International efforts for green house gas emission reduction and climate change

International Efforts for
Green House Gas Emission Reduction
and Climate Change:

Post Durban
Climate Change Conference &
UNCSD 2012

Henry W. Wyes
Deputy Executive Director CAREC

Introduction
a little bit of history…
The framework agreements
Cancun
Durban
Future Trends
Financing opportunities

Why?
to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in
the atmosphere at a level that will limit
dangerous human interference with the
climate system

Why is it so difficult to address the
issue of climate change?
• The issue of climate change is transnational in
nature and trans-institutional in solution
• The transboundary nature of climate change
cannot be addressed by any government or
institution acting alone
• Collaborative action among governments,
international organizations, corporations,
universities, NGOs, and creative individuals is
needed

Current status:
• International negotiations on the post-Kyoto
framework have shown insufficient progress since the
voluntary national reduction targets of the
Copenhagen Accord.
• UNEP estimates that these pledges would lead to a
20% overshoot in emissions in 2020 compared with
the levels required to limit global warming to 2°C and
stabilize at 450 ppm CO2.
• Emissions from increased production of internationally
traded products have more than offset the emissions
reductions achieved under the Kyoto Protocol.

a little bit of history…
• In 1992 194 countries joined an international treaty, the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change to cooperatively consider
what they could do to limit average global temperature increases and the
resulting climate change, and to cope with the inevitable impacts.
• By 1995, negotiations to strengthen the global response to climate change
were launched resulting in the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.
• In December 2007 at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in
Bali, Indonesia, 187 countries agreed continued negotiations with the goal
of strengthening international efforts to address the problem of global
warming.
• In December 2009, 114 countries agreed to the Copenhagen Accord
which established the importance of reducing emissions in both
developing and developed countries and the need to establish financing
mechanisms to support mitigation efforts in developing countries.
• The 2010 UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico adopted a
decisions that set governments on the path towards a low-emissions
future
• In 2011 the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa
produced the Durban Platform.

Building blocks of global response:
The four key building blocks of the Bali Action
Plan for strengthening the global response to
climate change:

• Mitigation
• Adaptation
• Technology and
• Financing

Climate treaties:
At the core of international efforts to address
climate change are

• the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) and
• the Kyoto Protocol

The UNFCC
• An overall framework — The UNFCCC sets an
overall framework for international efforts to
tackle the challenge of climate change.
• Reporting on emissions — Parties to the
Convention agreed to a number of commitments
to address climate change
• National programmes — The Convention
requires all Parties to implement national
programmes and measures to control
greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the
impacts of climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol
• Stabilizing greenhouse gases — The 1997
Kyoto Protocol shares the Convention’s
ultimate objective to stabilize atmospheric
concentrations of greenhouse gases at a level
that will prevent dangerous interference with
the climate system

Binding targets:
For developed countries only 
• Although all Parties have agreed to further
advance the implementation of their existing
commitments under the Convention, only
Annex I Parties took on new targets under the
Protocol.
• Specifically, these Parties have agreed to
binding emission targets over the 2008-2012
timeframe.

Tools to reduce emissions

• the Clean Development Mechanism
• Joint Implementation
• Emissions trading
• Monitoring compliance

the Cancún Agreements:
• Industrialized country targets are to develop low-carbon development plans and
strategies and assess how best to meet them, including through market
mechanisms, and to report their inventories annually

• Developing country actions to reduce emissions are officially recognized under the
multilateral process.

• A registry is to be set up to record and match developing country mitigation
actions to finance and technology support from by industrialized countries.

• The Kyoto technology mechanism Protocol's Clean Development Mechanisms has
been strengthened to drive major investments and technology into
environmentally sound and sustainable emission reduction projects in the
developing world.

• The Green Climate Fund under the Conference of the Parties, with a board with
equal representation from developed and developing countries, will be
established.

• Parties have established a Technology Executive Committee and Climate
Technology Centre and Network to increase technology cooperation to support
action on adaptation and mitigation.

the Durban agreements:
• A universal legal agreement on climate change not
later than 2015.

• Governments, including 38 industrialized countries,
agreed a second commitment period of the Kyoto
Protocol from January 1, 2013.

• Governments agreed to the full implementation of the
package to support developing nations resulting from
Cancun, Mexico:. i.e.
– Green Climate Fund,
– an Adaptation Committee designed to improve the
coordination of adaptation actions on a global scale, and
– A Technology Mechanism.

Durban in detail: Adaptation
The Adaptation Committee, composed of 16
members, will report to the COP on its efforts to
improve the coordination of adaptation actions at a
global scale.
The adaptive capacities above all of the poorest and
most vulnerable countries are to be strengthened.
National Adaptation Plans will allow developing
countries to assess and reduce their vulnerability to
climate change.
The most vulnerable are to receive better protection
against loss and damage caused by extreme weather
events related to climate change.

Durban in detail: Technology

The Technology Mechanism will become fully
operational in 2012.

The full terms of reference for the operational
arm of the Mechanism - the Climate
Technology Centre and Network - are agreed,
along with a procedure to select the host.

