WASHINGTON — Major economies looked Monday at how to cooperate in shifting to cleaner sources of energy, with a top policy board warning the world's current path was unsustainable.

Senior officials from economies making up 80 percent of global Gross Domestic Product opened two days of talks in Washington in a US initiative to find common ground amid torturous negotiations on a new climate change treaty.

The meeting comes as the United States tries to end the worst oil disaster in its history, a three-month-long spill from a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Without major changes to the way we produce and in energy use, we will confront untenable risks to our collective energy security and to the environment in the future," Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told the delegates.

"Indeed, the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico is a tragic reminder of this," he said.

The IEA, which advises advanced economies, said in a recent study that without a shift from fossil fuels, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions -- which are blamed for global warming -- would nearly double by 2050.

The IEA said that, even leaving aside environmental benefits, a decision to make more than half of light vehicles eco-friendly by 2050 would save global consumers 112 trillion dollars -- although the costs of adjustment would be 46 trillion dollars.

"We still have formidable challenges before us, but each day we wait, the challenge becomes harder. Every year of delay adds 500 billion US dollars to the cost of action," Tanaka said.

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the host of the meeting, later announced one initiative -- lighter-colored paint on the roof of the Energy Department headquarters along with other agency buildings outside of Washington.

He said the project, to begin this summer, would better cool buildings and reflect more of the sun's heat, leading to thousands of dollars in annual savings on air-conditioning.

"Cool roofs are one of the quickest and lowest cost ways we can reduce our global carbon emissions and begin the hard work of slowing climate change," Chu said, adding that he would recommend that other US departments follow suit.

Delegates said the two-day meeting was likely to announce joint initiatives, although it was unclear how specific they would be.

One area of discussions will be on how to develop a cleaner form of coal, which makes up more than a quarter of the global energy supply and is politically sensitive in the United States and China, the top two polluters.

The clean energy meeting, which Chu expected to be the first of several, is an offshoot of the US-led Major Economies Forum, which brings key nations together to seek progress on fighting climate change.

Negotiations on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, whose requirements for nations to cut emissions run out at the end of 2012, have been hamstrung by disputes over how much to demand of both developed and emerging economies.

The countries taking part in the clean energy talks are Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

The European Union is also participating, along with a number of international organizations. (By Shaun Tandon)

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

Source: Google/AFP

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GEORGETOWN, Guyana (GINA) -- Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo and Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday announced the establishment of the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF), and stated that they have invited the World Bank to act as the fund manager.

Norway will be the first contributor to the GRIF, and will pay US$30 million into the fund when it is established, planned at the end of this month. The payment is in recognition of Guyana’s efforts to protect its 16 million hectare rainforest, and follows the memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries in November last year.

Norway intends to pay up to US$250 million into the GRIF between 2010 and 2015, based on Guyana’s performance in avoiding greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, as well as Guyana’s on-going and planned strengthening of inclusive and transparent forest management.

Guyana will invest GRIF revenues to implement the country’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).

This will enable Guyana to place its forest under long-term protection, catalyse public and private investment for clean energy (to move virtually the entire economy away from fossil fuel energy dependence), and create new low carbon economic and employment opportunities for forest dependent communities and other Guyanese citizens. The process will be evolving with the full and effective participation of involved stakeholders, including indigenous peoples groups.

According to Jagdeo, “Prime Minister Stoltenberg has long demonstrated global leadership in the fight against climate change. After Copenhagen, this leadership was particularly vital, and thanks to the Prime Minister’s efforts, the Interim REDD+ partnership, recently established by close to 60 countries at the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference, presents the world with a real chance to make progress on reducing deforestation and forest degradation.

To support this, the work our two countries are doing together will provide the world with a model of how national scale action to protect forests can help to create a path to a prosperous, low carbon future. We can deliver long-term economic growth alongside a commitment to globally accepted social and environmental safeguards. Too many people say this is not possible, we hope to prove them wrong.”

For Stoltenberg, “Guyana’s model is truly visionary. Not only is the country making tough decisions to protect its forest, but it is also planning to invest heavily to move its economy onto a long-term low carbon trajectory. Paying to reduce and avoid emissions from deforestation is one of the most cost effective ways to combat climate change, and also has significant additional benefits regarding biodiversity, climate change adaptation and rights and livelihoods for forest dependent communities. This is good for Guyana and good for the world.”

Jagdeo and Stoltenberg repeated their desire to continue a close political dialogue on the global response to climate change.

They are in New York to attend the second meeting of the United Nations Secretary General’s Advisory Group on Finance, which has been set up to identify ways to raise US$100 billion in annual climate finance for developing countries by 2020.

Guyana’s Minister of Finance will set out further details regarding the GRIF in a statement to Guyana’s National Assembly on July 15th, 2010.

Source: Caribbean Net news

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Some United Nations-overseen regulators of the world’s second-biggest carbon market need to resolve conflicts of interest as they debate on the supply of emission credits from industrial-gas projects next week.

The Clean Development Mechanism executive board, which oversees the market, is deciding how to regulate projects that destroy hydrofluorocarbon-23, the potent greenhouse gas that is a byproduct of chemical-refrigerant making. Greenhouse gas credits from HFC-23 projects make up about half the supply of offsets in the UN program, which can be used for compliance in the European Union market, the world’s biggest.

Three of the 10-member board and three of the 10 alternates who stand in for them when absent should abstain from votes on HFC-23 because of the conflicts, CDM Watch, the Bonn-based environmental lobby group, said July 16. They include representatives of China, India, Netherlands, U.K., Japan and Norway, the lobby group said in an e-mailed statement. That’s because some of those nations buy the credits and some sell.

