Monday 30th March:  The state of negotiations in Bonn.

This is a blog-post for the policy addicts who sadly can’t be in Bonn. If you’re not a policy-wonk, be warned - this post contains too many acronyms to be healthy.

The update here has been provided by the wonderful Thomas Spencer, a 22 year-old Australian expat living in Germany - a specialist in REDD issues and Russia.

Read on in this post for what happened today on:

• Reduction targets for Annex 1 (ie, the rich countries)
  
• Cash - SIDS (Small Island Developing States), LDCs, and India called for specific adapatation funding commitments
• REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in developing countries) - and Australia’s backwards stance
• SIDS and LDCs - crying out for progressive mitigation targets

And while all this was going on, Saudi Arabia took every opportunity to whining about the need to have a ‘low emissions’ future not a ‘low carbon’ one, and the need for them to be paid ‘adapatation’ funding so they can ‘adapt’ their fossil-fuel industries into something else. No specific mention of what they’d be transitioning to…

From Thomas Spencer:

Numbers, numbers, numbers.

“It seems that these talks will be much more focused on getting the concrete numbers that we need from Annex 1 Parties than has been the case at previous meetings since Bali - both concerning Annex 1 mitigation targets and the scale of their financial support for mitigation, adaptation and REDD in developing countries.”

Reduction targets for Annex 1

“An interesting development saw a little spat in the AWG-KP (one of the two big ‘negotiating tracks’ in the UNFCCC process), with certain parties from Annex 1 looking to focus discussion on the accounting rules for LULUCF (’Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry’, aka ‘Forests and farms in rich countries’) and on the Flexible Mechanisms too. The chair resisted this and tried to focus talk on the scale of reductions required from Annex 1 countries. In the end a compromise was reached, with two contact groups (smaller negotiating groups) being formed on LULUCF and Flexible Mechanisms, which were explicitly asked to finish their work in a timely manner so that the AWG-KP can move on to consider other matters – i.e. scale of reductions for Annex 1 countries.

“There are also rumors doing the rounds that the G77 and China is considering coming up with the a specific number for Annex 1 reductions, e.g. -40%, a move which should be supported by all of us. America remains the wild card, with question of assigning it a feasible “comparable effort” one of the absolute key stones of the negotiations. In the light of the USA’s comments concerning “unrealistic” demands for financing (see below), a “reduction + additional financing” kind of target approach for the US seems difficult to get. Todd Stern called for “more than -15% by 2020”-  previous position was -14%- which is 1) not enough, and considering that as a result of the financial crisis emissions in the USA have already fallen about 2%. So this is 2) not really an improvement on the old position.  US youth: keep doing all you can - the scale of reductions from Annex 1 parties as a whole will never be decided until America makes a target choice.”

Show me the cash

“There was a big move from the SIDS and LDCs, as well as India, for explicit commitments from Annex 1 countries to pay the agreed incremental costs of adaptation, as well as for fulfillment of the Bali Action Plan to finance adaptation plans beginning before 2012. There was some disorganization in the contact group on financing, with China and others calling for more focus on technology transfer, LDCs and SIDS wanting to consider adaptation financing. The topic, which they were actually there to discuss- the specific proposals on financing which are on the table e.g. auctioning of AAUs, criteria-based contributions from Annex 1 countries – were left out adrift the conflicts of interest among the G77 and China.

“General message: we need to start talking specifically about the source, scale and institutional structure of financial and technological support from Annex 1 countries. Push from the chair to start examinations of specific proposals was mainly unsuccessful, although there was an expression of interest from Brazil to hear more about the Norwegian proposal for the sale of AAUs.”

“The USA called many estimations of the scale of financing needed “unrealistic”.” [Ed - not particularly generous or fair on  their part - especially considering that they have been the largest historical emitter.]

REDD

“There was a push from PNG to have a specific contact group on REDD established under the LCA; this received very explicit support from Australia. Previous calls from Parties for more time on REDD had been tactfully ignored by the Chair, which gives me the feeling that he would like to concentrate on critical topics like financing mechanisms in the LCA and scale of reductions in the KP, which need to be in place before we can start really talking about the role REDD can play. Australia is to be commended for taking a miniscule target for themselves, and doing every thing they can to be able to swap pollution at home for trees in PNG. People in Australia, bash them please. You can’t reach any long-term target if you lock your country into a high emissions infrastructure, setting future emissions in cement while protecting forests which future unmitigated climate change will destroy anyway.”

SIDS and LDCs:

“There was big support from them for 1.5 degrees and 350 ppm, but in my opinion poor negotiating strategy. It would be nice to have more contact with them.”

“Ok, that’s all from me, hope you stay tuned, and use this in your own wonderful work back home. The change we need won’t come from Bonn alone, but from every city, state and street were you guys do your thing.”

