Gordon Brown is attempting to get international climate change negotiations back on track by pushing for a multi-billion fund to help the countries worst affected by global warming.

United Nations talks in Copenhagen in December ended in a weak Accord that agreed all countries will work together to try and keep global temperature rise below 2C (3.6F).

The target will be met by investing £6 billion per annum from this year in helping poor countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions and £60 billion from 2020.

But questions remain on how the money will be raised.

The Prime Minister will meet with leaders from Ethiopia and Guyana as well as high level bankers and businessmen to discuss options including a tax on aviation and shipping or the "Robin Hood" tax on banking.

The leaders will also discuss the best way to ensure the money is spent on protecting forests and helping countries at risk of floods and drought.

Phil Bloomer, Oxfam’s Campaigns and Policy director, said the talks are a chance to get the climate change negotiations back on track before the next international meeting in Cancun, Mexico in November.

“Gordon Brown has a real chance to move the world closer towards tackling climate change. He must push the group towards making clear recommendations in time for Mexico so that the most effective ways to generate funds are developed to help the millions of people urgently needing support," he said. (By Louise Gray)

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

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The UN conference in Cancún next December needs to set the basis for a new climate change treaty in 2011, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

"For me the first challenge for Cancún is to turn the Copenhagen Accord and turn the other decisions which were near agreement in Copenhagen into a functioning architecture," De Boer said.

Such an agreement, he said, would gather adaptation, mitigation, technology and finance together "into a functioning architecture that really gives developing countries the confidence that it's going to be in their interest to move forward," de Boer said.

"I think it is possible to reach a final agreement in 2011 in South Africa," De Boer argued.

But before a deal is struck, a common understanding is needed on what it would actually mean for an agreement to be legally-binding in nature, the UNFCCC chief stressed. Although the EU and many developing countries insist on the need for a legally-binding agreement, there is little understanding at the moment of what this would mean in practice.

"Is it a treaty that's binding at the international level, is it a treaty that's binding at the national level, or is it a treaty that's binding through the implementation rules that it's given, or is it all three? That needs to be clear first."

De Boer said the EU could play an instrumental role in furthering such debates and driving the negotiations forward.

In his eyes, the EU has not lost leadership on climate change diplomacy despite being sidelined on the final stretch of the Copenhagen negotiations (EurActiv 19/12/09). European leaders, he stressed, made "significant contributions" to getting the final accord signed.

"Europe also made proposals which ultimately didn't make it into the Copenhagen Accord but maybe will make it into a future agreement," he added.

"I think the priority for the EU now is to move its part of the $30 billion short-term finance in a credible way to support the priorities of developing countries," de Boer said.

Financing will be key to bridging the divide between the rich and poor countries, de Boer further stressed. He said that in addition to prompt delivery of fast-start financing, a financial architecture to dispatch the $100 billion pledged by industrialised nations will be needed to reassure the poorest countries that the funds will support their priorities. 

"What we should be doing under the context of the [UN Framework Convention on Climate Change] is setting the parameters for finance, identifying the countries that should receive priority support, identifying the issues that should receive priority support, identifying how support should be provided, for example within the context of nationally-approved adaptation and mitigation strategies," the UN climate executive said.

One of the stumbling blocks to agreeing a fully-fledged treaty has been the attitude of the US. The political agenda in Washington has been hijacked by healthcare reform, delaying the passing of climate legislation. De Boer was nevertheless positive about the Obama administration's ability to contribute to the negotiations in Cancún even if there is no domestic legislation in place by then.

"There is a continuous communication between the [US] Administration and the Senate to ensure that whatever is agreed will meet the basic conditions which the Senate has," he said. He stressed the importance of making sure that any agreement struck would subsequently be acceptable to all national parliaments.

"I think it's important to remember that not a single one of the countries that signed up to a target in Kyoto had the national legislation in place," de Boer said, stressing that the UN process has demonstrated its capacity to work.

Source: EurActiv.com

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During its fourth meeting in Nairobi, Kenya 18-19 March 2010, the UN-REDD Programme Policy Board approved US$14.7 million in funding for national UN-REDD programmes in Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia, bringing the total amount of funding for UN-REDD national programmes to-date to US$48.3 million. The Policy Board approved US$4.7 million for Bolivia, US$5.5 million for DRC and US$4.5 million for Zambia.

The meeting was attended by just over 100 participants from more than 25 countries, including representatives from the Programme’s nine pilot countries and 13 new countries, eight of which just joined the program in January (Costa Rica, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Republic of Congo, Solomon Islands, and Sudan). Representatives from the Programme’s three donor countries—Norway, Denmark and Spain— were in attendance as well as permanent observers from the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), three Indigenous Peoples representative and three CSO representatives. Guest observers included representatives from Finland, Japan, Commission des Forêts d'Afrique Centrale (COMIFAC), Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) Secretariat joined the meeting.

