Indonesia voiced concern over the outcome of climate change talks in Bonn, Germany, which seemed to move the world further away from a global treaty on emissions cuts targets in Cancun, Mexico, this year.

The five-day climate negotiation, part of the second round of talks before the Cancun summit, was concluded over the weekend (Saturday in Jakarta).

"We are unhappy with the results *of the Bonn meeting*," Indonesian delegation head Rachmat Witoelar told The Jakarta Post from Germany on Sunday.

"This is like a patient suffering a severe disease but not able to die."

He said a lot of work remained undone before the upcoming meeting in China, the last preparatory meeting ahead of Cancun.

The Bonn meeting was the third round of talks this year after the failure of the Copenhagen summit to reach a legally binding treaty.

Around 110 heads of state and governments from the world attended the Copenhagen summit last year.

Rachmat did not elaborate the result of the Bonn meeting, saying it was difficult to repeat the successes made in Bali in 2007.

The Bali meeting reached a consensus after a fortnight of tough negotiations to agree on the Bali road map and Bali action plan. The road map set the deadline for the world to adopt a legally binding treaty in 2009.

The Copenhagen summit, however, failed to meet the target, ending in the Copenhagen Accord political statement.

"It is now difficult to replicate the outcomes of the Bali meeting because a number of developing countries, including Indonesia, have developed rapidly," he said.

"Categorizing annex and non-annex *countries* should be seen in the context of what we can do for the planet, and not what the planet can do for us."

Under the existing Kyoto protocol, only rich "annex" countries are legally bound to cut their emissions.

The undeveloped and developing "non-annex" countries, including emerging countries Indonesia, China, India and Brazil, requested funding from rich nations to mitigate and adapt to the severe impacts of climate change.

Developed nations, however, argued that the emerging countries should also adhere to legally binding targets.

Rachmat said the likely outcome of the Cancun meeting would be a new time line to agree on a global treaty.

US deputy special envoy Jonathan Pershing also expressed disappointment over the poor progress made at the Bonn meeting.

"I came to Bonn hopeful of a deal in Cancun, but at this point I am very concerned as I have seen some countries walking back from progress made in Copenhagen," Jonathan said as quoted by Reuters.

The European Union's co-lead negotiator, Artur Runge-Metzger, also accused some countries of adding text in a "tit for tat" way and said, "It is important in Tianjin to turn that spirit around."

The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) warned the upcoming meeting in Tianjin, China, should be the last opportunity for governments to resolve outstanding issues and agree to address climate change.

"It was worrying to see that the discussions in Bonn that moved behind closed doors did not progress issues adequately. The mitigation discussion even went backwards and became more polarized," Gordon Shepherd, leader of the WWF global climate change initiative said in a statement. (By Adianto P. Simamora)

Source: The Jakarta Post

Government officials are pointing to the drought and wildfires in Russia, and the floods across Central and East Asia as consistent with climate change predictions. While climatologists say that a single weather event cannot be linked directly to a warming planet, patterns of worsening storms, severer droughts, and disasters brought on by extreme weather are expected as the planet warms.

Russia burning

In Russia, likely thousands of people have died from heat-related illnesses and 20 percent of the nation's grain harvest has been lost due to a prolonged drought, record-breaking high temperatures, and hundreds of peatland and forest fires, which have blanketed Moscow in a toxic fog. This summer Moscow has broken 100 degrees Fahrenheit a number of times, while the previous record was 99 degrees Fahrenheit.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has put a ban on grain exports from Russian in order to keep prices low domestically until 2011. Putin's announcement aggravated fears of a global food crisis as wheat prices have almost doubled since June.

On Thursday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told a Russian Security Council meeting, "Everyone is talking about climate change now. Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past. This means that we need to change the way we work, change the methods that we used in the past."

On Friday Medvedev continued his sudden frankness on climate change, warning that climate change could impact the Winter Olympics.

"Frankly, what is going on with the world’s climate at the moment should incite us all (I mean world leaders and heads of public organizations) to make a more strenuous effort to fight global climate change," he said. Russia is one of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters: when emissions due to deforestation are not included, Russia is listed as among the top 4, after China and the US, and nearly equal to India.

Prior to the heat-disaster in Russia, Medvedev announced that the nation aimed to 'cut' greenhouse gas emissions by 10-15 percent by 2020, however since this is based on a baseline of 1990 emissions (before the Soviet Union collapsed), it would actually allow Russia's greenhouse gas emissions to rise by 29-36 percent over the next ten years, according to Reuters.

The Asian Deluge

At the same time as central Russia is experiencing record heat and debilitating fires, a number of Asian nations have been hit with catastrophic flooding and mud slides. Flashfloods in India have left 132 people dead and some 500 missing, while mudslides in China due to flooding has taken the lives of 127 people. Nearly 50,000 people have been evacuated in China.

But to date no nation appears worst hit than Pakistan, where flooding has killed 1,600 people and affected 14 million. Landslides have followed the flooding killing dozens more.

Rice crops have also been impacted, furthering concerns of an impending global food crisis. Currently it is estimated that 4 million Pakistani flood victims are in need of food. The floods are being considered the worse in 80 years.

Pakistani glaciologist, Prof M. Iqbal Khan, told the Associated Press of Pakistan that the flooding was linked to melting glaciers in upper Pakistan.

"I have warned everyone about the floods in Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera due to the global warming in my previous interviews but nobody took notice and the result is before us," he said, adding that "it is the glaciers which are adding fuel to the fire and due to the melting of glaciers the flood situation is aggravated."

