And so it begins

Day 1 of the COP meeting involves the annual ritual of navigating your way to the venue, getting registered, and then becoming oriented to the city.  Those of us with observer credentials can’t get into the arena until the official opening of the conference on the first Monday, but it is a good idea to beat the morning crowds trying to register then.  The navigation part can be interesting in a foreign country, but this year, I am here with Sarabeth Brockley (Moravian College graduate and graduate student at Lehigh) and Deanna Metivier (an undergraduate at North Carolina State University) – both of whom are fluent in Spanish.  That helps with finding directions, communicating with taxi drivers, etc. 

The San Borja district has many small parks and tree-lined streets.  I learned quickly that these are great places for urban birding!

We knew we were close to the COP venue when we saw a sign and some folks handing out a mini-newspaper to people in the park about the COP meeting that contained articles like “El cambio climático es el problema ambiental más important.”

Deanna is on the far left, Sarabeth is the blonde

Security at COP meetings is always high and you learn not to question protocol, even if it seems odd.  Today we learned that once inside the first gate (which of course is the farthest away, so you walk around a lot of fenced in area), you have to take a shuttle to the actual meeting location and then go through another layer of security screening.  Each COP has its own quirks, but this arrangement in Lima promises to become a huge bottleneck when 15,000 people are all trying to get to the meeting at the same time in the morning.  But so it is.

The 2014 venue

Not until the meetings actually commence will we get a sense for what is going to be accomplished, but reports range from cautious optimism (1) to a sense that even negotiating success (i.e. a multilateral legally binding agreement to cut greenhouse gas emotions globally) won’t solve the climate problem.  Take for example, the quote for an article in today’s New York Times (2):

“But underlying that optimism is a grim reality: No matter the outcome of the talks, experts caution, it probably will not be enough to stave off the increasingly significant, near-term impact of global warming.”

After my recent opinion piece that appeared in the local newspaper (a edited version of the last post on this blog), someone from the community wrote me a lengthy email with about the same sentiment as that from the NY Times.  Sigh.  I try to remain more optimistic than that.

After finding a place to eat (the San Borja suburb at first seemed like all apartments and no shops or restaurants), we hit the local grocery store to stock our rental apartment, and then headed to a vigil on the eve of COP20.  Often these are organized by faith-based coalitions, as was the case tonight.  Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC kicked off the event (before we arrived) and a large group marched through the streets.  We listened to a few speakers as well as some musicians who had composed pieces specifically for the event.

Of particular interest, was our conversation with the organizers of #fastfortheclimate (#ayunoporeclclima) scheduled for tomorrow.  

According to their press release,

Fasters will gather in the main cafeteria of the COP20 to pose with empty plates to show that they stand in solidarity with people impacted by climate change. Prominent fasters will discuss the attempt at the largest ever fast and launch the next phase of the movement - 365 Days of Fasting. Yeb Sano, Climate Change Commissioner for the Philippines will make a statement by video link.

I don’t know what or who "prominent fasters" are, but Yeb Sano is the delegate who announced a hunger strike at COP19 following the massive typhoon to hit the Philippines last year to protest the slow progress in climate negotiations and the impact being felt in his country.

I will let some photos from the event tell the rest of the story for tonight as they are better than words that I can come up with.

1) International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Negotiators land in Lima with eyes on a draft climate deal

http://www.ictsd.org/bridges-news/biores/news/biores-lima-update-1-negotiators-land-in-lima-with-eyes-on-a-draft-climate?utm_source=International%20Centre%20for%20Trade%20and%20Sustainable%20Development%20%28ICTSD%29&utm_campaign=e22b00fdfa-BioRes_Lima_Update_1%20%28English%29%2011_29_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7d42ca02cd-e22b00fdfa-148267217

2) Davenport, C. Grim Reality Amid Optimism Ahead of Climate Talks, New York Times, November 30, 2014 

https://mail.google.com/_/scs/mail-static/_/js/k=gmail.main.en.z9rNWMI3IGc.O/m=m_i,t/am=PSOG-b_7gxhjvktfVPv33-M8KX7yebgfacJLdgLA_2b_D-C_AX3qhwQ/rt=h/d=1/t=zcms/rs=AItRSTO_d2KQwYSVotuQSxsu5-cWq6Wq9w

Post-15 Agenda and UNFCCC Draft Agreements: Can They Be Friends?

