Climate Rally Draws "Line in the Sand" on Canadian Pipeline

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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The tar sands in Alberta, Canada. Credit: howlmonteal/cc by 2.0

Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Feb 16 (IPS) – The largest climate rally in U.S. history is expected Sunday in Washington DC with the aim of pressuring President Barack Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.Activists are calling Keystone "the line in the sand" regarding dangerous climate change, prompting the Sierra Club to suspended its 120-year ban on civil disobedience. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune was arrested in front of the White House during a small protest against Keystone on Wednesday.

"The Keystone XL pipeline is part of the carbon infrastructure that will take us to dangerous levels of climate change," said Simon Donner, a climate scientist at the University of British Columbia.[pullquote]3[/pullquote]

"By itself, Keystone won’t have much of an impact on the climate, but it is not happening on its own," Donner told IPS.

Carbon emissions are increasing elsewhere, and the International Energy Agency recently warned humanity is on a dangerous path to four degrees C of warming before the end of this century. Children born today will experience this. Preventing that dire future is inconsistent with expanding tar sands production, Donner said.

A new study released this week revealed that the volume of Arctic sea ice is declining rapidly. Ice volume has fallen 80 percent since 1980, according to the latest data from European Space Agency satellite, CryoSat-2. Summers with a sea ice-free Arctic are only a few years away, scientists now agree. This will have significant and permanent impacts on weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere.

"Keystone XL is the key to opening up the expansion of the tar sands industry," said Jim Murphy, senior counsel with the National Wildlife Federation.

"By rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, we can keep this toxic oil in the ground," Murphy said in a statement.

Keystone XL is intended to bring 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of a heavy, tar-like oil from the northern Alberta tar sands 2,400 kilometres south to the refineries on the Gulf Coast. Nearly all the resulting fuels are destined for export.

Since the seven-billion-dollar Keystone XL crosses national borders, it is up to President Obama to issue a permit declaring the pipeline serves the "national interest" in order for it to be approved.

"The only way Keystone XL could be considered in the national interest is if you equate that with profits for the oil industry," Steve Kretzman of Oil Change International previously told IPS. Oil Change is an NGO that researches the links between oil, gas, coal corporations and governments.

"It couldn’t be simpler: Either we leave at least two-thirds of the known fossil fuel reserves in the ground, or we destroy our planet as we know it," wrote Sierra Club’s Michael Brune in explaining the decision to engage in civil disobedience.

"That means rejecting the dangerous tar sands pipeline that would transport some of the dirtiest oil on the planet," said Brune.

Tar sands carbon emissions on a "well-to-tank" basis (i.e., production) result in emissions that are on average 72 to 111 percent higher than other U.S. transportation fuels, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Canada’s tar sands aren’t really a "carbon bomb" from a scientific perspective, says Donner. The world’s coal deposits contain many times more carbon. However, the tar sands and Keystone have symbolic importance.

"Climate change is a complicated problem. Lots of things need to be done to address it. We’re at a point where changes need to happen soon," he says.

Writing in the Daily Kos Saturday, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, CEO of the environmental justice group Green For All, writes, "Hurricane Katrina taught us a lesson – and Superstorm Sandy reinforced it. People living in neighborhoods with the fewest resources have a harder time escaping, surviving, and recovering from disasters.

"And they’re more vulnerable to the extreme weather climate change will bring. For example, African-Americans living in Los Angeles are more than twice as likely to die during a heat wave than other residents of the city," she says in a piece titled "Why People of Color Should Care about the Keystone Pipeline".

"To permit the pipeline would represent a heartbreaking acquiescence to climate change on the part of President Obama and our national leaders. It would be throwing our hands up helplessly in the face of one of the biggest threats our country has ever faced. That’s not the kind of leadership we voted for.

"There are certain points in history, like the Civil Rights Movement, when the consequences of inaction are so great that we have to make bold choices," Ellis-Lamkins says. "This is one of those times."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Canada, Energy, Environment, Human Rights, Politics, Report Tagged With: , , , ,

Climate Change Added to U.S. Government “High Risk” List

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Agriculture Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agriculture Service (FFAS) Michael Scuse (left) speaks to farmers about the drought conditions being felt across the country. Credit: USDA photo by Jacob Maxwell

Carey L. Biron

WASHINGTON, Feb 15 (IPS) – For the first time, a U.S. government auditor has added climate change to a list of issues that pose the greatest financial risk to the government and country. It is also warning that Washington is markedly unprepared to deal with the scope of the problem.The admonitions, coming amidst a newly strengthened public discussion here on climate change, could offer an opportunity for some conservative lawmakers to re-engage with what has been one of the most fractious political issues of recent years.

“(T)he impacts and costliness of weather disasters will increase in significance as what are considered ‘rare’ events become more common and intense due to climate change,” a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns. “However, the federal government is not well positioned to address this fiscal exposure.”[pullquote]3[/pullquote]

According to the GAO, the federal government’s primary financial watchdog, its “high risk” list currently includes 30 issues, covering concerns of efficiency, effectiveness or fraud, with a particular focus on defence and health systems. However, this year’s inclusion of the financial risk to the government posed by the effects of climate change has the possibility to outweigh much of the rest of the list combined.

“This is of great significance, and follows trends already taking place in the private sector and local government,” Keith Gaby, communications director for climate change with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an advocacy group, told IPS. “As usual, this issue has bubbled up from the local level, and now the federal government has put its imprimatur on it.”

In part, the federal government’s financial exposure is so great because Washington directly oversees such a massive swath of land – some 650 million acres, nearly 30 percent of the entire country. That’s a huge amount of infrastructure – including that meant to safeguard human communities – that could be endangered by unforeseen or dramatic changes to weather systems.

In addition, the government operates two huge insurance schemes that could be particularly stretched, covering flood damage and crops. The GAO warns that these remain based on decades-old conditions and approaches.

The issue that will most readily catch the eye of legislators is how the government’s aid responsibilities following major disasters have been increasingly called upon in recent years. This is a particular concern given that the federal government’s annual budgets do not include specific allocations for such aid.

