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:

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.

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:

Getting domestic legislation on energy and climate passed will allow the US to play a more credible and constructive role in the talks. However, Like the House-passed bill and Obama administration policy, it would set a target of 17
percent reductions in emissions of CO2 equivalent by 2020, from 2005 levels – a number many of our friends in the TckTckTck coalition have argued is too little too late.

PART 1
PART 2
PART 3

According to Politico, the bill is still being negotiated. However, here’s an interesting little preview of what Kerry could confirm would make it through negotiations:

• The measure will put a price on carbon emissions but not through a cap-and-trade system, which would impose specific limits on harmful emissions and allow businesses to sell or trade carbon credits to meet them.

• It aims to cut U.S. dependency on foreign oil by 50 percent over the course of the legislation, a time span that Kerry declined to reveal.

• It will include a host of refunds to taxpayers to prevent spikes on energy costs for consumers.

• And it will include “huge assistance” for coal and other industries that the authors hope will help frame the measure as a jobs bill that could boost and sustain an economic recovery.

Read more in Politico’s story by Jeanne Cummings – John Kerry sees an energy ‘moment’.

During the event, the US announced a few initiatives:

* Advancing a Caribbean Electrical Grid Interconnection: In support of a Caribbean Sustainable Energy Working Group, the Department of Energy will provide technical support, including hosting a workshop to begin exploring the potential for a Caribbean-wide transmission system that would provide the region with access to electricity from renewable energy sources. By connecting electricity systems across Caribbean nations, the region can develop economies of scale and larger electricity markets, which can help to facilitate the transition to renewable energy, reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels and make the island economies more secure. During the workshop, DOE technical experts, including specialists from the National Laboratories, will facilitate a discussion on ways to develop policies, regulations and standards to ensure the use of safe, reliable and efficient power.

* Launching an IDB Innovation Center: The Department of Energy and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) signed an agreement creating an Energy Innovation Center that will allow DOE and IDB to coordinate resources to facilitate regional projects and activities. The Center will serve as a focal point for project development and financing in the region and will be able to access the IDB’s annual energy financing pipeline of approximately $3 billion. The Center will be staffed by both DOE and IDB employees and will include week-long trips by subject matter specialists to the region to assess potential projects. The IDB Innovation Center is the latest in a series of Regional Clean Energy Centers throughout the Hemisphere, including a Costa Rican Energy Efficiency Training Center, a Wind Center in Mexico, an Energy Efficiency Center in Peru, and a Renewable Energy Center in Chile.

* Developing Biomass Resources in Colombia: Under its Low Carbon Communities of the Americas initiative, the Department of Energy announced a project titled “Forming a Research, Development and Innovation Hub with Expertise in the Sustainable Energy Use of the Biomass in Colombia.” The project will partner DOE and National Laboratory experts with scientists and technology experts in Colombia that are involved in on-going research on sugarcane, palm oil and petroleum to help identify, evaluate and promote technologies for sustainable biomass use in Colombia. The project, which is being developed by the government of Colombia and supported by DOE, is focusing on developing a technological plan for power generation through heating sugarcane and palm residues at very high temperatures. This combined heat and power process will be able to be used for high efficiency gas-fired engines or gas turbines.

* Hosting an Earthquake Preparedness Workshop: In response to recent earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and Mexico that highlighted vulnerabilities to energy infrastructure, the Department of Energy announced that it will host an earthquake preparedness workshop, bringing together leaders in the region to hear from experts, including U.S. National Laboratories, on hazard characterization, risk-informed structural seismic design standards, advanced simulation capabilities for both ground motion estimation and structural response. DOE’s effort will build on a U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) initiative focused on the deployment of suitable communications and monitoring system technologies for earth.

* Affirming Commitment to Clean Energy Cooperation: The Department of Energy and Argentina’s Ministry for Federal Planning, Public Investment, and Services signed a Memorandum of Understanding that promotes cooperation between the Department of Energy and the Argentine Energy Secretariat on clean energy technologies. The new Binational Energy Working Group is developing additional areas for cooperation.

Top of the list of objectives is to: “Reinforce the perception that the US is constructively engaged in UN negotiations in an effort to produce a global regime to combat climate change.” It also talks of “managing expectations” of the outcome of the Cancun meeting and bypassing traditional media outlets by using podcasts and “intimate meetings” with the chief US negotiator to disarm the US’s harsher critics. But the key phrase is in paragraph 3 where the author writes: “Create a clear understanding of the CA’s [Copenhagen accord's] standing and the importance of operationalising ALL elements.”

