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COP-16 Cancun Coverage Wrap-up
›An Integrated Climate Dialogue
By Schuyler Null // Monday, December 13, 2010After focused last-minute negotiations, the UNFCCC COP-16 parties meeting in Mexico finally reached an agreement on a package being called “The Cancun Agreements” on Saturday. One of the most important impacts of the agreement (also referred to as the “balanced package”) is the establishment of a green climate fund which will help developing countries adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.
For more on the green fund as well as the integration of gender, population, development, and even a little bit of security in the broader climate dialogue, see The New Security Beat’s coverage of Cancun below.MORE- Interview with Karen Hardee: Climate-Proofing Development
- Pop Audio: From Cancun: Roger-Mark De Souza on Women and Integrated Climate Adaptation Strategies
- Guest Contributor Alex Stark: From Cancun: Getting a Climate Green Fund
- The Number Left Out: Bringing Population Into the Climate Conversation
Kicking off our coverage was an email interview with Karen Hardee, visiting fellow with the Population Reference Bureau, on “climate-proofing” development. Hardee gives a brief overview of the UN National Adaptation Programmes of Action system and the current state climate adaptation integration in international development. She points out that one of the enduring positives from COP-15 was a renewed focus on financing tools that has permeated to the top levels of the UN.
Hardee also touched on the nascent but largely unfulfilled connection between population growth and resilience, noting that “of the first 41 programs submitted to the UNFCCC…37 noted that population growth exacerbated the effects of climate change, but only six explicitly stated that meeting an unmet demand for RH/FP should be a key priority for their adaptation strategy and only two proposed projects that included RH/FP.”
Next, Population Action International’s Roger-Mark De Souza was kind of enough to speak with us briefly over the phone from the conference itself, providing a run-down on a PAI-sponsored side event focusing on empowering women in climate debates.
“When you look at the negative impacts of climate change, the impacts on the poor and the vulnerable – particularly women – increase, so investing in programs that put women at the center is critical,” De Souza said.
Leaving gender issues, like child and maternal health and education, out of deliberations like those COP-16 are missed opportunities to get more “power for your peso,” he said.
Alex Stark, formerly of CNAS and now with the Adopt a Negotiator program in Cancun, provided an update and a strong argument for one of the most critical elements of the “balanced package” that many are hoping will come out of Cancun – the establishment of an international fund to help pay for adaptation and mitigation programs in developing countries.
Stark provides an insight into some of the chatter on the floor at COP-16 and also outlines the moral, development, and security advantages to supporting a green fund, pointing out that “by managing displacement, migration, and violent conflict driven by the effects of climate change, such as water scarcity, climate change adaptation can help bolster international security and stability.”
“Within the UN process itself,” she writes, “a robust, well-run, equitable green fund would help rebuild the trust lost between developed and developing countries at Copenhagen last year.”
Lastly, Bob Engelman, of the Worldwatch Institute, provides a broad argument for more inclusion of a key variable in climate debates – population (and not in the Ted Turner mold). He enumerates the common pitfalls of population debates, from sensitivities about personal choices to squeamishness about sexuality and reproductive health, and just plain gender bias.
But despite these barriers, says Engelman, population – and not just growth but demographics too – matters in the climate debate and therefore needs to be part of the conversation (an argument he makes more comprehensively in a new report, Population, Climate Change, and Women’s Lives). Echoing De Souza, he concludes by pointing out that although the discussion may be difficult, the solution is relatively simple: “On population, the most effective way to slow growth is to support women’s aspirations.”
“As societies, we have the ability to end the ongoing growth of human numbers – soon, and based on human rights and women’s intentions,” Engelman said. “This makes it easy to speak of women, population, and climate change in a single breath.”
Sources: Population Action International, Slate, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, The Washington Post, Worldwatch Institute.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “Trees Dead on Shore of Timor-Leste Lake,” courtesy of flickr user United Nations Photo; Roger-Mark De Souza, courtesy of David Hawxhurst/Wilson Center; “Will you back a climate fund?,” courtesy of flickr user Oxfam International; and “Met Office Climate Data – Month by Month (September),” courtesy of flickr user blprnt_van. -
The Number Left Out: Bringing Population Into the Climate Conversation
›Robert Engelman, Worldwatch Institute
By ECSP Staff // Thursday, December 9, 2010
Numbers swirl around climate change.
So many parts per million of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So many gigatons of carbon dioxide emitted. So many degrees Celsius of temperature rise that we hope won’t happen. Yet one number rarely comes into play when experts or negotiators talk about the changing atmosphere and the warming of the planet: the number of humans putting heat-trapping gases into the air.MORE
The original version of this article, by Robert Engelman, appeared on the Worldwatch Institute’s Transforming Cultures blog.The UK Met Office’s data set for September 2009 of more than 1,600,000 temperature readings from 1,700+ stations.
Numbers swirl around climate change.
So many parts per million of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So many gigatons of carbon dioxide emitted. So many degrees Celsius of temperature rise that we hope won’t happen. Yet one number rarely comes into play when experts or negotiators talk about the changing atmosphere and the warming of the planet: the number of humans putting heat-trapping gases into the air.
The relative silence isn’t hard to understand. Population is almost always awkward to talk about. It’s fraught with sensitivity about who has how many children and whether that is anyone else’s business. It’s freighted with sexuality, contraception, abortion, immigration, gender bias, and other buttons too hot to press into conversation. Yet two aspects of population’s connection to climate change cry out for greater attention – and conversation.
