USA earns “Fossil of the day” award at Bonn Climate Change Talks

Posted on 05. Jun, 2010 by Joshua Wiese in U.S.A. | View Comments

After a fairly drama-free first week of the climate talks in Bonn, Saturday marked a change in tone. In addition to developments in the effort to eliminate loopholes from LULUCF in the Kyoto negotiations track, the US also made headlines (in the conference center, anyway).

The United States was awarded the first “Fossil of the day” award on Saturday evening. Here’s the press release:

FOSSIL OF THE DAY AWARDS
Bonn, Germany, June 5, 2010

The Climate Action Network (CAN), a coalition of over 500 NGOs worldwide, gives out ‘Fossil of The Day’ awards to the countries who perform the worst during the past day’s negotiations at the UN climate change conference.

The award given out June 5, 2010 in Bonn, Germany was:

The United States of America was awarded First Place. The U.S. earns the Fossil of the Day for blocking the common space discussion on mitigation in the Ad Hoc Working Group for Long-term Cooperative Action yesterday. Failing to pass a strong climate and energy bill is keeping them from participating in cross-cutting discussions, like the one AOSIS proposed, to build a post-2012 agreement to reduce global warming emissions.

About the fossils:

The Fossil of the day awards were first presented at the climate talks in 1999, also in Bonn, initiated by the German NGO Forum.

During United Nations climate change negotiations (unfccc.int), members of the Climate Action Network (CAN), a worldwide network of over 500 non-governmental organizations, vote for countries judged to have done their ‘best’ to block progress in the negotiations in the last days of talks.

www.climatenetwork.org

At the same time we were getting shamed in Bonn for our action (and inaction), the US Department of State sent out a statement from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for World Environment Day, which begins with:

“The United States is proud to join with the international community to mark June 5 as World Environment Day, as we have since 1973…” (read the whole thing)

Oh, the irony.

While we wrestle with the worst oil spill in US history back home, our lack of domestic clean energy policy is also stifling our ability to engage in climate and energy solutions internationally. Happy World Environment Day.

Update: Here’s video of the award’s ceremony via One Climate:

Kicking off the next round Climate Change Talks

Posted on 01. Jun, 2010 by Joshua Wiese in Adopt a Negotiator, U.S.A. | View Comments

My day started out dressed in a shark costume. I was tasked with welcoming climate negotiators to the talks by strapping on a grey fin, stuffing my suit with fake money, and hustling fake loans with big teeth. Definitely not how I imagined that my first hours of the Bonn Climate Change Talks would go, but these are strange days.

Standing in my ‘loan shark’ suit, I thought about India, now suffering a heat wave worse than anything on record, and there no signs of it letting up. I thought about home, where the Gulf of Mexico is in the throes of one of the biggest man-made environmental disasters in US history. There are no signs of that letting up either.

I thought about why I came to Bonn – to another round of international negotiations attempting to save us from a future plagued by deadly shifts in climate and man-made environmental disasters. The backdrop of events in India and the Gulf could hardly be more poignant or tragic – illustrating the urgency of these efforts and how we’ve fallen dangerously behind.

Things kicked off with a slow start on Monday, opening of two of four negotiating tracks that will proceed over the next two weeks. Monday’s tracks were meetings of Subsidiary Bodies, which are mostly technical in nature. The heavy policy stuff begins Tuesday with talks on the future of the Kyoto Protocol (KP) and on Long-term Cooperative Action (LCA).

If you’ve followed these negotiations, you might know that both the KP and LCA tracks were set to conclude in Copenhagen. They obviously didn’t, and we realized with a slap in the face, how far we still have to go before building enough national ambition in key countries around the world to do what’s necessary to confront climate change.The puzzle before us is daunting at best.

As depressing and frustrating as this process is, we’ve made significant (if inadequate) progress on key issues in this journey. Copenhagen helped us begin to unlock resources and legitimize understandings necessary to confront climate change with a fair and adequate response.

We’re close -

• to agreeing on the design of a framework to help the least developed and most vulnerable countries adapt to changes in climate already underway;

• we’re making strides bridging the gaps between our climate change adaptation and mitigation needs and technologies & technology-access required to meet them;

• there are enough pledges for emissions reductions, proposals for rules to protect carbon sinks & encourage sustainable development, and promises of short-term and long-term finance near agreement;

- that we’re beginning to clearly see how far we’ve come and how far short we’ll fall of doing what’s necessary if we stop pushing now.

My hope for these talks in Bonn are that we lay the foundation for what’s necessary – on adaptation, technology, finance, and rules for protecting carbon sinks & ensuring sustainable development. That we call out and fill the gaps, remove the loopholes, straighten what’s crooked and that we create something strong enough to build our future on.

Hence, the shark costume – calling out the gaps and trying to straighten what’s crooked. Hence, my efforts along with the other negotiator trackers over the coming weeks to help understand and tell this story. Hence, why I joined so many driven, caring and smart people who came to Bonn to help push us along.

Day 1 of the latest round of talks is over – stay tuned for what happens next.

US Briefing at the Conclusion of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate

Posted on 19. Apr, 2010 by Joshua Wiese in U.S.A. | View Comments

On Monday afternoon, after the conclusion of the April 18-19 meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, the US Department of State hosted an on the record briefing with U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern and Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs Michael Froman. Here’s the audio:

UPDATE: State department just released a factsheet discussed in the call - giving details on the US commitment to implementing the Copenhagen Accord.

You can download the Factsheet from the State Department Website here: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/140689.pdf

Here are the highlights from the fact sheet:

• $1.9 billion in international climate finance requested for 2011
• Nearly $900 million estimated for climate-related export credit and development financing in 2011
• $1 billion pledged for REDD+ for 2010-2012
• $375 million already delivered in 2010 to the Climate Investment Funds

I’ll work on a post comparing this to what we heard from Ilana Solomon of Action Aid about hopes for US Finance a few weeks ago. Here’s what Ilana had to say about where we should actually be: