COP15 concludes. The climate deadlock doesn’t.

President Obama called the Copenhagen Accord – as the outcome of the two-week climate summit in the Danish capital came to be known as – ‘an important first step’.

Essentially, the Copenhagen Accord is a 12-paragraph document outlining an agreement that the global average temperature increase must be kept to below 2degrees Celsius to avoid catastrophic climate change. While scientists generally agree that this would entail cutting 1990-level greenhouse-gas emissions by about 80% by 2050, there were no references to this numerical target in the text, only that ‘deep cuts’ will be made ‘according to science’.

Developed countries will not be subjected to legally binding targets. Rigorous international monitoring and measurement of emissions – something the United States insisted upon but China argued to be a compromise to their national sovereignty – will not be enforced, and countries will measure their own emissions and publish their results.

Perhaps the only significant agreement was on funding: there will be a $10bn per year prompt-start adaptation funding for the most vulnerable countries over 2010-12. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also made a breakthrough announcement on Thursday of the U.S. agreeing to contribute its share to a $100bn per year ‘Copenhagen Green Climate Fund’ by 2020.

This comes after 4 major reports, spanning more than 2 decades, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that established a scientific consensus of anthropogenic climate change as being ‘unequivocal’. This comes after two years of preparations since the Bali Action Plan was put into place. This comes as hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets demanding that political leaders strike an ambitious agreement commensurate with the climate challenges.

If this represented just a first step, one wonders how many more of these tedious, drawn-out steps will be necessary before world leaders can agree on something concrete and useful.

The two weeks of the summit were full of drama. The African Group walked out in protest, complaining that its interests were being sidelined by the Danish hosts. Delegates from the Small Island States continually sounded their desperate concerns about national survival. China and the United States – severely handicapped by a bill stalled in the Senate – lobbed piercing criticisms back and forth. Blame-shifting, finger-pointing and name-calling were the order of the day. Leaders did little more than repeatedly stating their pre-conference commitments, even while civil society movements were screaming their collective throats hoarse about the safety of the planet.

Amid the paralysis of the official ‘process’, one comes away wondering whether hopes of a global political agreement were dead on arrival: perhaps, as many had feared, we were placing far too much faith in the ability of people to reach across their differences to strike a deal. After all, combating climate change is an immensely costly process… right?

Right, but only up to a point. As this author has written about elsewhere, one of the key problem of the current debate about action against climate change is that people keep seeing it as a cost, not an opportunity. The transition to a low-carbon world is not ‘just’ about forking out trillions of dollars to reduce the odds of climate catastrophe at some point in the future; it is also fundamentally about entrepreneurial innovation and job creation. At a time when countries all around the world are struggling to escape the throes of recession, it is hard to conceive of a better plan to jolt economies back to life.

What we saw in Copenhagen was that people from different countries found it hard to agree. It is this author’s opinion that maybe they don’t have to agree: by recognizing the power of competitive markets, with the appropriate carbon price mechanisms, we can spark a clean-technology revolution where companies and countries actually compete to reduce emissions, instead of waiting for political leaders to take second and third and further ‘steps’ until they’re blue in the face while we boil ourselves in our own exhaust.

Behind the flaccid rhetoric of politicians in Copenhagen is one hard truth: many of their voters are either unaware or unconvinced of the ability of the low-carbon transition to generate income and employment. Granted, politicians are not able to credibly promise their electorates of these benefits. On the other hand, businesses – which are the entities that employ workers in the first place – have much more credibility in delivering that promise. As Lord Stern pointed out in a recent Financial Times op-ed, we need to hear more from business leaders:

‘Many in the business world have meanwhile recognised the innovative potential of low-carbon growth. Business must therefore speak up and show where the true global interest lies.’

Note: The opinions expressed here are those of the author’s alone, and do not represent the views of the institutions he works for.

COP15 Halftime Report – Inequity Concerns Take Centre Stage

And so it began: the countdown timer at the United Nations Framework for Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) website struck 0. On Monday December 7^th, COP15 President Connie Hedegaard declared:

‘Time is up! We have had enough wake-up calls. And we have hit the snooze button one time too many. We can make Copenhagen that turning point the world is expecting. Let’s get it done!’