One is that population – especially its growth, but other changes as well – matters importantly to the future of climate change, a statement that as far as I can tell is not challenged scientifically. (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, accepts the accuracy of the so-called Kaya identity, which names population among the four factors that determine emissions growth from decade to decade.) And, two, addressing population in climate-friendly ways is also fundamentally people-friendly, in that it involves no “population control,” but rather the giving up of control – especially control of women’s bodies by people other than themselves.A new Worldwatch Institute report, which I authored, offers details, findings, and recommendations on both the importance of population in climate change and how to address it. The report looks at some of the history of the population-climate link – in particular, interesting work by William Ruddiman, who hypothesizes that the agricultural revolution contributed to global warming thousands of years ago. And it addresses the common objection that population growth can’t be that important in greenhouse gas emissions growth because countries with high per capita emissions tend to have smaller families than low-emitting countries.
Equity in per capita emissions, I argue, is an essential goal – and without it, no global effort to shrink emissions can succeed. The imperative of an equal sharing of atmospheric carbon space is among the most powerful arguments for a smaller world population. When greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide – such as methane and “black carbon” – are considered, per capita emissions gaps are not as wide as many writers believe. And the amount of all these gases that equal emitters can contribute without altering the atmosphere shrinks in direct proportion to population’s growth.
Arguments about population’s role in climate change are unnecessarily heated, however. Even if the growth of human numbers played only a minor role in emissions growth, it would be worth discussing – not because addressing population will somehow resolve our climate predicament, but because ultimately no other strategy on its own will either. We need the widest possible range of strategies – economic, political, technological, and behavioral – that are both feasible and consistent with shared human values.
On population, the most effective way to slow growth is to support women’s aspirations. Almost all women aspire to gain an education, to stand in equality with men, and to make decisions for themselves – including whether and when to give birth. Policies and programs to help women achieve these aspirations exist in many places. But they don’t get the attention, support and funding they deserve. And they are rarely seen as climate-change strategies.
As societies, we have the ability to end the ongoing growth of human numbers – soon, and based on human rights and women’s intentions. This makes it easy to speak of women, population, and climate change in a single breath.
Robert Engelman is vice president for programs at the Worldwatch Institute and the author of “Population, Climate Change, and Women’s Lives.” Please contact him if you are interested in a copy of the report.
Sources: UK Met Office, World Resources Institute.
Image Credit: Adapted from “Met Office Climate Data – Month by Month (September),” courtesy of flickr user blprnt_van, and report cover, courtesy of the Worldwatch Institute. -
Guest Contributor:
From Cancun: Getting a Climate Green Fund
›By Alex Stark // Wednesday, December 8, 2010Over 9,000 negotiators from 184 countries have gathered for the 16th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), known as COP-16, in Cancun, Mexico. No one expects a binding emissions reduction agreement, but a successful outcome on a set of decisions here – the so-called “balanced package” – will help build trust among countries and make progress towards a final emissions agreement next year.
One of the most important parts of the package is agreement on the creation of a green climate fund – an international fund designed to help developing countries adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.MORE
If the negotiations are as successful, as expected, the fund will be part of a package that also includes the architecture for an adaptation body, technology transfer, REDD-plus, and progress towards a binding international mitigation agreement that negotiators hope to conclude at COP-17 in Durban, South Africa.
An event Monday morning co-hosted by Oxfam and the Global Campaign for Climate Action, featured a variety of developed and developing country perspectives about what a new fund for mitigation and adaptation programs should look like.
The event was galvanized by a letter, currently being circulated here at the talks, signed by 215 civil society organizations and calling for “the establishment of a fair global climate fund at COP-16 that will meet the needs and interests and protect the rights of the most vulnerable communities and people around the world.” In opening comments and a question-and-answer session, panelists articulated some of the most contentious points that negotiators are currently discussing, some of the reasons why a green fund is so important, and the implications for global equity, sustainable development, and international security.
A main point under discussion right now is how the fund will be governed. The United States and other developed countries argue that the fund should work under the supervision of the UNFCCC but international financial institutions, like the World Bank, should also assist in creating the fund.
Judith McGregor, the UK ambassador to Mexico, argued in her opening statement that for the United Kingdom, “climate finance… is a clear, clear priority” at the COP, but that the World Bank would lend the fund legitimacy and make donors more confident in the fund’s ability to deliver. Tim Gore from Oxfam expressed the opinion held by many civil society organizations and delegates from developing countries, that the fund must “act under the authority of the UNFCCC… independent from institutions such as the World Bank,” because a new climate fund should have an equitable governance structure that includes the voices of developing countries, civil society members, indigenous peoples, women, and other stakeholders – not a majority share by the developed countries like at the World Bank.
Another stumbling block is how climate finance will be divided between adaptation and mitigation programs. Gore argued that adaptation and mitigation finance must be balanced 50-50, whereas currently “there is a huge adaptation gap… less than 10 percent of current climate finance is going to adaptation.” Evans Njewa, the lead finance negotiator representing the group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs), noted in his statement that “adaptation is the priority for the LDCs [in Cancun].”
The source of these funds is also a contentious issue that divides developed and developing countries. Under the Copenhagen Accord, most of the COP country parties agreed that developed countries would mobilize $30 billion in fast start finance by 2012 and $100 billion per year by 2020 in climate finance from public, private, and other “innovative sources,” such as a carbon tax or cap-and-trade systems. Developed countries like the United States are mobilizing public funds for climate finance but argue that the majority of the $100 billion figure should be provided by private investments and that loans provided by development institutions as well as grants should also count.
Climate finance for adaptation will help make poor, rural communities in particular more resilient to the effects of climate change, including drought, floods and tropical storms, and therefore help the international community to achieve several related development milestones such as the Millennium Development Goals, according to Alzinda Abrea, finance minister of Mozambique.
