COP25 fails to make impact, rich polluters block changes

MADRID, Dec 16: The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) at Madrid failed to build consensus on crucial issues of carbon markets, compensation for climate change induced ‘loss and damage’ to vulnerable countries and enhancing nationally determined contribution (NDCs) by parties to meet the Paris Agreement goals.

The talks which concluded on Sunday after negotiations were pushed into an overtime of nearly 48 hours couldn’t make progress because some rich countries failed to recognise the urgency of climate change according to observers.

“Disappointment” and “unfortunate” were the key words used by almost every other party negotiator at the closing plenary on Sunday afternoon. Ironically COP 25 had a tagline of #TimeforAction.

“I am disappointed with the results of #COP25. The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation & finance to tackle the climate crisis. But we must not give up, and I will not give up” tweeted Antonio Guterres, Secretary General, United Nations.

Civil society organizations and independent observers of the negotiations said the failure in making progress was mainly owing to big polluters including the United States, Australia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia blocking and slowing down discussions on both loss and damage and carbon markets covered under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and not responding to the call to enhance NDCs in 2020.

On markets, the red lines were that some countries led by Brazil pushed for double counting to be allowed. When one country sells emissions reductions to another, it must adjust its own emissions data accordingly so that sellers don’t get credit twice on the work they did on the same project. But they insisted that those be counted.

Carry over of Kyoto era carbon credits from the Clean Development Mechanism which India, China and Brazil were demanding was a major red line for the European Union and other developed parties. In short, the parties failed to develop a cheating proof, collapse proof system which has environmental integrity and actually manages to mitigate overall global emissions.

“Carbon market mechanisms have had a history of human rights violations. They have been ineffective at reducing emissions. They delay the action and ambition needed here and now. There is no longer time for inaction. During the talks, Australia, EU, US and Canada attempted to ram through rules rife with major loopholes that would have locked us into further emissions and derail us from the 1.5 degree commitment. Such loopholes include double counting, no core regulations for accounting, and no human rights or environmental safeguards,” said Sriram Madhusoodanan of the Corporate Accountability watchdog over phone from Madrid.

There was also no decision on long-term climate finance (financial support from developed countries to developing countries). The failure on this sparked anguish among several developing parties. “Today we are not even able to affirm the importance of climate finance. When we ratified the Paris Agreement, we didn’t expect this. Some parties are backsliding on the Paris Agreement,” Egypt’s negotiator said. India had also been demanding a clear decision on this one and pre-2020 commitment of developed nations on mobilizing 100 billion dollars by 2020 for mitigation and adaptation. Article 6 was a crucial issue for India because it has a backlog of millions of unsold credits from CDM.

On reparations to be paid to countries facing irreversible impacts like sea level rise, deadly cyclones, severe heat waves etc, United States allegedly lobbied to escape any liability to pay up. Tuvalu negotiator Ian Fry said “We have had one party who has been insisting that the WIM (Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage) only operates under the Paris Agreement. This party (US) won’t be a party to the Paris Agreement in a few months. It’s a travesty and tragedy…could be interpreted as a crime against humanity.”

The draft text on loss and damage talks about scaling up finance and technology support but fails to underline the need for additional finance for compensation.

“These talks are ending with a strong sense of déjà vu. The US has once again gotten its way through bullying and tricks...this decision only offers statements of intent, working groups and networks, which should have been in place years ago,” said Harjeet Singh, ActionAid’s global lead on climate change.

The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) tweeted on Saturday that developed and some developing countries met on Article 6 and carryover old credits but didn’t inform the least developed nations about it.

The master text for COP25 captured in draft decision CP 25 also failed articulate the urgency for action. It has sentences like “Stresses the urgency of enhanced ambition in order to ensure the highest possible mitigation and adaptation efforts by all Parties.”…” Recalls the commitment made by developed country Parties, in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, to a goal of mobilizing jointly USD 100 billion per year by 2020…” Parties said the language was too weak and didn’t provide hope that these would be delivered on in the future.

