Bangkok Climate Change Talks
Three months after the landmark agreement on a road map towards strengthened international action on climate change reached in Bali, Indonesia, the next round of negotiations shifts to the neighboring country of Thailand and its capital, Bangkok. The talks are taking place between 31 March to 4 April 2008 at the United Nations Conference Centre (UNCC) of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
The climate change talks in Bangkok will convene sessions of both the Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (first session) and the Ad hoc Working Group on further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (first part of the fifth session), during which Parties need to advance the Bali Road Map agreed last December.
Parties agreed at Bali to formally launch negotiations on enabling the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention. These negotiations need to conclude in an agreed outcome by the end of 2009.
The challenge is to design a future agreement that will successfully halt the increase in global emissions within the next 10-15 years, dramatically cut back emissions by 2050, and do so in a way that is economically viable and politically equitable worldwide.
The Bangkok meeting of the Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention needs to map out how to tackle this enormous challenge and begin by establishing without delay a clear work programme for the next two years.
Concretely, Parties meeting in Bangkok will identify the areas that need to be further clarified as well as the issues where work needs to be done and in what order that should happen. They will also establish what input is needed from the UN at large, the business sector and others, and how this will be integrated into the overall work plan.
The issues that the new Working Group needs to address were clearly defined at Bali. In addition to the goal of achieving agreement on long-term global action, work on on-going issues such as deforestation and technology needs to be advanced.
The Kyoto Protocol AWG, mandated in 2005 to consider future commitments for Annex I Parties, will initiate the second step of its work programme; in particular, the analysis of possible means available to Annex I Parties to reach their emission reduction targets. It will provide an informal setting for input from experts and for Parties to present their views on the issues related to the different means, as well as on how to enhance their effectiveness and contribution to sustainable development. Issues under consideration include emissions trading and the project based mechanisms, land use, land-use change and forestry, greenhouse gases, sectors and source categories to be covered, and possible approaches targeting sectoral emissions. These themes will be addressed in an in-session thematic workshop.
For both groups, work will continue at the twenty-eighth session of the Subsidiary Bodies to be held in Bonn in June. After that, both groups will reconvene at a week-long intersessional meeting at the end of August before meeting again at the fourteenth session of the Conference of the Parties and the fourth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Poland in December.
Are 1990 Levels by 2020 a Sufficient Cut?
The Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill (S. 2191), which Sen. Boxer said may come to the floor before June, sets a cap of 15% below 2005 emissions levels by 2020 for covered sectors, reducing allowed emissions to the amount last seen in 1990.
Is that near-term target sufficient, in terms of the science?
As Holmes Hummel points out, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) paints a much different picture.
At Bali, all of the Annex I signatories to the Kyoto Protocol (every industrialized country other than the US and Turkey) agreed to this roadmap, which states in convoluted language that the Annex I countries “noted” that the AR4 indicates that global emissions “need to peak in the next 10-15 years” and be reduced “well below half of levels in 2000” by 2050 “in order to stabilize their concentrations in the atmosphere at the lowest levels assessed by the IPCC to date in its scenarios.” The countries also “recognized” that the AR4 indicates that to achieve those levels “would require Annex I Parties as a group to reduce emissions in a range of 25–40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.”
25-40% below 1990 levels is dramatically below the Lieberman-Warner target. From AR4, these “lowest levels” of concentrations are 350-400ppm CO2.
What’s the value of achieving concentrations “at the lowest levels”? The report says that using the “best estimate” for climate sensitivity (the temperature response to greenhouse gas concentrations), reaching a stable concentration of 350-400ppm CO2 leads to 2.0-2.4 degrees C warming above pre-industrial levels. But Hummel notes that the “best estimate” is just one for which half the estimates are higher and half are lower.
