The president of COP 17, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, speaks at the final plenary session of the climate change meetings in Durban, South Africa (Source: Worldwatch).

As the new year begins, climate negotiators have begun to move on from their engagement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa. After two weeks of intense negotiations on the future of the international regime to combat climate change, they bring home pieces of an ambiguous mandate—but also some critical steps forward. Below, we discuss some of the outcomes of those exhilarating talks in early December.

Symbolic survival of the Kyoto Protocol

Under European Union leadership, signatories of the Kyoto Protocol agreed to enter a second commitment period for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, extending the treaty terms through 2017 or 2020. This symbolically salvaged the agreement—the only existing climate treaty with internationally binding reduction targets. However, the 27 EU countries, together with Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland, are the only countries to take on these targets, and they agreed to do so only under the condition that all major countries agree to a new, truly global and comprehensive climate treaty, if necessary outside the Kyoto structure.

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The 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change begins today in Durban, South Africa (Source: UNFCCC).

This week the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) begins. In Durban, South Africa, delegations from countries around the world will continue negotiating greenhouse gas reductions in order to prevent global warming from spinning out of control. So it is just in time that the International Energy Agency (IEA) releases its latest statistics on global CO₂ emissions.

The provided figures contain CO₂ emission source breakdowns by fuel, sector and region over the period 1971 to 2009. According to the data, nearly two thirds of worldwide emissions come from two sectors – electricity and heat generation (41 percent) as well as transport (23 percent). Remaining emissions come from industrial processes (20 percent), residential (6 percent), and a multitude of additional sources (10 percent). Regarding energy, coal is the leading CO₂ emission source, accounting for 43 percent of those emissions, followed by oil at 37 percent and natural gas at 20 percent.

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As conventional oil – oil extracted using traditional oil wells – becomes increasingly uneconomical to extract, unconventional sources are being turned to as a solution to meet the global demand for petroleum-based energy sources. One unconventional source shown to have abundant reserves is oil sands, also known as tar sands. Canada is home to one of the largest oil sands deposits on earth.  Despite the promising amount of reserves that can be added to the global supply from this supply, the substance, which resembles cold molasses when at room temperature, is sparking a lot of controversy amongst public opinion and is playing a large role in defining U.S. energy infrastructure priorities.

With the addition of oil sands to its proven reserves list, Canada is now second place amongst oil-producing nations, behind Saudi Arabia. Despite the promising amount of reserves that can be added to the global supply from oil sands, the topic is sparking a lot of controversy amongst public opinion and is playing a large role in defining U.S. energy infrastructure priorities.

Bitumen, the substance found in oil sands, was at one time light crude oil. Geologists theorize that tens of millions of years ago, oil was pushed up during the formation of the Rocky Mountains, allowing it to reach depths shallow and cool enough for bacteria to thrive, which degraded the oil to bitumen. Bitumen is not oil or tar, but a semi-solid degraded form of oil. Once extracted, bitumen deposits can be sold as raw bitumen, or upgraded to synthetic crude oil frequently refined for use in essentials such as asphalt, gasoline, and jet fuel. The upgrading is done by increasing the ratio of hydrogen to carbon by either removing carbon (coking) or adding hydrogen (hydro-cracking).

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New research suggests that oil reserves off the coast of Cuba could be comparable to those of current oil-exporting countries such as Ecuador and Columbia. Several geologic studies, including those from the U.S. Geological Survey, estimate Cuba’s Gulf reserves could be as much as 5 billion to 9 billion barrels of crude. The Cuban government has designated 59 blocks in Gulf waters encompassing 43,200 square miles (112,000 square kilometers) for private energy companies to drill deep-water test wells.

Drilling off Cuba will likely take place 100 miles (161 kilometers) from Key West, home to North America’s only living coral barrier reef and the third largest such reef system in the world. The U.S. government opening communication and coordination with Cuba would be mutually beneficial, allowing the opportunity to create the least impact in the ecologically diverse oceans that the two countries share.

