Dateline: Copenhagen

COP 15 attendees queue outside the Bella Center

The Copenhagen UN climate conference ended last Saturday with a weak agreement, not the groundbreaking treaty many had hoped for. Not only did Worldwatch send its biggest team ever to the Danish capital; with more than 100 heads of governments and many more parliamentarians and dignitaries, COP-15 became the largest assembly of world leaders in diplomatic history. The Copenhagen conference had been planned out for two years in many small informal and large official meetings, following the 2007 Bali Action Plan in which nations had agreed to finalize a binding agreement this December. The outcome falls far short of this original goal. Delegates only “noted” an accord (“the Copenhagen Accord”) struck by the United States, Brazil, China, India, and South Africa that has two key components: first, it sets a target of limiting global warming to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times; second, it proposes $100 billion in annual aid for developing nations starting in 2020 to help them reduce emissions and adapt to climate change.

2 degrees Celsius is seen by mainstream science as a threshold for dangerous climatic changes including sea-level rise and accelerated glacier melt, as well as more intense floods, droughts, and storms. Many scientists also believe that a majority of worldwide ecosystems will struggle to adapt to a warming above that mark, and more recently have set the threshold even lower, at 1.5 degrees Celsius. The accord, however, lacks any information on how this goal of preventing “dangerous” climate change, which had already been set by the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention, would be achieved. It is generally assumed that in order to keep global warming below 2 degrees, worldwide emissions have to peak before 2020 and have to be at least halved before mid-century, but the Copenhagen accord doesn’t outline global emissions scenarios nor individual countries’ pathways towards either of these two goals. Regarding the money for developing countries, the declaration does not specify precisely where the $100 billion annual support would come from nor who would profit from it.

Accordingly, the assessment of the accord was mixed. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised the Copenhagen Accord as “an important beginning” and U.S. President Obama said that “for the first time in history, all of the world’s major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action on the threat of climate change.” Others, like German chancellor Angela Merkel, could hardly hide their disappointment. “The decision has been very difficult for me. We have done one step, we have hoped for several more,” Merkel said. Likewise, many U.S. commentators considered the deal just a small step forward, however an essential one in the domestic context. A friend of mine wrote to me that “without the accord, the Senate process would be dead. I think we can push forward domestically with the elements in the accord.”

The next COP is set for November 2010 in Mexico City, with a likely high-level preparatory meeting mid-year on invitation of the German government. “We have a big job ahead to avoid climate change through effective emissions reduction targets, and this was not done here,” said Sergio Serra, Brazil’s climate change ambassador. Worldwatch might have to send an even bigger team to the Mexican capital.

U.S. President Barack Obama and India PM Manmohan Singh

A U.S.-India “Green Partnership” was established this week following the first official visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington DC.

The agreement, which is the first of over six to have come out of the visit, will aim to enhance collaboration between the two nations on a wide range of areas relating to energy security, climate change and food security, and according to a White House statement, marks a “new phase in the global strategic partnership between India and the United States.”

The Green Partnership outlines an encouraging number of planned collaborations. These include joint research and deployment of clean energy technologies – which include solar, smart grid, sustainable transport, agriculture, and natural gas – joint weather forecasting and supporting the creation of a national Environmental Protection Authority in India for a “more effective system of environmental governance, regulation and enforcement.”

A joint statement issued by the two leaders also highlighted agreement on the need for “scaled-up finance, technology, and capacity-building support” for developing countries, and to “encourage the mobilization of public and private resources to support a fund or funds that would invest in clean energy projects.” However, no specific numbers were put on the table.

The India-U.S. climate and energy partnership comes in the wake of concerns that progress at the upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen, due to commence in two weeks, will be stymied by the challenges of U.S. domestic politics. Indeed, at the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Singapore, Obama conceded that with a U.S. climate bill unlikely to be passed in time for the summit, it would be near impossible for the U.S. to commit to binding international targets.

Yet, there might be movement on that front as well. In a statement to the press following his meeting with Prime Minister Singh, Obama reiterated America’s resolve to take “significant national mitigation actions.”

Speaking to Worldwatch, Raman Mehta, senior policy manager for ActionAid India, described the partnership as a “milestone” that forms “part of a process in which both countries desire to have a closer long term strategic relationship.”

Mehta cautioned, however, that “there does not seem to be anything in this statement that suggests that either side has shifted its basic position regarding [the UN climate] negotiations.”  He went on to explain that a strong deal at Copenhagen is still “primarily held hostage to whether or not the U.S. will take on meaningful commitments that are comparable to other rich country commitments.”

