(Reuters) - A plan by almost 200 countries to step up efforts to fight climate change is set to miss a March deadline for starting work on a green fund to help developing nations, delegates said on Wednesday.

Groups of Asian, and Latin American and Caribbean countries have yet to decide who will gain early influence in designing the "Green Climate Fund" by attending 40-nation U.N.-led talks due in Mexico City on March 14 and 15.

The fund, under which aid flows are meant to reach $100 billion a year by 2020, was agreed by governments in December as part of a deal that the United Nations said reignited "a beacon of hope" for tackling global warming.

John Ashe of Antigua and Barbuda, who represents the Latin American and Caribbean group where 14 countries are vying for seven seats in the fund planning committee, said it looked unlikely the matter could be resolved by mid-month.

"Proceeding with the meeting would be a tall order" if all nominees were not in place, he told Reuters. The Asian group has said it will be unable to pick its seven delegates before April.

"It may be difficult to have the meeting," Artur-Runge Metzger, head of the European Commission delegation, told Reuters. Europe's eight delegates had been decided.

The last U.N. talks in Cancun, Mexico, agreed in December to set up the fund as part of a package including steps to protect tropical forests and to limit any rise in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.

Among the few firm deadlines set in the Cancun Agreements was that a "transitional committee" should meet by the end of March 2011 to start designing the fund.

HEATWAVES, DROUGHTS, FLOODS

Rising aid is meant to help developing nations curb their greenhouse gas emissions by shifting from fossil fuels toward renewable energies and to help them adapt to the impacts of heatwaves, droughts, floods, storms and rising sea levels.

Many countries want to ensure that interests are represented, even at preliminary talks. OPEC states in the Asian group, for instance, want compensation for a loss of oil revenues if the world shifts to wind or solar energy.

The organization of the March talks was criticized on February 27 by cabinet ministers from major emerging countries China, India, Brazil and South Africa after talks in New Delhi.

"The decision to convene a meeting of the transitional committee, even before many regional groups of countries have nominated their members, was premature," a joint statement said.

They also said the committee should "take guidance from" the main U.N. climate forum of all countries, which is not due to meet until April 3 to 8 in Bangkok.

Runge-Metzger said that statement also dimmed chances for the meeting in March. He said one option was to downgrade the Mexican talks to an informal session, open to all countries.

Ashe said a delay was not necessarily a setback. "If a meeting is not held in March, additional meetings could be held in coming months," he said.

Among continents that have decided delegates, Africa has picked seven from 21 candidates -- Egypt, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Morocco, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Gabon and South Africa.

The head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, Christiana Figueres, said in Japan on Tuesday that "governments must now implement quickly what they agreed in Cancun."

The Secretariat has published a "progress tracker" for Cancun -- the list of transitional committee members is blank. (By Alister Doyle; Editing by Andrew Dobbie)

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Source: Reuters

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Tackling climate change can at times seem to be at odds with ensuring economic growth and alleviating poverty. I believe, however, that the only way to truly succeed with either of these goals is by striving to reach them all. Climate change, poverty, population growth, and food, water and energy insecurity are mutually reinforcing.

None of these challenges can be solved in isolation. While economic development is key for achieving social and environmental goals, long-term economic growth and lasting competitiveness can only be secured through environmentally sustainable and climate friendly development policies.

Norway, like all other countries, must strive to transform into a low-emission society, and must take the lead in domestic emissions reductions. As a developed country, we carry particular responsibilities in this regard.

We have therefore established a goal — supported by a large majority of our Parliament — to be carbon neutral by 2030. Our contributions to Indonesia’s REDD+ efforts is additional to this goal. We urge other developed countries to set equally audacious goals and follow up on them with determination.

However, the inconvenient truth is that commitment and action from developed countries alone would not solve the climate change challenge, even if all developed countries stopped all emissions today.

Developing countries must act as well. Unless we all take large scale remedial action, huge damage worldwide will follow, wreaking havoc with much of the development progress of the last decades.

Climate change is already affecting the globe through intense and frequent heat waves, droughts, floods, and tropical cyclones.

In 2010, the Brazilian rainforest experienced what some scientists describe as the worst drought in one hundred years. The signals are all flashing red; action can be delayed no longer.

Faced with the stark realities of climate change and its consequences for the developing world, no developing country will benefit from building its future on unsustainable resource extraction leading to environmental destruction and large emissions.

Fortunately, even in the most difficult times, there are always alternatives. Tropical forest countries, like Indonesia, are endowed with rich natural resources that sustain essential life support systems both for the region and for the world.

Lasting economic growth can be built on sustainable land use and world class agricultural productivity.

Effective and transparent land use planning and improved governance and transparency can be established at all levels of government.  What the world needs is good examples of how this could be done: Indonesia is in the process of becoming such an example.

Private enterprise, moreover, benefit from the ecosystem services that standing forests and peatlands provide, and will suffer from the consequences of climate change, such as lack of water and unreliable rainfall patterns.

I am pleased to see that Sinar Mas, Indonesia’s largest producer of palm oil believe that sustainable palm oil production is in their economic interest, and has vowed not to plant on peat, and not to clear forest where significant carbon is locked up in trees.

Low emission development is a fundamental choice for a country that cannot be imposed from the outside. Norway has pledged to support Indonesia with US$ 1 billion over the next few years. However, the agreement between Indonesia and Norway only captures in writing what Indonesia under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s leadership had already planned to do.

Indonesia’s challenge over the next few years — as stated in its climate and forest strategy — is to rationalize land use by the forestry, mining and plantation sectors to ensure more effective protection and reduced emissions from natural forests and peatlands, as well as more effective utilization of degraded lands.

