Posts by: Kelly Rigg

If Kyoto dies in Durban, it will be a death knell for the climate fight

By On October 12, 2011 · 2 Comments

The politics of climate change negotiations are as difficult as they come but allowing Kyoto to lapse would be a disaster

This article was first published in The Guardian.

At the opening ceremony of Climate Week New York last month, Tony Blair drew a laugh from the crowd when he quipped: “It’s a relief after the weeks I’ve spent deep in the entrails of the Middle East peace process to talk about something that’s relatively easy to solve.”

In some respects he’s right. The solutions to climate change are relatively straightforward (phasing out fossil fuels for one), if somewhat challenging to implement. But the negotiations? The politics driving them are as difficult as they come, with the future of the Kyoto protocol at the centre of the conflict.

Kyoto’s first commitment period finishes at the end of 2012, and the question of whether governments will sign up to a second commitment period is seen by many as the linchpin of the negotiations. Allowing Kyoto to lapse would be a very, very bad idea for several reasons:

1) It’s the only binding international climate law we’ve got, with no alternative in sight. Without a legally binding agreement, we are left with vague intentions and no guarantees of success. Like allowing a kid to choose how much homework he really needs to do, the net result would ultimately amount to precious little, I suspect.

2) It’s working. The US is the only major industrialised country which did not ratify Kyoto. Collectively, developed countries that ratified Kyoto are on track to achieve the protocol’s target of an average decrease in emissions of 5.2% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. Kyoto has triggered the enactment of national legislation in the majority of OECD countries, including the EU’s landmark “20-20-20″ targets. The United States, in stark contrast, saw its emissions rise by an estimated 11% in the same period.

3) It is helping drive the growth of the renewables industry in Europe and in big developing countries that are covered indirectly by Kyoto’s carbon markets. 65% of the projects stemming from Kyoto’s clean development mechanism, which allows countries to reduce emissions by investing in projects in developing countries, are focused on renewables. While countries could establish an international carbon-trading market even in the absence of Kyoto, it would have to be governed by basic, commonly agreed rules to ensure projects were genuinely climate-friendly. Kyoto has such rules (representing more than a decade of effort), markets are up and running and those that break the rules are brought to account – why not build on these rather than start over from scratch?

4) It’s fair (though it would be far fairer if the US had signed on). Kyoto’s first commitment period put the onus of first action on the highest and richest historical emitters. While the US whines about large developing countries such as China not being directly covered by Kyoto, it’s worth remembering that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is a cumulative process, and cumulatively (1900-2007) the EU and the US together were responsible for nearly 54% of the energy-related emissions. China? Just over 9%. It’s even more enlightening to factor in the size of the population: the US emitted 1,093 metric tonnes per capita; the EU 572, and China a mere 80.

5) It represents collective action: Kyoto has an “aggregate” goal – the total of what individual country targets must add up to. This is the opposite of the bottom up, pledge approach now championed by the Obama Administration. The relatively short-term five-year commitment periods allow those goals to be ratcheted up as new information becomes available.

So how do we save Kyoto? First and foremost, it’s a matter of political will. In the run-up to the upcoming climate summit in Durban:

Europe must signal its clear intention to sign up to a second round of Kyoto commitments, and encourage other Kyoto parties do so as well. The EU’s Durban position will be decided on 23 October.

The US should stop badmouthing Kyoto. Honestly, what gives them the right? Everyone else should simply ignore the US on this subject.

The largest and wealthiest developing countries need to play their part too. A new, development friendly, legally distinct pathway under the protocol, like a new annex, could be created for developing countries to record emissions reduction pledges and actions according to their individual circumstances, responsibility and level of income.

If Kyoto’s future dies in Durban, it may well be the death knell for an effective, comprehensive internationally co-ordinated and legal response to global climate change in this decade. We can’t afford to let that happen.

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If Kyoto dies in Durban, it will be a death knell for the climate fight

On October 12, 2011 By

The politics of climate change negotiations are as difficult as they come but allowing Kyoto to lapse would be a disaster

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7 Reasons We Need to Keep Fighting for an International Climate Agreement

By On October 4, 2011 · 3 Comments

1) It’s urgent. 2) It will create long-term certainty for business investment. 3) It will be more economically efficient for countries to do it all together. 4) Collective action is needed. 5) Unpopular decisions may be more palatable if other countries are taking them as well. 6) Who will otherwise pay for adaptation? 7) We are morally obligated.

This story was first published on the Huffington Post.