This article is part of a series on India’s climate and energy policies around the Copenhagen climate conference and supported by the Heinrich Boell Foundation, Washington D.C.

The board of the United Nations Adaptation Fund wrapped up its final round of meetings prior to Copenhagen today in Bonn, Germany. Much of the discussion will center on how adaptation projects, supported by a potentially massive fund, will be monitored and evaluated – a discussion that surely will not be settled in only three days. Luckily, the real work of adapting to climate change is not simply waiting for the slow-moving UNFCCC train to come around. Last week, 100 different not-for-profit adaptation projects from around the developing world showcased their work at the World Bank’s 2009 Development Marketplace event.

For me, the event was a refreshing break from tracking all the UNFCCC discussions on adaptation fund structure and management. The showcased projects had been selected as finalists for the World Bank’s annual competition, and in the end 26 projects were selected to receive funding, up to $200,000 each. The implementers I spoke to were motivated by real and dangerous climate impacts affecting their home communities, and all had a plan for scaling up their operations to reach other affected areas.

Floods devastated the state of Orissa in the summer of 2009. Climate adaptation is a must.

In Orissa, on the east coast of India, coastal villagers are being hit with a developing-world double whammy: highway construction has blocked many avenues for rainwater to flow into the ocean, and flood rains have increased in severity and frequency, especially in the last 10 years. Community elders have never seen anything like the massive floods that now hit Orissa almost yearly, and houses never needed as much post-flood repair or rebuilding as they do now.

Isaac from Catholic Relief Services (CRS) explained that his team used to come to areas like Orissa simply to rebuild flood-damaged buildings. “That wasn’t enough,” he said. “We were never going to get teams out to every flood-prone village in India to do that work.” Moving beyond the traditional aid model, CRS and local builders designed a training course for Orissa villagers on improving their building techniques. Improved techniques included cross supports, deeper foundations, and building houses higher on platforms. After one season of trainings and construction, people were already taking notice of the way that these new techniques kept structures intact through floods. Soon, houses throughout the area were sporting cross supports and higher platforms.

CRS was competing at the Development Marketplace for funding that would allow them to expand in the Orissa area with the eventual goal of pitching their training course to the Indian government for countrywide adoption. Such a vision for scale-up is far more conceivable than sending in an entourage of aid groups to build houses. The project is made even stronger by the fact that it is entirely dependent on local materials, which both speaks to the local culture and makes widespread adoption possible.

Although the CRS project was not selected as a winner, it helped me to define what adaptation really looks like. In the UNFCCC world, adaptation is being slowly defined through a series of bureaucratic steps that will help to manage adaptation funding, when it finally comes through.  However, real adaptation is already moving forward on the ground, and success will ultimately be defined by the values that CRS has applied in Orissa: locally managed, culturally viable, and scalable.

Image Courtesy: Sustainable Business Consulting

In parallel to the Barcelona international climate talks last week, a report on one of the major issues under discussion, green technology, was launched in Delhi. Entitled “A Policy Approach for Supporting Clean Energy Technology in India,” and produced by the Coalition for Innovation, Employment and Development (CIED), the report finds that developing and deploying advanced clean technologies, including biofuels, hydro, wind, and nuclear, could create almost 10 million jobs in India by 2025.

However, in order to capture this opportunity, the report states that removing Intellectual Property Rights (or IPRs), which are the fees charged by the innovator of a particular technology for purchasing their invention, would be a bad move, slowing down technology developments, and that, conversely, they must be strengthened.

A variety of forms of compulsory licensing, which is the granting of licenses by governments to circumvent international property costs, have been called for to broaden access to technologies for public purposes by developing nations in the climate talks. But Pawan Chopra, Director of Dua Consulting, and a lead author of the study, said this “is a red herring” at the report’s launch in Delhi, adding that “in the real world, people only develop technology for profit.”

The CIED report proffers that efforts, such as compulsory licensing, to avoid IPRs, would actually discourage innovators from sharing technologies with India and other developing countries. “Intellectual property will be the catalyst for cleantech innovation and deployment in India,” says the report, adding that it will pull in billions of dollars worth of private capital, which would translate into additional jobs.

In addition to enforcing and strengthening IPRs, the authors state that policies to reduce barriers to market access are also needed in India. These would include the provision of lower tariffs for clean technology, reduced time for patent awards on environmental technologies, and tax incentives for clean technologies.

