Copenhagen

As world leaders fly home from the climate change summit, the agreement reached in Copenhagen could add up to nothing unless the funding offered is not double counted from existing aid promises.

Late last night an agreement was brokered by the US, China, South Africa, India and Brazil. This included $10bn a year in so called ‘fast track’ financing for the next 3 years and $100bn a year by 2020 for poor countries to cope with climate change. But currently these sums will largely be subtracted from promised resources to help these same countries fight poverty.

ONE has been campaigning hard against this dangerous double counting, which undermines both sustainable international development and a good global deal on climate change. Last week we handed over a petition from more than 80,000 ONE members to the Danish government, as chair of the summit, and the US delegation. We called on them to ensure that new funding is additional to existing and promised aid flows and that development promises are kept in full.

Here’s what ONE’s Executive Director Jamie Drummond had to say on the agreement that was reached last night:

“Climate change is putting additional stress on poor countries – which is why they need additional funds to cope with it – on top of existing and promised aid levels.

Promises of aid made by the G8 in Gleneagles in 2005 must not be lost in Copenhagen. Without a clear commitment that these climate funds are additional, the dollar amounts are next to meaningless.

This debate over ‘additionality’ might seem arcane, but within the details lie billions of dollars – and very real impacts on millions of lives. Without this additionality, Copenhagen adds up to nothing.

It is not clear how a cap on 2 degrees will be achieved, but it is very clear that much more can and must be done, including harnessing the potential of African and other developing countries to be renewable energy hubs and help capture carbon through growing trees.”

ONE supports the African proposal for an interim target of US$50bn by 2015 on top of existing and promised aid to help the poorest countries – many of them in Africa – with pressing adaptation needs. The “Copenhagen Accord” mentions a High Level Panel to assess how alternative sources of funding can contribute to raising genuinely additional funds.

This urgent High Level Task Force should be convened immediately to look into alternative sources of climate finance to complement additional public funding from rich countries. These sources could include: revenue from aviation and shipping, international auctioning of emissions allowances, a financial transactions tax and the proposal to use the IMF’s own currency, known as Special Drawing Rights. The need for accountability and transparency for these new funds is also paramount.

With the agreement in Copenhagen weaker than we hoped, we now know we have much more work ahead of us.

Yesterday I had the honour of speaking to Senegalese singer and guitarist Baaba Maal after he had performed at a special event here in Copenhagen.

Watch the video:

Baaba Maal, one of Africa’s most famous musicians, is attending the Copenhagen summit as the climate change ambassador for Africa Talks Climate, a ground-breaking research and communication initiative that explores the views of African citizens on climate change.

Baaba Maal performing at the event in Copenhagen last night

This morning as weary-eyed negotiators made their way to the Bella Center for the final 48 hour push in the climate negotiations which seemed all but deadlocked, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton caffeinated the room with big news – a US commitment to long-term financing for adaptation, mitigation, and deforestation for the world’s poorest people. One of the key hurdles to the negotiations to date has been this item of long term financing. Short term financing numbers, also referred to as the fast track fund, have been on the table for some time: a $10 billion per year commitment for years 2010, 2011, and 2012. The actual mechanism and its transparency are still being worked out, but commitments have been pouring in from the EU, Japan, and others towards the fast track fund, and the US has stated that it will contribute its fair share.

The long term, and the scale of the long term financing, has however been an issue with varied opinions and much debate. So this morning when the US announced its endorsement of long term financing, with a number attached to it – $100 billion per year by 2020 – the negotiations seemed to get rejuvenated. This number is also in line with the African proposal which calls for $10 billion per year in fast track funding for years 2010, 2011, and 2012; $50 billion per year by 2015; and scaling up to $100 billion per year by 2020. All of this is however, contingent on a global effort.

From Secretary Clinton’s announcement, “And today I’d like to announce that, in the context of a strong accord in which all major economies stand behind meaningful mitigation actions and provide full transparency as to their implementation, the United States is prepared to work with other countries toward a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the climate change needs of developing countries. We expect this funding will come from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance. This will include a significant focus on forestry and adaptation, particularly, again I repeat, for the poorest and most vulnerable among us.”

Read the full statement here:

For immediate release and posting.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
For Immediate Release December 17, 2009
2009/T17-1

(more…)

Check out this Copenhagen post from our friends at Manna Energy Limited. Manna Ltd. is installing several hundred water treatment systems, biogas generators, and high efficiency cook stoves across rural Rwanda, addressing the most critical public health and environmental challenges.

Mugonero sits atop a hill on the western border of Rwanda, accessible only by a red dirt road riddled with bumps and hairpin switchbacks. In a small chapel, on the grounds of a missionary hospital that overlooks the Congo and sparkling Lake Kivu, 3,000 people were massacred in 1994. The Mugonero community is still struggling with how to rebuild after these brutal acts.

Manna Energy Limited — a social enterprise founded to combine the carbon finance market with innovative technologies in an economically sustainable way — is committed to partnering with Mugonero and other communities across Rwanda to help implement sustainable, environmentally sound technologies for clean energy, clean water, and economic solutions that foster health, education and gender equality.

For example, in 2007 at the Mugonero Orphanage in Rwanda, Manna Ltd. and Engineers Without Borders – USA installed a treatment system that is now providing water for 100 AIDS and genocide orphans. As Victor Monroy, the Guatemalan director of the orphanage told us, “The Children’s Village did not have clean water available on-site for the past six years. The only available option to drink pure water was to boil it. Due to the long and relatively complicated process of boiling water, quite often the children decided not to boil the water and suffered from digestive and intestinal problems. Now there is plenty of pure water available to cover all the needs of the orphanage. We are convinced that the health of all our kids will improve considerably through the precious and abundant supply of pure drinking water.”