Drilling will likely take place 100 miles (161 kilometers) from Key West, home to North America’s only living coral barrier reef and the third largest such reef system in the world. It is part of a productive marine ecosystem of interconnected habitats including patch and bank reefs, seagrass meadows, soft bottom and hard bottom communities, and coastal mangroves. It is one of the most biologically diverse assemblages of marine life in North America. Due to its ecological significance, it has been classified as a Marine Sanctuary.

Although U.S. oil companies are eager to get involved in drilling efforts south of Florida, the 48-year old U.S. trade embargo on Cuba severely limits interaction with the communist-run country. Of the 59 blocks designated as deep-water test sites open for international investment, 22 blocks have been contracted out, all to state-controlled companies including Spain’s Repsol in partnership with Norway’s Statoil, Russia’s Gazprom, India’s ONGC-Videsh, Malaysia’s Petronas, and Venezuela’s PDVSA.

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The beaches of Cancun will be hosts of COP 16. After a lukewarm result from Copenhagen it will be up to the Mexican government to create the environment that will make a legally binding international agreement more likely. Beyond excellent logistics and security, the COP in Mexico will have to tackle the challenge of reaching consensus from a group of countries that appears to be even more fragmented after COP 15. The division has led many analysts to speculate that this year the Climate Change debate will shift to regional or G forums (G8, G8+5, G20 etc.), or even to bilateral negotiations between the most influential states. Reducing the number of Parties might be a good strategy to reach concrete results more efficiently, without the hassle of building consensus, but it threatens principles embedded in broader multilateralism (like equity and transparency). Historically, Mexico has been a keen adherent to these principles. The COP presidency will give the Mexicans an opportunity to uphold the UNFCCC process as the forum to reach a Climate Change global agreement.

Politically, the Mexican government has a large stake in the COP 16 success. President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa has made Climate Change a top priority for Mexico. Indeed, the Special Climate Change Program (PECC) published in the Official Gazette of the Federation late last summer offers a 51 MMt CO₂e unilateral reduction target by 2012. On the international stage, Mexico’s Green Fund proposal is one of the most significant contributions from a single country to the international climate debate, designed to work effectively with broad participation from developed and developing countries alike. President Calderon was part of a handful of heads of state to drill down the Copenhagen Accord last December. And he has been active behind the scenes as well: Last November, along with Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, he brought in the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to host an unofficial breakfast on Climate Change during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in November in Singapore. It’s safe to say that Mexico’s Administration has adopted Climate Change as the centerpiece of its foreign policy (some internal Mexican bureaucratic divisions non-withstanding).

The Mexican government faces the urgent need to “walk the talk.” A key piece for Mexico to meet its domestic emission reduction target will require the Energy Ministry to mandate the national public utility company (CFE) to double its renewable energy installed capacity from 3.3 to 7.6 % by 2012. This transition, neglected for too long, would mainly rely on expanding the wind energy base operated by private developers, mostly for self-supply – a scheme that makes CFE uncomfortable as it weakens its monopolistic power. Other actions contemplated in the PECC’s mitigating strategy like a REDD pilot project and the expansion of the “Green Mortgage” initiative will also face similar power struggles.

In the international sphere, consensus building needs to start now as well. President Calderon and his team need to enhance their facilitator role in the months leading up to COP 16. There is a strong opportunity this year to frame one of the most ambitious global agreements in history. It will require flexing high-level diplomatic muscle on three different fronts. First, they need to build on the willingness to cooperate from latecomer countries like China, India, Brazil and the United States to close the dividing line between Annex 1 and Non-Annex 1 countries. Second, it is essential for them to address the concerns of the most vulnerable countries, like Tuvalu, and least developed countries, like Mali, to ensure a smooth flow of discussions. Third, they should reach out to countries like Venezuela, Ecuador and Saudi Arabia that consider a Climate Change accord as another plot for developed countries to get their way. This three-tier strategy will have to move forward while keeping an eye on talks behind closed doors at forums in which Mexico does not participate, as well as U.S. domestic politics. Mexico appears to have the diplomatic willingness to lead on this effort, and its international climate initiatives are not only sound and well-received but are also fairly consistent with its domestic policy. If President Calderon and his team manage to succeed, negotiations at COP 16 could be as rejuvenating as a sunny day at the beach.