Lex de Jonge, chairman of the UN panel that approves methodologies to cut greenhouse gases and an alternate member, said he won’t defend projects that apply for credits by destroying the HFC-23 gases. “I’m very much aware of the conflict of interest,” de Jonge said July 16 by phone, referring to the fact that his country, the Netherlands, buys the credits to help comply with its targets under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

“I will not in any way enter into discussions defending these projects,” he said. De Jonge said he and other regulators have abstained from past decisions when conflicted. “That’s the only way to survive in this system.” The executive board is meeting July 26 through 30 in Bonn, Germany.

‘Can Speak’

Conflicted board members that won’t defend credits may still participate in discussions, de Jonge said. “It doesn’t mean they can’t speak.”

Last year, the board adopted a code of conduct that addressed conflict of interest, David Abbass, a spokesman for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said July 16. “Each board member, when they join, signs an oath that addresses conflict of interest,” he said by e-mail.

China has 11 HFC-23 CDM projects producing about 65 million metric tons of Certified Emission Reduction credits a year, CDM Watch said. That’s the most of any nation and adds up to about 650 million euros ($842 million) annually, it said. (By Mathew Carr)

Source: Bloomberg

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UN climate talks have resumed in Bonn to prepare for a December summit in Mexico. Officials say a legally-binding agreement will be impossible, but Mexico's negotiator accuses them of lowering expectations.

UN climate negotiators from 185 nations are in Bonn grappling line-by-line with a 42-page rough draft of a framework agreement for a new climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol. The current climate talks last until June 11 and are intended as a preparation for the upcoming United Nations climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, in December.

Expectations of a big agreement are not high after the failure of the Copenhagen summit six months ago.

Yvo de Boer, chief of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), admits that any treaty is unlikely to be completed before the end of 2011. De Boer tendered his resignation after last December's Copenhagen climate change talks, which ended in widespread disappointment and frustration with only vague promises to cut CO2 emissions.

Leaders from 194 countries were supposed to finalize a legally binding post-2012 treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. All they came up with was a commitment to reduce greenhouse gases that cause global warming and a pledge to assist developing countries combat climate change.

But Mexican negotiator Luis Alfonso de Alba contradicted de Boer Wednesday in telling Reuters he believes a climate deal is possible.

"Mexico does not want to raise false expectations but we certainly are ambitious," he said. "The U.N. secretariat, Yvo de Boer and some other actors, the European Commission, Connie Hedegaard, have frequently referred to the impossibility of reaching a legally binding agreement in Cancun, (and) do not imply that important decisions can be taken in Cancun. We do not share that view. They are somehow lowering expectations for Cancun."

Nations divided into camps

Points of contention include whether to refer to the Copenhagen accord, how steep emissions cuts should be, and how to distribute cuts between rich and poor states. Speaking at a news conference in Bonn de Boer told journalists reaching a legally binding agreement in Cancun is "extremely unlikely."

"I think that especially developing countries would want to see what an agreement would entail for them before they would be willing to turn it into a legally-binding treaty," he said.

In fact, developing countries have raised new demands and pressed developed countries to take greater responsibility for climate change. China and the G77 say the new text needs to emphasize more emissions cuts to be made by developed countries.

African countries want a "binding, inclusive, effective" deal made in Cancun which does not replace the Kyoto Protocol. Small island states reject references to the year 2011 in the new text and say the emissions cuts pledged so far are not enough and constitute a "death sentence" for many island states.

A group including the United States, Japan, Russia, Canada, Australia, Ukraine, New Zealand, Kazakhstan and Iceland says the new text "misses key elements." The group wants a "long-term framework" beyond 2010, climate aid and the saving of forests.

Bolivia wants the text to include a target for levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and that it specify a percentage of national budgets be allocated for climate action. The country suggested 6 percent of GDP, in line with defense budgets.

The European Union said the new text should refer to the Copenhagen accord and should include emissions reduction targets for individual countries. Tuvalu said rejected that any reference to the Copenhagen accord or wording from the accord should be included in the new text.

Moving on from Copenhagen

Last month UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named Costa Rica's Christiana Figueres to replace de Boer. Analysts expect her to shift the emphasis from legally binding emission cuts to developing green technologies.

The 12-day Bonn meeting will attempt to unravel some of the decisions made at the failed Copenhagen talks. The so-called Copenhagen Accord sets a voluntary goal of limiting warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). It was brokered by a couple of dozen leaders in the summit's final desperate hours.

To show that the accord has credibility - and restore trust in the overall process - developing countries are now calling on industrialized countries to honor their pledges of financial support.

Debt crisis

Under the Copenhagen Accord, the European Union, the United States, Japan and other wealthy countries pledged $30 billion (24.3 billion euros) in aid from 2010-2012, with a promise of contributing 100 billion dollars a year by the end of the decade.

Faced with the ongoing debt crisis in the eurozone, the EU appears to be backpedaling on its initial goal of unilaterally cutting CO2 emissions by 30 percent by 2020 against 1990 levels to "kick-start" climate action in developing countries.

EU Commissioner for Climate Change Connie Hedegaard said last week that conditions for a 30-percent move "are clearly not met." The EU had previously proposed increasing their target to 30 percent from 20 percent if other countries followed suit as part of a new climate deal. A study presented by the EU commissioner estimated that this would cost EU countries 81 billion euros.

"Of course, it's not an easy time to discuss money that comes out of the public purse right now," said Hedegaard.

France and Germany - the EU's two largest economies - have warned member countries to tread carefully on the issue.

gps/nrt/AFP/Reuters/dpa

Source: Deutsche Welle