UN to Host Special Two-Day Debate on Climate Change

The United Nations General Assembly has hopes the debate will perpetuate the momentum that began in Bali in December 2007 when the 187 member countries finally agreed to put a climate plan into action before the Kyoto Protocol agreement expires in 2012.

The December United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference drew nearly 11,000 participants, including more than 3,500 government officials and 5,800 UN representatives. A range of topics was considered, from finalizing the Adaptation Fund under the Kyoto Protocol to reducing emissions in developing countries.

However, the main focus in Bali was on long-term global cooperation and the post-2012 period when the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period expires. After much discussion and several heated sessions, the member countries agreed to put a plan in place no later than December 2009 to address greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

“The UN Climate Change Conference in Bali was the biggest climate change conference ever,” said UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer. “There was a great desire of the parties to make progress, huge public interest and a good sense of common ownership of the outcome.

“The real work begins now, and we have an incredibly busy time ahead of us. The challenge is huge – there are less than two years left to craft an agreement on stronger international action on
climate change that measures up to the imperatives of science.”

In 2007, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a finding that, if left unchecked, the world’s average temperature could rise by as much as 6°C by the end of the century, causing harm to economies, societies and ecosystems worldwide.

The ‘Bali Roadmap’ sets the stage for a new agreement that will try to address the four main identified pillars of dealing with global warming – action for adapting to the negative consequences of climate change such as droughts and floods; ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; ways to deploy climate-friendly technologies; and financing adaptation and mitigation measures. The new deal should be finalized in Copenhagen in December 2009.

According to the UNFCCC, the world can build on experience with the emerging carbon market during the past couple of years, in particular the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which supports sustainable development and adaptation in developing countries. “In order to address climate change, we need a cleverly designed financial architecture, a plan that will spur green, low-carbon economic growth worldwide and enhanced adaptation, particularly in developing countries,” de Boer said. “We need a new climate change Marshall Plan that will reshape the world’s future economy and redirect investment flows into a sustainable future.”

Since the Bali conference, several UN-backed meetings have been held around the world to begin addressing global climate issues on a serious level. The United States, 16 other countries and members of the UNFCC met for a two-day workshop in Honolulu, Hawaii, at the end of January 2008 to discuss ways the G-8 countries can lead the fight against global warming.

In early February, the UN sponsored a three-day summit in Geneva that brought together government leaders and top scientists to discuss ways they can work together to improve climate prediction capabilities to save lives and protect economies.

“The world needs to strengthen existing mechanisms that predict climatic events and then ensure that this information is made available to all, especially to the benefit of people in least developed countries,” said Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO). “Improving the science of seasonal prediction will help everyone.”

The three-day gathering in Geneva is a precursor to the 2009 World Climate Conference, scheduled in Switzerland. Next year’s landmark conference will urge the international scientific community and governments to do more to improve seasonal climate predictions to enable the planet to adapt to the impacts of climate variability and change, saving lives and protecting economies in the process, according to the WMO.

Speaking at the 16th Forum of Ministers of Latin American and the Caribbean during the first week of February, the UN’s top climate official, de Boer, said countries in that region “will play a key role in designing an international post-2012 climate change agreement and will be among the countries that stand most to benefit from it.”

“As part of the initial phase of international climate change negotiations in 2008, there needs to be a focus on designing the mechanisms to support and enable action by developing countries, not least by countries in your region,” he told the ministers. “This focus will help you cope with the negative impacts of climate change and go the extra green mile when implementing clean technologies.”
Latin American and Caribbean countries are regarded by the UN’s IPCC to be among those that will bear the brunt of climate change im­pacts during the next decades, with impacts intensifying during that time. These impacts include inundations of small island states and densely populated coastal zones, more intense hurricanes, water shortages, soil erosion, droughts, a drop in food production, melting of mountain glaciers and the loss of biodiversity, according to the IPCC.
Many countries already are experiencing the im­pacts of climate change, such as the increasing intensity hurricanes, along with floods, droughts and the risk of water shortages.

“Latin-American and Caribbean countries only produce around 5% of global emissions, but we are in the front row facing the consequences of climate change and suffering the impacts of the phenomenon such as the recent storms Noel and Olga,” said Omar Ramírez Tejada, minister of the environment of the Dominican Republic. “These storms took over 100 lives in the
Do­min­ican Republic and generated losses of around US$800 million.

“We have a shared responsibility with all the countries of the planet, but not to the same degree. There is an ecological and historical debt toward our countries, and this has to be reflected in a new agreement that provides not only clean technology, but the necessary adaptation funding.”

De Boer said the CDM could help mitigate the financial burdens on developing nations facing climate-related issues.

“The carbon market is a key tool,” de Boer said. “It needs to be expanded because it can unleash
significant financial flows from the North for green economic growth in the South. But it is
also clear that the market cannot do the trick alone. We need additional financial and technical tools, because markets do not guarantee equal geographical distribution, do not provide support for national policies and do not provide financing for expensive mitigation options, such as carbon capture and storage.”

At press time, senior legislators from the G8 countries as well as Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa (the G8+5) were scheduled to meet in Brazil toward the end of February 2008 to politically test a draft Post-2012 Climate Change Framework that the Global Legislators Organi­zation for a Balanced Envi­ron­ment (GLOBE) de­vel­oped. If agreed, it will be
formally presented to G8 leaders ahead of the Japanese G8 Summit in Japan on July 7-9.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to deliver a keynote address during the opening session. Other high-level participants in­clude World Bank Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean Pamela Cox, business leaders from companies such as Petrobras, key representatives from international organizations, and more then 80 legislators from the G8 and emerging economies.