Showing posts from category COP-16.
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Robert Engelman, Worldwatch Institute
The Number Left Out: Bringing Population Into the Climate Conversation
›December 9, 2010 // By Wilson Center Staff
Numbers swirl around climate change.
So many parts per million of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So many gigatons of carbon dioxide emitted. So many degrees Celsius of temperature rise that we hope won’t happen. Yet one number rarely comes into play when experts or negotiators talk about the changing atmosphere and the warming of the planet: the number of humans putting heat-trapping gases into the air.
The original version of this article, by Robert Engelman, appeared on the Worldwatch Institute’s Transforming Cultures blog.The UK Met Office’s data set for September 2009 of more than 1,600,000 temperature readings from 1,700+ stations.
Numbers swirl around climate change.
So many parts per million of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So many gigatons of carbon dioxide emitted. So many degrees Celsius of temperature rise that we hope won’t happen. Yet one number rarely comes into play when experts or negotiators talk about the changing atmosphere and the warming of the planet: the number of humans putting heat-trapping gases into the air.
The relative silence isn’t hard to understand. Population is almost always awkward to talk about. It’s fraught with sensitivity about who has how many children and whether that is anyone else’s business. It’s freighted with sexuality, contraception, abortion, immigration, gender bias, and other buttons too hot to press into conversation. Yet two aspects of population’s connection to climate change cry out for greater attention – and conversation.
One is that population – especially its growth, but other changes as well – matters importantly to the future of climate change, a statement that as far as I can tell is not challenged scientifically. (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, accepts the accuracy of the so-called Kaya identity, which names population among the four factors that determine emissions growth from decade to decade.) And, two, addressing population in climate-friendly ways is also fundamentally people-friendly, in that it involves no “population control,” but rather the giving up of control – especially control of women’s bodies by people other than themselves.A new Worldwatch Institute report, which I authored, offers details, findings, and recommendations on both the importance of population in climate change and how to address it. The report looks at some of the history of the population-climate link – in particular, interesting work by William Ruddiman, who hypothesizes that the agricultural revolution contributed to global warming thousands of years ago. And it addresses the common objection that population growth can’t be that important in greenhouse gas emissions growth because countries with high per capita emissions tend to have smaller families than low-emitting countries.
Equity in per capita emissions, I argue, is an essential goal – and without it, no global effort to shrink emissions can succeed. The imperative of an equal sharing of atmospheric carbon space is among the most powerful arguments for a smaller world population. When greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide – such as methane and “black carbon” – are considered, per capita emissions gaps are not as wide as many writers believe. And the amount of all these gases that equal emitters can contribute without altering the atmosphere shrinks in direct proportion to population’s growth.
Arguments about population’s role in climate change are unnecessarily heated, however. Even if the growth of human numbers played only a minor role in emissions growth, it would be worth discussing – not because addressing population will somehow resolve our climate predicament, but because ultimately no other strategy on its own will either. We need the widest possible range of strategies – economic, political, technological, and behavioral – that are both feasible and consistent with shared human values.
On population, the most effective way to slow growth is to support women’s aspirations. Almost all women aspire to gain an education, to stand in equality with men, and to make decisions for themselves – including whether and when to give birth. Policies and programs to help women achieve these aspirations exist in many places. But they don’t get the attention, support and funding they deserve. And they are rarely seen as climate-change strategies.
As societies, we have the ability to end the ongoing growth of human numbers – soon, and based on human rights and women’s intentions. This makes it easy to speak of women, population, and climate change in a single breath.
Robert Engelman is vice president for programs at the Worldwatch Institute and the author of “Population, Climate Change, and Women’s Lives.” Please contact him if you are interested in a copy of the report.
Sources: UK Met Office, World Resources Institute.
Image Credit: Adapted from “Met Office Climate Data – Month by Month (September),” courtesy of flickr user blprnt_van, and report cover, courtesy of the Worldwatch Institute. -
From Cancun: Getting a Climate Green Fund
›Over 9,000 negotiators from 184 countries have gathered for the 16th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), known as COP-16, in Cancun, Mexico. No one expects a binding emissions reduction agreement, but a successful outcome on a set of decisions here – the so-called “balanced package” – will help build trust among countries and make progress towards a final emissions agreement next year.
