My Diaries

Bali – day 3 : how they work for us

5 December 2007 à 17:23

In the 2 weeks to come, I’ll be following for you the very important conference taking place in Bali between all countries that are part of the climate change mitigation effort. I hope I’ll be able to outline the main points of progress and I’ll try to make it so you can read only the text in bold, in order to make this big political talk a little bit more concrete and understandable for all of us, ordinary humans!

Coping strategies for the South (click to go to the article)

Describing progress so far, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, said that things are “looking good.” He pointed to the first meeting this afternoon of the contact group, an initiative of Conference President Rachmat Witoelar, which will discuss ways of reaching a future climate change agreement and how this agreement should be structured. In this context, Mr. de Boer stressed once again the fact that the Bali Conference will not finalize a post-2012 climate deal, but can ”put in place a two-year process to work towards such a deal.”

While there is major focus at the Conference on the future, Mr. de Boer highlighted the importance of maintaining a balance between future and current issues. He underlined the need not only to look at creating a long-term climate change regime, but also to pay attention to the problems facing many countries today. One of the key issues for developing countries is technology, and Mr. de Boer confirmed that the conference body on implementation, the SBI, has now begun discussing ways to implement the transfer of technology to developing countries.

A major focus of the briefing was on adaptation to climate change – an issue of increasing importance and urgency given the already visible as well as projected effects of climate change which are making adaptation inevitable even under the most optimistic scenarios.

Mr. de Boer referred to the wide-ranging impacts throughout the world, which include rising sea-levels, river flooding and increased exposure to water stress. He stated that help must be given to all developing countries to identify what adaptation action they need to take, and that this must be integrated into long-term development planning to make it sustainable.

”Governments here in Bali have indicated clearly that the time for concrete action has come,” he said, and that failing to take action would amount to ”a direct attack on the poor,” since it is the world’s poor who are the most vulnerable to climate change due to a lack of resources to adapt. He added that to carry out this action will require increased financial resources.

In response to strong criticism of the lack of resources for adaption, Mr. de Boer pointed to the significant potential of the Kyoto Protocol’s Adaptation Fund, which is a self-financing mechanism. Funds generated by the levy on the CDM already amount to USD 36 million, rising to USD 80-300 million per year in the period 2008-2012 if projects still in the pipeline are taken into account. Should there be a high demand for carbon credits under a post-2012 deal, this figure could further increase to 1-5 billion dollars a year. This is significant, he added, in that it avoids diverting vital development funding towards adaptation.

Governments have called for the Adaptation Fund to become operational under the Kyoto Protocol here in Bali, and for the need to secure access to the Fund on the part of developing countries.

On the separate issue of resources to fight deforestation, Mr. de Boer dispelled rumours that governments have agreed to set up a global fund for this purpose in the context of these negotiations.

First discussions have also been held on carbon capture and storage in geological formations. While strong interest has been expressed in this technology and in including it under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Mr. de Boer said that no decision will be taken at the Conference on this issue.

That’s all for today. The vocabulary used in this article is a bit traumatizing. Here are some hints:

UNFCCC : United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It is the unmemorizable name given to the group of countries which decided, in 1992, to work together in order to fight against climate change. It is also the name given to the gatherings of these countries. Read more here.
Bali : that’s the name of a province of Indonesia. It is the place that was chosen to hold the 2007 UN Climate Change Conference. The UNFCCC has its conferences on different cities of the world every time. It is an easy way to make each host country both proud and concerned about the subject (climate change, I remind you)
Conference of Parties : the UNFCCC (in short : the Convention) is divided into bodies. The Conference of Parties (COP) is the “supreme” body, its highest decision-making authority. It is an association of all the countries that are Parties to the Convention. Read more here.
SBI : the Subsidiary Body for Implementation. As its name states it, it is a subsidiary body of the UNFCCC whose role it to give advice to the COP about everything that concerns implementation of the Convention. Read more here.
Kyoto Protocol : why, don’t tell me you don’t know that. If you’re “in” you can also call it “KP”. Read more here.
Kyoto Protocol’s Adaptation Fund : the Adaptation Fund was established to finance concrete adaptation projects and programs in developing countries that are Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. It is financed with a share of proceeds from clean development mechanism (CDM) project activities as well as other sources. Read more here.
CDM : Clean Development Mechanism. It’s a KP mechanism to reduce green house gases (GHG) emissions. The principle : you build/finance a clean technology in a place (Annex II country) where it couldn’t have been done without your financing, and you get carbon credits for it. Read more here.
JI : Same as CDM, but for Annex I countries. Read more here.
IPCC : Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A brilliant group of scientists specialized on climate change. They study and compile all studies made about climate change in the whole world, and summarize the prevailing conclusions. That made a scary report in 3 volumes called “Climate Change 2007″. They also work on models that tell us how much warmer the Earth is getting, how quickly and how bad it could get depending on what actions we take -or don’t. Their last work was to summarize the solutions that exist to fight climate change, and to propose it to the politicians. That’s also the point of this 2007 UN Conference on Climate Change, I mean to make politicians finally take some decisions (uh bad word!). Read more about IPCC here.
CC : why, Climate Change! If you want to show that you know what you’re talking about, you can use “CC”.