After a marathon session at the UN in New York last week for the 65th Annual United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) Session, the world is now one step closer to a to-do list to end poverty that includes one of its main drivers: climate change. 

In the case of the Post-15 Agenda and the UNFCCC, the chances for their goals to compliment the other could easily dismantle and confuse global negotiations for the issues surrounding climate change, sustainable water, energy, and food scarcity.  Can these two Draft Agreements work together to integrate and not desaturate the necessary components each brings to the table?

The Post-15 Agenda is an answer to the Millennium Development Goals...and should guide the UNFCCC roadmap to Paris 2015.  

 Deadlines. Deadlines. Deadlines.

From August 27th to the 29th at the #UNNGO2014 65th DPI NGO conference invited over 920 NGOS to comment on the final version of the Post-15 Agenda. In 2015, the UNFCCC COP 21 in Paris and the launch of the Post-2015 Agenda will culminate within months of each other. This Roundtable discussed the interlinkages between both processes and the benefits as well as the of drawbacks of having two separate tracks in the medium and long terms. Terms like Low-carbon development, adaptation, disaster risk reduction and finance were thrown around. 

The Post-2015 process is to create a transformative agenda that is meant to usher us into a new era of sustainable development and in harmony with nature, that is rights based and ensures no-one is left behind. 

Cross-synthesis was a theme hammered by the panelists, but the articulation of that word failed to show the audience examples of how the policies could co-exist and not cancel the other out. 

Moderating the panel, Lina Dabbagh, Post-2015 Officer, CAN International immediately stated that climate change affects every sector from sustainable water, energy.  This is an important step. Citing Climate Change for the first time after the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) failed to include it as the driver of social poverty, the Final Draft of the Post-15 Agenda gave Climate Change a number: Goal 13  The panel suggested that its inclusion is the key issue to ensuring sustainability in the future. While there could have been a fierce debate about one developmental agenda against the other, overall the panelists stayed on the fence about the conflicting status of the declarations.  

H.E. Gustavo Meza-Cuadra Velásquez, Permanent Representative of Peru to the United Nations, kicked off the panel discussion citing how Peru has already accomplished their MDG's for targeting poverty levels and other targets in his own country.  Stating that the "Issue of inequality is important, we want to address social exclusion and inequalities" he set the tone of the discussion. Peru is the next host country for the final UNFCCC meetings before Paris in 2015.  Velásquez believes that the efforts need to be more aggressive and drafting resolutions that use technology transfers first and financing second will be the successful components of each plan. He emphasized building social capital before financial capital. 

No one argued. 

It seems that reversing individualistic approaches to resource security by identifying opportunities for integration and identifying existing trade-offs will result in better policy recommendations for both draft agreements. 

Velásquez made the link between poverty and climate change.  What are these linkages exactly?

Dork Sahagian, an IPCC Nobel Prize winner and professor of Earth Sciences at Lehigh University suggested we think alongside the fabled words of John F. Kennedy "Ask not what climate change will do to the poorer populations but ask what the economic development will do to 7 billion people. Moving away from fossil fuel development in the post-15 agenda is not a current development goal and is necessary, said Dr. Sahagian,

"otherwise the sustainability goals are in direct conflict with our Climate Change goals."

Additionally, Nicholas Nuttall, Creative writer for UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, and Director of Communications & Outreach, UNFCCC suggested that much of the development targets and discussion that are central to Sustainable Development Goals in the Post-15 Agenda and the UNFCCC should be to act as opportunity multipliers.  The division between the private and civil society sector is a huge obstacle. He articulated the issue between the policies well. Consider what the RIO+20 was asking for: a new indicator for process for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that was not just limited to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) valuation. He asked the only worthwhile question in a panel circulating in a maelstrom around the possibilities for collaboration How can the SDG's support a legally binding process?  

Which process will be codified 

into international law first,

if any?  