One of the most important parts of the package is agreement on the creation of a green climate fund – an international fund designed to help developing countries adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.
If the negotiations are as successful, as expected, the fund will be part of a package that also includes the architecture for an adaptation body, technology transfer, REDD-plus, and progress towards a binding international mitigation agreement that negotiators hope to conclude at COP-17 in Durban, South Africa.
An event Monday morning co-hosted by Oxfam and the Global Campaign for Climate Action, featured a variety of developed and developing country perspectives about what a new fund for mitigation and adaptation programs should look like.
The event was galvanized by a letter, currently being circulated here at the talks, signed by 215 civil society organizations and calling for “the establishment of a fair global climate fund at COP-16 that will meet the needs and interests and protect the rights of the most vulnerable communities and people around the world.” In opening comments and a question-and-answer session, panelists articulated some of the most contentious points that negotiators are currently discussing, some of the reasons why a green fund is so important, and the implications for global equity, sustainable development, and international security.
A main point under discussion right now is how the fund will be governed. The United States and other developed countries argue that the fund should work under the supervision of the UNFCCC but international financial institutions, like the World Bank, should also assist in creating the fund.
Judith McGregor, the UK ambassador to Mexico, argued in her opening statement that for the United Kingdom, “climate finance… is a clear, clear priority” at the COP, but that the World Bank would lend the fund legitimacy and make donors more confident in the fund’s ability to deliver. Tim Gore from Oxfam expressed the opinion held by many civil society organizations and delegates from developing countries, that the fund must “act under the authority of the UNFCCC… independent from institutions such as the World Bank,” because a new climate fund should have an equitable governance structure that includes the voices of developing countries, civil society members, indigenous peoples, women, and other stakeholders – not a majority share by the developed countries like at the World Bank.
Another stumbling block is how climate finance will be divided between adaptation and mitigation programs. Gore argued that adaptation and mitigation finance must be balanced 50-50, whereas currently “there is a huge adaptation gap… less than 10 percent of current climate finance is going to adaptation.” Evans Njewa, the lead finance negotiator representing the group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs), noted in his statement that “adaptation is the priority for the LDCs [in Cancun].”
The source of these funds is also a contentious issue that divides developed and developing countries. Under the Copenhagen Accord, most of the COP country parties agreed that developed countries would mobilize $30 billion in fast start finance by 2012 and $100 billion per year by 2020 in climate finance from public, private, and other “innovative sources,” such as a carbon tax or cap-and-trade systems. Developed countries like the United States are mobilizing public funds for climate finance but argue that the majority of the $100 billion figure should be provided by private investments and that loans provided by development institutions as well as grants should also count.
Climate finance for adaptation will help make poor, rural communities in particular more resilient to the effects of climate change, including drought, floods and tropical storms, and therefore help the international community to achieve several related development milestones such as the Millennium Development Goals, according to Alzinda Abrea, finance minister of Mozambique.
Cate Owen of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) explained that investing in climate adaptation now “makes good sense” because “investing now in responding to climate change will lessen the long-term costs” to developed country donors.
The message that climate adaptation measures are becoming essential to sustainable development was perhaps delivered most forcefully by Florina Lopez, an indigenous person from Panama, who described the impacts that her people are already suffering as a result of climate change. Since her community survives by fishing, hunting and growing crops, severe flooding is disrupting indigenous ways of life and floods bring assaults on community health, like diarrhea, skin disease, and malnutrition. Community activities that contribute to development such as education and healthcare are also paralyzed by these impacts. Adaptation funding will be essential for her community to survive and to avoid disruptive displacement.
Still, perhaps the most compelling political reason for American taxpayers to invest in climate change adaptation in the developing world is the national security implications of the effects of climate change. A report issued this week by the Center for American Progress and the Alliance for Climate Protection explains why the United States must have a global climate investment strategy, despite adverse economic and political conditions domestically. Adaptation funding will “reduce risks of climate-related national security threats, including from severe floods or droughts in Pakistan and the Middle East” and strengthen our relationships with developing country recipients, including strategically important partners like India, Indonesia, and Brazil, write the authors. Finally, by managing displacement, migration, and violent conflict driven by the effects of climate change, such as water scarcity, climate change adaptation can help bolster international security and stability.