The GAO reports that disaster declarations have steadily increased to a record 98 in 2011, compared with 65 in 2004, requiring a total 80 billion dollars during that period. Further, this figure was nearly equalled by the single request, late last year, for more than 60 billion dollars in response to Superstorm Sandy, the hurricane that ravaged much of the country’s northeast.

That storm, coupled with a severe drought last summer and strong mention of climate issues in recent weeks by President Barack Obama, has led to a sudden strengthening of the public discussion here.

“Climate is clearly back on the political agenda in major way,” Jamie Henn, communications director for 350.org, an environment advocacy group organising a major Washington rally on Sunday, told IPS.

“This report strongly underlines key points that we’ve been making about the risks of climate change and the country’s continued reliance on fossil fuels. The White House has made it clear it doesn’t yet have a full agenda, so it’s still open for input – and that’s what we’ll be providing on Sunday.”

Non-partisan issue

While Washington has engaged in nascent adaptation activities regarding the effects of climate change, the GAO auditors warn these efforts remain merely “ad hoc”. That is almost surely a result of the politicisation of climate change here, which has led to almost complete legislative paralysis on the issue.

In this case, the GAO refuses to weigh in on the politics – or human causes – of global warming.

Yet it is clear that the auditors feel that “adaptation” requirements should include policy actions for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and other causes of global warming. For instance, they prominently reference findings by two other U.S. government offices that “the nation’s vulnerability can be reduced by limiting the magnitude of climate change through actions to limit greenhouse gas emissions.”

The decision to focus on the effects – and economics – rather than the causes of climate change could now offer ideological cover for some conservatives to engage constructively on the climate discussion.

“This clearly opens up the conversation between people who are worried about expenditures and future deficits and those working directly on climate change, as well as those focused on energy issues and local politicians across the country,” EDF’s Gaby says.

“Particularly due to the money spent on Sandy, the deficit hawks are waking up and saying we have to deal with this. They’re not changing their base position on climate change, but they are engaging with the issue in a way that could bring the conversation forward.”

This approach has already reaped some political rewards. Appearing at the new report’s launch on Thursday, the Republican head of the House of Representatives’ primary investigative committee offered strong report for the GAO findings.

“We in the federal government must do oversight about how you mitigate what nature either has been doing to us or may do to us, and I think that’s a non-partisan issue,” Representative Darrell Issa stated.

“I hope that all members of Congress on both sides of this issue recognise that it’s really not about where you are on climate change … it’s really about recognising that Congress has not adjusted for the amount of money we’re paying out.”

Also on Thursday, a Democratic senator, Bernard Sanders, proposed sweeping new climate-related legislation, which would aim to reduce the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

The bill – which the head of the Senate’s environment committee, Senator Barbara Boxer, described as the “gold standard” on the issue – is extremely ambitious. It includes what would be a highly contentious carbon tax, the revenues from which would be ploughed back into renewable energy and efficiency.

While Senator Sanders admits his bill has almost no prospect of being adopted, he says its details are meant to add specific policy proposals to a public discussion that has ramped up significantly in recent weeks. Senator Boxer has pledged to move the legislation through her committee by the summer.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Agriculture, Economy, Report, United States Tagged With: ,

Climate Change Threatens Caribbean Coral Reefs

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Peter Richards

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Feb 14 (IPS) – Scientists and researchers are working together in a new initiative to collect data that will help determine the effects of climate change on coral in the Caribbean Sea."We want to know how climate change will impact our corals. So we will measure variables that would impact corals due to climate change," said Mark Bynoe, senior research economist at the Belize-based Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC).

Bynoe told IPS that the idea behind the project is to be able to able to monitor parameters that can affect corals from a climatological standpoint, such as increased acidification, sea temperature, and water quality.

The CCCCC has awarded the Florida-based global company, YSI Integrated Systems and Services, a contract for five marine monitoring buoys that will collect high-quality data for researchers studying climate change in the Caribbean Sea.

"Our waters are the bread basket for the region, and we must be diligent in protecting and sustaining them," Kenrick Leslie, executive director of the CCCCC, said.

The CCCCC has said that climate change is already profoundly affecting the region’s biological and socioeconomic systems. Belize, for example, has substantial natural capital along its cost, including the largest coral reef ecosystem in the Americas, mangrove areas, tropic forests and inland wetlands. The coral reefs are extremely important economically and environmentally.

But since the 1970s, Belize’s coral reefs have felt the impact of a warmer sea. "Live coral cover on shallow patch reefs has decreased from 80 percent in 1971 to 20 percent in 1996, with a further decline from the 20 percent in 1996 to 13 percent in 1999," the CCCCC noted.

A critical resource

In an address to graduating students of the University of Belize late last month, Leslie described how climate change has affected the country. "We have seen serious degradation in our coral reef system due to warmer sea temperatures, mechanical damage from tropical cyclones, and sedimentation caused by more frequent and intense flooding," he said.

"These conditions can only be further exacerbated by the further warming of the atmosphere and oceans," he said, adding that the private sector "would be advised to start thinking about their assets and how climate change may impact them".

Coral reefs also play an extremely important role in the Caribbean tourism economy, as well as in food production and food security, but they have been adversely affected by rising sea temperatures and pollution.

"There are threats from land based sources, from agrochemicals, pollutants from the tourism sector, threats from the fishing industry where guys moor the boats and drop them on corals as well as the cruise ships. There are also threats from nature," Bynoe added.

Monitoring environmental conditions in the Caribbean will help researchers track the health of the reefs. This monitoring mirrors similar systems already installed at key reef sites in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The data gathered will help develop climate models and ecological forecasting for coral reefs.

The CCCCC said that the customized buoys will measure, record, and transmit in real-time meteorological and water quality data as the key components of five Coral Reef Early Warning Systems (CREWS). The data gathered will be used by researchers, scientists and non-governmental organisations.

The CCCCC will work with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and YSI to install and operate this network beginning in the spring of 2013.

Regional impact

"The Caribbean is a closed basin, so what happens in Trinidad and Tobago could affect what happens in Cuba," said Bynoe. "The five stations that we are installing is a contribution to a regional network. These five we believe will capture the variability within the basin. We are basically covering the area necessary…. areas with the most significant corals."