Thus:
To have a 50% chance of making the 2°C stabilization target, global emissions need to peak by 2015 and Annex I countries need to be 25-40% below 1990 by 2020.As AAAS president John Holdren argued in his speech Meeting the Climate Change (at 38:29; see also the slide presentation):
The chance of a tipping point into truly catastrophic change grows rapidly for increases in the global average surface temperature more than about 2°C above the pre-industrial level, and again we’re already committed basically to one and a half. For a better than even chance of not exceeding 2°C above the pre-industrial level, CO2 emissions must peak globally no later than 2025 and they need to be falling steadily after that. That is a great task.From the UN Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development, an international panel of 18 top scientists (including John Holdren):
In our judgment and that of a growing number of other analysts and groups, however, increases beyond 2°C to 2.5°C above the 1750 level will entail sharply rising risks of crossing a climate “tipping point” that could lead to intolerable impacts on human well-being, in spite of all feasible attempts at adaptation.
Administration Perspectives on United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali
The House begins a new round of global warming hearings this year.
Witness- James Connaughton, chairman, White House Council on Environmental Quality
CLIMATE: Key Republican deals blow to House Dems’ emissions plans (01/17/2008)Darren Samuelsohn, Greenwire senior reporter
The top Republican on a key House subcommittee signaled today he won’t support a global warming bill that puts mandatory limits on heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
“While I feel strongly that addressing climate change is certainly important, I believe we must address this through a global, voluntary framework that focuses on innovations in technology rather than a pure government mandate,” said Michigan’s Fred Upton, the new ranking member of the House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee.
Upton replaced former House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois this year as the senior Republican on the panel that is tasked with writing climate legislation. During last year’s global warming debate, Hastert’s efforts and comments raised some Democrats’ hopes that he would support a bipartisan agreement on curbing U.S. emissions.
But Hastert resigned from Congress late last year, leaving an opening for Upton, an 11-term lawmaker from Michigan’s southwestern corner.
In his opening statement at the subcommittee’s first hearing this year, Upton poured cold water on the prospect that Democrats will get help from the top of the Republican roster.
“At the end of the day, we’ll need to demonstrate that the price paid in both jobs and dollars equates to some tangible environmental benefits to the American people,” Upton said. “In my view, spending trillions of dollars and losing a countless number of jobs, to maybe alter temperatures by a tenth of a degree, while China and India continue to spew emissions is not the option that we’re looking for.”
Democratic leaders of the House subcommittee and full committee did not outline a specific schedule for crafting a climate bill. But they did promise they would make an effort early this year to write and pass legislation establishing a cap-and-trade program that limits U.S. emissions.
In his own opening statement, House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) affirmed his goal of getting GOP backing as he led the writing of a climate bill.
“This will require bipartisan cooperation, and I hope that my friends on the other side will come to the task with an open mind,” Dingell said.
While committee leaders are seeking bipartisanship agreement on the controversial bill, it wouldn’t necessarily be required to pass the measure out of the full Energy and Commerce panel where Democrats have a five-seat majority.
In an interview, Dingell said he didn’t want to comment on Upton’s remarks at the start of the hearing.
Upton wasn’t the only Republicans on the House panel who raised concerns about a cap-and-trade bill. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), the full committee’s ranking member, questioned the underlying science linking humans’ emissions to climate change. CEQ chief testifies
Also during the hearing, Dingell nudged President Bush’s top environmental adviser, Jim Connaughton, who submitted a one-page opening statement for the hearing, plus a month-old slide show and past statements by President Bush.
Passing a climate bill “will require as well the active engagement of the administration, which remains to be seen,” Dingell said. “Judging from the rather thin testimony presented to the subcommittee by our witness today, however, I am less than optimistic.”
Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, told lawmakers his brief written remarks shouldn’t leave the impression the administration was making light of the climate issue.
He testified the U.N. agreement reached last month in Bali – which commits developed and developing nations to reaching a deal by 2009 that succeeds the Kyoto Protocol – is now Bush administration climate policy.
After Bali – the UN Conference and the Impact on International Climate Change Policy
Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will hold a hearing next week on the international climate negotiations now wrapping up in Bali, Indonesia.
Chairman Markey and other members of the Select Committee will host climate experts returning from Bali to discuss the climate conference and suggest an effective path forward on global warming for the United States and the international community.