Over and out.

–

For more Bonn coverage on IGHIH (and not all policy!), click these links :

1. The pre-sessionals (Friday 27th)

2. AOSIS rocks it on mitigation targets (Saturday 28th)

3. USA is back - but still not good enough (Sunday 29th)

4. Today’s policy download (Monday 30th)

Posted in global warming

Cross posted on the Eastern Energy Systems blog.

Solar rebates are really good right now, but they’re not simple or straightforward. Three different rebates typically combine to make solar pay for itself in as little as 4 years (in Long Island, for instance) and make the owner money after that. But those rebates are from 3 different places - and they don’t apply to everyone.

Two of the major rebates are tax credits. The federal government agreed to increase its tax credit from a cap of $2000 to a full 30% of the cost of the system. This can be over $20,000 for many homes. New York state, like many states, has a 25% tax credit which is still capped at $5000. Unfortunately - and this is the key - you need to pay income tax to get these.

While its great that the government is able to provide such a strong incentive, they rule out a large percentage of the population who don’t pay any income tax, and therefore can’t receive the tax credit.  And yet, Americans over 65 have the highest rate of home-ownership: 80% in 2008. Whey are we ignoring this large percentage of the population, effectively preventing them from making investments with their money and their homes that will benefit future generations and make them more secure against rising energy prices after they stop working?

The third rebate is the one that should be focused on.  For example, the Long Island Power Authority gives an up-front rebate of $3.5/watt, or about 40% of the installed system cost. This rebate reflects how how solar has developed as an industry in Germany and other parts of Europe.

The federal government should make rebates available to all people, regardless of age, and they should simplify the process by providing a single-source for rebates: through the utility companies. Then we can get in the business of installing solar on house after house, putting Americans to work and strengthening our clean energy future.

Posted in Act Locally, Economics, Renewable Energy

This is a repost of Ted Glick’s latest Future Hope column. I felt it was an excellent, and sobering assessment of where much of the US climate movement is, and some smart strategies for victory.

Is “Washington” Winning?

By Ted Glick

It was a couple of weeks before the historic March 2nd shutdown action at the coal-fired Capitol Power Plant on Capitol Hill in D.C. A national leader of an important climate group came up to me in the hallway at a conference we were both attending to express concern about the action. She had heard from Nancy Pelosi’s office, which was not happy that the action was happening. I asked, “what are the specific concerns?” and wasn’t able to get a clear answer.

And this was a national leader of a climate group that has been among the strongest when it comes to calling for serious, substantial and science-based reductions of dangerous greenhouse gas emissions, a minimum of 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 for countries like the U.S.

From my vantage point, I see this same thing happening with way too many inside-the-beltway environmental and climate groups since Obama won the Presidency and the Democrats strengthened their hold on Congress. Groups are moderating their tactics and their demands, scaling them back to gain access to high-level White House and Congressional leaders, who themselves are being impacted by Republican intransigence and fossil fuel supporting Democrats. It’s an old, familiar story which has played out innumerable times on other issues in the past. And it’s a very big problem for the low-income people of the world, most of them people of color, who are most vulnerable to the more destructive storms, floods, droughts, wildfires, famines and sea level rise that we’re already seeing as the atmosphere heats up.

That’s why it is so important that there be continuing, visible and aggressive nonviolent direct actions by groups and activists who understand that our role in 2009 is not to go along to get along but to escalate the political pressure, to make the need for strong action on climate a fundamental moral issue. It cannot, absolutely cannot, be the political science on Capitol Hill or in Washington that determines our tactics and demands; they must be determined by the urgent climate science.

What could this mean specifically?

One example is what happened at the Second World Coal-to-Liquids Conference last Thursday afternoon. A newly-formed D.C. Rising Tide group thoroughly and nonviolently disrupted this conference, engaging in a “people’s filibuster” for almost half an hour. Activists stood in the audience and loudly presented speeches to refute the statements of coal and oil executives from Chevron, World Coal Institute, World Petroleum Council and Consol Energy.  The advocates of clean energy called for an end to the use of fossil fuels and for adoption of clean, renewable, community-based energy sources. Protesters deployed banners in the conference to highlight that “Coal kills” and “Coal Takes Lives” and we need “Renewable energy now.”

“Pound for pound coal produces more CO2 than almost any other form of energy production. If we’re serious about tackling climate change, we absolutely must stop mining and burning coal. Coal to liquids technology is a step in the wrong direction for our air, water and climate.” said Michael Weber of Rising Tide in a press release issued afterwards. The carbon emissions from the production and burning of coal-to-liquids fuel is twice as much as the production and burning of gasoline.