Our lead man, Jonathan Pershing, claimed to have no knowledge of the document, but agreed with the idea that the Accord should be taken as a whole instead of in parts.

According to the Guardian, here’s the text of the leaked document:

Strategic communications objectives

1) Reinforce the perception that the US is constructively engaged in UN negotiations in an effort to produce a global regime to combat climate change. This includes support for a symmetrical and legally binding treaty.

2) Manage expectations for Cancun – Without owning the message, advance the narrative that while a symmetrical legally binding treaty in Mexico is unlikely, solid progress can be made on the six or so main elements.

3) Create a clear understanding of the CA’s standing and the importance of operationalising ALL elements.

4) Build and maintain outside support for the administration’s commitment to meeting the climate and clean energy challenge despite an increasingly difficult political environment to pass legislation.

5) Deepen support and understanding from the developing world that advanced developing countries must be part of any meaningful solution to climate change including taking responsibilities under a legally binding treaty.

Media outreach

• Continue to conduct interviews with print, TV and radio outlets driving the climate change story.

• Increase use of off-the-record conversations.

• Strengthen presence in international media markets during trips abroad. Focus efforts on radio and television markets.

• Take greater advantage of new media opportunities such as podcasts to advance US position in the field bypassing traditional media outlets.

• Consider a series of policy speeches/public forums during trips abroad to make our case directly to the developing world.

Key outreach efforts

• Comprehensive and early outreach to policy makers, key stakeholders and validators is critical to broadening support for our positions in the coming year.

• Prior to the 9-11 April meeting in Bonn it would be good for Todd to meet with leading NGOs. This should come in the form of 1:1s and small group sessions.

• Larger group sessions, similar to the one held at CAP prior to Copenhagen, will be useful down the line, but more intimate meetings in the spring are essential to building the foundation of support. Or at the very least, disarming some of the harsher critics.

MY TAKE

Chair of the Ad hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action on Sunday night. photo: ENB

From my perspective, the last day of talks began r-e-a-l-l-y slowly. If day one and two were about country’s delegations airing their views on Copenhagen and how to move forward over the course of this year, Sunday was about bringing it all together into clear mandates to plan and act upon.

I woke up early, made my way to the conference center, grabbed the daily program and started to wait.

Morning was filled with closed meetings of various negotiating blocks, each working to align positions internally in order to give them more clout the formal sessions. This UNFCCC process creeps forward by consensus only, and all 175 countries who came to Bonn had to agree on some key procedural decisions before the end of the day. With so many different cultures, different states of development and different political and economic interests – consensus can be really hard.

Well apparently, that consensus was escaping this group, so the big formal deciding meeting was postponed. Then it was postponed again.

Finally, at 5PM – same time the Bonn Climate Change Talks were scheduled to end – we gathered in the large plenary hall and began. The Secretariat staff handed out a 2-page text for a basis to talk through and negotiate the procedural points in question. Countries then proceeded to argued about obscure differences in wording for the next 6+ hours.

I won’t say it wasn’t interesting or even entertaining at times – it was, but I’ll spare you the play to play. Catch the re-run here if you’re as big a dork as I am. Instead, I want to share just a few highlights:

Papua New Guinea seemed to own the mic. Led by a striking and articulate woman with an Italian accent and red pants (fashionably breaking from the rest of the group, I might be a bit smitten), she gave a valiant effort and made some progress in her push for PNG’s positions. Louis Hand, the Aussie’s lead lady (also known for her occasional fashionable breaks), drew analogies to a threesome and cocktails in an effort to draw interest for one of her proposals …Saudi’s shut her down on the basis that their culture frowns on both. The Saudi’s, often suspected of trying to slow the talks from progress generally, offered to help the chair move things along. The whole room laughed, they’re negotiator said “No, I’m serious”, and proceeded to give the breakthrough suggestion. Also notable, the Chair of the session accidentally and repeatedly insulted Russia, who perhaps offered some of the most hopeful suggestions for compromise throughout the night – needless to say, they weren’t pleased.

The US wasn’t particularly notable in our interventions. Jonathan Pershing showed his frustration only once, angered by agreements apparently made informally that fell apart on the floor. Our delegation shared potato chips with the Brits… possibly feeding Venezuela’s neo-colonial suspicions. Generally, Pershing was eloquent and efficient, steering clear of the more creative forms of delivery and the drama occasionally introduced by other negotiators over the course of the night.