At the Twelvth International Coral Reef Symposium in Cairns, Australia last year, researchers noted that fast-blooming seaweed is the main reason why the Caribbean’s coral reefs take longer to recover from stress than Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in Australia and those in the Indo-Pacific region.

"Indo-Pacific reefs have less seaweed than the Caribbean Sea," explained George Roff of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Australia, in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. The ARC is a leading research centre on coral reefs. One of its studies includes survey data from the Indo-Pacific and Caribbean reefs from 1965 to 2010.

"Many of the doom and gloom stories have emanated from the Caribbean, which has deteriorated rapidly in the last 30 years," said Peter Mumby, professor at the University of Queensland, Australia. "We now appreciate that the Indo-Pacific and Caribbean are far more different than we thought."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Americas, Environment, Report Tagged With: ,

Sahel Region Learning to Reap the Benefits of Shade

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Joe Hitchon

WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (IPS) – In Africa’s Sahel region, agroforestry techniques using traditional plantings known as “fertiliser trees” to increase soil fertility, as well as harvesting and grazing regulations, are offering new solutions to both food and human security.Such approaches were nearly lost in recent decades following devastating droughts in the Sahel. Now they are making a belated but welcome comeback. According to a 2012 U.S. Geological Survey, “regeneration agroforestry” in the Sahel stands at over 5 million hectares of agricultural fields newly covered by trees – and growing.

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Recurring droughts destroyed many harvests in the Sahel. Credit:Kristin Palitza/IPS

“Agroforestry is the future of agriculture in the drylands and sub-humid regions,” Chris Reij, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based think tank, told IPS. “In southern Niger, for instance, farmers have improved millions of hectares of land through regenerating and multiplying valuable trees whose roots already lay beneath their land.”

The effect for local communities over the past 20 years has been immediate and staggering—”more than 500,000 additional tonnes of food per year,” Reij said.

Collectively known as “evergreen agriculture”, these techniques have not only been changing landscapes and breathing new life into soils long depleted of their nutrients and productivity, but also affecting political and social realities.

The ideas behind evergreen agriculture began during the 1980s, in the midst of a severe and prolonged period of drought in the Sahel. This period was disastrous for the region’s inhabitants as crop production plummeted and vast numbers of livestock had to be killed off.

The region’s trees also began to disappear, since local communities were forced to offset their lost assets through practises that slowly destroyed the forests – the only profitable resource left in the Sahel. These communities resorted to cutting and selling wood to buy food and survive, with multiple effects of this deforestation felt in the intervening decades.

For eons, farmers in the Sahel grew trees on their farmlands because they acted as a natural fertiliser. Not only did they improve fertility by adding nitrogen to the soil; they also offered a critical shading effect, which improves moisture conditions in both the local atmosphere and the soil.

Buffering crops of maize sorghum and millet below them, the trees used by farmers in the Sahel are unique and known as Faidherbia albida. According to the World Agroforestry Centre, the tree exhibits the unusual characteristics of becoming dormant and leafless in the wet season – when crops are growing – but leafing out thereafter, when farmers can harvest the trees’ leaves and pods for fodder for their livestock.

When scientists began looking more closely at this phenomenon, they discovered a virtual underground ecosystem in these areas, with root systems and perennials from various species of valuable indigenous trees, which farmers can now cultivate.

These trees grow naturally each year, and with the grazing of livestock managed to give the trees time to grow, the landscape is being transformed, with the implications of this growth possibly extending beyond food security.

Regenerating security

Africa’s “drylands”, the vast swath of the Sahara Desert stretching across North Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, have risen in the past year to the top of the global agenda. The insurgency in Mali and the ensuing French military intervention have received the most attention recently, following kidnappings in Algeria and wars in Mauritania and Niger.

“If you look at the dimensions of where terrorism and political insecurity are most acute, throughout the entire globe, it is a map of the drylands of Africa and West Asia,” Dennis Garrity, U.N. Drylands Ambassador and director-general of the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi, said at a recent event here in Washington.

“The situation emphasises how fragile the underlying development pathways are under conditions of extremely low literacy, health and other human development indicators in the drylands.”

While the Sahel suffers from both an accelerated degradation of land and low rates of female literacy, these two indicators aren’t generally conflated. Yet according to Garrity, a connection can be found in factors such as high population growth rates.

According to the World Agroforestry Centre, the population in the Sahel doubles every 20 years, a rate that is reflected in the rapidly declining size of farm plots on which rural communities depend for food. Meanwhile, availability of new farmland is rapidly dropping, and studies regularly report a steady decline in soil fertility.

Above all looms the long-term prospect of the region’s vulnerability to climate change, making these agroforestry initiatives all the more urgent. Garrity and other experts warn climate change will play out in terms of more extreme droughts – higher temperatures and low and uncertain rainfall – that will significantly affect crop yields.

“It is not a military or security problem,” said Garrity. “There is a pressing confluence of food insecurity, economic insecurity and a big lag in human development indicators that emphasises that this is a multidimensional problem.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Africa, Development, Environment, Report Tagged With: , ,

International Aid Helps Cuba Adapt to Climate Change

December 28, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Dic 28 (IPS) – "Adaptation to climate change is urgent and must be part of development," said Bárbara Pesce-Monteiro, the United Nations resident coordinator in Cuba, assessing the damage done by hurricane Sandy in the eastern region of the country.She said the damage was very serious, especially in Santiago de Cuba, a city of almost half a million people and a services hub for other towns. In order to support the country at such a difficult time, the United Nations system in Cuba designed an action plan that will serve as a framework for assistance from the international community.

The plan, to be put into effect over the next six to 18 months, will benefit three million people in the most affected provinces: Santiago de Cuba, Holguín and Guantánamo. The main areas of concern are early recovery, housing, water and sanitation, health and education.

Sandy, regarded as the most devastating hurricane to strike the eastern part of the island in the last 50 years, claimed 11 lives in late October and caused considerable losses in housing, educational and health facilities, agriculture and food crops, as well as major interruptions in electricity and water supply, now largely overcome.