Manna Ltd. is working to expand these programs through the benefits of the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) by generating Carbon Emission Reductions (CERs) from the offset of firewood used to provide basic water and energy needs. We hope that the Copenhagen conference will further enable small-scale projects like these in Least Developed Countries (LDCs)—something that is especially important in LDCs that adopt a policy to offset the use of firewood by replacing it with renewable energy technologies. We also hope that the US will take a leading role in supporting these activities and similar US-based efforts.

With the magnitude of the destruction that occurred in Mugonero and the rest of Rwanda, the challenge of rebuilding the country is immense. Community leaders are working everyday towards improving the quality of life for everyone. But where you might expect a feeling of helplessness, there is instead a common determination to rebuild. Manna is committed to being a part of this effort. We hope those at Copenhagen are, too.

Check out the video below to learn more about Manna Energy Limited and all that we do.

-Evan Thomas, Executive Vice President, Manna Energy Limited

World leaders are arriving in Copenhagen Wednesday night and Thursday, but there has been slow progress in the negotiations. Therefore, they have to negotiate a long list of unsettled issues. Their very difficult task will be to build consensus – fast and wide-ranging. The pressure from personalities like Desmond Tutu, civil society and even the private sector is enormous.

Meanwhile, chances to get leaders to agree to “new and additional resources on top of existing and committed” funding are fading. There are two types of wording for additionality in the current draft [no consensus yet], one for fast track and one for long term financing.

Fast track funding (2010 – 2012) is supposed to be “new and additional”, which is to be interpreted as additional to existing ODA (funding) flows, whereas post 2012 funding is “scaled up, predictable new, additional and adequate.”

There will be a figure for 2010 – 2012 climate financing, presumably 10 billion, and an annex specifying the amounts per country. There seems to be relatively wide agreement on establishing REDD, but no intention to use carbon market mechanisms, so funding will come from the (limited) public sources. There is a general placeholder for aviation and maritime bunkers so support of a high level task force to investigate innovative financing seems sensible.

-Andreas Huebers, ONE’s German office

It’s week two of the climate talks. And while world leaders continue to confront the challenges of climate change in Copenhagen, Africans have been gathering together in their communities for months to share stories and search for solutions to help fight the effects.

Throughout the fall, Oxfam conducted dozens of these community-wide climate hearings across the African continent.

In the town of Assella, Ethiopia, over ten thousand people ran, walked, even rode to a local stadium to make their voices heard.

In Hadado, Kenya, a local man told the crowd, “I have never seen the situation this bad—there is no water at all. Cattle are our livelihoods, and when they are gone we have nothing left. Our children can’t go to school because they have to spend all day looking for water for the cattle. We desperately need another borehole and more water here.”

In Cape Town, South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu told a packed room that “We will drown if you don’t act. We are going down the tube together. Some might go in Mercedes Benz, others in local taxis.”

The Climate Hearings are an Oxfam project, as part of the tcktcktck.org Climate Campaign. Find out more about the Oxfam hearings in Africa here (don’t miss the photo essays, too)—and read about their global hearings here.

Just some notable names that are in Copenhagen this week: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Laureate Wangari Matthai, and many other leaders from across the spectrum – business, government, non-profit.

The US delegation is ramping up after a steady stream of cabinet officials the first week. Sen. John Kerry will be delivering a major speech here on Wednesday. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is making a surprise visit on Thursday. And President Obama is here on Friday. Other members of the US delegation on the ground are Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, and Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern.

Over 110 heads of state are expected for the high-level summit on Friday. Representing the Africa Group will be Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia.

National Public Radio ran a report on some of the tension and decision-making taking place in Copenhagen as African leaders aggressively advocate for the continent’s role in climate change negotiations.

You can listen to the full report here:

REDD. It stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. But even that term is now outdated; it is now REDD+. The plus has been added to include other forest management activities such as afforestation and sustainable land management. With the Congo Basin and so many other forest opportunities for Africa, the operationalization of REDD+ can benefit Africa in great scales.

The good news is that this issue is moving forward in Copenhagen and there is common will by both developed and developing countries to get it operationalized. Australia, the United States, G-77, and Alliance of Small Island States have all indicated support for finalizing REDD+ in Copenhagen.

As the second week of the Copenhagen climate change talks begins, it’s a good time to think about exactly why the negotiations matter so much to Africa.

So with help from our friends at WWF we’ve put together a series of personal testimonies showing how climate change is already affecting the continent today.

From Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya the story is a similar one. Climate change is not a crisis of developing countries’ making, yet the impacts of global warming are already hitting the world’s poorest people hardest.

Augustine Yelfaanibe from Ghana reports how rainfall has become less and less reliable making it harder for farmers to plan the planting of crops, whilst Nelly Damaris Chepkoskei from Kenya explains how changes in climate have led to an increase in cases of malaria:

“..one of the effects of the higher temperatures is the increased number of mosquitoes resulting in increased incidence of malaria in this district. This started in the 1980s. Now, people are even dying from malaria, something that was virtually unheard of 20-30 years ago.”

As the negotiations continue in Copenhagen, policy makers need to ensure that the voices of those affected by climate change are heard, and that they deliver a climate deal that meets the hopes and expectations of millions of people around the world.

As Rajabu Mohammed Soselo from Tanzania says:

“My community members, my family and I are very concerned about this. I do hope that governments will do whatever can be done to stop these climatic changes. I also hope that measures will be taken to help my community cope with all the changes in our local environment.”

We hope that world leaders are listening.

Read the stories and find out what you can do.