The lack of creativity and drama seems almost un-American compared to the culture I know and love; but as we continue to wait for serious solutions to climate change and as the talks stalled into their 6th and 7th hours, (or 16th year, for that matter), I have no complaint. That said, Grenada was the highlight of the night when they reminded all of us that what we’re trying to save in this process – our environment, our security, our hope of living & maybe even thriving together on this planet, our humanity – is indeed something beautiful. Thanking the Chair for her efforts and wishing well everyone present, she closed with a poem on behalf of the small island states most vulnerable to climate change.

Next time Dr. Pershing, perhaps you too could close with a poem.

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GRENADA’S CLOSING STATEMENT

Madame chair
Among our serious work here comes some levity
Aosis thanks all for having shown flexibility
Particularly revealing compromise and sensibility
For without flexibility what is the real possibility
That there would have been the necessary credibility
Among 192 in this perennially deliberating assembly
In pursuit of climate equitability viability and sustainability
So we bid you all safety with your chosen method of transportability
As you return to families and national diversity
Only to again be released for 2010 climate change conferring productivity
I said levity
But I am not showing creativity
mainly because I am not pursuing mental agility
or fruitility
But I am just avoiding none creative destructability
Thank You

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THE OFFICIAL UNFCCC TAKE / PRESS RELEASE ON OUTCOMES OF THE WEEKEND (PDF):

Climate change negotiators agree on intensified UNFCCC negotiating schedule for 2010

(Bonn, 11 April 2010) The first round of UN climate change talks since the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen at the end of 2009 concluded Sunday in Bonn with agreement to intensify the negotiating schedule in order to achieve a strong outcome in Mexico at the end of the year.

In addition to the negotiating sessions already scheduled for 2010, governments decided at the Bonn April meeting to hold two additional sessions of at least one week each.

The additional sessions will take place between the 32nd session of the UNFCCC Convention subsidiary bodies from 31 May to 11 June 2010 and the UN Climate Change Conference in Mexico from 29 November to 10 December 2010.

The Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) invited its Chair to prepare, under her own responsibility, a text to facilitate negotiations among Parties, in time for the May/June sessions in Bonn.

“At this meeting in Bonn, I have generally seen a strong desire to make progress,” said UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer. “However, whilst more meeting time is important, it is itself not a recipe for success,” he cautioned.

The UN’s top climate change official called on governments to overcome differences, and work for greater clarity on what can be decided in the course of 2010 in the UN Climate Change negotiations.

“We need to decide what can be agreed at the end of this year in Cancún and what can be put off until later,” he said.

According to Mr. de Boer, negotiators must tackle three categories of issues in the course of this year: issues which were close to completion in Copenhagen and can be finalized at the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún at the end of the year; issues where there are still considerable differences, but on which the Copenhagen Accord can provide important political guidance; and issues where governments are still far from agreement.

“The UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún must do what Copenhagen did not achieve: It must finalize a functioning architecture for implementation that launches global climate action, across the board, especially in developing nations,” said Yvo de Boer.

“Specifically, negotiations this year need to conclude on mitigation targets and action, a package on adaptation, a new technology mechanism, financial arrangements, ways to deal with deforestation, and a capacity-building framework,” he said.

Yvo de Boer also referred to the necessity for high level political guidance at the appropriate time: “We must seek political guidance where and when needed,” he said.

The first round of UN Climate Change Talks in Bonn in 2010 (9-11 April) was attended by more than 1700 delegates from 175 countries

There were very few similarly light moments in this weekend’s formal proceedings.

Now, on Sunday night, 5.5 hours after the time these meetings were scheduled to close, negotiators were still gathered in plenary and still locked in the slow throes of this challenging dance.

At 23:30, we’re part way through the planned discussion. We saw debate on the principles that would inform this process going forward, and some of the implications of select wording; more posturing & debate on the role of the Copenhagen Accord and whether the Chair of these negotiations could include the Accord in negotiating text, there was lots of talk about the role of the COP President (this year will be Mexico) and discussion about whether now was the time to determine whether this year’s meetings would need to include environment ministers.

I regret to report that our Russian negotiator did not get his wish to sleep instead of argue past today’s more sensible hours. We have a long way to go.

UPDATE: At 23:59, all issues were effectively resolved or postponed and the Chair declared the 9th Session of the AWG LCA officially closed. KP is still on…. sheesh.

Once they reconvene, parties will only have a few hours to formalize a mandate for the Chairs and clear the path for work going forward. Secretariat reporting that the with the facility requires tables and chairs to be broken down at 6p.

UPDATE: Plenary postponed til 3p.