Elenita “Neth” Dano, Asia Director of the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group) remarked, that we must first raise awareness about the issues we wish to combat, this is key to a more sustainable global development agenda. SDGs should act as enablers. Post-2015 draft agreements should be a development agenda. UNFCCC is the driver. Dano argued that we have to look beyond SDGs 2013, because they talk only about food, water and health. However, the success of solving those conflicts builds upon the capacity on countries to adapt/mitigate to climate change in relation to those SDGs.

François Gave, Counsellor for Development and Sustainable Development, Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations debated that Climate Change is still politically charged and polarized. It tends to be a left-winged and right-winged debate.  He called for a broad-based world consensus on climate change and action. He outlined those ideas below:

1. Incentives (Carbon pricing) Is on the road map to Lima and Paris.  The September 21st, Climate Summit will offer a global schematic that will be addressed in Peru this December at COP 20.
2. Building confidence and addressing the free-rider problem through rules, transparency and monitoring at the private and civilian level.
3. Perceptions. The language barrier between science and public information is not being addressed.

If we are to illustrate how awareness is the key to driving dialogue, development draft agreements like the Post-15 Agenda and the UNFCCC as well as others across the globe are mirroring much of the dialogue from this roundtable, and we are slowly learning that integration is a must.

The main takeaways from this roundtable is that only through collaboration, adaptation, and dissemination will sustainability be ensured in our development goals.  It is only a matter of time before further integrated dialogue on each sectors’ development needs eliminates the separation of climate change from sustainability goals and unites them as dependent on the success of the other.

I know what you are all thinking... we know this already?

Exactly.  Join the Call to Action.  See you in NYC for the Climate Summit. 

There can be no Social Justice without Environmental Justice.

Will Moral Arguments Suffice?

Not likely.

I sit in these meetings in Poland and listen to civil society cry out moral arguments – strong justifications for developing a multilateral agreement aimed both at reducing the risks of climate change and providing assistance for those either suffering the impacts of a destabilized climate or needing help to build resilience and adapt to the changes that are coming (or are already occurring).

Based on the lack of headway we see in negotiations which, incidentally, have been going on since the early 1990s, to civil society it seems as if policymakers focus not on moral arguments, but rather politics, economic considerations, and historic international tensions. Yet as I talked with some negotiators today who were incredibly bright and extremely informed about the issues, I found them to be passionate about finding a “way out of the stalled process” and more than a little frustrated about the lack of progress being made. I asked them why they keep at it, and they consistently indicated that they still believe in the importance of this process. Their reasons vary. Most believe that real transformation will actually come – and is happening -- at the local and regional levels, but they feel that these changes wouldn’t happen without the on-going international focus on the urgency and severity of the problem.

I saw examples of extremely complicated modelling today. These analyses are used to determine the percent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are needed by 2030 from different country blocks in order to keep global surface temperatures from rising above 2 degrees Celsius. In addition, they try to factor in equity – a nebulous concept, but one that incorporates historical responsibility for emissions, capacity to change (financially, technologically, etc.) and sustainable development needs. Explaining all that would take a separate post. These models indicate that developed nations like the U.S. and western European countries (the OECD block), need to have a reduction of 40% of 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Impossible, I thought.

I heard examples of how some in Africa are trying to model the costs of adaptation depending on whether global temperatures increase by 1, or 2, or 3 degrees Celsius (the latter would put us into conditions previously not experienced by our species). Such information might be used to counter the arguments that we cannot afford to put regulations in place (loss of jobs, economic impact that will slow growth, etc.). The information could be used for a risk-benefit or cost-benefit analysis, if you will. In these models, the benefits lie in avoiding costs associated with extreme weather damage and destruction. Information on the costs of such events can be plugged into simulations since we have data on the economic impact of recent major storms, and IPCC reports and weather data can be used to estimate how many extreme events might occur in any given year. An interesting effort, but it falls short of truly understanding the cost of inaction.