This despite leaders from vulnerable countries and the Climate Ambition Alliance (group of countries willing to enhance NDCs to meet Paris goal) demanding on Friday that they will not leave Madrid without a very clear call to raise ambition in ine with the IPCC special report on 1.5 degree global warming. The master document only invites parties to make use of information contained in the Special Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Land degradation and Oceans.

“The result of this COP25 is really a mixed bag, and a far cry from what science tells us is needed. Major players who needed to deliver in Madrid did not live up to expectations, but thanks to a progressive alliance of small island states, European, African and Latin American countries, we obtained the best possible outcome, against the will of big polluters,” said Laurence Tubiana, CEO European Climate Foundation and Paris Agreement Architect in a statement.

Taiwan reiterates commitment to combating climate change

By Deepak Arora

NEW DELHI, Nov 8: Before the 25th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP25) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to take place next month, Taiwan has reiterates its commitment to combating climate change with the international community, according to Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India (TECC).

The COP25 will incorporate the second meeting of the parties for the Paris Agreement, which was adopted at COP21 in France in 2015 to deal with adaptation, mitigation and financing policies against greenhouse gasses, the TECC said.

Quoting the World Meteorological Organization’s data showing June 2019 was the hottest month in history, breaking temperature records from New Delhi to the North Pole, the TECC said an island state like Taiwan has strongly felt the pain of climate change and its 23 million people care deeply about the environment.

It said that as the world’s 22nd largest economy, Taiwan has the responsibility to join the global strive to cut greenhouse gas emissions. To this end, Taiwan passed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act in June 2015, which set out a series of five-year regulatory carbon reduction targets designed to lower Taiwan’s greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent of 2005 levels by 2050, the TECC said.

It said that at the joint endeavor of the government’s agricultural, manufacturing, residential-commercial and transportation agencies, the increase of carbon emissions from traditional energy sources in Taiwan has also slowed to an average of 0.1 percent rise over the past decade, outperforming Singapore’s 1.6 percent and South Korea’s 2.3 percent, according to Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration (EPA).

The TECC confirms, although Taiwan is not a party to the UNFCCC, Taiwan will again send a delegation comprising representatives from the country’s public and private sectors, academic institutes, enterprises as well as non-governmental organizations to the COP25 event. In the meantime, Taiwan calls on all stakeholders to take action in reducing carbon emissionsand providing support to developing countries in particular.

Taiwan has been an active partner to help developing countries to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change, the TECC emphasized. In Central America, for example, Taiwan has cooperated with local governments in implementing projects in use of geographic information systems and global positioning systems. These projects, through the reporting of land use changes and timely detection of earthquakes and landslides, have helped such countries as Belize and Honduras to strengthen nationwide environmental monitoring and disaster early warning.

In the Pacific, for another example, Taiwan has established a wide range of multilateral cooperation projects to promote green technologies and improve energy efficiency, such as the Home Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Project in the Marshall Islands. This substantial climate change mitigation project has helped the 75,000-people Pacific island state reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 992 tons annually, the TECC said.

In green finance and technological innovation, Taiwan has contributed US $ 80 million to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)’s Green Energy Special Fund, which has been utilized to co-finance EBRD investment projects that incorporate green energy components such as LED street lights, smart meters, solar-powered technologies and public transportation and electric systems to be built in Eastern Europe and the Middle East countries.

Taiwan’s commitment to standing with the international community to fight climate change is further evidenced by its adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and publication in September 2017 of the Voluntary National Review on their implementation, the TECC said.

The TECC said Taiwan’s economic development and familiarity with environmental management issues makeits experience to cope with climate change extremely valuable to other island states and developing nations facing similar challenges. “Taiwan is ready, able and willing to share its knowledge and experience with other countries,” EPA Minister Chang Tzi-chin said. “No one should be left behind in this fight,” the Minister said.

US launches formal process to quit Paris climate accord

WASHINGTON, Nov 5: The United States notified the United Nations on Monday of its withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, launching a formal process that will culminate in its exit exactly a year from now.

