Anna Collins blogged about how this was playing out in the negotiations Wednesday:

I was watching the chaos that erupted in the SBSTA (Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice). The talks ground to a halt over AOSIS putting forward the proposal for a technical paper on the science of scenarios for going above 1.5 degrees temperature rise. The paper would collate what is known and what is not known about what happens to our planet as we go above 1.5 degrees.

They want the UNFCCC to confront the reality of this in the paper, THEN make their decisions about action to tackle climate change.

However for some this reality would not be welcomed. The proposal was strongly blocked by many of the oil producing countries.

Swedish blogger, Erik Malm, went a bit further in explaining his view of the role of oil producing countries:

Once again, the climate negotiations find its greatest foe in oil. Even Venezuela diverts from their friends in the G77/Kina. But when over 80% of your GDP, is based on oil exports – oil really is thicker than blood. Several countries searched for support from Saudi Arabia until the very end.

“You have heard the most vulnerable countries plea for your support, if you do not agree with their consensus will send you a very unfortunate signal to the millions of people who follow this process all around the world. We have a duty to them!“, said the negotiator from Barbados.

Immediately thereafter, Kuwait uttered support for the Saudi line.

“Developing countries will need to transform and diversify their economies – who will assist them to make the switch from eg tourism to fisheries? Who will retrain their workforce?“, asked the delegate from Saudi Arabia.

They tried to resolve their internal differences through smaller consultations. However, these consultations proved to be futile and no progress was made. The OPEC countries would not compromise. With this, the SBI and SBSTA meetings are adjourned for now. The proposal of a technical paper on 1.5 degrees will surely be discussed further. When the parties meet again in Bonn, in August, it will most likely be on top of the agenda.

The session closed on Wednesday with no resolution. One can never clearly read the motives behind country interventions – except only to assume they’re working to advance their own strategic interests. On Thursday morning, SBSTA resumed and Venezuela offered compromise text, followed immediately by Saudi Arabia suggesting that the group would never get consensus on this issue and should move on. Knowing the Saudi’s would block gave Venezuela the chance to stand on high ground (ethically speaking, anyway) in support of AOSIS, without further threatening their own position as a major oil exporter.

The Chair ceded to Saudi Arabia’s request and the good guys (AOSIS, in my view) lost… or did they?

I thought the Seychellois ambassador Ronald Jumeau, did a great job summing up the effect of what went down at a 350.org press conference on Thursday. My favorite quote:

“One of the responses we’ve had on this issue is: the small island states can easily google. why don’t you google this information? Now, whoever made that may have though he or she was joking – but be careful what you ask for. We expect that after this… a lot of people out there… members of the public… the youth of the world… people withing the UNFCCC process… people outside… are going to say: What is this fuss about 1.5? And you can bet, they are going to google.”

See the whole press conference (organized by our friends at 350.org) in the UNFCCC video archive.

Check out this pleasantly candid interview from Yvo’s last days on the job. You’re about to hear a bit about how the US oil spill relates connects to Bonn, there’s some word association, we talked leadership from China, and some of the perils of relentlessly pursuing a legally binding deal.

Thanks to OneClimate for filming the chat.

Keya Chatterjee from World Wildlife Fund USA at the CAN press conference. UNFCCC Climate talks in Bonn.

Julie Anne Richards of CAN International at the CAN press conference in Bonn, Germany.

World renowned adaptation expert Saleemuk Huq

After a press conference One caught up with Saleemuk and Keya for some follow-up questions:

Follow-up with Keya Chatterjee from WWF

Follow-up with IIED’s Saleemuk Huq

And if you’re still not sated, CAN International’s director, David Turnbull sat down with the Fresh Air Center’s Sonal Bains to give bloggers the state of play.

Monday Blogger Briefing with David Turnbull, Climate Action Network International

Here are a few clips, compliments of One Climate.

Lyrics by Alden Meyer, Director of Strategy and Policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists. As performed at the NGO/Security Party, June 5th 2010.

Yvo De Boer gives his farewell speech to climate NGOs

Talks between the G77, China and a number of major developing countries were moving toward forcing countries to be transparent about their use of the loophole. And just yesterday, countries that form the Central Africa Forest Commission (COMIFAC) spoke out powerfully calling on the loopholes to be closed.

Check out the overview on the issue below:

The game, dealing with climate change:

If dealing with climate change was a game, to win we would have to reduce our emissions (like CO2) and protect the carbon sinks that keep greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere (like forests). Unfortunately, dealing with climate change is a game that we all win, or we all lose. Cheaters in this game mean we all lose.

The rules, LULU-what?

LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry — another terrible UN acronym) gives developed countries the ability to factor forest management and land use into their accounting for how much they’re contributing to climate change and whether they’re on track with promised pollution cuts.