This blog has been contributed by Juan Pablo Osornio, International Policy Analyst at the Center for Clean Air Policy in Washington DC, and Jonathan Pinzon, Research Director at Cassals & Associates in Mexico City.

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.

Copenhagen City Hall becomes "Hopenhagen" for COP15. But what are we hoping for?

Every single blog or website dedicated to the Copenhagen climate negotiations has embedded the “Countdown to Copenhagen” clock on their homepage – including Dateline: Copenhagen. The clock has ticked down to zero.  There are now less than 13 days before the 15^th Conference of the Parties wraps up. Since arriving in Copenhagen and listening to opening ceremony speeches and engaging in conversations with COP15 attendees of all types (youth delegates, environment representative for Qatar, NGO climate activists, and Copenhagen residents included), my idea of what will come of these two weeks has taken a different shape than before.

Up to this week, my vision for a Copenhagen outcome was defined by the statements from the big names: the UNFCCC’s Yvo de Boer, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, and U.S. President Barack Obama, to name a few. The sentiment of these statements was repeated in speeches and on signs and flyers all over the COP: “Seal the deal”, “Get it done!”, “successful outcome”, “long-term solution.”  Mr. de Boer even referred to the Copenhagen outcome as a Christmas Cake – an agreement with layered details on emissions targets and finance for mitigation, adaptation and technology transfer. And the icing on the cake would be “a shared vision on long-term cooperative action on climate change and a long-term goal.”

All of these terms dodged the true, original purpose of COP15: A legally-binding international treaty to follow-up and improve on the Kyoto Protocol. For the ordinary person, the term “legally binding” can be just as vague as all the other fluffy terms being thrown out. So I spoke to a lawyer who clarified things for me a bit. A legally binding treaty is essentially written into the laws of each ratifying country. It includes rules and regulations for monitoring countries’ compliance with the treaties and sets penalties for non-compliance. These penalties could take many forms including fines and UN sanctions. 

Much of the momentum going into COP15 was created by the statements made at G8, G20 and other major economies meetings and by bilateral statements such as those made in the past month by the United States, China, and India. These are political agreements. These are political deals that have been sealed, these are things that governments have already gotten done, these are the cakes that have been baked. A legally-binding treaty is the “it” that has yet to be forged and ratified by the parties to the UNFCCC. Among all the COP15 hoopla, this is where genuine ambition should be directed and it’s the goal that all those hoping for climate stabilization should have their sights on. 

In a pre-Copenhagen briefing for press last week, UNFCCC Chair Yvo de Boer summed up the now-revised outlook for COP15, which kicks off today in Copenhagen. De Boer made a repeated call for clarity: clarity on the emissions limits that all countries are willing to accept, clarity on actions that all countries are willing to take to mitigate their emissions, and clarity on the financial support that will go to developing countries for adapting to climate change effects. The hope is that negotiators, cheered on by a massive crowd of global climate action advocates, will negotiate an agreement that parts the fog that has gathered on international climate action.

The Worldwatch Institute is sending the largest delegation we have ever sent to a COP event. Vice President Robert Engelman will present his recent Climate and Population work for the United Nations. Senior Researcher Janet Sawin and Project Associate Amanda Chiu will launch their new report on renewable energy and efficiency, Renewable Revolution: Low-Carbon Energy by 2030. Worldwatchers Heidi VanGenderen and Saya Kitasei will officially launch the Institute’s new Natural Gas Initiative. India Fellow Anna da Costa will describe the design of our India Program at a high-level roundtable. And Worldwatch President Chris Flavin and Energy and I will weigh in on several panels throughout the week.

Our team will be enhanced by a number of top-motivated students from Stanford University as well as staff from the Bank Information Center. Expect to see both blogs and Eye on Earth stories throughout the two weeks from our team, including our staff writer Ben Block and COP15 chief of staff John Mulrow.

For an overview of Worldwatch events, please click [here]. We hope to return with relatively clear skies for climate action in 2010.

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.