend on — could marginalize indigenous people and their traditional land rights and (in a worst-case scenario) displace these people. Indigenous people are particularly concerned that they will not have a recognized position at the Copenhagen conference.
Forest Carbon: No News is Good News
By Jeff Fiedler
Published on April 27th, 2009
Like many climate junkies, I’ve been following this week’s hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Initially, I was disappointed by the lack of attention forest carbon was receiving in these hearings. After all, achieving climate benefits from forest carbon activities is one of the three pillars of The Nature Conservancy’s climate policy platform (along with adaptation and securing a strong overall climate policy regime in the United States and internationally).
But I’m coming around to the view that it’s a good thing forest carbon has not been among the top-tier issues raised by members of the committee and the hearing witnesses. Why?
- It means that forest carbon has become accepted as part of the solution to global warming, and
- It means that the hearings are grappling with the truly big picture issues of crafting a successful domestic climate policy.
Is This the Time For Climate Change Policy?
By Bob Bendick
Published on April 21st, 2009
We’re entering an eventful and exciting period for U.S. climate change policy. On Friday, the EPA released their long-awaited “endangerment finding” determining that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare and must therefore be regulated as a “pollutants” under the Clean Air Act. The practical effect of this decision by EPA is that the government will now slowly but surely begin to set out regulations to control carbon dioxide from power plants and cars – smokestacks and tailpipes — using the traditional regulatory approaches afforded by the Clean Air Act.
There is a better and more cost-effective approach to get the job done, and The Nature Conservancy will be focusing our efforts over the coming weeks and months to make it happen. Using a market-oriented framework to cap carbon dioxide can achieve the same or better results at a lower cost and without the bureaucracy, delays and uncertainty engendered by the command-and-control approach associated with many provisions under the Clean Air Act.
Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © sketchglass.net/Creative Commons (Copenhagen Map); Photo © Jonagps/Creative Commons (Copenhagen spire).
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