Negotiations are underway in Panama, the last gathering of climate diplomats prior to the big Durban Climate Conference at the end of the year.

Last June Yvo De Boer, former head of the UN climate convention and for years THE stalwart champion of the negotiating process, commented that “this process is dead in the water, it’s not going anywhere.” I generally don’t repeat self-defeating soundbites, but his words did seem to echo a sense within the climate community that perhaps more immediate progress could be made in a bottom-up approach at the national or business level.

I recently asked current UN climate head Christiana Figueres what she makes of this. She told me a bottom-up approach is not mutually exclusive from a top-down effort to get a treaty:
“The first encourages countries to seek the opportunities that are most evident at the moment in order to start the process of the transformation, but the top down is necessary to ensure that the collective effort responds to the requirements of science. Think of it as paying a bill. We can start making payments in amounts that are possible right now, but in the end we have to pay the full bill, or we will pass it onto our children.”

So here are seven reasons why we still need to fight for a fair, ambitious and legally binding, international agreement in order to pay that bill on behalf of our children:

1) It’s urgent. We need to get the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to stabilize at 350 parts per million or lower. We have currently overshot the mark at 390 — so we need to drastically reduce our emissions, and fast. Global CO2 emissions need to peak within the next few years, and then steeply decline from there on out. The longer it takes to reach that peak, the steeper the reductions will have to be in subsequent years. The graph below, although several years old now, visually demonstrates just how much harder it will be to deal with the problem if we don’t move quickly.

2011-10-03-climatedelay.jpg

Courtesy of M. Meinshausen, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

2) It will create long-term certainty for business investment. The International Energy Agency has estimated that $26 trillion in capital investment is needed to meet global energy demand through 2030. Clearly most of that investment will be made by the private sector, and businesses repeatedly say they need long-term certainty to guide those investments. For example, will carbon polluters continue to get a free ride, or will a binding emissions reduction target result in a high price on carbon? The answer to that question matters a lot when it comes to investing in energy infrastructure. And while renewables make sense in their own right, investment in large-scale energy efficiency doesn’t generally happen without regulatory or financial incentives. Doing this one country at a time is too slow, and…

3) It will be more economically efficient for countries to do it all together. Whatever you may think of carbon markets as a means of reducing emissions, they are having an impact. But there is a patchwork of different schemes, which is not nearly as economically efficient as a more comprehensive scheme would be.

4) Collective action is needed. While countries like the Maldives set an important example by moving towards carbon neutrality even in the absence of a binding law requiring them to do so, most countries are not as noble. Many will want to know that their competitors are taking comparable action before they make the deepest cuts in emissions. Signing, ratifying and passing legislation to implement an international agreement with effective compliance and enforcement mechanisms demonstrates a longer-term commitment not easily undone following the next election.

5) Unpopular decisions may be more palatable if other countries are taking them as well. Misinformation campaigns by the fossil fuel industry have whipped up populous opposition in several countries which have tried to pass legislation reducing CO2 emissions. It’s time to wage the mother of all wars against these special interests, and this will be easier if they can’t play one country off against another.

6) Who will otherwise pay for adaptation? It’s too late to halt climate change altogether. The Netherlands, where I live, learned about storm surges the hard way when nearly 2000 people lost their lives in the flood of 1953. The Delta Works — a €5 billion system of barriers and dikes — was constructed to ensure this never happens again. How will Bangladesh, a country which did little to cause the problem, ever be able to provide their citizens with the same degree of protection? And coastal flooding is only one of the many problems caused by climate change. No-regrets measures to improve energy efficiency and scale up renewables will not take care of this problem.

7) We are morally obligated. For the sake of intergenerational responsibility, climate justice and social equity we must effectively and comprehensively address the climate problem. And for the reasons described above, this will only happen through an international agreement.

So here are a few recommendations for negotiators meeting in Panama:

  • Secure the future of the Kyoto Protocol with a second commitment period. It’s the only legally binding agreement we have for now.
  • Obama administration officials: stop criticizing the Kyoto Protocol until you have something more to offer. If you can’t say anything constructive, don’t say anything at all! And everyone else: stop listening to the US on the subject of Kyoto.
  • Europe: up your game by confirming your unconditional intention of signing up to a second round of Kyoto commitments. It’s a no-brainer — it makes economic, political and diplomatic sense to do so.
  • Agree a process and timeline to finalize a legally binding deal that includes all major emitters while recognizing the common but differentiated responsibilities between countries at different stages of development.
  • Finance for developing countries is a key lever in breaking the deadlock. Despite the recession, there are many innovative proposals on the table which you could adopt: a tax on shipping and aviation fuels, a financial transaction tax, and the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies to name a few.

