A.M.

On Friday, The White House raised expectations for major decisions to be made in Copenhagen. The White House announced that the President will now be traveling to the climate conference on December 18, as opposed to the previous date of December 9. The end of summits is usually when major decisions are agreed upon by world leaders. The statement in part read, “based on his conversations with other leaders and the progress that has already been made to give momentum to negotiations, the President believes that continued US leadership can be most productive through his participation at the end of the Copenhagen conference.”

The statement also made clear the commitment to find funding to help poor countries adapt to the impacts of climate change. The White House said, “…there appears to be an emerging consensus that a core element of the Copenhagen accord should be to mobilize $10 billion a year by 2012 to support adaptation and mitigation in developing countries…” The World Bank recently reported approximately 20 – 22 percent of any climate financing should be dedicated to Africa. That number, based on our analysis, rises to approximately 30 percent for Africa in the early years due to sectors needing immediate attention like health, agriculture and water.

Read the full statement by clicking “more” below:

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On Wednesday the heads of the world’s leading international financial institutions signed a joint statement in anticipation of the Copenhagen summit. They committed to using their expertise and resources to confront the challenges of climate change.

Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development Bank, said: “The impact of climate change on Africa is already evident. It adds a significant additional burden to existing challenges of poverty, of inadequate access to energy, water, and basic infrastructure. Additional resources are needed urgently to help Africa adapt, to protect its lakes and forests, and to maintain growth. Together we must rise to these challenges; the African Development Bank stands ready to play its part.”

World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said: “Climate change is one of the most complex challenges of our young century. No country is immune. No country alone can take on the interconnected challenges posed by climate change, including difficult political decisions, daunting technological change, and far-reaching global consequences. Changes of this magnitude will require substantial additional finance for adaptation and mitigation, and for intensified research to scale up promising approaches and explore bold ideas. It is crucial that countries integrate development needs with climate actions.”

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that the global economic crisis must not distract us from tackling the important issue of climate change. “Sustaining the recovery and putting in place effective climate change policies can be mutually reinforcing with the right policies implemented resolutely,” he said. “Global cooperation, including among international financial institutions, will help countries to confront the challenges from climate change. These require innovative and long-term solutions, which have a part to play in supporting the recovery and sustainable growth. The IMF can assist in its areas of expertise to advise on policies and support countries that are most vulnerable to economic and climate challenges,” Strauss-Kahn noted.

Their full statement is here.

With just days to go before the Copenhagen summit, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) has laid down a marker, a $3 billion marker, to help poor countries.

In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday, Kerry wrote, “The global community has agreed that $10 billion is required annually in fast-start financing to support immediate international climate change priorities. The United States must be prepared to contribute its fair share of this obligation.” Senator Kerry is the lead author of the Senate climate change legislation and also serves as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The full letter is below:

December 1, 2009

The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Secretary Clinton:

We are approaching a critical juncture in the global effort to address the urgent challenge of climate change. For the first time in over a decade, the United States is poised to play a strong leadership role in this debate. As articulated in the Bali Action Plan, a core element of any international climate change agreement must be a substantial climate finance package.

The United States Congress has already indicated its support for such a package. The House of Representatives dedicated 7% of the allowance value from a cap and trade system to international efforts to promote clean energy technologies, reduce emissions from deforestation, and address adaptation needs. The legislation moving through the Senate includes similar levels of funding for these priorities.

However, we face a large gap between the international climate funds committed in the President’s FY10 budget (approximately $1.2 billion) and the expected revenue that will be generated from a cap-and-trade program beginning in 2012. It is critical that we advance these base funding levels to enable our agencies to ramp up programs to address adaptation, clean energy deployment and deforestation in developing countries. Key agencies, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), are not yet equipped to absorb the significant increase in financing we expect through a comprehensive climate change package. For example, the FY10 budget includes only $140 million for USAID’s forest-related activities, an order of magnitude less than the funds that are likely to be dedicated through climate change legislation.

In addition, as we approach the Copenhagen climate change negotiations, the global community has agreed that $10 billion is required annually in fast-start financing to support immediate international climate change priorities. The United States must be prepared to contribute its fair share of this obligation.

Therefore, I urge you to include $3 billion in international climate finance in the FY11 budget to support our short-term climate finance obligations and create the necessary glide path to enable our federal agencies to fully and effectively utilize the increased resources Congress will make available to them through climate change legislation.

Thank you for your leadership in addressing global climate change, and I look forward to working with you to secure these critical resources.

Sincerely,

John F. Kerry

Over the past two weeks, President Obama in meetings with President Hu of China and Prime Minister Singh of India, separately, discussed climate change and the possibilities for a meaningful accord in Copenhagen.

And today, the White House announced President Obama will go to Copenhagen for the climate change summit. The President will attend the conference on December 9. The Joint High-Level portion of the conference with Ministers and Heads of Delegations will be taking place December 15 – 17; the full conference takes runs from December 7 – 18.

You’ve heard a little bit from us at ONE about the Copenhagen Climate Change negotiations that will be taking place in December. As policy makers prepare to meet to negotiate a global climate deal next month in Copenhagen, everyone at ONE will be doing their utmost to ensure the best possible deal for the world’s poorest communities, especially in Africa. We want to share what we hope emerges from the Copenhagen negotiations.

In advance of the meeting ONE has released a new policy paper ‘Africa and the Global Climate Deal’ that outlines the key elements of ‘good’ deal for Africa.

On helping developing countries cope with the effects of climate change, we agree that scaling up to the World Bank estimate of $75-100 billion annually is appropriate. This should come from both private and public finance sources, with contributing countries ensuring that the money is truly additional to pledges that have already been made on development assistance.

We also want to see the global community agree to invest in Africa’s potential for clean energy and “carbon sinks.” A carbon sink is a tool that accumulates and stores some carbon-containing chemical compound and can be used to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (for example, forests and soil). You can read more about the technologies involved and the mechanisms used to invest in these types of resources in our policy paper, but in short, Africa possesses great opportunity to contribute to offset some of the existing carbon emissions.

Climate change is not a crisis of Africa’s making, yet it is Africans, especially the poorest, who will suffer the first and the worst. Not only does it add yet another challenge for those struggling to combat extreme poverty and disease by exacerbating the conditions of poverty, but it threatens to erode the gains that have been made in recent years.

We need the negotiators at Copenhagen to simply know that they cannot afford to fail the world’s poorest people.