How did the civil rights movement break the back of legal segregation? It didn’t happen by concentrating the vast bulk of its resources and energies on Capitol Hill. It happened through heroic action at local levels all across the country, by confronting racist voter registration and other racist practices, putting the defenders of the status quo on the defensive and taking the moral high ground which, in turn, led to a political crisis for the political and economic establishment.

We need to do the same on the climate issue, and we need to do it now, right now, in the spring of 2009. We need to build off of the power of the 12,000-young-people strong PowerShift09 conference and the many-thousands-strong Capitol Power Plant action a month ago and keep upping the ante, not get caught up in Washington political games, even as we escalate the pressure on our Congressional representatives.

We need more and more, a steady stream, of local nonviolent direct actions directed against the coal and fossil fuels industry. We need similar actions directed against the politicians who are paying back their fossil fuel industry contributors by their regressive actions on Capitol Hill. We need people willing to engage in long hunger strikes as a way of underlining the urgency. And what we really should be talking about is thousands of students and others descending on Washington after the schools let out in early May for a people’s lobby action, not for a day but for day after day after day, refusing to go away, being a visible presence that cannot be forgotten.

As I write this, we’re days away from the release by the House Energy and Commerce Committee of draft legislation to put a steadily declining cap and a price on carbon emissions. Indications are that it’s not going to come close to the 25-40%-by-2020 reduction targets, compared to 1990 levels, called for both by the science as well as the world’s climate negotiators who are trying to pass a stronger treaty by the end of this year at a major U.N conference in Copenhagen.

Once again, it’s the political science of corporate lobbyist-dominated Capitol Hill that seems to be driving what our federal government does, not the needs of threatened humanity and all living species.

I have hope that President Obama is concerned about all this. As a former community organizer and a very smart person who, to his credit, made his best appointments in the climate field (as distinct from his national security and economic appointments), there are grounds for hope that, with a visible and active movement pushing him and others toward stronger positions, putting the fossil fools on the defensive, he might find the strength to take the risks, to give the leadership he needs to be giving.

It was encouraging to see Obama, just a few days ago, making the connections between the Red River floods and global warming, doing something I’ve seen few in the mass media doing. According to the Scientific American website, President Obama says [on March 23rd] potentially historic flood levels in North Dakota are a clear example of why steps need to be taken to stop global warming. If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in North Dakota and you say to yourself, If you see an increase of two degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there? Obama told reporters at the White House Monday. That indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously.”

It’s time for a spring climate offensive.

Ted Glick is the Policy Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (www.chesapeakeclimate.org). Past columns and other information can be found at www.tedglick.com, and he can be reached at indpol@igc.org.

Posted in global warming

As many of you know, I have a special affinity for grassroots anti-authoritarian climate activists in Australia.  Good on ya, mates!

Friends of the Earth Melbourne lock-down and walk onto the Hazelwood Power Station in Victoria, Australia.

The worldwide escalation against Big Coal is continuing.

Not only are NGO’s like Greenpeace Australia-Pacific escalating against coal down under, but so are grassroots networks like Rising Tide and Friends of the Earth.

Australia is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases per capita in the world, exports a lot of coal and is harshly impacted by the global warming (water scarcity, bushfires, extreme weather, lots more) according to the Stern Report.

It makes sense that direct action-istas are targeting operating coal plants and that resistance is fierce to the fossil fools.

Posted in global warming

Well, that was refreshing.

A few hours ago, the new US administration made their first public input into the UNFCCC process! It was yet another pleasurable reminder that G.W. Bush is gone, and that his legacy is slowly dying.

Todd Stern, the new, much-celebrated, US Special Envoy on Climate Change, opened his speech with a message that he transmitted ‘direct from President Obama’:

“We’re very glad we’re back. We want to make up for lost time, and we are seized with the urgency of the task before us.”

This was received with a rapturous, enthusiastic round of applause - the sound of hope ringing in the room.

“You will not here anyone on this very skilled US team cast doubt upon the science of global climate change,” said Stern, again demonstrating how substantive a shift occurred on November 4. Every climate campaigner in the room, when reflecting back to the dark days of climate scepticism in the US administration, seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at that moment.

Stern even said that ‘the US acknowledges their responsibility as the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases’. Another big step forward. Another sign of hope. With all this hope, it would have been so easy to get carried away.

Thankfully though, Tuvalu, an AOSIS member, brought the room back town to earth after America spoke, warning us to take the words of the US with a grain of salt:

“It is beholden on me as a representative of the most vulnerable country in the world to speak out. We welcome the United States remarks… but we hope the rhetoric is matched by reality.”