In 2010, CO2 emissions went up by 5% — the fastest rise in the last 20 years. The big emitters need to start talking seriously about increasing their level of ambition, and must stop obstructing progress in the negotiations. And the rest of us need to hold our governments accountable to deliver the necessary agreements sooner rather than later.

Read more from Kelly Rigg on the Huffington Post

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7 Reasons We Need to Keep Fighting for an International Climate Agreement

On October 4, 2011 By

1) It’s urgent. 2) It will create long-term certainty for business investment. 3) It will be more economically efficient for countries to do it all together. 4) Collective action is needed. 5) Unpopular decisions may be more palatable if other countries are taking them as well. 6) Who will otherwise pay for adaptation? 7) We are morally obligated.

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Desperately Seeking Solutions… and Finding Them

By On June 14, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Despite all of the rhetoric and posturing to the contrary, insiders say that there are signs of progress being made behind the scenes

This story was originally published on the Huffington Post.

A bonk on the head and an amnesia-filled adventure is what it took to shake-up the life of a bored suburban wife of a New Jersey Jacuzzi salesman in the cult classic Desperately Seeking Susan, a film which surprisingly came to mind as I sat down to write about the Bonn climate talks this past week.

Reading the reports, one could be forgiven for hoping someone might knock the negotiators’ heads together, in particular the usual OPEC laggards (such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela) who are using procedural tactics to delay and frustrate progress. But it’s not just them. The tired old “I’ll move only if you move first” arguments which have pervaded the discussions for years could certainly benefit from a little amnesia. Of course it’s equally true that it’s less amnesia we need, not more. Nearly 20 years ago, 192 countries (including the United States under George H.W. Bush) legally committed themselves to “stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” The fact is we are already beyond the point of preventing dangerous interference; we’ve moved into damage limitation mode. And we’re still nowhere near to stabilizing concentrations.

But fortunately, there are some glimmers of light on the horizon.

First, action is happening from the bottom up. Municipal and regional governments are catalyzing change on an unprecedented scale. The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), for example, just announced a partnership with the World Bank to break down barriers to financing low-carbon development and climate adaptation.

C40 is made up of 40 of the world’s megacities reportedly representing 8% of the total population, 12% of global greenhouse gas emissions and 21% of global GDP (to put this in perspective, the 27 countries of the European Union are responsible for around 13% of global greenhouse gas emissions). They have also teamed up with ICLEI, the leading network of local governments working towards sustainability, to establish common standards for accounting and reporting community-scale greenhouse gas reductions.

Representatives of youth organizations giving their views to government delegates YOUNGO making a Statement, IISD

That’s not all. Developing countries, which do not have the same legal obligations to reduce emissions as developed countries, are showing tremendous leadership. A new report by the Stockholm Environment Institute for Oxfam shows that developing country pledges add up to more CO2 reductions than those pledged by developed countries (another excuse for the US to delay action bites the dust) and, a new report by the World Resources Institute shows once again that developing countries are at the forefront of the renewable energy transformation.

Does this negate the need for a new fair, ambitious and binding climate agreement(s), including a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol? No, unfortunately it doesn’t.

It’s not rocket science. In order to fully de-carbonize the global economy as fast as possible, which has many other benefits besides addressing climate change by the way, we need top-down policy. We can do it with an internationally agreed set of rules, or we can do it country by country with all of the chaos that will entail. This is why much of the business community is pushing for the kind of level playing field that would arise from an international agreement. Kyoto was a huge step in that direction, and any new agreement to bind non-Kyoto countries will need something comparable. Many governments are beginning to recognize the pointlessness of starting over from scratch.

Despite all of the rhetoric and posturing to the contrary, insiders say that there are signs of progress being made behind the scenes in Bonn. Governments are apparently beginning to realize they need to send clear and unambiguous signals that there is a future for Kyoto. Without that commitment to the next set of reduction targets, there will be no binding agreement in the other track of the negotiations — the one that includes developing countries. Conversely many if not most developing countries realize that a new Kyoto commitment will need to be balanced with action on their part.

As the 2012 expiration date for Kyoto’s first commitment period looms nearer, the pressure will only increase. Let’s hope they can use this week to flesh out the rules and political conditions needed for ambitious countries to move to their higher pledges and signal clearly they will accept a second commitment period under Kyoto.