United Nations agencies initially mobilised 1.5 million dollars in emergency funding, supplemented by an appropriation of 1.6 million dollars from the Central Emergency Response Fund of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The action plan entails seeking 30.6 million dollars to deal with the urgent needs of the population that suffered the brunt of the hurricane’s impacts, along with a strategy aimed at improving living conditions for those affected.

The authorities immediately embarked on recovery work, "but the international community wants to support the country in this task," Pesce-Monteiro said in an interview with IPS. She explained that this humanitarian aid did not require a specific request from Cuba, as it is part of the regular U.N. mechanisms.

The devastation caused by Sandy in the early hours of Oct. 25 recalled the danger from earthquakes to which the eastern region, especially Santiago de Cuba, is exposed. "It’s an issue we have been talking over with the government for several months now," said Pesce-Monteiro.

She said this concern is shared throughout the Caribbean region. "After the earthquake in Haiti in January 2010, we realised we were all vulnerable. In fact, the United Nations has supported and will continue to support earthquake detection centres in eastern Cuba. This vulnerability needs to be taken into account during reconstruction efforts," she said.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has helped strengthen the capacity of local governments to reduce disaster risks in several provinces. Sixty-three risk management centres have been created at the municipal and provincial levels, as well as 209 early warning stations in the most vulnerable communities.

Pesce-Monteiro said these installations "have produced excellent results." The United Nations is working with the other Caribbean nations to share the experiences, test their usefulness and see how they can be adapted to other countries in the region.

"There is also cooperation with the Environment Agency (under the Cuban Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment) in their studies on vulnerability" and other topics, she said.

Adaptation and climate change

The U.N. resident coordinator in Cuba was emphatic when she said that adaptation to climate change is an urgent need.

"The United Nations has been saying for years that there is no time to waste. Adaptation must be part of development," she said.

In her view, this issue should be a seamless part of every country’s development model, whether the country is rich or poor. "All development plans must take vulnerabilities into account, in order to ensure adaptation. Ideally, they would also limit emissions (of greenhouse gases)," she said.

Pesce-Monteiro also said that it is one thing to be able to face and respond to a disaster, but quite another to build a sustainable society that is capable of preparing for and adapting to climate phenomena.

"In this field, too, Cuba has experience that can be of value to other nations," she said.

Pesce-Monteiro was sure that the trail of disaster left throughout the Caribbean, as well as in the United States and Canada, in the wake of Sandy, has provided experiences worth assimilating. "But here we are still in the phase of responding to the damage; we want to process the lessons learned in January, and I know the Cuban state will do the same," she said.

She added that this reflection should go far beyond Cuba itself. "Climate change is affecting all of us, so we hope that this will be another opportunity to raise awareness in all sectors about an issue that must be addressed seriously at the global level," she said.

"We have already experienced a succession of extreme events of a very serious nature close to home, which compels us to reflect deeply and analyse the type of development we want for the future," Pesce-Monteiro said.

"I think society is crying out for us to make the appropriate commitments so that we can move forward," she said.

She highlighted the importance of the social forum held in June during the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio de Janeiro.

"It was a broad, participative forum, with strong citizen commitment. Governments are going to have to feel pressure from each one of us, and to understand that we really want a sustainable planet," she said.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Americas, Environment, Report Tagged With: , ,

Daunting Development Challenges Ahead

December 28, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Richard Johnson

IDN-InDepth NewsReport

PARIS (IDN) – Despite development successes over the past 20 years and the progress of many emerging economies, inequality is increasing in all countries and 1.4 billion people still live in absolute poverty. This gloomy situation was acknowledged by development ministers from industrial and emerging economies, who met in London on December 4 and 5 for the High Level Meeting (HLM) of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), which comprises 24 of the 34-nation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

A communique emerging from the meeting points out there is unequivocal evidence of absolute poverty having been halved, and progress achieved on all Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), agreed at a summit in September 2000 at the turn of the millennium. Economic growth has been a key factor in reducing absolute poverty, in the success stories of many

Yet daunting challenges persist: 1.4 billion people are mired in absolute poverty; food insecurity affects 850 million people, and 1.3 billion of the world’s people – including many women – have no access to electricity. Social inequalities are increasing in all countries – developed, emerging and developing – and are a growing concern given the threat they pose to social, political and economic stability, the ministers agreed.

The HLM also recognised important risks. The world’s population will reach 9 billion people in 2050 which, when coupled with changing consumption patterns, is estimated to require a 70% increase in food production by 2050. Within that same timeframe, global GDP may quadruple.

Given current trends and policies, this will result in an 80% increase of primary energy consumption which will impact on climate change and, as a consequence, global health, water management, food security, and poverty reduction prospects – and the protection of natural capital for future generations.

"Sustainable development and green growth are key approaches to address these challenges, and participating governments welcomed the Rio +20 commitment to integrate sustainable development goals in the post-2015 agenda," the development ministers stressed in a communique.

They also recognised that the context for development co-operation has now irrevocably changed. Shifting global wealth is breaking down the former division between North and South.

Co-operation among South-South partners, as well as triangular co-operation, is complementing North-South co-operation, thereby increasing the scope, reach and effectiveness of the international development assistance system. Likewise, civil society and the private sector are playing an increasingly important role as partners in development co-operation.

To address these challenges and opportunities, the ministers said, a new and ambitious global partnership has been established. They expect the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation – launched at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness from November 29 to December 1, 2011 in Busan. South Korea – to pave the way forward by providing a forum of equal partners with shared principles and differentiated but well-defined commitments.

"This Partnership will enable all providers and partners to focus on results at the country level in support of both national and global goals. For too long a lack of coordination, the fragmentation of efforts and failure to honour country ownership have inhibited the pursuit of goals to which all are committed. The Global Partnership offers a space within the international community to discuss these matters as full and equal partners," the communique stated.

Summarizing the outcomes, DAC Chair J. Brian Atwood stated: "This high-level meeting was a reflection of the changing world of development co-operation: DAC members and developing countries working in tandem with civil society, the private sector and other partners; strong support for a UN-led process for determining development goals; and innovative finance for development at a time of constrained budgets."

