THIS article summarises key developments over the last week in the field of climate change internationally leading up to the UN Climate Change Conference which will take place in Cancun, Mexico in December this year, as well as developments here in Guyana..
National
Under Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative,  up to three billion Norwegian Kroner per year has been pledged to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD). Norway’s partners include Brazil, Tanzania, Congo Basin, Indonesia and Guyana.

In order to progressively assess the results of the initiative against its objectives, the Norwegian Development Cooperation (NORAD) has organised a real time evaluation in the partner countries starting in 2010. It will assess the extent to which the initiative is achieving its climate-related goals, as well as whether it contributes to the general goals of NORAD (such as sustainable development and poverty reduction).

An independent consulting group, LTS International, has been assigned to carry out the evaluation under a framework agreement covering a four-year period (2010-2013).  The approach will involve a range of evaluation activities to be repeated at regular intervals during the life of the initiative, (hence, real time evaluation).

LTS has conducted its first mission to Guyana, in which they met key government agencies, the LCDS Multi-Stakeholder Steering Committee, as well as the wider stakeholders in civic society.
International
Climate Financing
Climate aid reaches $30 billion goal but analysts do not believe that it is new funding
Aid promises from rich nations to help poor countries slow global warming are reaching the $30 billion goal agreed in Copenhagen but analysts say much of that is old funding dressed up as new pledges.
Many poor nations say “new and additional” means cash above an unmet 1970 U.N. target for rich nations to give 0.7 percent of their gross national product in aid — OECD figures show that aid totaled $120 billion, or 0.31 percent of developed countries’ combined GNP, in 2009.
According to the Copenhagen Accord, aid is meant to surge to $100 billion a year from 2020.

REDD Plus
Carbon project market leads with REDD methodology
The landmark approval of a carbon accounting methodology to underpin REDD projects in Asia shows the project-based voluntary carbon market leading the way in the development of mechanisms to halt the destruction of climate-critical tropical forests.
Last week, project proponents announced they had won the first approval for a project methodology under the Voluntary Carbon Standard for REDD activities. The methodology for calculating carbon emissions savings from forest preservation will be applied to a project attacking deforestation on its frontline – conserving 100,000 hectares of peatland forest in the Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve in Indonesia’s Kalimantan province on the island of Borneo. The Rimba Raya project aims to prevent up to 75 million tonnes of CO2 emissions over 30 years by preventing rainforest being cleared for plantations.
Project developers, InfiniteEarth and Gazprom Marketing and Trading, the chief proponents of the Rimba Raya project, had plenty of support for the development of the methodology from a large number of stakeholders, private and public. These include the Clinton Foundation, Shell, Winrock International and Orangutan Foundation International.
While Voluntary Carbon Standard  certification for Rimba Raya would produce verifiable  carbon credits for sale into the voluntary carbon market, there is also the possibility that such VCS credits could receive official recognition, and hence be tradable, under a future UN REDD scheme.

Brazil’s deforestation shrinks to record low
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has reached a record low since 2004, local research institutes and officials said Tuesday. Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) announced that deforestation in the country’s Amazon rainforest region totaled 2,295.87 square km in the August 2009 to July 2010 period, down 47.5 percent from the August 2008 to July 2009 period.

Deforestation  accentuates Pakistan catastrophe
According to new reports, Pakistan’s horrendous floods were a disaster waiting to happen, when the destructive effects of intense – but not unprecedented – rains were magnified by a deforested landscape and huge stockpiles of illegally-felled logs.

Other News
U.N. climate panel urged to reform and stick to science
The U.N. climate panel should only make predictions when it has solid evidence and should avoid policy advocacy, scientists said in a report on Monday that called for thorough reform of the body.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was hit with a wave of criticism after acknowledging in January that its 2007 global warming report had exaggerated the pace of Himalayan glaciers melting. It had previously said the report overstated how much of the Netherlands is below sea level.
However, U.N. Secretary-General Bank Ki-moon has acknowledged while there were a small number of mistakes in IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (FAR) published in 2007, a document of more than 3,000 pages that cited more than 10,000 scientific papers,  the fundamental conclusions were correct.
The UN has been concerned that focusing only on IPCC errors could undermine the broader U.N. message that climate change is a real phenomenon requiring urgent action. The next IPCC report on climate change will be published in 2014.

U.N. to study impact of incomplete climate action
The U.N. panel of climate scientists will look at the costs of “second best” ways of fighting global warming amid doubts that all countries will sign up to U.N-led action, a leading expert said on Tuesday.
Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the U.N. working group on  the economics of global warming, said the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report had assumed that all countries would take part and that new technologies for curbing greenhouse gases would be available.
The next reports will include other options. He indicated that they intend to carry out ‘second best’ scenarios, where they will assume that there is a fragmented climate regime, where there is limited availability of technologies, to describe a much more realistic policy space.

Six Caribbean countries endorse Copenhagen Accord
Six Caribbean countries have now endorsed the Copenhagen Accord, a key outcome of the 15th UN climate change conference held in Denmark last December.
They include Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, the Bahamas, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica. The six states join 131 other countries of the world, including small-island developing states such as the Maldives in endorsing the accord
“It is not that the Caribbean countries agree with the accord, but that there are things in the accord that the region can take advantage of,” said Ulric Trotz, science adviser to the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre. “Our official position really is, accept the accord in the sense that you write to the UNFCCC, but at the same time you should mention reservations.”

Carbon Trading
Japan’s compulsory emissions trading scheme is set to start in April 2013 and cover large CO2 emitting companies, a draft of the government’
s proposals showed on Monday, but several issues are still open to debate.
Industry watchers say Asia’s renewable energy market will be worth some US$50-55 billion over the next five to 10 years and emission trading in the region could start to gain traction as policy makers focus on developing a definitive agreement to fight climate change. The awareness around climate change and emissions reduction is building up. And experts say Asia holds a huge potential for the development of renewable energy projects.
Figures from the United Nations showed that as of July this year, there were 2,300 clean development (CDM) projects globally, up 35 per cent over the last year.  Three quarters of the projects were in Asia. Observers say this presents a huge potential for the development of a carbon credits market in the region.
“Africa may be the next major market for carbon-reduction ventures amid investigations into Chinese certification particularly as the European Union imposes new regulations,” the International Emissions Trading Association said.
“Africa is turning into a major source of premium Clean Development Mechanism projects,” Henry Derwent, chief executive officer and president of the Geneva-based group, said in an interview before the Carbon Forum Asia conference in October.
The world’s least developed region accounts for about three percent of the project pipeline under the United Nations CDM mechanism designed to generate certified emission-reduction units, or CERs, for eliminating emissions from greenhouse gases such as methane, Derwent said in Singapore.
Prepared by the Office of Climate Change
September, 2010
For additional information, please contact:
Office of Climate Change, Office of the President
Shiv Chanderpaul Drive, Georgetown
Tel. 223-5205
Email: info@lcds.gov.gy , Web Site: www.lcds.gov.gy