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Desperately Seeking Solutions… and Finding Them

On June 14, 2011 By

Despite all of the rhetoric and posturing to the contrary, insiders say that there are signs of progress being made behind the scenes

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Will Bonn Climate Talks Reflect a Dramatically Changed World?

By On June 6, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Never before has both the opportunity and the threat been as stark as it is right now.

This story was originally published on the Huffington Post.

Top climate negotiators have descended on Bonn’s Hotel Maritim for the latest two-week installment of the international climate negotiations.

They last met In Bangkok in April, emerging from the talks battered and bruised but ultimately pleased with having compromised their way out from between the proverbial rock and a hard place. You can read a detailed account of where the climate negotiations stand, and what happened in Bangkok.

But suffice it to say, we are still a long way from where we need to be to effectively address the growing climate crisis.

Matthias Zepper, Creative Commons

Whether negotiators will make significant progress in Bonn remains to be seen, but never before has both the opportunity and the threat been as stark as it is right now. Just since Bangkok three new potential game changers have emerged, for better or worse, which should spur negotiators to put aside their differences and find cooperative solutions:

1) First, the International Energy Agency (IEA) — a conservative body if ever there was one, (established by the wealthy OECD countries to promote energy security) — just issued a loud and shocking wake-up call: energy-related CO2 emissions in 2010 were the highest in history.

After a dip in 2009 due to the global financial crisis, emissions are estimated to have climbed to a record high, a 5% increase from the previous record year in 2008. To put this in perspective, this was the amount of emissions projected for 2020 to maintain a maximum of 2°C temperature rise — the threshold above which scientists predict the most catastrophic impacts will take place (catastrophic for all of us, not just the climate victims currently affected). The recent discovery that growing food scarcity is directly linked to climate change in countries like Mexico (read today’s New York Times article) is one example of the profound social, political, and environmental impacts of our collective inaction.

This is one instance in which being ahead of schedule is a very, very bad thing. It’s like being on death row, and having your execution date suddenly moved forward from years to days. This information alone should be enough to light a fire under their backsides, but there’s more.

2) The nuclear disaster at Fukushima has led to a massive re-evaluation of energy choices around the world. Germany has decided to phase out all nuclear power, and Switzerland is following suit. Italy’s top appellate court has just ruled that a nuclear referendum will go ahead on June 12-13 which could result in a permanent ban.

Others such as China are revisiting nuclear growth plans for safety reasons, and active debates about nuclear safety are happening in the US, the UK and elsewhere. These debates represent both an opportunity and a threat: an unprecedented opportunity to initiate massive new renewable energy initiatives; and a threat that short-sighted thinking will lead to lost nuclear capacity being replaced by coal and other fossil fuels.

Suggesting we must choose between nuclear and fossil fuels brings to mind that old Woody Allen quip: “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” Fortunately, Woody, we have a third choice, and decisive action by international climate negotiators would tip the balance.

3) The IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources dispelled any remaining doubt about our ability to meet our growing energy demands while weaning ourselves from fossil fuels. According to the report, 80% of global energy generation could be powered by renewables by 2050, and renewables have the technical potential to provide more than 20 times the energy we use today.

This is not a pipe dream — renewable energy capacity grew in 2009, even during the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression: wind by over 30%; grid-connected photovoltaics by over 50%; and solar water/heating by over 20%. But stepping up the pace to warp speed will only be possible if governments send the right signals to business, by putting the necessary policy incentives in place. These are exactly the kinds of discussions happening in Bonn over the next two weeks.

So here’s my message to the climate negotiators assembled in Bonn: The stakes are getting higher, the speed of change is increasing, and the solutions are there for the taking. What are you waiting for?

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Will Bonn Climate Talks Reflect a Dramatically Changed World?

On June 6, 2011 By

Never before has both the opportunity and the threat been as stark as it is right now.

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The Road to Rio +20: Will this be another “Copenhagen” for the climate movement?

By On May 31, 2011 · Leave a Comment

In exactly one year’s time, world leaders will converge on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the UN conference on sustainable development, 20 years after the first “Earth Summit” was held there in 1992. Will this turn out to be another “Copenhagen moment” for the climate movement?

Originally published on the Huffington Post

In exactly one year’s time, world leaders will converge on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the UN conference on sustainable development, 20 years after the first “Earth Summit” was held there in 1992. Will this turn out to be another “Copenhagen moment” for the climate movement? Most people I speak to think it will not deliver the treaty we all hoped to get in Copenhagen, but with record levels of carbon emissions creating new climate disasters every day, it’s certain Rio +20 will present a moment for decisive action.