Witnesses- Philip Clapp, President, National Environmental Trust
- Myron Ebell, Director, Energy and Global Warming Policy, Competitive Enterprise Institute
- Alden Meyer, Director of Strategy and Policy, Union of Concerned Scientists
- Ned Helme, President, Center for Clean Air Policy
- Christiana Figueres, Former Official Negotiator, U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, Costa Rica
United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali
The UNFCCC will convene at Bali to set the post-Kyoto roadmap in five interrelated meetings: COP-13, CMP-3, SBSTA-27, SBI-27, and Resumed AWG-4.
Overall agenda
An international agreement needs to be found to follow the end of the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period, which ends in 2012. In order to avoid a gap between then and the entry into force of a new framework, the aim is to conclude a new deal by 2009 to allow enough time for ratification.
The “Bali roadmap” would establish the process to work on the key building blocks of a future climate change regime, including adaptation, mitigation, technology cooperation and financing the response to climate change. But it would also need to set out the methodology and detailed calendar of work for this process.
A major step forward was taken at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm in June, where the G8 leaders agreed to negotiate a post-2012 deal within the United Nations framework, with the goal to have an agreement in place by 2009. Significantly, this was supported by the Group of 5 countries with emerging economies: China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.
In September, the United Nations Secretary-General hosted an unprecedented high-level event on climate change in New York, attended by over 80 heads of state or government. This was an expression of the political will of world leaders at the highest level to tackle climate change through concerted action, and they gave a clear call for a breakthrough at the conference in Bali. It was followed by the Major Economies Meeting on Climate Change and Energy Security in Washington on 27 and 28 September, where the United States government clearly voiced its desire to contribute to the UNFCCC process.
The abbreviations refer to:- Conference of the Parties (COP), Thirteenth session.
- Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), Third session.
- Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), Twenty-seventh session.
- Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), Twenty-seventh session.
- Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG), Fourth session (resumed from August Vienna session)
Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change 1
The United States is committed to collaborating with other major economies to agree on a detailed contribution for a new global framework by the end of 2008, which would contribute to a global agreement under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change by 2009.
To this end, President Bush asked Secretary Rice to host a meeting of major economies in Washington, D.C., on September 27 – 28, 2007. Bush intends to address the conference. At this meeting, we would seek agreement on the process by which the major economies would, by the end of 2008, agree upon a post-2012 framework that could include a long-term global goal, nationally defined mid-term goals and strategies, and sector-based approaches for improving energy security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, we expect to place special emphasis on how major economies can, in close cooperation with the private sector, accelerate the development and deployment of clean technologies, a critical component of an effective global approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. James L. Connaughton, Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, will serve as Bush’s personal representative.
- United States (host)
- European Union (Current EU President and European Commission) Plus
- France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom
- Japan
- China
- Canada
- India
- Brazil
- South Korea
- Mexico
- Russia
- Australia
- Indonesia
- South Africa
- United Nations
Club of Madrid Proposal for a Post-Kyoto Framework
Yesterday the Club of Madrid, the organization of 66 democratic former heads of stated, unveiled a proposal for the international climate change framework to be developed at the Conferences of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali this December. Glenn Hurwitz covers the proposal at Grist.
The brief summary: An international framework with a global target of 60% below 1990 levels by 2050; developed countries should be at 30% below by 2020 and rapidly developing countries should lower their energy intensity by 30% by 2020 and follow emissions targets thenceforth. A carbon price should be set by a globally linked cap-and-trade system with auctioned credits or preferably by universal carbon taxes. $20 billion should be spent annually on energy R&D and an annual fund of $50 billion should go to developing countries for adaptation, avoided deforestation, and clean energy development and deployment—the latter including renewable energy and energy efficiency. IP barriers to clean energy technologies should be dropped.
The full recommendations are past the break.
1. Bali: In addition to setting a timetable for negotiating a comprehensive post-2012 agreement, the Parties should agree in Bali on four pathways for negotiation that address mitigation, adaptation, technology, and finance. Initial draft articles should be presented to the Conference of the Parties in 2008 as a first step towards concluding a new and comprehensive agreement in 2009.