The ministers committed to make the effort to connect different agendas – MDGs, financing for development, development effectiveness and policy coherence for development – and thereby ensure that these vital elements are more in sync in the cause of development progress. They recognised that this broader agenda engages a larger set of partners who can contribute in different ways to development progress.

They also recognised that the international community is at an historic juncture. Work on post-2015 development goals will define development co-operation for years to come. In fact the agenda for the meeting provided for briefings by members of the United Nations (UN) High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, providing important insights from their contributions.

ODA

According to the communique, the ministers engaged in forward-thinking on development finance and the importance of official development assistance (ODA) and other flows that impact on development. They set out below their views and agreed on next steps regarding each of these important topics.

In their discussions about the future of ODA the ministers and agencies agreed that it must be directed to where it is most needed and can best catalyse other flows. They asked the DAC to work with the UN system together with the IMF and the World Bank on proposals for new measures of total official support for development, including defining what constitutes ODA.

With a view to ensuring that ODA is directed to where it is most needed and where it can catalyse other flows and promote accountability, the DAC will:

- Elaborate a proposal for a new measure of total official support for development.

- Explore ways of representing both “donor effort” and “recipient benefit” of development finance.

- Investigate whether any resulting new measures of external development finance (including any new approaches to measurement of donor effort) suggest the need to modernise the ODA concept.

- Undertake this work in close collaboration with other interested international agencies, in particular the United Nations, and also the IMF and World Bank, while engaging others in this exercise. A first report should be completed in 2013.

According to the communique, DAC members discussed the reporting of ODA loans in light of multiple views on the interpretation of "concessional in character" in relation to such loans. They agreed about a number of key principles that ODA measurement should meet. These are that ODA reporting should:

- Withstand a critical assessment from the public;

- Avoid creating major fluctuations in overall ODA levels;

- Be generally consistent with the way concessionality is defined in multilateral development finance;

- Maintain the definition of ODA, and only attempt to clarify the interpretation of loans that qualify as ODA;

- Prevent notions that ODA loan schemes follow a commercial logic: this includes the principle that financial reflows should be reinvested as development resources.

In this spirit, they agreed to: transparency regarding the terms of individual ODA loans; ensure equal treatment of all DAC members; establish, as soon as possible, and at the latest by 2015, a clear, quantitative definition of "concessional in character", in line with prevailing financial market conditions.

They also agreed to recognise development loans extended at preferential rates – whether "concessional in character" under a future post-2015 definition or not – as making an important contribution to development.

Post-2015 development goals

Participating governments in the London meeting committed to keep their focus on achieving the existing MDGs. "These unique development goals have rallied the global community behind a common vision that has had lasting impact on the lives of hundreds of millions of people. The establishment of a common global development agenda has been an immensely important force for galvanising support, mobilising resources, focusing efforts and making it possible to assess progress," the communique stated.

The ministers pledged to go forward, and agreed to:

- Focus their efforts on achieving the MDGs by 2015, and to work together with partners and new providers to enhance effectiveness, improve co-ordination of development activities and apply innovative methods to reach these goals.

- Strongly support the High Level Panel and the UN-led process to define a successor set of goals and a framework around which the global community can unite. This process should be inclusive of all partners, not donor-driven. Participating governments were greatly encouraged to hear of the active participation of all regions and of both state and non-state actors in this endeavour. They expressed support for goals that would expand and amplify the overall development impact of the current set of goals, including measurable targets for the global partnership as expressed in MDG8.

- Recognise that global goals were vital in establishing a common accountability agenda for development, and that national goals should be owned by all members of society and reflect the context of a particular country, its state of development and the particular needs of society as determined through the full participation of citizens.

- Recognise the importance of supporting enhanced goals for the future. Participating governments focused on the centrality of poverty reduction, with many expressing support for its eradication. They expressed concern about evidence of growing inequality, and acknowledged the special needs of fragile states.

- Support, in line with the agreement reached at the Rio +20 UN conference on sustainable development, the full integration of the sustainability dimension in the new set of goals, as essential in any development context.

- Emphasise that human rights principles will be important in developing any set of viable goals and the means for achieving them. Development of these goals should also take account of the role of democratic institutions, human security and references to the quality of life as a complementary measure to traditional benchmarks such as national income measures.

- Express the hope that, like their predecessors, future goals will be clearly defined, realistic, politically salient and measurable.

The London High Level Meeting was attended also by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and other UN representatives, the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and co-Chairs of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation. Invited high-level representatives from Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa were also present as observers to this meeting. [IDN-InDepthNews – December 19, 2012]

2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Filed Under: Analysis, Development, Diplomacy, Poverty Tagged With: , ,

Doha Faces an Indonesian Test

December 3, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Alexandra Di Stefano Pironti

JAKARTA, Dic 02 (IPS) – To most people, holes in the ozone layer or the melting of polar ice caps can sound like distant catastrophes. “But let’s talk about concrete examples,” says an Indonesian director whose documentary film captures the lives of local farmers affected by a dramatically changing environment.“I found in Indonesian villages that poverty and access to education are directly connected to nature because the traditional farming methods are affected by changes in the climate,” Shalahuddin Siregar, whose documentary Negeri di Bawah Kabut (The Land Beneath the Fog) has won several international awards, told IPS.

The film follows the lives of two families of Indonesian farmers in Genikan village on the slopes of Mount Merbabu in Central Java, who no longer know when to plant which crops because the seasons are not regular any more due to climate change.

“Most of the children in Indonesia’s countryside cannot continue to attend school because parents don’t earn enough from farming to pay for school expenses, since the weather has become unpredictable and crops fail,” said Siregar, who spent three years shooting the film.

The farmers, he says, have to supplement incomes by migrating to the cities to work as construction workers during months when they cannot farm.

With representatives from 194 countries, including environment, energy and foreign affairs ministers as well as heads of states meeting in Qatar for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP18/CMP8) from Nov. 26 to Dec. 7 to discuss future agreements to deal with climate changes their decisions would affect vulnerable communities in Indonesia and elsewhere.

“The most vulnerable people in Indonesia are small farmers, fishermen, indigenous people, forest-dependent people, women and children,” Martin Baker, communications coordinator of Greenpeace in Indonesia told IPS.