Forest management and land use are the biggest areas of potential for mitigating climate change. So it’s no surprise that accounting for and encourage the protection of forests is a big deal in climate negotiations.

For developed countries that are part of this framework, UN climate talks have helped us come a long way toward protecting forests and other carbon sinks.

The cheat & the cheaters:

LULUCF contains loopholes that pose a serious threat to effective climate change mitigation. The loopholes in forest management accounting would allow developed countries to increase their annual emissions by approximately 400 Mt CO2 annually and not account for it. That’s a loophole big enough to hide all of the emissions from Spain in one year.

Countries exploiting this most are: Germany, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

The emissions loophole works by allowing countries to forecast an increase in emissions and use this higher level as a ‘projected reference level’ or baseline against which to measure their emission reductions.  The loophole is also being used to hide emissions from bio-energy.

What it means for the rest of us?

We all lose.  UN Climate Talks have come a long way to develop these rules; a 400 MT greenhouse gas pollution loophole is massive and completely inappropriate.  Without effective tools to protect our forests, dealing with climate change becomes near impossible.

How do we fix it?

The loopholes must be closed.  All developed countries must agree to two new guiding principles which are:

1. The rules being negotiated should result in an absolute reduction in net emissions;
2. Carbon reservoirs (forests etc.) in natural ecosystems should be protected.

For our part, follow progress on LULUCF by tracking our posts with this tag: LULUCF. We’re also watching the great reporting by Canadian Forests & Climate campaigner, Chris Henschel. Check out his daily updates here: Forests and Climate Change

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.

At Frankfurt I find him trying to track his luggage which he had checked in all the way till Bonn and caught the train just in the nick of time for Bonn. When you tried to make conversation about Kyoto or LCA he said, ” I don’t really know much policy, I’m more into the science” as he is working with the WMO – World Meteorological Organization.

It will be interesting to meet the new negotiating team although today I saw some of the old ones lurking around- R K Sethi and Mr Mauskar from the Ministry of environment and forests. Only time will tell how the new negotiating team will handle things “differently” from the previous one.

Sensing from the tense situation back home where Minister Jai Ram Ramesh has a thick cloud of controversy surrounding him and also without our chief negotiator Vijai Sharma and Rashmi Ranjan Sir , looks like India will be keeping a low profile.

The whole day , the only inspiration has been looking forward to the great reception and farewell to Yvo de Boer in the evening.

Hope for more exciting days…..

Secretariat Press Briefing

First, on Tuesday, May 27th, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer gave a pre-meeting press conference from the Secretariat Headquarters today.

You can watch the whole archived webcast here: http://unfccc2.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/pressconference_10/templ/play.php?id_kongresssession=2683/a>

Thursday Blogger briefing

Second, we’re proud to announce that TckTckTck (the Global Campaign for Climate Action) is bringing back the Fresh Air Center, a virtual new media resource center that launched last year in Copenhagen to provide support for bloggers (and other journalists) tracking the negotiations.  To kick things off, the Fresh Air Center has pulled experts from the TckTckTck campaign for a blogger briefing this coming Thursday.

Join some of our favorite professional negotiator trackers – Alden Meyer (Union of Concerned Scientists), Antonio Hill (Oxfam International), Cindy Baxter (Greenpeace International) and David Turnbull (CAN International) this coming Thursday, May 27th at 15:00 GMT (11a EDT).

Download the dial-in information here.

Introducing the new UNFCCC Executive Secretary – Christina Figueres

Clean Skies News sat down with Christina Figueres on May 18 for a video interview shortly after her nomination by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. While the interview doesn’t go into much depth, it’s a great a introduction to the new Executive Secretary.  Figueres was the preferred candidate for many developing countries and is highly regarded by the man she’ll replace.

New UNFCCC iphone app for the Bonn Talks.

From the UNFCCC website:

“This application provides quick and easy access to essential information about the UN Climate Change Talks taking place this year. The application will be updated before each major UNFCCC event in 2010. Please keep your application on your iPhone after the meetings have ended in order to receive an automatic update of the app prior to subsequent meetings. View the latest youtube videos and photos from the conference, read the latest documents, agendas and meetings information, join the Talks via the Facebook and Twitter channels, get logistical information.

Download the iPhone app – ‘Negotiator‘ – free of charge here.”

We’ll keep you posted with more information over the coming days. The Bonn Climate Change Talks kick off next week, and we’ll be there tracking.

by Kelly Blynn. 350.org.

