UN talks in Cancún should focus on issues where some consensus already exists because agreement on binding emissions targets is unlikely before 2015, according to a UN negotiator.

When the talks end next month, negotiators will likely have finalised a set of mostly process decisions, but there is a chance of a few substantive decisions, particularly on issues such as reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), said Antonio La Viña, dean of the Ateneo School of Government in the Philippines and chair of the UN REDD negotiations.

Binding emissions targets are “ground zero” for the international negotiations and will probably have to wait until many other issues such as adaptation, financing and technology transfer are resolved, he told attendees of the Carbon Markets Insights Americas 2010 conference in New York this week.

Predictions for an agreement on targets in 2015 are “probably just right on the money”, La Viña said. “Certainly, in Cancún that is beyond reach.”

The only way to move the climate negotiations forward is to abandon the comprehensive approach in favour of an incremental path where the parties focus on issues they can agree on now and kick the others into the future, he said.

For example, the Cancún negotiations can focus on advancing the REDD+ discussion – the ‘plus’ referring to conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. The big climate players such as China, India and the US agree on REDD+ so the “baggage” that exists with other issues is not a factor, making it easier to secure the participation of the Europeans and other developing countries, La Viña said.

But the Copenhagen talks left several issues unresolved, including a push by the EU and others for the UN to adopt numerical goals to halt deforestation, which some parties have resisted because of uncertainty over the necessary steps to reach proposed targets, he said.

Sub-national reference levels are a potential stumbling block because there is resistance to permanent acceptance of them as a basis for emissions reductions, La Viña said. “Getting an agreement on that will be tough, but do-able even as early as Cancún,” he said.

Bolivia also raised an important issue last year about the potential commoditisation of forests and wanted an explicit statement that markets will not be a source of funding for REDD+. Trying to steamroll over Bolivia would be a mistake because one or two countries can stop an agreement under the UN process, he said.

“Each country has legitimate political interests and you have to understand that,” La Viña said. “When you actually do, you can come back and craft an agreement that gives something to everybody. That’s why it’s do-able to do something in REDD+ and you can then build trust.”

He expressed confidence that the Mexican hosts of the conference could do a better job at facilitating agreements than Danish officials, whose “bad chairing” of last year’s conference he blamed in part for the failure to resolve key issues.

Source: Carbon finance

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Too many distractions put the IPCC on the defensive

It’s been almost a year since the conveniently-timed hacking of computers at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit on the eve of the COP15 climate conference ushered in what climate deniers breathlessly dubbed “climategate.”

Soon after came embarrassing reports of mistaken Himalayan glacier data allowed into the Fourth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with Dr. Rajendra Pachauri at the helm. Further public squabbling and questions (if ill-founded) over Pachauri’s business dealings and conflict of interest made him an easy target for the climate disinformation industry.

In the U.S. the mere mention of global warming met with derision as conservative congressman gleefully built snow forts in honor of Al Gore (in the dead of winter, of course). And now that the Democrats have given up control of the House of Representatives, many expect the newly minted Republican majority to all but outlaw global warming (as if they could).

It’s been a tough year for climate change action.

After a report from the InterAcademy council recommended changes in the “management structure” of the IPCC, pressure began to mount for Pachauri to resign and for the panel to seek new leadership. Many felt that a recent plenary meeting of the panel would be good time to push for his resignation in an effort to help restore credibility to the beleaguered IPCC.

Despite this mounting pressure for Pachauri to resign, no effort was made for his removal when the panel met last month. A recent article in Nature News ponders the question of whether the IPCC needs new leadership now to effectively carry out its mission.

Source: Planetsave.com

Two separate studies have thrown doubt over forests’ ability to help offset global warming. Because trees rely on carbon dioxide to grow, it has been predicted that as CO2 levels rise in a warming world, trees would thrive on the increase, grow faster, and thus help soak up excess atmospheric carbon.

As a result of their findings, the authors of both studies have called into question the growth models for worldwide vegetation being used in official climate change forecasting for this century. The results of the studies may also have implications for some types of forest carbon projects such as reforestation and improved forest management, depending on the growth models they use. Ex ante, or upfront, crediting under some standards may see too many credits issued on forecast carbon sequestration with issuances having to be revised after later verification events during a project’s lifetime.

A study led by Dr Richard Norby of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found that while increased CO2 levels engender higher growth for the first five to six years, after that time the growth rate tails off.

The study team, including US and Australian scientists, found the limiting factor was the fixed level of nitrogen in the soil. After five or six years, the extra soil nitrogen being used to fuel the growth of the trees starts to run out, preventing the trees from being continuing to make the most of the elevated CO2 levels.

Researchers exposed forest stands to CO2 levels 25 per cent higher than the current global concentration, a level expected to be reached by the second half of this century.

“The implication of that for the broader landscapes is that, particularly in nutrient poor soils, the rising CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is probably not going to be as beneficial to plants as we've been hoping,” Dr Belinda Medlyn a biologist at Macquarie University, Sydney, said. She said the models used in the IPCC 4th assessment report are likely to overstate CO2 sequestration on land by “a fair bit”.

A second study, from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, looked at 86 types of trees at more than 2,300 sites on six continents. It found that 80 per cent failed to respond to higher CO2 levels regardless of their species or geographical location. The researchers drew their results from examining tree rings, the distinctive marks left on trees allowing researchers to see how much growth takes place from year to year.

“There might be a very slight increase in the total rate of growth in trees, but they’re not going to be these vacuum cleaners that will magically suck up the CO2 that we’re emitting,” said Ze’ev Gedalof, study co-author and Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Guelph.

Other experts examining the study questioned whether growth rates observed in tree rings give an accurate measure of overall carbon uptake.

ABC Online, Canadian Press.

Source: carbonpositive

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Setting one global standard for monitoring should give investors certainty beyond 2012, says JISC

The UN body tasked with expanding carbon emission reduction projects around the world has agreed to streamline the process for approving such projects, potentially providing a major boost to the global carbon market.

Under the Joint Implementation (JI) process established by the Kyoto Protocol, countries signed up to the treaty can participate in emission reduction schemes in other countries and put the savings towards their own carbon reduction targets.

Currently, JI projects take one of two tracks: Track 1 in which countries vet the projects for eligibility themselves and Track 2 in which the projects are overseen internationally by the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee (JISC), part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat.

But on Friday, at the culmination of week-long talks in Bonn, Germany, the JISC said that the current model was unsustainable and agreed a proposal to combine or harmonise the two tracks, potentially creating a universal system for approving carbon offset projects.

The committee said a universal system would provide greater transparency and consistency for projects, which have been subject to different regimes in different countries.

It added that fears some countries would prove unable to meet the international standards demanded by Track 2, the original reason for establishing a dual system, had proved unfounded.

JISC chair Benoît Leguet said the proposal would provide stability for the JI carbon market beyond the end of the Kyoto commitment period in 2012.

"This is a landmark moment for the market-based approach to combating climate change," he said. "We're putting forward ambitious but extremely practical proposals that would draw on the best features of national and international approaches to incentivising emission reduction projects."

The JISC has received 234 proposals under the Track 2 process, including a number from Russia, which had its first project approved earlier this month.

Leguet urged countries to rubber-stamp the proposal at the UN's Cancun summit in December, arguing that approval for the plan would lay to rest fears about the JI's continuation after 2012.

"The private sector has embraced JI. Countries have done the same by approving and promoting projects," he said. "Now what we need, if the JISC is to continue its work, is for parties to come together and confirm what they have already shown individually, that they want to build on what they've started." (By Will Nichols)

Source: businessGreen.com

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