Cate Owen of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) explained that investing in climate adaptation now “makes good sense” because “investing now in responding to climate change will lessen the long-term costs” to developed country donors.
The message that climate adaptation measures are becoming essential to sustainable development was perhaps delivered most forcefully by Florina Lopez, an indigenous person from Panama, who described the impacts that her people are already suffering as a result of climate change. Since her community survives by fishing, hunting and growing crops, severe flooding is disrupting indigenous ways of life and floods bring assaults on community health, like diarrhea, skin disease, and malnutrition. Community activities that contribute to development such as education and healthcare are also paralyzed by these impacts. Adaptation funding will be essential for her community to survive and to avoid disruptive displacement.
Still, perhaps the most compelling political reason for American taxpayers to invest in climate change adaptation in the developing world is the national security implications of the effects of climate change. A report issued this week by the Center for American Progress and the Alliance for Climate Protection explains why the United States must have a global climate investment strategy, despite adverse economic and political conditions domestically. Adaptation funding will “reduce risks of climate-related national security threats, including from severe floods or droughts in Pakistan and the Middle East” and strengthen our relationships with developing country recipients, including strategically important partners like India, Indonesia, and Brazil, write the authors. Finally, by managing displacement, migration, and violent conflict driven by the effects of climate change, such as water scarcity, climate change adaptation can help bolster international security and stability.
The establishment of a climate green fund here in Cancun is essential for an equitable and balanced international climate deal. A fund is first and foremost the moral imperative of developed countries, known as the Annex-I parties under the UNFCCC, who are historically responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. However, developed countries need not rely on the moral argument to convince policymakers and taxpayers that climate adaptation for the poorest and most vulnerable countries and people is a good investment.
Within the UN process itself, a robust, well-run, equitable green fund would help rebuild the trust lost between developed and developing countries at Copenhagen last year. In Gore’s words, Oxfam is “cautiously optimistic that we can get an agreement here in Cancun that rebuilds trust between rich and poor countries.”
Alex Stark is a program assistant at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, working on the Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict Program. She is attending the Cancun negotiations as part of the Adopt a Negotiator team.
Sources: Alliance for Climate Protection, British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Center for American Progress, Global Campaign for Climate, Mozambique Ministry of Planning and Finance, Oxfam, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Women’s Environment and Development Organization.
Photo Credit: “Will you back a climate fund?,” courtesy of flickr user Oxfam International. -
Climate-Proofing Development: An Interview With Karen Hardee
›By Hannah Marqusee // Monday, November 29, 2010While expectations are deflated for broad international consensus at the UN Climate Change Convention in Cancun, the need to “climate-proof” development efforts has been gaining ground in recent years as a necessary preventative measure to help developing countries adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.
In 2001, The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) created National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) to help 49 “Least Developed Countries” adapt to climate change. Statements by the World Bank, OECD, and UN over the last decade have similarly reflected a need for adaptation, yet so far, there has been a distinct lack of funding and programming drive to actually integrate climate change and development efforts on the ground.The New Security Beat interviewed Karen Hardee, visiting senior fellow at the Population Reference Bureau, to ask her about NAPAs and how the international community can better address the climate adaptation needs of the developing world. She recently spoke at the Population Reference Bureau, arguing for a new language, funding structure, and global architecture to address climate change and development.MORE
New Security Beat: Despite widespread agreement that climate change and development should be linked, NAPAs remain seriously underfunded. What is the cause of this discrepancy and do you think this could change in the near future?Karen Hardee: NAPAs were introduced to help countries meet immediate and pressing needs related to climate change. In developing NAPAs, countries need to first determine their baseline situation to help identify the “additional” components needed to address climate change issues.
NSB: Many NAPA coordination teams are housed within a ministry of environment, making it difficult for multi-sectoral cooperation. Who should have responsibility for coordinating climate change adaptation, and how could the architecture be restructured to achieve this?
This concept of “additionality” is important because climate change funds can be used to fund activities that are directly related to climate change – like building a seawall – or to fund the “additional” climate change-related aspects of ongoing activities – like for example, agricultural diversification. Identifying the baseline situation and the additional costs related to climate change is often a very difficult, if not impossible, task. Furthermore, if some issues that should be funded through traditional development funds are not funded, or are underfunded, determining the additional burden associated with climate change will not necessarily bring additional funds. Only around a quarter of NAPAs are well-linked with development plans. One clear lesson is that the programmatic and funding links between climate change and development need to be strengthened.
Funding for NAPAs, which relies on voluntary contributions by developed countries, continues to be insufficient. Around $220 million has been pledged out of an estimated total cost of $2 billion. Additional funding mechanisms for adaptation, including the Adaptation Fund, which just announced funding for its first two projects, will help, but many questions on funding remain.KH: Understandably, the climate change movement began through attention to the weather. But departments of meteorology and ministries of the environment are not necessarily the best suited to address the human dimension of climate change, including social sectors such as health. I think coordinating mechanisms should be established in offices of the president or prime minister. These should not be implementation bodies but should ensure that climate change, development plans, and funding are linked in ways that ensure effective and efficient programs that build resilience among individuals and communities.
NSB: What have been the biggest impediments to getting adaptation projects with a reproductive health/family planning (RH/FP) component proposed and funded?