After 6 full days of negotiations, COP15 is now halfway through. Some progress has undoubtedly been made. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advanced the regulatory option of classifying greenhouse gas emissions as a threat to public health, which has the effect of instituting a (albeit government-determined) price on carbon. The EU also made a conditional pledge to reduce 30% of its 1990-level emissions by 2020 and committed $3.6bn per annum in prompt-start funding for developing countries in the next 3 years.

Perhaps most significantly, the first official draft of a climate deal – mercifully concise at 6 pages long – was put forth by the UNFCCC Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) on Friday. Granted, it is full of square brackets (in which unconfirmed figures and commitments are put) that ministers and heads of states will seek to fill when they arrive next week. According to the official COP15 press release:

‘… the draft states that emissions should be halved worldwide by 2050 compared to 1990 levels, but it also suggests 80 percent and 95 percent reductions by that year as possible alternative options… Even the core goal of the deal is in brackets. Throughout 2009, a number of scientific and political conferences have called for global warming to be kept below two degrees Celsius. Still, the new draft mentions 1.5 degrees Celsius as a possible alternative goal.’

The debate about targets that limit global average temperature increases to 1.5degrees or 2degrees Celsius is an especially contentious one. At the frontline of this debate is the Tuvalu-led Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the Group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs), which make the case that their nations’ very existence depends crucially on a commitment to limit temperature increases to less than 1.5degrees. Tuvalu, in particular, has made a clarion (if somewhat emotional) call in appealing to developed countries to consider the plight of its people – practically all of whom live within 2metres above sea level – in the ongoing negotiations.

It is easy to underestimate the feasibility gap between 1.5deg and 2deg. It entails a stabilization of CO2e concentrations in the atmosphere at 350ppm as compared to 450ppm, and involves hundreds of billions of dollars more in mitigation and adaptation efforts. While acknowledging that ‘nobody has more legitimate concerns than [the island countries] do’, U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern pointed out that ‘1.5 [degrees] is not in the realm of what we can get done with right now’.

At the end of the day, political realities in the U.S. make it difficult for the world’s largest economy to show the ambitious international leadership that the world is looking for. Most developed countries’ proposals for emissions reductions and financing for developing countries are conditional on strong action from the U.S., and this deadlock has led to a deep rift between developed and developing countries.

Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the pointed arguments between the U.S. and China. In response to Todd Stern’s remarks that China shouldn’t expect any American public climate aid money, China’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs He Yafei said:

‘I don’t want to say the gentleman is ignorant… I think he lacks common sense when he made such a comment vis-a-vis funds for China. Either lack of common sense or extremely irresponsible.’

Such arguments for developed countries, which have been responsible for the bulk of the GHG stocks in the atmosphere, to provide financial and technological support to developing countries in mitigating and adapting to climate change are nothing new. What is surprising is the gap between the numbers put forth by the two sides.

The 50 countries of The African Group, for example, has called for developed countries to pay as much as 5% of their GDP to developing countries to support them in their fight against climate change. This is in the order of trillions of dollars (5% of U.S. GDP, for instance, amounts to $722bn), more than an order of magnitude higher than the amount the EU has calculated the developing countries would need. Developed countries have also been asked to commit to much more ambitious emissions reductions by a significantly earlier date: 65% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels, compared with an indicative 4% the U.S. has offered.

Indeed, COP15 has not been short of drama up to this point. Late Thursday night, G-77 chief negotiator Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aiping walked away from the negotiating table, telling the Danish media that ‘things are not going well’. Tuvalu’s representative told delegates at a plenary session that he cried on his way to the conference on Friday, noting that the fate of his country rests on the outcome of the conference. All around the world and in Copenhagen, environmentalists and climate activists have been stepping up on their demonstrations, demanding that global leaders seal the deal.

At this halfway point, we have now seen much of the posturing and rhetoric that countries tend to exhibit before the ministers and heads of state arrive in Copenhagen for the second and final week. This is where the real action begins.

Hold your breath, for the planet’s fate will be decided over the course of the next week.