Experts say a warming world increases the likelihood and severity of flooding in some regions since warmer temperatures causes increases the volume of water vapor in the air leading to heavier precipitation events.

More water vapor also feeds severe storms, boosting their strength and severity. Asia has not been alone in experiencing unusually severe flooding. A number of record floods also hit the United States over the last six months.

Progress slow on climate change negotiations

Meanwhile a climate conference in Bonn, Germany, ended on Friday with what looked like little progress on increasingly difficult negotiations. US chief negotiator Jonathan Pershing said that both the fires in Russia and the floods in Pakistan were "consistent with the kind of changes we could expect from climate change, and they will get worse if we don't act quickly".

Wendel Trio, climate policy director from Greenpeace, said more starkly: ''Russia is burning and Pakistan is drowning, yet [officials] seem happy to continue as if they have all the time in the world."

The last six months have been the hottest on record worldwide since data-taking began in the late 19th Century. The decade from 2000-2009 was also the warmest on record. Climate experts overwhelmingly say that the world is warming due to extensive greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. (By Jeremy Hance)

Source: Mongabay

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The world’s leading financier for environmental projects, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), has allotted a US$87 million grant to help Indonesia protect its dwindling environmental assets, officials say.

Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta said that about half of the money would be awarded to projects dealing with mitigation and adaptation to prevent climate change.

“The project developers could be from the government, local communities, NGOs or universities,” he told reporters Monday.

The $87 million grant will be disbursed based on projects approved by the GEF executive board in Washington during the from Aug. 1, 2010, to July 31, 2014.

Indonesia received a $40 million grant from the GEF for the previous four-year period.

The GEF is an independent financial organization that awards grants to developing countries to finance projects linked to climate change, biodiversity, land degradation, ozone layer and persistent organic pollutants issues.

The GEF was set up in 1991 with the World Bank serves as its trustee.

The GEF has allocated $8.8 billion for more than 2,400 projects in more than 165 developing countries and countries whose economies are in transition.

GEF’s presence in Indonesia is currently chaired by Environment Ministry secretary-general Arief Yuwono.

The GEF Indonesia secretariat, which consists of several senior government officials would assess all proposals before submitting them to the GEF’s headquarters in Washington for approval.

Division head for multilateral cooperation at GEF’s Indonesia secretariat, Wahyu Marjaka, said that as of Monday, 23 project proposals had been submitted.

“We are still evaluating a proposal to build a water-based electrical power [facility] in Wakatobi, Southeast Sulawesi. We target to propose at least 10 project proposals to GEF Washington before November,” he said.

He said the Wakatobi project would supply free electricity to at least five villages in the area.

Wahyu said the grant from the GEF would also be used to support the government’s commitment to cut emissions by 26 percent by 2020.

The government has pledged to cut the country’s emissions by 26 percent using Rp 83 trillion of state money. If rich nations provide Rp 168 trillion in additional financial assistance, Indonesia would further cut its emissions by another 15 percent by 2020.

However, the government has not finished formulating its plan to meet the targets.

A number of countries have also pledged to provide money to Indonesia to reduce emissions, particularly from the forestry sector.

Indonesia and Norway signed a climate deal worth $1 billion to reduce Indonesia’s deforestation rate to reduce emissions. Indonesia has received an additional $106.6 million to preserve its forests.

Australia has said it plans to invest $70 million for carbon financing projects in Central Kalimantan and Jambi while Germany has promised $26 million for REDD pilot projects in Kapuas Hulu in West Kalimantan and Berau in East Kalimantan.

South Korea has pledged $5 million to develop a REDD project for forests in West Nusa Tenggara and last week the United Nations-REDD pledged $5.6 million for a REDD project in Central Sulawesi. (By Adianto P. Simamora)

Source: The Jakarta Post

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BONN, Aug 5 (Reuters) - A U.N. climate finance group is studying funding sources to support countries vulnerable to climate change, including a financial institution tax, it said at talks in Bonn on Thursday.

Nicholas Stern, professor at the London School of Economics, said the group was analysing both public and private sources of funding, including fund flows from financial institutions, revenues from carbon taxes, carbon permit auctions and financial transaction taxes.

The group, which is made up of heads of governments, economists and finance ministers, will present its final report on potential sources of revenue for financing mitigation and adaptation activities in developing countries in November at a U.N. climate meeting in Cancun, Mexico.

"Private sector investment will drive a new industrial revolution but there will be a very important part of the story which will require public money to support it," Stern said at a U.N. climate meeting in Bonn.

Carbon permit auctions, carbon taxes and penalising emissions from international aviation and shipping could generate between $10-20 billion each, depending on the level of taxation placed on each source, Stern said.

"No single source is likely to deliver $100 billion. A number of sources will be necessary," he said.

The Copenhagen Accord at a U.N. summit last December set a long-term goal of raising $100 billion a year by 2020 to avert the effects of climate change. It also fixed a short-term goal of $10 billion a year by 2012 to aid developing nations.

Stern said a financial institution tax, which would tax the world's banks on the value of all their transactions, is controversial.

It is still one of the options being looked at by the group, though it is up to governments to decide whether to adopt it.

"Most taxation will be at a national level -- that is just pragmatic. There is great jealousy (in governments) about the right to tax," Stern said.

It has been estimated such a tax could raise up to $250 billion a year. (By Nina Chestney; Editing by Sue Thomas)

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Source: Reuters

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