With this in mind, I’d like to offer some advice to US activists - don’t pause your campaigning to celebrate the government’s rhetoric. Let’s not be stupid about this. Don’t ‘give them time’ without criticism, naively hoping that they’ll do the right thing, translating good words into real action. If you don’t push them, hard, then you won’t be rewarded. We learned this the hard way in Australia, after the election of Kevin Rudd, November 24 2007. Let me tell a story to illustrate…

Consider the parallels with the current ‘Obama situation’:

One week after his election, our new PM Kevin Rudd publicly ratified the Kyoto protocol, as his first act of government. It was publicly acclaimed as great leadership. The nation celebrated. I was proud to be Australian again. However, in 20-20 hindsight, it wasn’t anything more than a symbolic act, and it certainly wasn’t ‘international leadership’ – it didn’t step out ahead of the pack and lead, it just brought Australia into the ‘Kyoto club’ that they had been out of for so long. Our praise of the government’s action went on for a little too long.

Following ratification, the Rudd government announced a year-long plan of reports, drafts and papers, which now seems to have been designed to placate the Australian environment movement, create the illusion of progress, and distract us from ‘the big picture’. The Garnaut interim report, draft report and review; the green paper and then the white paper on emissions trading, the targets. Australia’s targets were originally scheduled to be announced well before Poznan, but were instead delayed until the day after COP14 closed – and then they were only 5-15% below 2000 levels – a total disaster.

The ‘Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme’ – government-speak for Australian emissions trading – is now so poorly designed and gives out so much compensation to polluters, that the climate movement in Australia is now saying that it must be scrapped in its current form. One year after the ‘inspiration’ of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong have demonstrated that in fact, they are still laggards, not leaders on climate.

And all this because many of us in the climate movement naively trusted them, placing our hope in government to bring us the solutions that we wanted, and ‘giving them the space’ to make progress through the bureaucracy. It didn’t work.

America – don’t make the same mistake. Don’t trust Obama to save your nation’s climate policies without serious pushing from the people. You of all nations know that healthy public criticism is what makes democracy great.

I am personally extremely concerned - especially after today’s press conference in Bonn of American climate NGOs - about the polite restraint within the NGO sector from criticism of the new administration.

Isn’t it clear to the US movement that Obama’s target of 1990 by 2020 is entirely inadequate, and needs to be shifted? Even the old, conservative IPCC science says ‘at least 25-40% below 1990 levels’ is what is required by 2020. Al Gore’s ‘We’ campaign is talking about 100% renewable energy by 2020. That sort of thing is visionary, and that is where government policy needs to go.

In Todd Stern’s presentation in plenary today, he referred to the possibility of agreeing on a global reduction target of ‘more than 15% by 2020′. Sorry, America, but that’s the wrong answer. The global target needs to be at least 40% by 2020. 15% is strongly likely lead to runaway climate change, and destroy our future. Not good enough, Obama.

Additionally, they new administration is still focused on the ‘economic growth’ paradigm, and on ‘capitalising’ on the solutions to climate change – which is a long way from the total paradigm-shift that many in civil society are now calling for, as an opportunity emerging from the financial crisis. Also, Obama is persisting with Bush’s ‘Major Economies’ process – having renamed it from the ‘Major Economies Meeting’, or ‘MEM’ to the ‘MEF’ instead. That’s ‘F’ for ‘Forum’. By including 16 ‘major economies’ in parallel talks to the UN climate process, they are effectively removing the voices of the smaller, poorer, and more climate-vulnerable nations from their discussions. It is not morally correct.

So what should the movement do about this? While it’s great that Obama is not Bush, and we should smile about that – let’s not allow this to create an illusion that the new administration is somehow a ‘leader’ on climate. Because they certainly aren’t. The real leadership is from the most vulnerable nations – AOSIS and LDCs. And it is with them that our solidarity and focus should lie.

Strengthening the US climate movement is crucial. The next four decades to 2050 will be a people-led but government-supported sustainability revolution. The USA, even after today’s progress, still doesn’t support the growing movement. The government is still a block to action.

If Obama’s reputation as ‘a movement man’ – a man who listens to the people – has any substance to it, then the path to removing their block and replacing it with support is clear.

As the climate movement, we need to not pause, but to keep criticising, encouraging and pushing the USA in the right direction, in negotiations and in the public sphere, until their political walls give way.

–

For more Bonn coverage on IGHIH, click these links :

1. The pre-sessionals (Friday 27th)

2. AOSIS rocks it on mitigation targets (Saturday 28th)

3. USA is back - but still not good enough (Sunday 29th)

Posted in Climate Policy, Climate Science, Copenhagen 2009, Economics, global warming, greenwashing, International Affairs, No More Hot Air, Political Participation, Politics, Power Shift, Power Vote, United Nations, United States, Victories