“It was an honour to have the valued participation of so many REDD+ leaders and innovators from around the world. With their guidance and inputs, our national programmes continue to move in the right direction, supporting more and more countries to develop and galvanize their REDD+ strategies,” said Yemi Katerere, Head of the UN-REDD Programme Secretariat.
During the first day of the meeting, the Policy Board welcomed the pledges by Norway of NOK 175 million, (approximately US$30 million) in funding for 2010, and €15 million (approximately US$20 million) from Spain for 2010-2012.

Other highlights from the first day included opening remarks from Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, during which he highlighted the importance of “learning by doing” and encouraged countries and stakeholders to “focus on recognizing and mitigating risk” when developing REDD+ strategies.

The UN-REDD Programme presented an overview of global and national programme progress since the last policy board meeting in October 2009, and received valuable feedback on its evolving strategy document. Acknowledging the calls from member countries for closer collaboration between the UN and World Bank systems, the Policy Board requested that the UN-REDD Programme and the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) Management Team integrate Policy Board meetings and FCPF Participant/Committee Assembly meetings and that moving forward, the UN and the World Bank systems would further coordinate delivery mechanisms to REDD+ countries.

In addition to the budget allocations for Bolivia, DRC and Zambia, highlights from the second day included the approval of an additional US$3.8 million for global programme activities which would fund measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) activities, and support IP/CSO engagement on REDD+. The Policy Board was honoured to have Nobel Laureate Professor Wangari Maathai deliver closing remarks, during which she expressed that she was happy to see the UN and the World Bank working together, and emphasized the need for resources from REDD+ to “benefit the people for whom they are intended.” She concluded by stating, “We really need to emphasis the need to manage these (REDD+) resources with a responsible and transparent approach.”

The meeting was co-chaired by Mr. Vincent Seya Makonga Kasulu, Director of Sustainable Development, Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Tourism, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ms. Veerle Vandeweerd, Director, Environment and Energy Group, Bureau for Development Policy, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The meeting was held at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi.

All documents and presentations from the 4th UN-REDD Policy Board meeting are available on the Programme website and workspace.

Field trip to Kenya’s Rift Valley

The UN-REDD Programme Policy Board’s two-day meeting was preceded by a field trip on 17 March to sites at various forestry initiatives in Kijabe, Kinale and Naivasha in Kenya’s Rift Valley. The objective of the field trip was to enable members to exchange experiences from their own countries, using the Rift Valley landscape mosaic and the Mau Forest Complex issues as the context for a wider discussion about REDD+.

Kenya is a country with low forest cover and relatively high rates of deforestation. Resettlement and expansion of populations are visible throughout the valley. The effects of drought as a result of changes in the climate and pressures from the industries in the area can be seen in the region’s many lakes. The Mau Forest which is the largest forest ecosystem and the largest water catchment area in Kenya is also located in the Rift Valley.

The field visit provided an opportunity to look at a variety of issues related to REDD+, climate change, deforestation, ecosystems, and the need for regional and South-South cooperation.

Source: UN-REDD

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March 24 (Bloomberg) -- The European Union is “very committed” to see its market linked with carbon-trading programs in other countries by 2015, a senior official at the bloc’s executive arm said.

Nations’ emission-reduction pledges under the Copenhagen accord will be “very difficult to deliver” without an international carbon-trading system, Jos Delbeke, director general at the European Commission’s climate department, told a conference in Brussels today.

“We have to link up the Emissions Trading System to systems elsewhere,” Delbeke said. “Even if the debates are going to be heated in the U.S. or China or Australia, we are very committed to have a system of linked carbon-trade schemes by 2015.”

The EU Emissions Trading System, or ETS, is the world’s largest cap-and-trade program. Started in 2005 to address climate change, it covers more than 11,000 installations including power plants, as well as oil refineries and producers of steel, paper, pulp, glass, lime, brick, ceramics and cement. They must have an allowance for each ton of carbon dioxide they emit in burning fossil fuels. Those that produce more than their allowances need to buy more; those that emit less can sell their surplus.

In the U.S., a proposal for a cap-and-trade program to limit greenhouse-gases by letting polluters buy and sell emission allowances on an open market passed the House last year and has stalled in the Senate.

“In the U.S., there’s an intensive debate at the federal level, but there’s also an ongoing debate at the state level,” Delbeke said. “And our new ETS directive adopted in April last year allows us to link up also with sub-regional and sub- national emission trading systems and systems outside.”

‘Fresh Debate’

A “fresh debate” on offsetting mechanisms is needed in the run-up to the next round of the UN climate negotiations at the end of this year in Cancun, Mexico, he said. Under the UN Clean Development Mechanism, the world’s second-largest carbon market, offset credits are awarded when investors fund project to cut emissions in developing nations.

“CDM is an offsetting mechanism that is not very popular in the U.S., and so having a common offsetting system could be of absolute importance for the future meeting of carbon markets,” Delbeke said. “We can link them formally, but if we have a common offsetting scheme they would be linked de facto already.”

Delbeke also said that the EU will debate the issue of carbon taxation that could potentially be applied to sectors not covered by the ETS, such as transport or services. (By Ewa Krukowska)

--Editors: Mike Anderson, Will Kennedy.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ewa Krukowska in Brussels at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Source: Business Week

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