Stop sp OIL ing our future

Posted on 10. Jun, 2010 by Leela Raina in India | View Comments

Its been 10 days since I have been tracking the negotiations. Every day seems like a new day but the routine it seems like the same feeling. Its like you’re listening to one of those old songs on a tape and sometimes it gets stuck , keeps repeating a sad and irritating tone and then you need to rewind it over and over again.

The only ray of sunshine comes when you have a great dinner , share a laugh with you colleagues and shop. In the evening I took a detour from the main station and just went and stood in the store . Looked at the happy kids, the enthusiastic teenagers, the worried mothers and the overworked saleswomen doing there rounds in the H &M store in Bonn. Having the chance to see colours and shoes and bags rather then the placards of countries and people fighting over whether a technical paper should be presented gave me hope that maybe no matter what goes inside the UNFCCC, life still moves on , you still love ice cream and girls still love shopping.

No doubt that there were wide interconnections in life that we as humans are so closely and neatly woven into. Everything can also be traced back to the people inside the UNFCCC and the decisions they influence and make.

Its interesting to note that among us in Maritim are roaming around 50 -60 accredited Oil Lobbyists. They have been polluting the talks and disrespecting the very spirit of why the convention was set up in the first place. These lobbyists have worked there way up all the way to not only civil society and media but country delegates themselves.

The Oil Producing and Exporting countries face the most amount of danger economically , considering almost 80 % of their GDP comes from the export of oil. Rather then seeing this as an opportunity to switch to an alternative fuel they take the easiest path that of calling themselves the “victim” of climate change

OIL has proved to be thicker than blood and here is a simple explanation why. The Oil producing countries not only lost all logic but are now dictated by this slimy oil running through their veins. Because of the way this disease makes them behave they were awarded a fossil today.

The fossil goes to these four Parties for risking the good faith and integrity of the negotiations by blocking all attempts to secure a technical review of the 1.5 degrees target and suggesting that vulnerable countries use “google” to get information that they need/want. They did this in the teeth of emotional pleas from vulnerable countries and numerous rounds of diplomatic efforts to reach a compromise. Saudi Arabia even gave us a list of traded goods which would be in peril from a 1.5 degrees target. See if you can spot which one is their true concern: rice, cocoa, tomatoes, coal, oil…. (If you’re stuck, look up their chief export on Google.)

Now that they have stalled the negotiations on the scientofoc aspect one can only wish that the talks at Cancun are also not stalled and that it migth not be a curtain raiser to more nasty drama to unfold at the UNFCCC negotiations.

Outside the UNFCCC , OIL is making news, apparently so much news that BP the big oil company had to buy off the terms oil spill from google to control the falling stock value in the stock markets. Its a shame that the big media cant see how much of this problem of the oil spill is linked to what going on inside the negotiations.

This is why they got a honorary fossil today:

BP-USA is awarded an Honorary Fossil Award from CAN International for fostering our addiction to fossil fuels, an addiction that is driving global warming towards dangerous climate change and lies behind the disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.

The consequences of foregoing a global agreement to move off fossil fuels and invest in a low-carbon future are clear – scientists have run the numbers – unless warming is checked temperatures will increase way beyond the threshold for catastrophic climate change.

For some countries the toll is already mounting.  As the negotiations began here in Bonn, hundreds died in India and Pakistan during the hottest heat wave on record, with temperatures shooting over 50 degrees Celsius (122 F).

This is bitterly ironic given that we have alternatives. Each year we delay, we pass by opportunities to invest in clean energy.  The International Energy Agency has calculated the cost of passing by those opportunities at $500 billion a year. At same time $100 billion a year in subsidies are paid to fossil fuel companies worldwide.

Checking climate change and sustaining economic growth depends upon an international agreement to invest in clean energy.

BP-USA, a leader in fossil-fuel development that has played out so disastrously in the Gulf of Mexico, is awarded an Honorary Fossil for failing fulfill its responsibility to help break the fossil-fuel addiction it has fostered and address climate change.

Hoping for a better future where blood is valued more than oil and where there wouldn’t be any climate talks , and I can go shopping without worrying that , oh my god, I gotta save the world!