To respond to the effects of climate change will take all sectors. For example, education of children, and particularly girls, is a proven development strategy and could help build resilience in families that might face difficulties, like migration, because of climate change. Yet education is not eligible for funding with climate change funds unless schools need to be climate-proofed, or perhaps if children are missing school due to drought brought on by climate change. Clearly there is a need to ensure close collaboration between climate change adaptation programming and development programming.KH: Since 2001, 49 Least Developed Countries and Small Island States have been eligible to develop NAPAs. Analysis of the first 41 programs submitted to the UNFCCC found that 37 noted that population growth exacerbated the effects of climate change, but only six explicitly stated that meeting an unmet demand for RH/FP should be a key priority for their adaptation strategy and only two proposed projects that included RH/FP. Neither of the two proposals has been funded. Furthermore, only around seven percent of NAPA projects proposed so far are in the health sector.
NSB: With the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun on the doorstep, what are your hopes for improved integration of climate into the development sector?
Community-based adaptation (CBA) programs have arisen recently to engage the poorest communities that are highly reliant on natural resources for their livelihoods and who live in countries most vulnerable to the effects of changing climate. UNDP is implementing CBA projects in 10 pilot countries and none of the projects include health components, let alone family planning and reproductive health (although UNDP does support separate pilot projects on health in eight countries). Yet, in the 10 countries in which projects are being implemented, unmet need for contraception is above 15 percent in half of them and over 10 percent in seven of the 10 countries.
Population, health and environment (PHE) programs offer an alternate approach to CBAs and include attention to natural resources and the environment, livelihoods, health, and the effects of rapid population growth on communities and individuals.KH: While certainly the world is going into the Cancun meeting with scaled-down expectations because of COP-15, one positive outcome from Copenhagen was renewed attention on funding for climate change, including adaptation. Ban Ki-moon’s high level panel on climate funding is an example of this attention to funding. Also, the World Bank’s press release this summer, in appointing Andrew Steer as special envoy on climate change, quoted Robert Zoellick, saying, “This appointment comes amid unprecedented demand from developing countries for World Bank support in their efforts to address development and climate change as interlinked challenges.”
Sources: Adaptation Fund, Adaptation Learning Mechanism, GEF, OECD, Population Action International, Population Reference Bureau, UN, UNDP, UNFCCC, World Bank.
We need to remember that adaptation programming is still new. It will be important to include strong evaluation components in these programs and to evaluate them jointly for climate change and development outcomes.
Photo Credit: “Trees Dead on Shore of Timor-Leste Lake” courtesy of flickr user United Nations Photo. -
Guest Contributor:
Youth on Fire at UN Climate Talks in Tianjin
›By Alex Stark // Thursday, October 14, 2010For the past week, as part of the Adopt a Negotiator program, I got the chance to observe many of the negotiations of the latest UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) intersessional meeting that took place in Tianjin, China. In many ways it was rather humdrum. I observed as negotiators debated changing agendas and the mandate of contact groups rather than the issues themselves, and made many of the same, tired position speeches again and gain.
MORE
When controversial issues did rise to the fore, they felt like more of the same old, same old: arguments between China and the United States about who is doing more to stall the talks and who should make legally binding emissions cuts; developed countries carving enormous loopholes into the LULUCF; the greenhouse gas inventory sector covering emissions and removals of greenhouse gases resulting from land use. But the dry nature of the talks concealed the more important truth – that the negotiators are not just discussing acronyms, but human lives, which could be catastrophically altered due to the effects of climate change.
The Adopt a Negotiator program is supported by the Global Campaign for Climate Action, a group of young people from countries around the world who come to the UNFCCC meetings to track the delegations from their own countries and share what is happening at the negotiations through social networking tools (be sure to check out our blogs).
If the UN climate talks fail, and if countries cannot muster the political will to make substantial economy-wide changes and greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, the results for the poorest and most vulnerable people on the planet will be catastrophic.
Last week was the first time that I have ever experienced any kind of UN negotiation first hand, and some of what I saw was incredibly depressing. Mitigation efforts are especially in danger, as disagreements primarily between the United States and China about who should agree to emissions cuts and international reporting and verification requirements sharpened and intensified.
But there were many bright spots as well. Negotiators are very close to making the final decisions about an international architecture for technology transfer to help the most vulnerable and poorest countries adapt to the effects of climate change and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. They also spent the week narrowing and refining draft text with regards to climate finance and an international architecture to disburse “Green Funds,” and hopefully will be able to make final decisions at COP-16 in Cancun this November 29th through December 10th. These steps are small examples of potential good news for the people who will suffer, and are most likely already suffering, from climate change’s global impacts.
Unfortunately, negotiators are already in agreement that the only bright spots that we are likely to see at COP-16 are small items such as these. Almost no one believes that there is any chance that countries will agree on a final, legally binding text to reduce carbon emissions, and negotiators have instead pushed off this decision until the next Conference of the Parties (COP) in South Africa in 2011. Instead, the near-universal buzz at the conference was about a “balanced package.” Although the phrase in reality means something slightly different to everyone who uses it, it is generally understood to refer to a set of decisions on issues like climate finance, technology transfer, initiatives to cut back on deforestation, and putting some of the decisions made under the Copenhagen Accord into legally binding text, like “fast start” finance measures to the developing world.
In many ways the Tianjin session was itself a “balanced package” – a set of interactions and experiences that was both deeply discouraging and incredibly uplifting. One of the personally uplifting moments for me was having the honor of delivering a short intervention on the first day of the opening plenary on behalf of youth NGOs around the world (known as YOUNGOs). In the words I read, which had been drafted by a group of Chinese youth, all the particulars of policy were stripped away and the only thing that remained was the frustration – and also the hopes – of young people around the world (those who will actually experience the effects of climate change well within their lifetimes if UNFCCC negotiators don’t work harder to reach a consensus).