However, recommendations to strengthen IPRs for green technologies, in particular, come in marked contrast to the position of many developing countries in the international climate talks that calls for the costs of green technology IPRs to be lowered or fully covered by a global regime.

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In an earlier article in the Wall Street Journal India, I had argued about why India should allow a review of its unilateral mitigation actions. Here I would like to explore why the developed world needs to make a stronger case to encourage India’s active engagement in the future climate treaty. Followers of climate change negotiations would have noticed the paradigm shift in the way in which India views its role in climate change mitigation. India’s earlier role as the de facto spokesperson for the developing world was proving counterproductive not only to its self-interest but to climate change negotiations as a whole. India has in the recent past demonstrated that it is willing to undertake actions to ensure that its growth does not contribute to climate change and has announced its intentions strong and clear to adopt a low-carbon economic growth trajectory.

As mentioned by the U.S. special envoy to climate change, Todd Stern, in a recent interview, it is now widely recognized that major developing countries like India are undertaking substantial unilateral efforts in the fight against climate change. However, he also mentioned that the expectations from China and India are not just unilateral efforts but also formal engagement with the international climate change architecture that is currently being negotiated. India, for obvious reasons, is reluctant to codify its unilateral actions in any international climate treaty because it is fearful that such commitments could be used to hold its feet to the fire at a later date. India’s approach to other concepts in climate change have been similar. With respect to sector-based approaches to mitigation which could also include sectoral crediting mechanisms, there is paranoia about the imposition of global sector-wide benchmarks that could be used to restrict India’s exports under the garb of environmental protection. Obviously, for the government of a fast growing developing country like India, such an eventuality goes against its developmental mandate and could lead to severe political repercussions.

Hence, given the mistrust in the developing world due to historical reasons, the perceived political fallout of engagement could be seen as far greater than the incentives that are currently visible. If the world wants to convince India to back its unilateral actions with an international agreement, then it should also make the effort to demonstrate to India what the benefits of engagement could be. For India, who hitherto was unwilling to even act unilaterally, it is essential that any co-benefits that it garners by adopting a low-carbon economy are not negated by its efforts to engage with the international community. It is clear that incentives provided by the developed world through the same climate change treaty that it wants India to be a part of will be the ideal way to attract active engagement.

This comment is an exclusive contribution to our blog by Anmol Vanamali (avanamali@ccap.org), International Policy Analyst at the Center for Clean Air Policy in Washington DC.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

As a former Minister of the Environment turned Chancellor, Angela Merkel had already proven those wrong who surmised that environment positions are a dead end to high-rising political aspirations; now she became only the second German politician (after Konrad Adenauer, the first head of a German government after the Second World War, in 1957) who received the honor to address the U.S. Congress; and as a widely respected leader on environmental issues who is, at the same time, the leader of a conservative party, she would be well positioned to appeal to cautious Republicans when talking about climate change and energy reformation—at least I had hoped so in a recent interview with Reuters.

Angela Merkel in her speech on Capitol Hill yesterday, just weeks after her reelection for a second term (this time as a leader of a center-right coalition) was moved by the honor and the standing ovations she received from U.S. lawmakers even before she had started her speech. Following up on her promises, she spent a good portion of her talk on climate change, urging Congress and the Obama administration to take bold steps to address the issue, in her view one of the “great tests” of the 21st century. “We all know we have no time to lose,” she said.

But her remarks did not resonate with most Republicans. While Merkel’s remarks were met with passionate applause from Democrats, almost the entire Republican side—including key swing voters, such as Independent Senator Dick Lugar from Indiana and Republican Senator Olympia Snowe from Maine—remained silent. When the Chancellor pointed out that reducing greenhouse gas emissions would spur economic and jobs growth worldwide, the same partisan gulf occurred.

Already earlier in the day, Republicans had refused to attend the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s markup of Senators John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) important climate bill (Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act). The only one out of seven Republican Senators on the committee who showed up for the meeting was Sen. George V. Voinovich (Ohio) who briefly expressed the Republican opposition to the committee’s proceedings. In their view, the Environmental Protection Agency has not done enough economic analysis of the Kerry-Boxer bill. Democrats, however, accuse their opponents of pure gamesmanship pointing out that the Kerry-Boxer bill is modeled after the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, which passed the House side of Congress earlier this year and underwent intense economic scrutiny, including from the EPA.