Bonn Polluters?

Big girls don’t cry

Posted on 09. Jun, 2010 by Leela Raina in India | View Comments

The smell of your skin lingers on me now
You’re probably on your flight back to your hometown
I need some shelter of my own protection baby

Bangkok last year

Be with myself in center, clarity, peace, serenity

After a long tough day one always needs a long way back home, listening to the favourite bollywood songs and noticing the flowers on your way back. With songs comes the associations and memories of people and different stages of ones life. You fondly remember those sweet nothings in school, dancing like wild late into the night and the light jazz that eeps you hooked to your work.

None the less you need that special place, where you can run to every now and then which brings you back to your centre gives you clarity and peace.

The path that I’m walking, I must go alone
I must take the baby steps till I’m full grown
Fairy tales don’t always have a happy ending,  do they?
And I for seek the dark ahead, if I stay

College is over, girl you need to step into the real world. Everything is no longer given to you readymade on a platter. But you learn by making your own mistakes , this gradual process is filled with hurdles, doubt , questioning, self analysing and searching for purpose.  Coupled with all this is the most important feature that is the UNCERTAINTY and CONTINUATION of life no matter what.

Just imagine how Yvo might be feeling considering that he has been so close to the process and Secretaria , where he has built relationships and bonds for his life. I can imagine things being like a family , with the same people negotiators and observers you meeting on and on again. Its all about people management and that what Yvo did best. He understood and put himself in everyone’s  shoes and practiced conflict resolution.

Letting go is never easy and saying goodbye is the worst part of every relationship but what has to be dine must be. Some part ways on really bad. Whats important that at the Farewell we highlight the person for what he has been and how he has maken a difference , unfortunately I did not see any of this in Christiana’s ( the new exec secretary of UNFCCC) speech. Over that in her over motherly tone she used the show and tell mechanism to make Yvo follow her instructions like a baby to understand why he;d been presented with shoes which have UNFCCC 2006-10 written over it.

The plenary jam packed had fcr once a deafening silence and waited in anticipation for Yvo to speak. In his signature style he was funny and incorporated his punch lines to keep the mood animated but somewhere behind those word and laughs was a sense of heaviness , sadness of leaving.

Most of us might be thinking if we would be in his shoes we would have been relieved to be out of the process but nonetheless you always come back home to your family and the UNFCCC had become his family.

Like a little school mate in the school yard
We’ll play Jacks and UNO cards
I’ll be your best friend  And you’ll be mine, valentine
Yes, you can hold my hand if you want to ,Cause I want to hold yours, too
We’ll be playmates and lovers ,and share our secret worlds

Yvo in his personal farewell to us gave a reflection of the many relationships he has made over the course of his tenure. You have weirdly become integrated into the ecosystem something like what was shown in the movie Avatar. More than Yvo’s coordination its the feats he has achieved in getting to an actual consensus building exercise to get a roadmap, action plan , protocol and an accord in place. He says in his speech:

I have had the honour of working for you and with you to achieve this. In some cases our relationship has lasted for almost four years; in others it is closer to 14. Philip Gwage, Harald Dovland, Bernaditas Muller, Bill Hare, Mohammad Al Sabban, Richard Kinley and Michael Zammit Cutajar are just a few of the many that have sought, in those 14 years or more, to find a way forward that reconciles the seemingly irreconcilable…

It will be hard to fill the void Yvo has left for us. The only thing in our hands to accept and welcome in the new executive secretary and wishes she only fills Yvo’s spot. But I guess one has to move on and that too for the better,in Yvos’ words- The Copenhagen conference did not entirely deliver what anyone hadexpected or hoped for. There is a multitude of reasons for this. But, as Professor Al Sabban said only yesterday, we have experienced disappointments before and have
advanced in spite of them.

I hope you know, I hope you know ,That this has nothing to do with you
It’s personal, myself and I ,We got some straightening out to do
And I’m gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
But I’ve gotta get a move on with my life ,It’s time to be a big girl now
And big girls don’t cry ,don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry

You have been a true inspiration, the tracker team salutes you and wishes you the very best for your  future.