Through the disappointments of Copenhagen to the slow-moving intersessionals throughout this year, many pundits have cynically declared the UNFCCC process dead. This is certainly not the case. But if they are truly serious about saving the planet from climate change’s most serious impacts, negotiators will certainly have to work harder in Cancun.
Alex Stark is a Program Assistant at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, working on the Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict Program. She attended the Tianjin negotiations as part of the Adopt a Negotiator team.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “COP11_lo,” courtesy of Neil Palmer and flickr user CIAT – International Center for Tropical Agricultu. -
Backdraft:
The Conflict Potential of Climate Adaptation and Mitigation
›By Schuyler Null // Wednesday, August 4, 2010“Climate change and our energy future are issues that are really front and center in our policy debates and public debates,” said ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko in this collection of interviews from New Security Beat’s Backdraft series. “One specific set of questions within this larger debate is about how climate change connects to a broader security set of questions. In that context we have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns – [and] potentially some opportunities.”MORE
Addressing global climate change will require new and innovative approaches. But what are the potential risks of employing these new strategies to combat rising temperatures?
Dabelko was joined by Alexander Carius of Adelphi Research, Cleo Paskal of Chatham House, and Stacey VanDeveer of the University of New Hampshire, to talk about some of the security implications of climate change adaptation, including the effects of alternative energy types, new strategic minerals, transboundary geoengineering projects, and the UN-REDD Programme.
“As the international community moves from Copenhagen to Cancun…it’s critical that we look at these questions, to go into it with our eyes open and to understand what the implications of our different choices are going to be,” said Dabelko.
For more on the risk of conflict from climate adaptation and mitigation, see The New Security Beat’s other entries in the Backdraft series. -
Backdraft:
Cleo Paskal: India Is Key to Climate Geopolitics
›By ECSP Staff // Tuesday, July 27, 2010“Copenhagen was many things to many people,” said Chatham House’s Cleo Paskal, in a video interview with the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program, but “what was very clear was that India, specifically, was playing quite a strong, clear role in deciding how alignments would be working.” We spoke to Paskal following her presentation at a recent Wilson Center event.MORE
“I think [Copenhagen] was a bit of a litmus test for how geopolitics stand currently, and what’s clear is that unless India is treated more as an equal strategic, long-term partner of the West, it will find other alliances that are more conducive to what it perceives as state security and its national interests,” said Paskal. She argued that India’s future steps will also heavily influence Brazil and South Africa, and may impact the ability of the West to act unilaterally.
“If the U.S.-India relationship grows, you’ll start to see more movement in areas like Copenhagen or the WTO or things like that,” says Paskal, but “if [the U.S.-India relationship] starts to break down…you might start to see a growing relationship with China.”
Stay tuned to the New Security Beat for more in our series on “Backdraft: The Conflict Potential of Climate Adaptation and Mitigation.” -
Water: The Next Climate Negotiation Tool?
›By Kayly Ober // Thursday, January 21, 2010When the dust settled at the COP15 in Copenhagen, participating parties failed to reach a formal climate change agreement and old divisions between developed and developing countries intensified. Despite such setbacks, there may be a natural building block in formal climate change negotiations between the north and south in the future: water.
Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank, argues in a recent LA Times op-ed that economic interdependence and, more concretely, basic survival hinge on water in both developed and developing countries alike, most especially in Latin America.
With 31 percent of the world’s freshwater resources,
Water’s importance in the region is obvious, but why should developed countries care about it when negotiating a climate deal? The simplest answer, according to Moreno, is that developed countries can invest in projects that resolve near-term, climate-related problems such as water supply and sanitation as they look for ways to spend the billions in aid they have just pledged for climate adaptation in the developing world. And many international donors, particularly the UN Development Programme, World Bank, and World Wildlife Fund already have invested millions of dollars towards water management and sanitation adaptation projects.
On the other side of the coin, Latin American governments should “start treating water as a truly strategic resource instead of a free and limitless one.” Moreno claims this would mean “prioritizing investments and reforms in basic services in order to reduce waste, closing the coverage gap and eliminating waterborne diseases among the poor” in the short term and would also require “a willingness to make concessions in pursuit of global emission reductions that…could be crucial to ensuring reliable supplies of water.”
While it may seem that Latin America’s water problems are not pressing, it is undeniable that if not properly managed, essential components of the region—such as the vital agricultural economy, the health of the population, and political and economic stability—may be in jeopardy.
Photo: Man drinking water from a pipe in Ecuador. Courtesy Edwin Huffman and the World Bank. MORE -
‘DotPop:’ Copenhagen’s Collapse: An Opportunity for Population?
›By Gib Clarke // Tuesday, December 22, 2009While the negotiators failed to reach a comprehensive agreement in Copenhagen, the population and reproductive health community might find a silver lining in the stormclouds that derailed COP-15.
Developing countries’ strong protests of their lack of culpability for the climate problem, on one hand, and the dramatic examples of their vulnerability on the other, have focused the world on the problems of poor people—and on potential solutions, including family planning.MORE
The Case of the Missing “P”
The New York Times’ Andrew Revkin complained that population was the “The Missing ‘P’ Word in Climate Talks,” but PAI’s Kathleen Mogelgaard argues in New Security Beat that “there is encouraging evidence that voices of those advocating for increased attention to the role of population and reproductive health and rights in climate change responses are being heard” in Copenhagen, including new funding from the Danish government for family planning.
At a breakfast last week, luminaries including Gro Harlem Brundtland and IPCC Chairman Rajendra K. Pachauri discussed UNFPA’s latest report, Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate in Copenhagen.