He added that deforestation, extreme weather, floods, landslides, air degradation, water quality and coastal abrasion makes those lives more difficult.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups believe that despite the environmental impacts of climate change from activities such as deforestation, the Indonesian government continues to strongly support big companies extracting the country’s natural resources for huge profits.

Indonesia loses about a million hectares of forests a year, despite a two-year moratorium that limits deforestation, following a pledge of a billion dollars from Norway.

“The government is not serious enough about working on their mitigation programmes. What we saw on the ground, the deforestation is still happening. The biggest source of emission, its root causes and its impact is not well addressed,” said Baker.

According to Elfian Effendi, executive director of the Indonesian NGO Greenomics, the government is doing only as much as it thinks it can afford to, without forgoing the economic benefits of exploiting natural resources.

“Due to unclear support and commitment from the developed countries, the Indonesian government works just based on the ‘scale’ that is affordable for Indonesia, not more,” he told IPS.

With most developed countries too busy fighting economic downturns, developing countries are raising the question of who is going to pay for climate change solutions, and they are particularly concerned about the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which binds industrialised countries to reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s special envoy on climate change, Rachmat Witoelar, was quoted as saying that his country will try to convince developed nations to adopt a treaty on climate change and join a trust fund for mitigation efforts.

"Indonesia hopes that developed countries would show leadership in saving the earth from destruction due to climate change, the effects of which are getting stronger every year," said Witoelar, quoted by the local news agency Antara.

Yudhoyono has pledged to cut his country’s emissions by 26 percent by 2020, or 41 percent over the same period if the international community steps in to help.

When it comes to mitigating the effects of climate change Indonesia is globally important because it contains about half the world’s tropical peatlands and nearly a quarter of the world’s mangroves, which keep the highest carbon stocks of any forest type. How these are preserved or depleted has consequences far beyond Indonesia’s borders, scientists say.

Hence, Indonesia is considered both a victim and a perpetrator of climate change: On one hand the archipelago of more than 17,000 islands is extremely vulnerable to climate change, and on the other hand it is the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States.

“As an archipelago, Indonesia could be called a vulnerable state. Most people who live in and near the forest may get severe impacts from deforestation and forest degradation…while those who live on the shoreline may get impacts from the rise of sea levels and from floods,” Wandojo Siswanto, an Indonesian expert on forestry and climate change told IPS.

For vulnerable communities such as those portrayed in Sinegar’s film, there are no immediate solutions.

Eleven-year-old Arifin, the film’s main character, contemplates whether he will be able to continue studying after finishing elementary school as his parents grapple with harvests that have gone wrong because the rains are no longer regular, and cannot afford the school fees, uniform and shoes.

“Arifin’s father felt guilty that he could not afford further studies for his son. He had already failed to send his two older sons to school,” said Siregar, adding that in the end the boy had to go to a cheaper Islamic boarding school in another town with financial help from a neighbour.

“It was hard for the parents to send the son away from home, but they had no choice,” added Siregar.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Asia, Diplomacy, Environment, Report Tagged With: , ,

Coastal Erosion Reaches Alarming Levels in Vietnam

November 26, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Thuy Binh

AN BIEN, Vietnam, Nov 25 (IPS) – For the last decade, many families in this southwestern Vietnamese province have been uprooted at least once every two years – but this is not due to economic or political upheaval.Rather, extreme weather has forcibly turned many of these coast-dwellers into unwilling travellers, as raging storms and a rising sea level lead to continued loss of land – and home.

"Each year, sea waves have eroded about three to four metres of land," says a 47- year-old fisher from the Tay Yen commune. “Our family had to move five times, (and) now our house is four metres from the sea."

But this is obviously not far enough. Already, the floors of the house are wet with seawater and a tree standing in what was once the fisherman’s front yard has now become the marker for his casting point.

The fisherman, who has lived in this commune for the last 20 years, says he would have pulled up stakes and moved on once more if only he had money.

He finds no comfort in the fact that throughout Vietnam’s many other coastal communities, and even in the Mekong Delta, thousands of others are suffering the same plight.

Vietnam has long been subject to typhoons that would typically lash the central coast and the Mekong River Delta. But in the last several years those typhoons have become even more intense and, accompanied by a rising sea level, have put coastal areas and communities in the Mekong Delta at great risk.

Indeed, a December 2010 World Bank report said that Vietnam is experiencing longer typhoon and flood seasons while “storms are tracking into new coastal areas”.

It also noted that Vietnam “may be one of the top five countries in the world likely to be most affected by sea level rise”, adding that records already show a sea level increase of about three millimeters annually from 1993 to 2008.

The report lists coastal erosion among the effects of these changes, with some areas already experiencing erosion of about five to 10 metres a year, while others are suffering erosion of as much as one kilometre annually. Increased salinity of coastal aquifers and inundation can also be expected from significant sea level rise, it warned.

Already, says Tran Van Giang, vice chairman of Tay Yen commune, "Five out of six hamlets in the commune are directly affected by sea water."

Many areas in Kien Giang, located about 250 kilometres from Ho Chi Min City, are actually experiencing erosion of 25 metres a year, and experts estimate that as much as one-third of Kien Giang’s coast has been lost to landslides.

That erosion has destroyed vast swathes of this southwestern province’s famed mangrove forests, leading one provincial environmental official to lament, “Forest belts have been lost.”

Officials from Binh Dinh province in south-central Vietnam are equally worried about continuing erosion there.

"Every year, at least two to three rows of houses were washed away (about 80 to 90 houses),” says Do Van Sang, director of the province’s Centre for Land Development, which oversees reallocation and resettlement for households in the high-risk and affected areas in Binh Dinh.

"Local resistance efforts and local people could not keep up."

Meanwhile, Pham Van Hung, chairman of the people’s committee of one of the coastal communes in Bin Dinh, points to increasingly vicious storms as the primary cause of property damage or outright loss.

“Since 2000,” he says, “the area has been affected by the strong tides. Storms in 1998 and 2001 totally demolished 52 houses."

Other experts have cited the decimation of mangrove forests as a reason for increased damages.