Durban in detail: Green Climate Fund

Countries have already started to pledge so that
developing countries should get ready to access the fund
A Standing Committee is to keep an overview of climate
finance in the context of the UNFCCC and to assist the
Conference of the Parties. It will comprise 20 members,
represented equally between the developed and
developing world.
A focused work programme on long-term finance was
agreed, which will contribute to the scaling up of climate
change finance going forward and will analyze options for
the mobilization of resources from a variety of sources.

2012 - Doha:
Support of developing country actions
Governments will agree for a registry to record developing
country mitigation actions that seek financial support and
to match these with support. The registry will be a flexible,
dynamic, web-based platform.
Under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism,
governments will adopted procedures to allow carbon-
capture and storage projects. These guidelines will be
reviewed every five years to ensure environmental
integrity.
Governments will agreed to develop a new market-based
mechanism to assist developed countries in meeting part
of their targets or commitments under the Convention.

Funding & support available for
developing countries
• Fast-Start Finance
• Long-Term Finance
• Green Climate Fund
• Global Environment Facility
• Special Climate Change Fund
• Least Developed Countries Fund
• Adaptation Fund
• Technology
• Education & Outreach
• Response Measures
• Capacity-building
• JI – CDM
• NAMA

The Funds….
• Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist
developing country Parties in implementing the Convention through
the Green Climate Fund (GCF)
• To facilitate this, the operation of the financial mechanism is partly
entrusted to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) on an on-going
basis.
• Two special funds were established: the Special Climate Change
Fund (SCCF), and the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), both
managed by the GEF
• The Kyoto Protocol also recognizes, under its Article 11, the need
for the financial mechanism to fund adaptation activities by
developing country Parties. Therefore the Adaptation Fund (AF) has
been established under the Kyoto Protocol.
• Funding to climate change activities is also available through
bilateral, regional and multilateral channels.

The Green Climate Fund
• The urgency and seriousness of climate change call for ambition in
financing adaptation and mitigation

• Purpose: Making a significant and ambitious contribution to the
global efforts towards attaining the goals set by the international
community to combat climate change.
• The Fund will promote the paradigm shift towards low-emission
and climate-resilient development pathways by providing support
to developing countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas
emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
• The Fund will provide simplified and improved access to climate
change funding to developing countries, including direct access,
basing its activities on a country driven approach.

again, a little bit of history: Rio 1992
• Landmark Earth Summit held in 1992 in Rio
which resulted in the coining of the term
"sustainable development", integrating its
three key components of
– economic development,
– social development and
– environmental protection
• led to the adoption of an ambitious outcome
document, Agenda 21

Rio plus 20
• The objective of the Rio plus 20 conference
was to secure renewed political commitment
for sustainable development, and
• addressing new and emerging challenges, with
a focus on two key themes
– the green economy in the context of sustainable
development and poverty eradication, and
– the institutional framework for sustainable
development.

Rio plus 20 & climate change:
• The UNFCCC convention and its Kyoto Protocol are –unlike the
outcome documents of UN conferences, legally binding
commitments not of soft law.
• The international climate change regime is premised on a number
of key principles, most important of which are the common but
differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
• Annex 1 countries did undertake to cut their green house gas
emissions by specific percentage relative to a base year.
• Developing countries did agree to take specific actions to decouple
their economic development from their emissions.
• However, in the case of developing countries this is not a legally
binding commitment, and is conditional on them receiving
financial resources, technology and capacity building assistance
from developed countries.
• In addition, actions by developing countries were to take into
account the fact that their overriding priority is poverty
eradication

Developments @ Rio plus 20
There are differing views as to the future of the international
climate change regime:
• Developing countries want to preserve the current
international architecture: They all agree on the
preservation of the Kyoto protocol for second and
subsequent commitment periods.
• The north generally sees the second commitment period as
the last one and as a transition to a new regime
altogether, not necessarily incorporating all the features of
the Kyoto Protocol, only its carbon markets and maybe
some of its rules but probably not the principle of
common but differentiated responsibilities

Decoupling GHG and GDP:

• The synergy between economic growth and
technological innovation has been the most
significant engine of change for the last 200
years, but unless we improve our economic,
environmental, and social behaviors, the next
100 years could be disastrous.
• Climate change will be addressed seriously
when green GDP increases while poverty and
global greenhouse gas emissions decrease

Transforming the greening of industry
into the business of greening

Structure

38

Green economy is based on six main sectors:

• Renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, marine including wave,
biogas, and fuel cell)
• Green buildings (green retrofits for energy and water efficiency,
residential and commercial assessment; green products and materials,
and LEED construction)
• Clean transportation (alternative fuels, public transit, hybrid and electric
vehicles, carsharing and carpooling programs)
• Water management (Water reclamation, greywater and rainwater
systems, low-water landscaping, water purification, stormwater
management)
• Waste management (recycling, municipal solid waste salvage, brownfield
land remediation, Superfund cleanup, sustainable packaging)
• Land management (organic agriculture, habitat conservation and
restoration; urban forestry and parks, reforestation and afforestation and
soil stabilization

Projected trends in
annual GDP growth rate:

International efforts for green house gas emission reduction and climate change

International efforts for green house gas emission reduction and climate change

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