The United States can rejoin the accord should President Donald Trump change his mind, or is replaced by any of the Democrats running to defeat him in 2020. They all support the agreement, the signing of which in 2016 was spearheaded by President Barack Obama, a fellow Democrat.

“We will continue to work with our global partners to enhance resilience to the impacts of climate change and prepare for and respond to natural disasters,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement in which he announced the start of the formal withdrawal process.

The US will be out of the accord on November 4, 2020, after a mandatory waiting period of a year according to rules, and become the only country to leave the agreement that has been signed by 196 countries and the European Union.

Trump had announced his decision to pull the US out of the deal in June 2017, saying it placed an unfair economic burden on the US. He had also alleged, wrongly, that the accord favoured India and China and that India had demanded, and was granted, billions of dollars to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.

The US president ad wanted to re-negotiate the agreement but all principal signatories, such as India, China and France, decided to move on with what they had, with or without the US.

Trump, who is a climate change skeptic (once said it was a hoax sprung by the Chinese to slow down the US economy), has since rolled back multiple measures initiated by President Obama to enable the US, which is the world’s second largest polluter, to meet its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), as the country-specific targets fixed by countries themselves are called.

The US had pledged to cut its emissions by between 26 and 28% in 2025 from the 2005-level. Due to the current polices in place, it is likely to cut emissions only by 13% to 15%, according to Climate Action Tracker, an independent analysis that tracks progress by countries on the stated goal of the Paris accord to hold global warming below 2 degree Celsius.

“Donald Trump has signed away our future,” Tom Perez, chair of the Democratic National Committee about the launch of the formal withdrawal process. “Democrats believe we must take bold action to combat climate change. That’s what President Obama was doing when he signed the Paris Accord, and that’s what Democrats will keep doing every day – showing America and Donald Trump what true leadership looks like.”

Spain to host UN Climate Change conference from Dec 2 after Chile backs out

By Deepak Arora

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 5: The Bureau of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has accepted the proposal from the Government of Chile to hold the 2019 UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid. The COP25 would be held from December 2 to 13 in Feria de Madrid (IFEMA).

The announcement was made by UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa. This has been made possible by the generous offer by the Government of the Kingdom of Spain.

Spain had offered to host COP25 in Madrid on the same dates as the original schedule after Chile decided to pull out from hosting the event due to the ongoing national unrest against the Government of Chile.

Chile had informed its decision of not hosting the COP25 event in the view of the unrest in the country to UNFCCC on October 30. In an official statement, President of Chile Sebastian Pinera said that the decision had caused him pain but his government was required to prioritize re-establishing law and order in the nation.

The conference will take place under the Presidency of the Government of Chile and will be held with logistical support from the Government of Spain. The President-designate for the conference is Ms. Carolina Schmidt, Minister of Environment of Chile.

Chile withdrew from hosting two major international events- COP 25 and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit due to ongoing anti-governmental protests in the nation.

An emergency has been declared in Chile, after hundreds of people took to the roads to demand the resignation of President Sebastian Pinera after the government announced a 30 percent increase in Metro fares in October 2019.

Though the Government of Chile in remedial measure announced a 20 percent increase in the basic pension of the citizens and allowed free electricity and some subsidies in the medical sector, the public was not satisfied. The citizens in Chile have already been reeling under the pressure of inflation.

The citizens have been demanding economic reforms and a new government.

What is COP25? COP25 means the 25th Conference of the Parties on climate change. The 2019 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP25) will be 25th United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Brazil was the initial host of COP25 but the newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro decided to withdraw from hosting the event due to economic reasons. Then Chile offered to host but had to withdraw due to national unrest. Spain offered to host after Chile backed out.

The key events of the conference will include:

• The 25th Conference of the Parties to UNFCCC

• The 15th meeting of parties for the Kyoto Protocol (CMP15)

• The second meeting of parties for the Paris Agreement (CMA2)