Angela Merkel can tell a great success story about green jobs creation in Germany. The country—home to Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Opel, and Volkswagen—is on track to have more people employed in the environmental technology sector than in the automobile industry as early as 2015. It has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 20% since the beginning of the 1990s. But it seemed yesterday as if only half of the U.S. representatives were ready for Merkel’s optimism—one that has often been echoed by President Obama in the past.  Regarding the Copenhagen UN climate summit, Merkel said: “I’m convinced, once we in Europe and America show ourselves ready to adopt binding agreements, we will also be able to persuade China and India to join in ….No doubt about it, in December, the world will look to us, to the Europeans and to the Americans. ” Thus far, only half of America looks back.

The Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) is a coalition of individuals and youth-led organisations from across India united in their concern about climate change. In partnership with 350.org, IYCN organised a series of 300 different actions across India to raise awareness about the importance of this crucial number on October 24th. 

Surendran is a Coordinator for 350.org South Asia and for the Indian Youth Climate Network, and was one of the principal organisers of this sequence of spectacular events.

by B. Surendran

From Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Bikaner to Manipur, India resonated with one voice on October 24, 2009. School children, college students, software professionals, police, fishers, farmers, divers, people on bicycles, and drivers of electric cars all participated in some 300 different actions across the country.

Youth in the town of Ongole, Andhra Pradesh, form a giant '350'

350 is a vital number. It is the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere we need to reach to avoid catastrophic climate change. In an effort to raise global awareness of this target, the campaign 350.org organized a global day of action on October 24, in which India was a major voice.

The day began with the hoisting of a massive banner in front of the Charminar, a mosque and one of the most famous monuments in the city of Hyderabad. As the day progressed, numerous rallies, seminars, movie screenings, awareness drives, competitions, and tree plantings—as well as the widespread creation of giant “350” human art formations—marked the widespread involvement of people for the cause.

Many beautiful stories emerged. In the Fazilka district near the Indo-Pakistan border, students organized the “Badha lake campaign,” each pouring a glass of water into the dried-up lake to symbolize the need to take action. In Gwalior, participants formed a two-kilometer long human chain, and in Kolkata people marched on foot. In Jaipur, a peace rally brought together artists, activists, and vendors to showcase organic seed varieties. In the ancient city of Udaipur participants held a religious ceremony to commemorate the lost ritual of valuing waste in day-to-day activities.

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As I tried to complete my work yesterday evening, my house not unusually experienced a series of lengthy power outages. These went on from around five o’clock in the evening until long past midnight. Not only did this mean that all light in the room vanished, that temperatures soared into the high and humid 40s Centigrade, and that I could no longer see the mosquitoes coming silently closer; it also made me think.

This is Delhi, India’s capital city; and one of the most affluent, vibrant and well-resourced cities in the country. Yet even here, power outages are a daily occurrence, water only reaches the taps for certain hours of the day, infrastructure is still being built, and people of all ages sleep on the streets at night. Further afield, things are in some ways better and in many ways, worse. Whereas cities concentrate some problems, with the crowding, sanitation and infrastructural challenges that a booming population brings, many rural areas have no electricity at all and far more scarce or polluted water supplies. Job availability, access to education, healthcare and many other opportunities are often much more limited than in cities.

This is the reality of a developing country. All of these conditions have a marked impact on people’s efficiencies and productivity, making goals harder to achieve and tasks take longer. Yet how often do we remember this fact as we bandy around the term ”developing nation” freely in the international negotiations. Non-Annex 1,” “emerging economy,” “global south”… These have become so technical, but do we stop enough to reflect on what these terms truly mean?

In this regard, I can’t help but think about the challenge that preparing for the climate negotiations must be for each of these countries. To different extents, they are all working to build roads, find and secure essential resources, expand education and healthcare, create jobs and improve the wellbeing of their many poor. Their capacity is oftentimes spread so very thin. This simple fact alone puts developing nations at a disadvantage as they seek to come head to head with their ”big brothers” in Copenhagen. Can they sufficiently prepare?

The light flicks on and the fan kicks into gear as quickly as it vanished. I don’t know how long it will last this time, but I hope a little longer.

We’ve heard a lot in recent months about India’s international positioning on climate change, but what is opinion like at home? Is everyone in agreement with the formal government position? And what is the key to stronger Indian engagement with the international climate regime? A working paper [PDF] on this subject was recently released by Navroz Dubash, a Senior Fellow at India’s Centre for Policy Research. It looks not only at the state of opinion within India’s government, corporations and civil society on how India should respond to the climate challenge, but also proffers that what is most needed in advance of the negotiations in Copenhagen is to build trust.