The establishment of a climate green fund here in Cancun is essential for an equitable and balanced international climate deal. A fund is first and foremost the moral imperative of developed countries, known as the Annex-I parties under the UNFCCC, who are historically responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. However, developed countries need not rely on the moral argument to convince policymakers and taxpayers that climate adaptation for the poorest and most vulnerable countries and people is a good investment.
Within the UN process itself, a robust, well-run, equitable green fund would help rebuild the trust lost between developed and developing countries at Copenhagen last year. In Gore’s words, Oxfam is “cautiously optimistic that we can get an agreement here in Cancun that rebuilds trust between rich and poor countries.”
Alex Stark is a program assistant at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, working on the Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict Program. She is attending the Cancun negotiations as part of the Adopt a Negotiator team.
Sources: Alliance for Climate Protection, British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Center for American Progress, Global Campaign for Climate, Mozambique Ministry of Planning and Finance, Oxfam, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Women’s Environment and Development Organization.
Photo Credit: “Will you back a climate fund?,” courtesy of flickr user Oxfam International. -
From Cancun: Roger-Mark De Souza on Women and Integrated Climate Adaptation Strategies
›“When you look at the negative impacts of climate change, the impacts on the poor and the vulnerable – particularly women – increase, so investing in programs that put women at the center is critical,” said Roger-Mark De Souza, vice president of research and director of the climate program at Population Action International (PAI), speaking to ECSP from the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico. “There are a number of missed opportunities here in Cancun and in climate change deliberations overall that are not including women and are missing an opportunity to have a bigger bang for the buck, or power for the peso, as we say in Mexico.”
PAI hosted a side session with five panelists from Denmark, Ethiopia, Kenya, Suriname, and Uganda on “Healthy Women, Healthy Planet: Women’s Empowerment, Family Planning, and Resilience.” The session attracted more than 100 attendees and prompted incisive, informative questions, said De Souza.
“There was a call for additional research that is policy relevant that identifies some of the key entry points and added benefits at a country level,” said De Souza. “And there is a very strong call for youth partnerships from a number of youth advocates who are looking at medical and public health interventions and are desirous of including reproductive health programming as part of that.”
“One concrete next step for Cancun is to work with other civil society partners who are here who are tracking how gender is being integrated into the negotiating language, particularly with regard to financing mechanisms,” De Souza said.
Besides financing and the need for more research, De Souza said the key issues that emerged from the panel were: the importance of linking programs of different scales; ensuring women’s empowerment and ownership; and recognizing and replicating effective partnerships.
For more from Roger-Mark De Souza, see ECSP Focus Issue 19, “The Integration Imperative: How to Improve Development Programs by Linking Population, Health, and Environment.”
The “Pop Audio” series is also available as podcasts on iTunes. -
Climate-Proofing Development: An Interview With Karen Hardee
›November 29, 2010 // By Hannah MarquseeWhile expectations are deflated for broad international consensus at the UN Climate Change Convention in Cancun, the need to “climate-proof” development efforts has been gaining ground in recent years as a necessary preventative measure to help developing countries adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.
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Youth on Fire at UN Climate Talks in Tianjin
›For the past week, as part of the Adopt a Negotiator program, I got the chance to observe many of the negotiations of the latest UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) intersessional meeting that took place in Tianjin, China. In many ways it was rather humdrum. I observed as negotiators debated changing agendas and the mandate of contact groups rather than the issues themselves, and made many of the same, tired position speeches again and gain.
When controversial issues did rise to the fore, they felt like more of the same old, same old: arguments between China and the United States about who is doing more to stall the talks and who should make legally binding emissions cuts; developed countries carving enormous loopholes into the LULUCF; the greenhouse gas inventory sector covering emissions and removals of greenhouse gases resulting from land use. But the dry nature of the talks concealed the more important truth – that the negotiators are not just discussing acronyms, but human lives, which could be catastrophically altered due to the effects of climate change.