2. UNFCCC: Given the scale of response required, and in order to avoid the most adverse impacts of climate change, there should be a comprehensive post-2012 agreement under the auspices of the UNFCCC. Targeted agreements – for example, on industrial sectors, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and technology cooperation – should be encouraged and incorporated within a new comprehensive agreement.
3. Targets and timetables: All countries should commit to reduce collectively global emissions by at least 60% below the 1990 level by 2050. Developed countries should take the lead in emissions reduction by adopting effective targets and timetables. As a first step, this could include a commitment to reduce their collective emissions by 30% by 2020. Rapidly industrializing countries should commit to reduce their energy intensity by 30% by 2020 (an average of 4% per year) and agree to emissions reduction targets afterwards. Other developing countries should commit to an energy intensity target differentiated by their responsibilities and capabilities. The international community should develop a monitoring and review system and clear criteria for determining when and how various categories of countries should assume stronger climate commitments.
4. Renewable energy and energy efficiency: Long-term policies, as well as measurable and verifiable targets, should be adopted by all countries to increase substantially the use of renewable energy and to promote greater efficiency in energy production and use. In addition, global standards for end-use efficiency should be developed and adopted.
5. Avoided deforestation: To reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide cost-effectively, a full range of interventions to create and maintain biological sinks of carbon should be included in a post-2012 climate change regime in order to capture the many co-benefits of sustainable livelihoods, land management, forestry, and biodiversity conservation.
6. Carbon pricing: In order to deliver the greatest climate benefits efficiently and effectively, a carbon price should be set through carbon taxes or trading. The preferable mechanism is a system of harmonized, universal carbon taxes. For a cap-and-trade system, well functioning and financially linked carbon markets need to be developed across the globe, incorporating various national and regional cap-and-trade programs. Emissions allowances should be auctioned, thus raising resources that can be allocated by national governments for other purposes, such as clean energy development and adaptation.
7. Adaptation: A post-2012 climate agreement should address both mitigation and adaptation. Adaptation should be seen as part of sustainable development and strategies to alleviate poverty. It should include vulnerability assessments, enhancing resilience to climate impacts, access to information and best practices, building human and institutional capacity, and making public and private investments in developing countries less susceptible to climate change. A substantial package of financial support, including public and private funds, should be established (see Recommendation 11). Centers for Adaptation in Agriculture should be established, particularly by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research in Africa.
8. Energy R&D: Recent declines in investments for energy research and development should be reversed. Research, development and demonstration of more efficient and less costly energy technologies, such as advanced solar thermal technologies, as well as carbon capture and storage, should be a high priority. Aggregate public expenditures should be increased to US$20 billion per year.
9. Clean energy deployment: In order to tackle climate change at the requisite scale, clean energy technologies should be made available and utilized by all countries. All developing countries, especially rapidly industrializing countries, should have access to clean energy technologies on preferential terms. The barriers that hamper the dissemination of such technologies in developing countries, such as intellectual property rights and competitive rules, should be overcome. In order to encourage collaboration on a “clean technology revolution,” the formation of a “Consultative Group on Clean Energy Research” should be considered as part of a global climate agreement. Innovation targets to bring new technologies to market, as well as incentives for meeting them, should also be considered.
10. Sustainable development financing: The Clean Development Mechanism should be reformed in order to deliver its full potential during the 2008-2012 commitment period, and in the post-2012 regime an additional market mechanism should support sectoral approaches capable of transforming whole sectors of rapidly industrializing countries at a speed commensurate with the challenge of taking emissions reductions to global scale.
11. Funding: Finance is a critical element of any strategy to address climate change effectively. A climate fund of additional resources, starting at US$10 billion and growing to US$50 billion per year, should be established to support climate change activities in developing countries (adaptation, avoided deforestation, and clean energy development and deployment) and should include both public and private resources. It should have an innovative structure and governance that is transparent and inclusive. In addition, existing mechanisms, such as the Global Environment Facility and the Multilateral Development Banks, should be strengthened and their resources enhanced to continue their important work in demonstrating new approaches, building human and institutional capacity, and leveraging private finance.