There is nothing known as a free lunch.

Posted on 08. Jun, 2010 by Leela Raina in India | View Comments

Hunger is priceless , for feeding it you need MASTERCARD

Given the vast negative effects of runaway climate change one needs to not only reduce emissions ie mitigate but also adapt to the adverse effects since countries might lack the capacity and resources to do so on there own.  Hence the story of financial mechanisms in the UNFCCC begins with the concept that there is a requirement for a pool of finance and there are countries who are able and obligated to provide this finance upfront ( developed countries) to the developing countries ( refer to convention article 4.3) since they are the ones who have caused the problem.

The UN Secretary General appointed a High Level Advisory Group on Climate Finance (AGF) to determine look at private and public sources of finance and to make a final report of recommendations just prior to Cancun. Today in the afternoon they held an open discussion to highlight the methodology they were working with. The group is chaired by   H E Mr Ato Newai , Chief economic advisor to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia. There presentation would assist in explaining the key issues of finance in course of 2010.

the amount and criteria of assessment of need

time period of the finance coming in and

the sources of funding

Lunch

Where the restaurant picks up its supplies

Climate Finance can be broken down into two broad sources (these sources also form the working groups that have been formed under the advisory group on finance of which the meeting was held today.On the obvious sources comes from the ODA – Money given by developed countries as development assistance and the other would be the mechanism setup by the UNFCCC that is the Adaption Fund , now over and above this the finance that is needed can be mobilized by the following:

ADDITIONAL PUBLIC FINANCE

1. Carbon Finance Public revenue – this comes from the auctioning of the AAUs- Assigned amount unit , assigned to all the developed world under the kyoto protocol,  as  a part of the emissions trading mechanism

2. International Transport – This would be the bunker fuel levies and levies on the international air and maritime transport

3. Other carbon related mechanisms – carbon taxation and carbon border adjustment- tariffs and taxes on imported goods  which I had talked in detail about in my previous blog

4. Role of Multilateral organizations and linking it to the the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights and using that to create additional finance

5.International finance transfer taxes

6. Direct Budget Contributions- this would be a pool of the GNP of countries given for adaptation and capacity building in the annex 1.

ADDITIONAL PRIVATE FINANCE

1. Using Public finance to leverage private investment is a bit like when you use feed in tariffs to attract private sector investment into the sector

2. Private companies having there own compliance mechanisms and carbon offsetting in the carbon markets.

no free lunch

How do we ensure the kids get appropriate serving of lunch

The criteria for the assessment of the money brought in as per the advisory group on finance

1. Efficiency – this would take into account the impacts on costs , market developments and economic development and economic growth.

2. Incidence and Equity – Incidence in burden of source of finance between nations and within the working groups or within nations.

3. Practicality – institutional design and rules , law and legal form of it. Seeing whether we could implement it as an independent decision of the COP or as a part of a treaty.

4. Political acceptability among different countries and different constituencies.

5. Domestic Budgeting and seeing the competitiveness and trade.

6. Reliability/ Predictability – Checking how stable the revenue stream is from the source in specific seeing how tit reacts to business cycles or change in policies if government.

7. ADDITIONALITY: To explore new and innovative sources for financing.

Today in the briefing countries raised valid concerns over the presentation and it was good to see that the observer organizations were also allowed to be a part of the discussion. One of the key concerns being raised today was how were the countries that were not a part of the Copenhagen accord being taken into consideration knowing full well that the advisory group was setup in the spirit if the accord.

Also there were concerns as to what legal form would the decisions of the advisory group take and whether they would be playing a political role in the process.

The group made it clear that they were on the lines of the UNFCCC convention and were taking into account the CBDR- common but differentiated responsibility principle under the Equity criteria mentioned above. As for there role is limited to being advisory , it is upto the parties to do what they want with the report. The report will be ready in September 2010.

This was largely the discussion around sources and transparency issues on climate finance, stay tuned for fast track dinner to be served late in the night.

This is a very hungry stomach signing off…..