According to the latest estimates from the International Energy Agency, greenhouse gas emissions are rising with a vengeance, having briefly slowed during the global recession. Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA, noted that prospects are becoming increasingly bleak for keeping global warming below 2°C (not to mention the 1.5°C limit which more than 100 countries have called for, which is a survival limit for many vulnerable countries).

Like offering an outstretched hand to a guy hanging off the edge of a cliff, he added, “If we have bold, decisive and urgent action, very soon, we still have a chance of succeeding.”

Climate-saving measures will most likely slip in through the back door of the Rio process, taking the form of ambitious energy targets where win-win solutions are there for the taking. The recent IPCC special report on renewables shows the way forward on a myriad of energy-related crises including poverty, health, and security as well as climate. But tackling climate change head-on? Everyone is wary.

It wasn’t always like this. In 1988 climate change was an issue whose time had come. Delegates at the “World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere” held in Toronto that year concluded that “Humanity is conducting an uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment… the Earth’s atmosphere is being changed at an unprecedented rate by pollutants resulting from human activities… It is imperative to act now.”

This was not a partisan issue in those days. The UK’s arch-conservative Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, “We have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of the planet itself,” and a swaggering U.S. President George H.W. Bush promised decisive action: “Those who think we’re powerless to do anything about the greenhouse effect are forgetting about the White House effect. As President I intend to do something about it.”

Four short years later, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in Rio, along with the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Desertification Treaty, a set of Forest Principles, the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21, a UN action plan for sustainable development. Looking back, it seems remarkable that governments were able to achieve so much in such a short period of time, compared with the polarized atmosphere that pervades international negotiations today.

In those four years, however, the dynamics that plague the current round of climate negotiations had already taken root. For a fascinating reminder of what happened in Rio 92 (in particular the spoiler role played by the Bush Sr. administration, explained as a “desire to solidify its domestic right-wing support in the face of the electoral challenge from Ross Perot”) this brief summary from a 1992 issue of the Multinational Monitor is worth a read.

In any case, the 1992 climate convention did not include legally binding targets and timetables for CO2 emissions reduction commitments and the rest, as they say, is history. 20 years on, we are still looking for binding commitments that are sufficiently ambitious to catalyze massive investments in renewable energy to fight the climate crisis.

Between now and the start of the next Rio Conference in June 2012, three things need to happen:

1) The public — the global electorate — needs to actively engage, not just on climate but on the full suite of issues that will be under discussion. We must demand leadership from our elected representatives, and we must listen in particular to the voices of youth — to those who will be left to deal with the consequences of the mess we’ve made. The most memorable moment of Rio 92 was 12-year-old Severn Suzuki’s address to the assembly:

Her message is as powerful today as it was then, though its urgency has increased by orders of magnitude.

2) Businesses need to more consistently practice what their green PR preaches, and they must leave the fossil dinosaurs behind. Fossil fuel industries MUST decline in importance in all of our energy and manufacturing needs. This will require both government and business investment in an array of new technologies. It will be easier and cheaper if businesses cooperate with one another, and if governments cooperate with business. One way to ensure this is for business to lobby government for smart regulation and smart incentives for the 21st century, instead of for regulations and incentives that fit another moment in history.

3) Governments must rise to the challenge. They must come to Rio prepared to commit not only to lofty long-term targets which will be left to some future government to implement (or not as the case may be), but to the immediate actions that put us firmly on the right path towards those targets. If they come to Rio with empty hands, history will not forgive them.

Speaking of history, here’s an idea. I propose we set up a wiki to serve as the “Climate History Book” as in, “will you go down in history as a climate hero or a climate criminal?” Every politician who knowingly shirks his/her responsibility for the sake of getting re-elected should be prepared to go on record with that position in the Climate History Book. Likewise every climate denialist. Come Judgment Day, and by that I mean the day when our children and grandchildren ask us what we did to protect their futures, back in the time when catastrophic climate change was still preventable, the record will speak for itself.

Follow Kelly Rigg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kellyrigg

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The Road to Rio +20: Will this be another “Copenhagen” for the climate movement?

On May 31, 2011 By

In exactly one year’s time, world leaders will converge on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the UN conference on sustainable development, 20 years after the first “Earth Summit” was held there in 1992. Will this turn out to be another “Copenhagen moment” for the climate movement?

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