Le Thi Huong, who has lived near the Mai Huong estuary in Kien Giang for three decades now, says that in the past, the mangrove forest in front of her house was as far as three kilometres from the coast. But now she estimates that the sea is just a few hundred metres away from the forest – or what’s left of it, anyway.

Most of the forest’s big trees are already gone. “Now, because of erosion, more trees are falling and dying,” says Huong.

Still, some see hope in mangrove-restoration projects, including one that is currently being rolled out in Kien Giang.

At Vam Ray hamlet in Kien Giang’s Hon Dat District, a 400-metre mangrove forest, part of a pilot programme by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), has been thriving.

Mangrove forests have long been seen as an effective method of erosion-reduction. GIZ says that a mangrove forest “can reduce wave energy from 50 to 67 percent”.

The GIZ project is not the first of its kind in Kien Giang. The national government has been implementing mangrove reforestation projects here for the last 10 years. Its success rate, however, has been a discouraging 50 percent.

To ensure better results for its project, GIZ decided to concentrate on controlling two factors: waves and sludge. Nguyen Huu Hoa, head of agriculture and rural development in Kien Giang’s An Bien district, believes that the GIZ project could be replicated and “the local people can do it by themselves”.

But this approach has elicited a fair amount of debate.

Some experts have said the GIZ project may be difficult to replicate because of the costs, which, according to Kien Giang Science and Technology Department Deputy Director Phung Van Thanh, “are higher than the permitted state cost level”.

He also worries that it may not be applicable in areas with serious erosion in the province, pointing out that the GIZ site experiences just 10-metre erosion annually, not even half as extreme as the levels in many areas in Kien Giang.

Dr. Le An Tuan of the Research Institute for Climate Change at Can Tho University worries about the long-term impact of such projects. The GIZ’s narrow four-hectare mangrove forests have low resistance to the more intense storms these days, he says.

Additionally, the project could give a false sense of security to residents living in the mangrove project area – such as the 300,000 living within the parameters of GIZ Kien Giang project – and draw more settlers into a vulnerable location.

*This story, also published as a set of stories on the Hanoi Radio and Television online site, was produced as part of IPS Asia-Pacific’s ‘Climate Change: A Reporting Lens from Asia’ series.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Asia, Environment, Featured Tagged With: , ,

Shrinking Ozone Hole, Growing Hopes

November 24, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 23 (IPS) – Argentine scientists agree that there are signs of recovery of the ozone layer that protects life on earth by filtering out the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation, but they are cautious about saying that the problem is on its way to a solution."This year was benign, but the problem has not been solved. The ozone hole could expand to a record size in 2013," Gerardo Carbajal, head of the Department of Atmospheric Monitoring and Geophysics (VAyGEO), told IPS.

According to Carbajal, whose department is part of the National Meteorological Service, "this year the ozone hole was one of the smallest ever and it closed up earlier than expected, but we’ll have to wait and see before we can speak of a trend."

Similarly, Susana Díaz, an engineer with the Southern Centre for Scientific Research (CADIC), told IPS that "in recent years we have observed a slight decrease of the ozone deficit within the so-called ‘hole’."

Díaz is a member of the state National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and heads the CADIC Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Laboratory in Ushuaia, the capital of the province of Tierra del Fuego, the most southerly in the country.

Measurements are made there of the ultraviolet rays that filter down over the city, to record the impact of the radiation during the season of ozone hole expansion in the stratosphere, which occurs from September to mid-November.

Ozone is a gas in the stratosphere, between 15 and 35 kilometres above the earth’s surface, which protects the biosphere by absorbing UV rays that are harmful to human health and plant and animal life.

Exposure to high levels of UV radiation can cause a higher incidence of skin cancer and eye problems in the population of affected areas, like southern Argentina and Chile.

"This year the ozone hole season was much shorter than in earlier years, and lasted only two days above Ushuaia. In other seasons it has lasted for 10 days, and it has been felt further north, in Patagonia," said Guillermo Deferrari, a biologist at CADIC.

The size of the ozone hole varies. Some years it has covered an area of 30 million square kilometres, but in the last few weeks it has extended over 22 million square kilometres – still an area larger than all of South America.

According to the scientific consensus, the thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica was mainly due to the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), chemical substances used in the manufacturing of aerosols and refrigerants.

When this evidence was confirmed in the 1970s, countries signed the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, and in 1987 they approved the Montreal Protocol. These treaties were ratified by the largest number ever of United Nations members and set a timetable for phasing out and eliminating CFCs.

Twenty-five years after the Montreal Protocol was approved, industry has substituted CFCs by hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) which, while they do not harm the ozone layer, are greenhouse gases and contribute to global warming.

Meanwhile, there are other substances that destroy ozone and have not been replaced, such as methyl bromide, a pesticide, which in the Protocol is only scheduled for complete elimination in 2015.

Deferrari, who operates equipment at CADIC for measuring UV radiation over Ushuaia, told IPS that "the levels are stable now, with no observed increase in the destruction of the ozone layer."

He agreed with colleagues that this improvement cannot be said to be a trend, and that the ozone hole could grow again next year, because it depends on meteorological conditions in Antarctica as well. He said, however, that there are clear "signs of recovery.”

The observations confirm the findings of the latest report on the issue by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), published in 2010.

The study, "Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2010", concluded that CFC elimination was having an effect and the ozone hole was not growing – a sign of recovery.

However, Deferrari pointed out that "we have not yet returned to the radiation levels we had in 1980," since the chemicals that destroy ozone take 10 years to reach the stratosphere, and then the ozone layer takes time to recover.

Complete recovery of stratospheric ozone over Antarctica will take another 40 to 60 years, different studies say. But the fact that this year’s hole is smaller is good news.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Environment, Latin America, Report Tagged With: ,

EU Asked to Increase Emissions Cutback Target

November 24, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

BERLIN (IDN) – The 27-nation European Union should target 30 percent, instead of the agreed 20 percent, lower emissions by 2020, in order to send an important signal to the global climate change conference from November 26 to December 7, 2012 in the Qatari capital Doha, according to experts.