According to lead author Robert Engelman, the report is “helping many more people to see population and climate in a more hopeful light, linked as they are through the right of women to equal standing with men and access to reproductive health care for all.”
Women, Population, and Climate
“Climate change is ultimately about people,” declared Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney at the recent Washington, DC, launch of the report. Though the issues are complex and multi-faceted, Engelman said that the report’s message is “stark and optimistic”: that “women in charge of their own lives” can have positive impacts on change climate mitigation and adaptation.
“Women are more sustainable consumers,” said UNFPA’s José Manuel Guzmán at the launch, noting that in many cases women make buying decisions for their families, so empowering them with information and tools is a wise approach to combating climate change.
Inequitable Impacts
Women – especially poor women – contribute fewer greenhouse gas emissions than men, yet are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Unfortunately, this fundamental inequality is difficult to quantify, since most data sources are not disaggregated by gender. The report recommends improving data quality to better informing policy decisions.
Tim Wirth, president of the UN Foundation and the Better World Fund, noted that women face a “double whammy”: they are already less likely to go to school and to have access to paying livelihoods, and more likely to have HIV. Climate change will only increase the inequity.
People Power
PAI’s Karen Hardee called on the population community to focus their efforts on the next phase of negotiations – adaptation. A recent PAI report found that while 37 of 41 National Adaptation Plans of Action say that population pressures exacerbate the effects of climate change, only six include slowing population growth or addressing reproductive health and family planning as a key priority.
“The focus has been on where and what the impacts of climate change will be,” said Guzman, but the conversation needs to shift to who will be affected, and an analysis of their vulnerabilities and their capacities to adapt.
For real progress to occur, said Engelman, “climate needs to be seen through a more human lens.” -
Guest Contributor:
Science and Geopolitics in Copenhagen
›By Cleo Paskal // Friday, December 18, 2009
The Copenhagen COP-15 was not a stand-alone event. It was a product of years of ongoing work around the globe, from the trenches of climate research laboratories to the highest levels of government. As a result, apart from anything else, it gave valuable insight into the current state of two of the most dynamic and overarching issues of the coming decades: the science of environmental change (and in particular the potential impacts) and dynamics of shifting geopolitics.
In both cases, based on what was seen in Copenhagen, the situation is disconcerting.
In terms of the science, the COP-15 had a dangerously narrow focus. Carbon emission-related issues, the main topic of the COP, are just one component of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Other include, for example, livestock-related methane emissions and the release of exponentially potent industrial GHGs.
Due to feedback loops and other factors now in play, anthropogenic GHG emissions themselves are just one component of changing atmospheric GHG concentrations. Others include, for example, methane released from thawing permafrost and CO2 saturation in the oceans.
Meanwhile, GHG concentrations in the atmosphere are themselves just one potential component of major environmental change. Others include, for example, massive changes in consumption patterns, soil exhaustion, and groundwater depletion. Even without climate change, those factors alone are destabilizing.
While unquestionably important, from a scientific point of view, what was on the table at Copenhagen was severely limited. This was acknowledged by those involved, many of who talk in terms of a 2 degree C temperature rise as being a win.
The implications are staggering. Already, critical energy infrastructure, for instance, is feeling the effects of environmental changes. In some cases, such as French nuclear power stations, U.S. Gulf Coast infrastructure, and Indian hydroelectric installations, environmental change periodically severely affects production.
If an infrastructure that is as well-designed and funded as the energy sector is starting to feel the effects, it is hard to imagine the potential for disruption that the science now tells us is inevitable.
Meanwhile, geopolitically, the conference quickly took on the developed-versus-developing world framing that has increasingly paralyzed other global negotiations. As one Zambian delegate told me, “This is even worse than the WTO.”
While the Financial Times called Lumumba Di-Aping, the Sudanese head of the G-77 group of developing countries, “belligerent,” the largest circulation English language newspaper in the world, the Times of India, ran a headline reading: “India suspects foul play on draft declaration.”
In some cases the day-to-day management of the COP incited and inflamed the feeling of fragmentation. The location itself was criticized from the start: Copenhagen is lovely, but very expensive. Many stakeholders from the developing world could not afford to attend, assuming they could get visas.
Once they did arrive, the long registration lines in the cold took a toll on those just off long flights from the tropics, and some just gave up as coughs set in. It is worth noting that on several key days, members of negotiating parties had to wait in line with the NGOs, severely limiting their ability to contribute to the work going on inside.
Some of those who braved the lines, including an Indian journalist colleague, got inside and to the registration desk after hours only to find that their accreditation had been unilaterally cancelled.
The restrictions on NGOs hit the developing world particularly hard, as many of the government negotiating teams were actively supported by think tanks and others who were registered as NGOs.
In an atmosphere already rife with distrust, those sort of organizational issues were not helpful, to say the least, and they fed into conspiracy theories about a deliberate concerted effort by the developed world to bulldoze through secret drafts. It doesn’t matter if it is not true, what matters is that it is now widely believed – and on the front page of the Times of India.
The implications are troublesome. The government officials and negotiators involved will be sitting across the table from each other in a wide range of other treaties and agreements. The distrust resulting from COP15 will feed into existing geopolitical tensions and will be carried in the hearts and minds of those involved for years.
This is not good. When we combine the two trends – a failure to manage (or even acknowledge) the scientific importance of non-carbon environmental change factors and increasingly polarized geopolitics – it is easy to see some very unsettling times on the near horizon.
As we start to experience accelerating problems with everything from water scarcity (including in the United States and Europe) to infrastructure failure (including along the U.S. coasts), we are all going to need as many friends as we can get. If the Titanic is going down, it doesn’t help to compete over who can steal the most silverware.