Dubash suggests that there is broad domestic agreement in India on three key points. Firstly, that India is being unfairly labelled a major emitter by the international community, secondly, that India has an ongoing and considerable development challenge, and thirdly, that India is moving in the right direction climate change mitigation is concerned. ”Climate diplomats from other countries would do well to recognize this reality,” says Dubash.

However, he also argues that opinion is far more divided at home around how India should respond to the climate challenge, with three major streams of opinion characterizing the debate. He describes as Growth First Stonewallers those who, frequently sceptical of the science, believe that pressures to respond to climate change are primarily a strategy employed by industrialized nations to keep emerging economies such as India and China at bay. As such, these pressures are a threat to Indian interests. Stonewallers, according to Dubash, see addressing climate change as less important than India’s economic development.

The second are Progressive Realists. These Realists recognise that climate change poses a significant threat to India, but are deeply skeptical of the international process as a fair or effective way to address the climate problem. Seeing pressure on developing countries primarily as an attempt by industrialized countries to shift the burden of action away from their shores, they are resigned to focus on domestic climate change action through clean development efforts resulting in climate ”co-benefits,” while at the same time avoiding the ”obligations and constraints of an international regime.” Dubash describes this as India’s increasingly predominant position, with a shift from its former Stonewaller center of gravity.

Finally, Dubash highlights a ”small but increasingly vocal group” of Progressive Internationalists. Although in agreement with India’s Realists that the rich world is using India as an excuse for inaction and that equity must be paramount within any global climate change agreement, these Internationalists are of the opinion that India should work with, not separately from the global policy regime, aligning its efforts at home to facilitate and condition a stronger global deal. They argue, that a weak global climate deal resulting in weak action on climate change will result in greater inequities for the poor in the future, who will be the first to suffer the impacts of climate change and who are primarily located in developing countries. These Internationalists, describes Dubash, are in the distinct minority and perceived by most in India as naïve. Fears abound that a more concerted engagement from India with the international regime will result in greater constraints on India but little change in global dynamics and commitments.

Recent political developments in Bangkok have done little to allay these fears, with reports of a new proposal from some industrialised nations to scrap the Kyoto Protocol. Dubash argues that a split between India’s progressive thinkers driven by different opinions on the international climate regime is weakening India’s ability to respond to climate change. To bring these groups together, a far more progressive approach to the international negotiations will be required from all countries with trust building and signals of good faith an essential factor. ”A renewed Indian climate politics…will require far stronger signals of good faith from the international community, and industrialized countries in particular,” says Dubash in his paper, going on to elaborate what this would imply.

For a full recount of this insightful overview, please see the full paper.

Heavy rains over the past two weeks have caused severe flooding and landslides in the Philippines, killing at least 540 people. Flooding in India caused a reported 250 deaths and displaced millions. In 2008, Hurricane Nargis killed an estimated 100,000 people.

Climate change has quadrupled the number of natural disasters over the past 20 years. As global greenhouse gas emissions increase (click here to read “Climate Change Accelerates,”) the frequency and severity of natural disasters, including hurricanes, cyclones, severe storms, floods, landslides and avalanches, are also increasing (click here to read “Weather-related Disasters Dominate.”)

Climate change will worsen the intensity and effects of natural disasters

Natural disasters not only affect the physical environment, but also social, political, economic and even security aspects (click here to read “The Security Dimensions of Climate Change.”) Socio-economic factors may exacerbate destruction from natural disasters. Deforestation, for example, may worsen and even promote the occurrence of landslides, flooding and erosion. Overall, it has become clear that less developed, highly populated countries are more prone to risks of natural disasters. Poor people have fewer resources to cope with natural disasters and are therefore the worst affected. It is also a fact that women are disproportionately affected by natural disasters due to a lack of social and economic rights (click here to read “Women and Climate Change.”)

Wednesday is the United Nations’ International Day for Disaster Reduction, to promote awareness and advocate disaster prevention. Climate change mitigation and adaptation are crucial in reducing the frequency of natural disasters and improving human and environmental resilience to its effects. Climate change is not only a future reality, its consequences – the Earth has already warmed by 0.7 degrees Celsius since the industrial revolution – can be felt today, and ever more quickly than previously projected. Countries such as Bangladesh and the Maldives are campaigning for their “right to survive” and Inuit communities in the Arctic are already being displaced. As Copenhagen nears, natural disasters demonstrate in a dramatic way why it is so important to “seal the deal.”

Click here to purchase the articles highlighted above, including the 2009 edition of Vital Signs, and 2009 State of the World.