Last chance to see: the melting ice-bear

From greenpages.com.au:

World leaders passing Copenhagen’s Nytorv for the Climate Change talks could get a chill in their spines as they come face to face with a polar bear. In the Arctic, melting sea ice is threatening the polar bear’s survival. In Copenhagen, the life-sized ‘bear in the square’ is an ice sculpture that will melt over the length of the Climate Conference, leaving a bronze skeleton, a pool of water, and a powerful message about the impacts of climate change on the world’s people and biodiversity…

COP15: It makes sense to mitigate, even if you’re skeptical

The 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) is happening this week, from Monday Dec 7th to Friday Dec 18th. Lord Nick Stern of the LSE has rightly called COP15 ‘the most important international gathering since the Second World War’. Having been involved in Nick’s work for about a year now, I hope to bring to your attention how absolutely crucial COP15 is.

Singapore’s Sweet 16% “pledge” to COP15

It’s always good to bring a gift to a party, and it’s heartening to hear that we’re bringing a pledge of 16% cut from “business-as-usual” emission levels by 2020, especially after statements in the preceding two months, and of course, the Straits Times’ Andy Ho’s alarming call for the government not to commit to emission cuts.

The same newspaper says 16% is equivalent to 12 million tonnes (per year, I assume), which is equivalent to “taking a return trip to the moon by plane 6,000 times, or wiping out the equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of Kenya”.

You read it, time to cut down on unnecessary lunar trips. Don’t give in to catchy sales slogans like “Honey, how about a honeymoon on the Moon?” and boycott the Lunar Kiosk at the next NATAS Fair!

However:

Singapore will only commit to this if there is a legally binding global deal that obliges all countries to cut emissions, and if other countries offer significant pledges, said Professor Jayakumar.

Oh well. It really shouldn’t have come as a surprise, since we are a nation that said that it’s own Pledge was not a pledge but an aspiration. Punters pushing for a binding agreement dubbed COP15 “Hopenhagen”, but I guess Singapore’s made it uniquely CHOPE-nhagen.

Also, I would’ve thought a better challenge would’ve been to match the annual carbon footprint of Kenya by 2020.

What is Copenhagen and COP15?

From the (messy) desk of Benjamin (Mr Miyagi) Lee:

There seems to be little or no awareness in Singapore of the Copenhagen Summit. It’s not surprising, given our general attitude that can be summed up as, “we’re a small country, it’s not our problem, let’s see what the big boys do, then we might follow”.

Personally, I’m resigned to the fact that we do not have a framework capable of springboarding Singapore as a global leader in combating climate change despite the many, many opportunities to do so. “Let’s see what the big boys do, ‘cos we’re just a little red dot”. Our inferiority complex is astounding.

Come on, we’re not a little red dot! We’re already global leaders in many areas – we recycle our drinking water, and we’ve got the basic user-pays framework for water consumption that other nations would struggle to implement and therefore take ages to convince people that there are business opportunities in resource conservancy. There are other examples, but I’m beginning to foam at the mouth and that is not a good look.

But for those of us with a modicum of curiosity, you might want to keep abreast of what’s going on at Copenhagen – and then get back to what concerns you municipally – I just wrote to the NEA regarding the lack of recycle bins in my condo even after the management had been ordered by law to comply and supply, but that’s another longish story.

So here’s a useful primer to get you started (and hopefully keep the ball rolling by telling other people):

What is happening in Copenhagen and why is it called COP15?

First of all, COP15 doesn’t refer to COPenhagen.It stands for the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties, which is the highest body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The United States and 191 other countries around the world are all parties to this international climate treaty. And we’re up to the 15th meeting – therefore: COP15.

One of the most well-known COP meetings was COP3 in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, which resulted in the Kyoto Protocol, a document signed by over 180 countries and put into action in February 2005. The protocol set binding emissions targets for greenhouse gases for 37 industrialized countries and the European Union, committing them to reducing their emissions by 7 percent on aggregate against 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.

This year’s conference is taking place from December 7-18th in Copenhagen and is being hosted by the Danish government. Officials from 192 countries, plus a sizable number of non-governmental organizations and a large media contingent will be in attendance….

Read more at nature.org

Indochine Green Festival – Nature is Changing

One of the events at this year’s Indochine Green Festival is a public lecture, “Nature is Changing – Copenhagen and Beyond. What does it mean for Asia”, featuring speakers from the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The event will be held on 11th November at the LKY School of Public Policy. Admission is free but registration is required.

Details in the invitation below:

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