The sort of behavior on show in Copenhagen may suit some narrow interests, but unless the full complexity of environmental change is addressed, those interests will lose out—as will we all.
Cleo Paskal is a fellow at Chatham House, a consultant to the Department of Energy’s Global Energy and Environment Strategic Ecosystem (GlobalEESE) and author of Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic, and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map. MORE -
Guest Contributor:
Amid Blizzards, Protests, and Lock-downs, Population Gets Stunning Moments in the Sun in Copenhagen
›By Kathleen Mogelgaard // Thursday, December 17, 2009The second week of negotiations here in Copenhagen has been marked by dramatic events, as the deadline for a new global agreement to address climate change approaches.
Blocs of negotiators from developing countries have walked out, and returned. Thousands of NGO representatives who have been denied access to the proceedings are shivering in the cold. Observers inside the Bella Center have staged sit-ins. And yet slivers of hope remain for some form of a global deal that is fair, ambitious, and binding as negotiators prepare for the arrival of more than 100 heads of state on Friday.
Amid this chaos, there is encouraging evidence that voices of those advocating for increased attention to the role of population and reproductive health and rights in climate change responses are being heard.
This afternoon, in a side event organized by Iceland on “Women as Agents of Change,” Danish Minister for Development Cooperation Ulla Tørnæs announced new funding for the United Nations Population Fund in the amount of $5.9 million, stating:
“The combination of climate change and high population growth adds to the pressure on resources in many developing countries. Population growth puts tremendous pressure on a sustainable management of natural resources, which indicates an indirect link between climate change and women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights…More than 200 million women in developing countries want to avoid pregnancy, but do not have access to modern contraception. It is crucial that we accelerate our efforts to meet these unmet needs.”
At a closed-door meeting yesterday, more than 50 members of parliament (MPs) from developed and developing countries discussed the role of voluntary family planning programs in reducing vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. Hosted by the Population and Climate Change Alliance, a collective including Population Action International (PAI) and other NGOs working together to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights as critical components of climate change responses, the event encouraged informal, frank discussions among MPs about the opportunities to bring population into the Copenhagen conference.
Earlier in the week, the issue of reproductive health got a worthy boost during a high-level panel marking the close of “Development and Climate Days,” a parallel conference outside the negotiating venue. President Nasheed of Maldives, Tanzania’s Minister for Environment Batilda Burian, and Kenya’s Minister for Water and Irrigation Charity Kaluki Ngilu, and other panelists identified what the most vulnerable countries need out of Copenhagen to help them adapt to climate change. Minister Ngilu unequivocally stated that reproductive health should be central to development and climate change efforts in these countries. In Kenya, where the population has grown rapidly, she asserted that reproductive health should be a key strategy to help cope with development challenges, including climate change, by ensuring that “women are empowered and have control of their health needs, including desired family sizes.”
Nobel Laureate and chairman of the IPCC Rajendra Kumar Pachauri also recognized the importance of reproductive health. At a United Nations Foundation event on UNFPA’s State of the World report, “Facing a changing world: women, population and climate,” Pachauri and Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, noted that issues of gender and population are back on the global agenda. Robinson pointed out that the report’s focus on women’s lives will be an important stepping stone in 2010.
Pachauri remarked that issues of population and consumption are “critical to actions related to global greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation” and that the intersection of these issues affects both industrialized and developing countries. Unfair distribution and aggregate levels of consumption leave the world’s poor vulnerable, he said, and resources for health care, education, and social services should be mobilized to address inequities and fertility.
Looking forward, Pachauri called on countries to examine issues of population and consumption, provided that industrialized leaders demonstrate the necessary global leadership at COP-15 and other forums.
While the outcome from these two weeks of negotiations remains foggy, it has become eminently clear that issues of population, reproductive health, family planning, and gender equity have gained a strong foothold in discussions on the global response to climate change. Despite the hours we have spent shivering in the cold, our voices are resonating in the halls of the Bella Center, and will continue to call for comprehensive solutions in Copenhagen and beyond.
Kathleen Mogelgaard is senior program manager for population and climate change at Population Action International (PAI). Read more about PAI’s work around Copenhagen. MORE -
Guest Contributor:
Climate Combat? Security Impacts of Climate Change Discussed in Copenhagen
›By Oli Brown // Thursday, December 17, 2009
Leaders from the African Union,the European Union, NATO, and the United Nations have agreed unanimously that climate change threatens international peace and security, and urged that the time for action is now. MORE
In Copenhagen Tuesday, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the secretary-general of NATO; Jean Ping, the chairperson of the Commission of the African Union; and Helen Clark, the administrator of the UN Development Programme, were joined by Carl Bildt and Per Stig Møller, foreign ministers of Sweden and Denmark respectively, to take part in a remarkable public panel discussion organized by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The leaders agreed climate change could hold serious implications for international security, both as a “threat multiplier” of existing problems and as the cause of conflict, under certain conditions.
Møller suggested there is evidence that higher temperatures in Africa could be directly linked to increases in conflict. Ping emphasized that African emissions make up only 3.8 per cent of the climate problem, though Africa will likely suffer some of its most serious impacts. Fogh Rasmussen warned of the dangers of territorial disputes over the Arctic as the sea ice recedes. “We need to stop the worst from happening,” said Clark.
While there was broad agreement on the seriousness of the challenge, the participants differed on what should be done. Responding to a question from the audience, Bildt argued that Europe should not necessarily throw open its doors to climate migrants, but that the bloc needed to help countries deal with climate change so people can stay at home. Clark argued that enlightened migration policy could meet two sets of needs: reversing declining populations in the North while providing a destination for unemployed workers from the South.