A comprehensive moratorium protecting most of the remaining natural forest and peatlands from this perspective provides a unique opportunity for Indonesia.

It points the way towards a situation where the long-term sustainability of these sectors would be
ensured, thereby strengthening their medium and long term growth prospects. In short, it represents an opportunity for sustainable economic growth.

I strongly believe that the direction in which President Yudhoyono is taking the country will be the best for Indonesia and for the Southeast Asian region, not decades from now, but in the near future.

Rainforests and peatlands provide invaluable services today, to the world and to all Indonesians. The Indonesian government’s pledges to both improve the lot of their population and lead the fight against climate change is a beacon to the world. The government of Norway admires these commitments, and we are proud to support them. (By Erik Solheim)

The writer is Norway’s Minister for Environment and International Development.

Source: The Jakarta Post

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Golden Agri-Resources – the world's second highest palm oil producer – bows to pressure from the west

The world's second biggest palm oil company has agreed to halt deforestation in valuable areas of Indonesian forest, bowing to pressure from western food processors and conservationists.

Golden Agri-Resources Limited has committed itself to protecting forests and peatlands with a high level of biodiversity, or which provide major carbon sinks, as part of an agreement with conservation group the Forest Trust.

However, the agreement announced on Wednesday will still leave GAR free to exploit other areas of forest, and land that is judged to be of lower conservation value.

Greenpeace, which has strongly criticised GAR in the past for its alleged destructive activities, is expected to keep a close watch on the company to ensure it lives up to its promises. Bustar Maitar, head of Greenpeace's campaign to protect Indonesian forests, said: "This could be good news for the forests, endangered species like the orangutan and for the Indonesian economy.

"On paper, the new commitments from Golden Agri are a major step towards ending their involvement in deforestation. And if they do make these changes, large areas of forests will be saved. But now they've actually got to implement these plans, and we're watching closely to make sure this happens."

Scott Poynton, executive director of the Forest Trust, a Geneva-based not-for-profit organisation that helps companies improve their environmental sustainability, added: "Today's agreement represents a revolutionary moment in the drive to conserve forests.

"It's about going to the root causes of deforestation – we have shown that the destruction of forests is anchored deeply in the supply chains of the products we consume in industrialised nations, and we are showing we can do something about that."

He said pressure from Nestlé, which last year drew up a set of sustainability guidelines and signalled that it would not accept palm oil from sources connected to deforestation, had been instrumental in bringing GAR to the table.

Franky Wijaya, chief executive of GAR, said: "As a leading player in the palm oil industry, we are committed to playing our role in conserving Indonesia's forests and look forward to working with all stakeholders including the government of Indonesia, other key players in the palm oil industry, NGOs and local communities to find the common ground for sustainable palm oil production.

"Our partnership with the Forest Trust allows us to grow palm oil in ways that conserve forests and that also respond to Indonesia's development needs, creating much needed employment while building shareholder value."

GAR, which has annual revenues of $2.3bn, is the biggest palm oil company in Indonesia – the world's biggest palm oil producing country. The oil is used in an ever-increasing variety of consumer products, from cosmetics to biscuits, generating a market worth $20bn a year. These rewards have driven the clearance of large areas of tropical forest to make way for the plantations.

Under the agreement, GAR will not use areas of forest and peatland that are classified as "high conservation value" or as "high carbon stock", meaning they store large amounts of carbon and should be preserved. However, the definitions of these terms have not yet been precisely set. Poynton said an initial aerial assessment of forest cover had set out "go" and "no-go" areas, with GAR free to exploit the former. The "no-go" areas will be reassessed to find whether they should be regarded as valuable.

Experts in Indonesia will be asked to judge whether GAR forests have "high conservation value" under guidance from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a coalition of the palm oil industry and conservation groups.

The agreement also fell short of setting out how much land GAR may use for new palm planting.

Poynton said that if the agreement was successful, it could help turn Indonesia into a role model for sustainable development. Indonesia has played a strong role in international climate change negotiations, since hosting the Bali conference in 2007. (By Fiona Harvey)

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Source: Guardian

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At an EU meeting in Brussels, dubbed the Low Carbon Prosperity Summit, the UK's Prince Charles made the case that without healthy ecosystems, the global economy will suffer.

"We have to see that there is a direct relationship between the resilience of Nature's ecosystems and the resilience of our national economies," he told Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), business leaders, and other policy makers. "If the fabric of the Earth's life-support system fragments, as it appears it may be starting to do; if those systems become weak or even collapse—essentially, if Nature's capital loses its innate resilience—then how long does it take for our economic capital and economic systems to lose their resilience too?"

He added: "I cannot see how we can possibly maintain the growth of GDP in the long term if we continue to consume our planet as voraciously as we are doing."

The heir to the English throne also attacked climate change deniers for their "corrosive effect on public opinion".

He stated that such self-described skeptics "deny the vast body of scientific evidence that shows beyond any reasonable doubt that global warming has been exacerbated by human industrialized activity."

In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that it was 'very likely' (over 90%) that human activities are the primary cause of warming over the past century. Since the industrial revolution, the Earth has warmed on average approximately 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit. The last decade was the warmest since record keeping began, and 2010 among the world's warmest years.

"I would ask how these people are going to face their grandchildren and admit to them that they failed their future; that they ignored all the clear warning signs," he continued. "I wonder, will such people be held accountable at the end of the day for the absolute refusal to countenance a precautionary approach for this plays a most reckless game of roulette with the future inheritance of those who come after us?"

Prince Charles also said that environmentalists must change their message and focus on the many benefits of living sustainably.

"If we are constantly told that living environmentally friendly lives means giving up all that makes life worthwhile, then it is no surprise that people refuse to change," he said. (By Jeremy Hance)

Source: Mongabay