Office of Climate Change
IN this edition we highlight key international climate change developments in the news over the last week, as nations continue preparations and negotiations in the period leading up to the UNFCCC COP 16, which will take place in Cancun, Mexico, in December this year.

Brazil to launch new deforestation monitoring system
Brazil will launch a new high resolution deforestation monitoring system that will be capable of detecting forest clearing under cloudy conditions.
According to Brazil’s Environment Minister, Izabella Teixeira, INDICAR – Imaging and Radar Deforestation Indicator – is being developed to improve Brazil’s already world-class deforestation monitoring capabilities.  The system will use data from the Japanese Space Agency’s ALOS satellite, which is equipped with both cloud-penetrating radar and optical sensors, enabling Brazil for the first time to measure forest loss when visibility is obscured by clouds.
Currently, Brazil monitors deforestation year round but does its annual accounting at the end of July when cloud extent is at a minimum in the Amazon.

REDD Plus
The REDD+ Partnership in Tianjin, China
Even the most optimistic observers could not help noticing that the REDD+ Partnership became bogged down in disagreement during last week’s UN climate meeting in Tianjin, China. The meetings were spent arguing about agenda, the level of ambition in the workplan, and civil society participation.

There has been much finger-pointing and blaming for the REDD+ Partnership shambles.  A workshop and technical meeting proposed for 25 October 2010, in parallel with the tenth Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 10) in Nagoya, Japan has been cancelled over a funding issue.

The only workplan that has been agreed is a short term plan to establish a database and do some assessments. Donors are reluctant to scale up the level of ambition of the partnership to deal with REDD Plus actions and financing and results based payments.

In the end, the Partnership agreed on the modalities for stakeholder participation, and a timeline for reviewing and agreeing on a workplan.

On the local REDD Plus scene, the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF), the financial mechanism for the ongoing cooperation on climate change between Guyana and Norway, was established and the first payment from Norway to the Fund of approximately US$30 million is now being processed.

It is expected that Norway will pay for Guyana’s performance on limiting greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and for progress made against governance-related indicators.

Guyana will invest the payments it receives, and any income earned on them, in implementing its Low-Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).

As part of the independent verification process on Guyana’s REDD Plus Enabling activities, the Norwegian Government has contracted the Rainforest Alliance to conduct an independent verification of Guyana Progress reports on REDD Plus  enabling indicators under the Norway Guyana MOU.

The Alliance is a United Sates-based environmental organisation that works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods. The consultants are receiving comments from a wide range of non-governmental organisations and civic society.  Upon completion, its report will be made public.

The Norwegian Ministry of the Environment is to conduct an independent verification of the cumulative accuracy of two Annual Progress Reports on REDD-plus Enabling Indicators. Guyana has completed two Annual Progress Reports: one for the period November to February.

Carbon Markets
Europe contemplates raising carbon target

European environment ministers are meeting in Brussels to debate whether the EU should increase its greenhouse gas emissions target for 2020 to a 30 per cent reduction against 1990 levels. The meeting follows the release of a joint declaration by many of the largest businesses in Europe urging ministers to formally upgrade the EU target from the current 20 per cent cut.

The statement was signed by 29 European companies from across a wide range of sectors. The Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, and WWF Climate Savers Programme, argues that there is a strong economic case for the EU to adopt more demanding targets.

“Moving to a 30 per cent emissions reduction target is a win-win for Europe,” it states. “As well as the numerous economic and social benefits of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, it will spur innovation and investment thus creating millions of new jobs in a low-carbon economy, with the global low-carbon goods and services sector estimated to be worth over €3.4tn (£2.97tn) and growing rapidly.”

The statement counters a series of protests from industrial trade groups who have warned that increasing the EU’s medium-term emission targets would drive up costs for carbon-intensive industries and damage European competitiveness, particularly if other countries such as the U.S. and China fail to agree to more ambitious targets.

The Brussels meeting is expected to see something of a stand-off between the UK, France, Germany and Denmark, who have all stated publicly that they want to see the 30 per cent target adopted, and several countries in Southern and Eastern Europe who have voiced concerns that upgrading the target would drive up the price of carbon and damage their economies.

Greg Barker, who will attend the meeting on behalf of the UK, signalled that ministers would also attempt to finalise where the EU stands on the Kyoto Protocol ahead of the Cancun summit.

Europe’s Kyoto targets and emissions from imported goods

The huge extent to which Europe has exported its global warming pollution is evident from two sharply contrasting reports on how much greenhouse gas emissions have fallen or risen since world leaders signed up to huge reduction targets in the Kyoto protocol.

The European Environment Agency reported that by the end of last year emissions produced by the current 27 member countries have fallen by more than 17% since 1990, putting them “well on track” to meet the target to meet the EU’s own pledge of a 20% reduction by 2020 .

However, a report due to be published soon by the Policy Exchange think tank, has measured the emissions generated by goods and services consumed by those countries and found that it has increased by more than 40%.

Although the Kyoto agreement only measures production, the stark difference in the figures highlights a key controversy in negotiations about a new treaty – which will continue at the big UN meeting in Cancún, Mexico, in December: some developing countries, such as China, argue they should not be held responsible for emissions generated by consumption in rich nations.

Hopes diminish for global treaty in Cancun

Hopes for the U.N. climate talks in Mexico in December have diminished, overshadowed by splits between the United States and China and by fears the 194-nation process is too unwieldy ever to work out a pact to slow global warming.

Most nations gave up hopes of an all-encompassing treaty to curb greenhouse gases in December.  Even the compromise of a series of balanced COP decisions on mature areas, for example to curb deforestation, is still not certain.
Last week in China, a final round of preparatory talks for Cancun was hit by disputes between Beijing and Washington, the top greenhouse gas emitters, about how to share responsibility for combating climate change.
The United States, where President Barack Obama has failed to persuade the Senate to agree emissions cuts by 2020, says China must do far more.  Beijing retorts that Washington must take the lead as the world’s richest economy.

U.N. panel says $100B climate aid goal feasible

At a meeting earlier last week, the U.N. high level advisory group agreed that it was feasible to raise a planned $100 billion a year in climate aid from 2020 and Norway’s Prime Minister said penalties on greenhouse gas emissions would be a key source.
Jens Stoltenberg, who co-chaired a final meeting of top experts in Addis Ababa with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, said the group would publish its report with recommendations to the United Nations in early November.
“We have concluded that it is challenging but feasible, and achievable to raise the $100 billion,” Stoltenberg said in a telephone interview to the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit. “Carbon pricing has to be one of the major sources of finance,” he said, adding there were many options, such as taxes on emissions of greenhouse gases from use of fossil fuels, or ways of tapping carbon markets.
“We will provide some analytical work, some guidelines and narrow down the different options which we believe are the most realistic and most viable,” he said.
“We have to combine different sources of finance, we need both public and private and we need also new sources of finance,” he said.
Stoltenberg said he hoped the group’s agreement that it was possible to raise $100 billion would help struggling U.N. talks on a new climate deal. Environment ministers meet in Cancun, Mexico, for annual talks on Nov 29-December 10. He called the issue of climate finance one of the most challenging of the talks.
Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo is a member of this high level finance advisory group.

Sources:
Monga Bay: http://news.mongabay.com/2010/1011-indicar_brazil.html
REDD Monitor:
http://www.redd-monitor.org/2010/10/12/how-the-redd-partnership-unravelled-in-tianjin/
The Guardian (UK):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/14/europe-carbon-target-30-per-cent
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/13/europe-kyoto-targets-emissions
Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69B62D20101012
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69C39F20101013?pageNumber=1


Prepared by the Office of Climate Change
October 14, 2010
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