The Adopt a Negotiator program is supported by the Global Campaign for Climate Action, a group of young people from countries around the world who come to the UNFCCC meetings to track the delegations from their own countries and share what is happening at the negotiations through social networking tools (be sure to check out our blogs).
If the UN climate talks fail, and if countries cannot muster the political will to make substantial economy-wide changes and greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, the results for the poorest and most vulnerable people on the planet will be catastrophic.
Last week was the first time that I have ever experienced any kind of UN negotiation first hand, and some of what I saw was incredibly depressing. Mitigation efforts are especially in danger, as disagreements primarily between the United States and China about who should agree to emissions cuts and international reporting and verification requirements sharpened and intensified.
But there were many bright spots as well. Negotiators are very close to making the final decisions about an international architecture for technology transfer to help the most vulnerable and poorest countries adapt to the effects of climate change and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. They also spent the week narrowing and refining draft text with regards to climate finance and an international architecture to disburse “Green Funds,” and hopefully will be able to make final decisions at COP-16 in Cancun this November 29th through December 10th. These steps are small examples of potential good news for the people who will suffer, and are most likely already suffering, from climate change’s global impacts.
Unfortunately, negotiators are already in agreement that the only bright spots that we are likely to see at COP-16 are small items such as these. Almost no one believes that there is any chance that countries will agree on a final, legally binding text to reduce carbon emissions, and negotiators have instead pushed off this decision until the next Conference of the Parties (COP) in South Africa in 2011. Instead, the near-universal buzz at the conference was about a “balanced package.” Although the phrase in reality means something slightly different to everyone who uses it, it is generally understood to refer to a set of decisions on issues like climate finance, technology transfer, initiatives to cut back on deforestation, and putting some of the decisions made under the Copenhagen Accord into legally binding text, like “fast start” finance measures to the developing world.
In many ways the Tianjin session was itself a “balanced package” – a set of interactions and experiences that was both deeply discouraging and incredibly uplifting. One of the personally uplifting moments for me was having the honor of delivering a short intervention on the first day of the opening plenary on behalf of youth NGOs around the world (known as YOUNGOs). In the words I read, which had been drafted by a group of Chinese youth, all the particulars of policy were stripped away and the only thing that remained was the frustration – and also the hopes – of young people around the world (those who will actually experience the effects of climate change well within their lifetimes if UNFCCC negotiators don’t work harder to reach a consensus).
Through the disappointments of Copenhagen to the slow-moving intersessionals throughout this year, many pundits have cynically declared the UNFCCC process dead. This is certainly not the case. But if they are truly serious about saving the planet from climate change’s most serious impacts, negotiators will certainly have to work harder in Cancun.
Alex Stark is a Program Assistant at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, working on the Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict Program. She attended the Tianjin negotiations as part of the Adopt a Negotiator team.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “COP11_lo,” courtesy of Neil Palmer and flickr user CIAT – International Center for Tropical Agricultu. -
Youth Delegation Makes a Splash at UNFCCC
›October 11, 2010 // By Wilson Center StaffThis weekend wrapped up an intercessional meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Tianjin, China – one of the last before this December’s big follow-up to Copenhagen in Cancun (COP-16).
Alex Starks, formerly of CNAS’s Natural Security and now shadowing the U.S. climate delegation with the Adopt a Negotiator Project, got a chance to make a brief speech on behalf of a coalition of youth-orientated NGOs, and according to onlookers the speech made quite a stir amongst the assembly. Karl Burkart of tcktcktck.org wrote:Normally these 2 minute NGO speeches are politely tolerated by UN negotiators waiting to get on with the day’s business, but in this case Alex’s talk had ripple effects. The LCA (Long-term Cooperative Agreement) chair took the time to formally comment on her remarks, and later in the day the chief EU negotiator said, “If you need a reminder about what we’re up against, listen to the youth delegate’s statement.”
The full text of Alex’s speech is worth a read. Stay tuned for more on the UNFCCC and the lead-up to Cancun, as Alex has promised a guest contribution to The New Security Beat in the coming days!
Photo Credit: Adapted from “IMG_2474,” courtesy of flickr user benkamorvan.