The impacts of climate change will be much more complex and have greater costs than the estimated loss and damages associated with severe storms like the recent typhoon that hit the Philippines. They will affect water availability, food security, public health, etc. in ways we cannot precisely predict. Add to that all the unknown ways in which ecosystems will respond to climate change and, in turn, impact not only wildlife and habitat, but also ecosystem services that humans rely on every day, but rarely think about. Externalities, by definition, are not factored into economic equations. But for some of these climate change impacts, it is impossible to add a projected price tag, and thus, we cannot accurately determine the cost of business as usual. I am beginning to think that we do need to start putting dollar figures on nature – species, ecosystem services, and human lives. And we certainly need a lot more monitoring to learn how our ecosystems and agricultural systems are responding to climate change. But neither of those tasks will be easy.

And meanwhile, elsewhere in the COP, there are on-going discussions of market mechanisms (to offset carbon emissions by developed nations), distributive and procedural justice concerns about proposed initiatives in adaptation, land grabs, and enthusiasm about new financial opportunities opening up as the Arctic ice sheets melt and reveal potential new wells of resources – further exploitation of the poor and the planet.

Throughout the past two days, I have been doing some work related to our campus LINC (general education) curriculum as I sit in the climate meetings. We recently changed our requirements (lessening them) to allow more flexibility for students to take other, non-prescribed electives. The categories most impacted were what we refer to at Moravian College as U1 and U2 – the social impact of science and reflections on a moral life, the U referring to upper level. Students used to have to take one of each, but now can get by with only one. Yet as I ponder what is needed to solve complex global issues like climate change, I question this curricular change. Students with a solid grounding in ethical decision making and science (our U1 and U2 categories) are what we need more of.  And they need a good dose of global understanding, of world views that aren’t the same as ours.

Science and moral arguments are not sufficient, but without them, we don’t stand a chance.

Ambition and Equity

“Ambition” and “equity” were the two key concepts mentioned most often in a side event sponsored by the Third World Network.  

Meena Raman from Malaysia began by outlining the issues that face us at this particular junction. She noted that the science is clear that massive emissions reductions are necessary now, and that a legally binding treaty is necessary where the amount of emissions deduction is consistent with the science.  We are at a crossroads where we are leaving the two tracks, the Ad Hoc Working Group under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the Ad Hoc Working Group for Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) under the Bali Action Plan (BAP), and moving towards the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) which should be in place by 2020.

In the AWG-KP track, the Annex 1 Parties (developed countries and economies in transition) are negotiating a second commitment period of 5 or 8 years and the emission reduction targets. The first commitment period expires at the end of December 2012. The United States never ratified the Kyoto Protocol and withdrew years ago. This past year, Canada dropped out of the Kyoto Protocol, and Japan, Russia and New Zealand have refused to participate in a second commitment period. Australia is undecided, leaving only the European Union. The EU has proposed committing to 20% cut by 2020 compared to 1990, a goal which it has essentially already achieved.  In Ms. Raman’s view, there is nothing ambitious on the table, pointing out that “nobody leaves the Kyoto Protocol to do more.”  Her fear is that we will lose a decade, making it all the more difficult to meet emission reduction targets in the future. 

The Bali Action Plan also called for “comparable efforts,” which the U.S. delegation resists.  At this point, the developing countries feel that they are being expected to take on too much of the burden.  Ms. Raman notes that one out of two of the extreme weather events of recent years have affected developing nations, and yet the developing nations have not been responsible for the historical emissions.   

A cost issue?

A major focus of the U.S. at COP17 has been the economic interests of our country (and more specifically, on the interests of large corporations).  As if often the case, the environment vs. economy dichotomy arises.  But what is the cost of inaction?

See this article from CNN about the extreme weather events of 2011:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/09/world/americas/impact-year-in-review/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

$50 billion for this year for the U.S. alone.  And just during the 2 weeks of COP17 in Durban, there were 8 extreme weather events:

http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/12/09/385819/top-eight-climate-disasters-during-the-durban-climate-talks/

The dollar estimates, of course, totally neglect the plight of millions who are currently suffering from extreme droughts and floods.  Delaying any real action on greenhouse mitigation and climate change adaptation until at least 2020 will likely be a death sentence for millions more -- most of whom will initially be from impoverished parts of the world.

Do we call this fiscal responsibility?  How about genocide? Or crimes against humanity?