Fogh Rasmussen said militaries can do much to reduce their use of fossil fuels. He noted that 170 casualties in Afghanistan in 2009 have been associated with the delivery of fuel. There is no contradiction, he argued, between military efficiency and energy efficiency.
However, the real significance of the climate-security event lay not in what these leaders said, but that they were there to say it at all. Not many issues can gather the heads of the AU, NATO, and the UNDP on the same platform, alongside the foreign ministers of Sweden and Denmark. This event proved that climate change has become a core concern of international policymakers.
The only way to tackle global problems, as Ping argued, is to find global solutions. And a clear understanding of the potentially devastating security implications of climate change might be one way to bring about those global solutions.
“We are all in the same ship, and if that ship sinks, we will all drown,” said Ping.
Oli Brown is senior researcher and program manager at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). Read more of IISD’s postings on its blog.
Photo: Courtesy United Nations Photo. -
Eye On:
Google’s Fight Against Climate Change
›By Dan Asin // Wednesday, December 16, 2009After erroneous reports last January that “two Google searches generate the same carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea,” Google is making environmental news for the right reasons, with the launch of its Google Earth-integrated climate change “tours.”
Narrated by the “Governator” himself, the most recent tour combines stunning graphics, images, and data to illustrate how climate change will impact California over the next century and outlines current and future mitigation and adaptation efforts.MORE
Other Google Earth tours delve into how climate change projections work; climate and health connections in Africa; and projects to reduce deforestation in Borneo, the Amazon, and Madagascar.
In addition, Google has partnered with CNN to create a COP15 YouTube Channel where users can explore behind-the-scenes videos from the Copenhagen summit and watch highlights from a December 15 debate featuring world leaders, climate activists, and user-generated questions.
For up to the minute information on Google’s environmental work and initiatives, check out the following sites:- Google’s Official Blog: Sorted by the “green” tag for all news on Google tools, events, and technology related to the environment
- Google Earth Outreach Showcase: Home to Google Earth tools and tours created by third-party organizations working on climate, the environment, disease, and other issues
- The Unofficial Google Earth Blog: A source for all things Google Earth, with a dedicated section to the environment.
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Guest Contributor:
The Ambivalent Security Agenda in Copenhagen
›By Saleem Ali // Tuesday, December 15, 2009To communicate a sense of urgency, the security paradigm is being used to push for self-sufficiency in energy, and hence “national security,” at COP-15. Such a connection, if configured with carbon-free energy sources, could provide a win-win outcome for many.
This argument has been embraced both by the left and the right of the political spectrum in the United States. But compelling as it may be politically, there is a discomforting insularity and isolationism embedded in this approach, as emphasized by the delegations from some countries that export fuels (e.g., OPEC members, emergent oil and gas economies, and uranium exporters such as Namibia and Niger).
The Canadian delegation, which was targeted by activists with a “fossil of the day” award, used the security argument to show how it could send relatively “conflict-free” fuels to the United States by developing its oil, uranium, and bituminous tar sands.
Australia played a similar security card behind the scenes. The former Environment Minister Robert Hill also served as defense minister and is now head of Australia’s Carbon Trust–connections which he suggested were very valuable in an onsite interview with journalist Giles Parkinson.
Nuclear energy was prominently discussed as a solution by numerous delegations. At a side event organized by the Danish Federation of Industries, Energy Secretary and Nobel physicist Steven Chu indicated that his biggest concern about nuclear energy was not the waste problem but rather, the potential dangers to national security from the proliferation of radioactive materials.
The other security connection that environmentalists like to make–but is empirically more tenuous–concerns the increased pressures on existing strife in resource-scarce communities potentially inflicted by climate change. I attended a presentation by an OECD research team that empirically considered the impact of climate change on the security of the vulnerable states of the African Sahel. While generally rejecting the direct linkage between climate change and the threat of violent conflict, the OECD study, launched with UK Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, identified three hotspots where existing resource scarcity and population pressure could be exacerbated by climate change, especially agropastoralist communities, who are highly sensitive to any climatic fluctuations.
So far, the rather meandering encounter with the security agenda I’ve witnessed here in Copenhagen could greatly benefit from further integrative work such as that offered by the Wilson Center.
Saleem H. Ali is associate professor of environmental planning at the University of Vermont and the author most recently of Treasures of the Earth: Need, Greed and a Sustainable Future. MORE -
Eye On:
NATO Says Don’t Fight the Planet
›By Geoff Dabelko // Tuesday, December 15, 2009Climate and security are under discussion today in Copenhagen at the Danish government’s side event, which brings together heavyweights such as NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, African Union Chair Jean Ping, and Danish Foreign Minister Peter Stig Møller.MORE
Fogh Rasmussen, the former prime minister of Denmark, delivered his remarks the new-fashioned way: today’s Huffington Post. He says NATO is ready to “do its part” by lowering its own carbon bootprint and responding to the increasing humanitarian challenges of a warmer world. He suggests the threat of climate change does not allow powerful institutions like NATO the luxury of sitting on the sidelines.
The post even includes this embedded “Climate Change and NATO” video with an unfortunate screen grab that reads “Fighting the Planet.” Not exactly a reassuring message for those who argue that framing climate change as a security issue will militarize the environment rather than green security (to paraphrase an excellent 1994 edited volume by Finn Jyrki Kakonen).
The video’s actual message is that some security threats can be fought and others shouldn’t be. Climate change will present a security threat, but “Fight the planet and we all lose,” says NATO. Even when the video makes all the right points, those pesky screen grabs can undermine your case!
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