Climate change advisors to the German government, which plays a crucial role in impacting EU stance, argue that global greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil fuels have reached new record levels. Yet there will be no new, globally binding climate-protection agreement for all states before 2020.

The need for action on climate change to be scaled-up and accelerated without delay if the world is to have a running chance of keeping a global average temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius this century, has also been underlined by the Emissions Gap Report, coordinated by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the European Climate Foundation, released on November 21. It shows that greenhouse gas emissions levels are now around 10 per cent above where they need to be in 2020.

"The challenge now, therefore, is to launch other initiatives to achieve further reductions in greenhouse gases before 2020 – but to be much more ambitious than we have been up to now. To this purpose, groundbreaking alliances should be formed quickly between pioneering states. This is where EU comes in," the experts said in a joint statement.

"If it (the EU) increased its 2020 emissions-reduction target to 30 percent, this would send an important signal to the nations of the world," they said, adding that technically and economically this could easily be achieved, because the 20 percent reduction targeted for 2020 up to now has already almost been reached.

Speaking at a joint press conference in the run-up to the 18th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Doha, high-ranking representatives of the WBGU (German Advisory Council on Global Change), the UBA (German Federal Environment Agency) and the SRU (German Advisory Council on the Environment) said that raising the reduction target was therefore overdue. "Germany must support and encourage the 30 percent figure so that Europe could maintain its pioneering role in climate protection," the experts said.

As the newly published World Bank report avers, if the current trend of rising emissions of greenhouse gases – especially carbon dioxide – is not halted, the world could be heading for a global warming of four degrees this century. Heat waves, crop failures and sea level rise would be the result.

Clear roadmap

The impending situation underlines the need for a clear roadmap for international climate protection. Such a roadmap can now be agreed at the UN Climate Change Conference in Doha, the experts said, adding: "The world’s public should take the national leaders at their word who agreed a new climate-protection treaty after 2020 in Durban last year. If such a treaty is to be decided and successfully implemented, a detailed plan is needed for the negotiations on a new global treaty by 2015."

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol remains the only binding agreement up to 2020. The experts plead for its second commitment period that must be established with high standards. Clear reduction targets are important for this. This is the only way to prevent a regulatory vacuum. This is a real threat, because global greenhouse-gas reduction will not be continued in all states on a contractual basis under international law until 2020 at the earliest.

Another important issue in Doha will be to flesh out the financial commitments of the industrialised countries for the period up to 2020 in order to support climate protection and adaptation in developing countries.

According to Dirk Messner, WBGU vice-chair, "it is also important that the nations in Doha agree on a master plan for the coming negotiations on a new climate treaty, which from 2020 will then oblige all states – not only the industrialised countries – to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions."

This step sounds unspectacular, he says, but it is the basis for the purposeful work that is urgently required. "Time is short, because we must set the course for much greater greenhouse gas reductions now, otherwise it will cost us all the more later. It is not only a matter of new technologies and renewable energy sources; it is about the transformation of entire societies and their infrastructures. The more serious the future climate changes turn out to be, the more expensive adjustment measures will become. It is not enough for politicians to set themselves targets. They must now also tackle implementation."

UBA president Jochen Flasbarth says: "The EU’s role is of great importance to the future negotiations. The previous target of reducing greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020 is not ambitious enough which is also recognised worldwide. The EU therefore needs a new, more suitable target, e.g. a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gases. This would again send out the signal that is much needed, also for emissions trading. Germany has started along the road to a low-carbon economy by transforming its energy system (Energiewende). We can contribute our practical experience with the ‘Energiewende’ to the climate negotiations and demonstrate that a shift to a low-carbon economy is both possible and promising."

SRU chair Martin Faulstich says: "In a finite world, the climate-damaging industrial society must be transformed into a sustainable industrial society anyway. If Germany now courageously and ambitiously develops and implements innovative climate-protection solutions, this will generate significant industrial-policy opportunities for our export-oriented economy. Technologies and services for resource and energy efficiency and a renewable energy supply are needed all over the world. In this way Germany, as a pioneer, can consolidate its leading position on the world markets and simultaneously create numerous sustainable jobs."

Swift action needed

The UNEP report which has involved 55 scientists from more than 20 countries points out that instead of declining, concentration of warming gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) are actually increasing in the atmosphere-up around 20 per cent since 2000.

If no swift action is taken by nations, emissions are likely to be at 58 gigatonnes (Gt) in eight years’ time, says the report. This will leave a gap that is now bigger than it was in earlier UNEP assessments of 2010 and 2011 and is in part as a result of projected economic growth in key developing economies and a phenomenon known as ‘double counting’ of emission offsets.

Previous assessment reports have underlined that emissions need to be on average at around 44 Gt or less in 2020 to lay the path for the even bigger reductions needed at a cost that is manageable.

The Emissions Gap Report 2012 points out that even if the most ambitious level of pledges and commitments were implemented by all countries-and under the strictest set of rules-there will now be a gap of 8 Gt of CO2 equivalent by 2020. This is 2 Gt higher than last year’s assessment with yet another year passing by.

Preliminary economic assessments, highlighted in the new report, estimate that inaction will trigger costs likely to be at least 10 to 15 per cent higher after 2020 if the needed emission reductions are delayed into the following decades.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "There are two realities encapsulated in this report-that bridging the gap remains do-able with existing technologies and policies; that there are many inspiring actions taking place at the national level on energy efficiency in buildings, investing in forests to avoid emissions linked with deforestation and new vehicle emissions standards alongside a remarkable growth in investment in new renewable energies worldwide, which in 2011 totaled close to US$260 billion."

He added: "Yet the sobering fact remains that a transition to a low carbon, inclusive Green Economy is happening far too slowly and the opportunity for meeting the 44 Gt target is narrowing annually."

"While governments work to negotiate a new international climate agreement to come into effect in 2020, they urgently need to put their foot firmly on the action pedal by fulfilling financial, technology transfer and other commitments under the UN climate convention treaties. There are also a wide range of complementary voluntary measures that can that can bridge the gap between ambition and reality now rather than later," Steiner said. [IDN-InDepthNews – November 24, 2012]

2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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