Last Thursday, I found myself on the 5th floor of the social sciences building of the Universidad del Valle, the site of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, sitting in a room of about 40 civil society and government representatives from around the world. Together, we were putting the finishing touches on the final document for the summit, that would be read minutes later to a packed stadium of over 20,000. As the presidents of the 17 working groups haggled over small changes in wording that were projected up on the screen, I couldn’t help but think how utterly different this experience was than the final hour in Copenhagen; civil society shut out of the building, just a few countries trying to decide our fate, and without so many of the countries whose future would be sold out by the Copenhagen Accord. So 4 Days, 20,000 people, countless cultures and perspectives later – what has been accomplished in Cochabamba, and where do we go from here?

To start, here’s a great video summary from our friends Tupac Saavedra and Lauren Rosenfeld reporting for Yes! Magazine to get a flavor of what the conference was like, and a few takes on it’s symbolism moving forward:

A counterbalance
The idea of the Cochabamba People’s Accord coming out of the summit is for this document to serve as a counterweight, or people’s alternative, to the weak and inadequate Copenhagen Accord, which the U.S. principally is trying to jam through the UN process. The submission period for the UNFCCC was open until April 26th, leaving the Bolivian government just enough time to present the final document forged with government and civil society representatives before the official process. Aside from the radical positions contained in the document, the process through which it was created is a statement in itself. In Copenhagen, we saw the idea of democracy to solve this problem threatened – the analysis was that 192 countries was simply too many to try to come to a concensus – better to lock out those whose survival was at stake to be able to at least agree to something between the biggest polluters. Bolivia, turned this on its head, opening up the process further to another major voice who wasn’t able
to be in the room, civil society. Speaking in front of 20,000 people, and representatives of the Mexican government at the closing ceremony, 350’s own Marcelo Quintanilla had the chance to issue the challenge to the Mexican government to make Cancun jsut as representative and open as the Bolivia summit has been (video coming soon!).

Movement building
As Naomi Klein says in this great article, “When Morales invited ”social movements and Mother Earth’s defenders…scientists, academics, lawyers and governments” to come to Cochabamba for a new kind of climate summit, it was a revolt against this experience of helplessness [in Copenhagen], an attempt to build a base of power behind the right to survive.”. Bolivia, like the island and African countries, are the countries most vulnerable to climate change, and who have the least power to confront it. They see a way forward in collaborating with the biggest social movements in the world to really put pressure on the governments who, while Bolivia’s glaciers melt and islands begin to go under, insist that real change is still ”politically unrealistic”.

In Cochabamba, social movements found their climate champions, and vulnerable governments found their backing. The bridges built between the vulnerable nations present in Cochabamba and massive global and regional social movements like Via Campesina, indigenous movements, and 350 could really provide some major pressure at the international level if we are able to work together effectively. How this coordination will work out remains to be seen, yet I have high hopes given the commitment and trust that the Bolivian government has helped to build. And we certainly need this kind of strength and unity in order for our movement to succeed – stay tuned for what people are planning from the Action Strategies working group that I was a part of.

After an exhausting week, on Friday and Saturday, we settled in to two more days of talking and organizing. Together with some of our main partners in Bolivia, we helped pull together a small summit of about 50 leaders of youth networks from around Bolivia and around all of Latin America. Despite being from so many different countries and perspectives, the conversations on these two days were some of the most positive, constructive, and action-oriented I saw all week. In just two days, they mapped out their vision for the future, their vision for a real connected movement of Latin American youth, and came to concensus on some real concrete next steps in organizing for 10/10 and Cancun (see photos). With over half the world’s population under 30 these days, we feel it crucial to be supporting and strengthening youth climate movements around the world.

Lessons from indigenous and traditional ways of life One of the most important messages (despite the overblown press on chicken and baldness) coming out of the Bolivian summit are the lessons of the country’s indigenous people – principally the idea of ”vivir bien” or “living well”. This is the kind of thinking – living well rather than living large – that societies like mine (the United States) and many other consmptive societies need desperately to understand. And you see it, and feel it, everywhere in Bolivia.  Things work differently, and people may have far less stuff than they do in the U.S. or elsewhere (which has never been proven to make us any happier), but things work in their own way. They may not have many supermarkets, but you can find fresh fruits and vegetables from a woman’s stand on the corner any time. They may not have many of the comforts we think necessary to modern life, but they do have a participatory democracy, a clear way to make their needs and demands heard.

Vivir bien is a concept I hope that our work for 10/10/10 will help to spread – that through thousands of community-based projects that begin to implement climate solutions locally, we can see a future that is more local and community-oriented, less consumptive, and that shows us the power we have together to make the transition to a just, sustainable, fossil fuel-free society.

For more coverage of the summit, please check out the following links from some of our friends and allies:

Yes! Magazine: http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/a-peoples-climate-summit
The Democracy Center: http://democracyctr.org/index.php
Climate Voices: http://climatevoices.wordpress.com
Movement Generation: http://www.movementgeneration.org/