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CLIMATE CHANGE: And Now a New Green Deal?

Ramesh Jaura

POZNAN, Dec 11 2008 (IPS) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for a new green deal that would work for all nations, rich as well as poor, in the face of both climate change and the global economy.

Addressing the high-level segment of the gathering of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that kicked off Thursday, Ban pleaded for “global solidarity on climate change.”

He said that the current crises of climate change and in the global economy presented an opportunity to address both challenges simultaneously.

“Managing the global financial crisis requires massive global stimulus. A big part of that spending should be an investment – an investment in a green future. An investment that fights climate change, creates millions of green jobs and spurs green growth,” the UN secretary-general said.

Ban added: “We also urgently need a deal on climate change to provide the political, legal, and economic framework to unleash a sustained wave of investment. In short, our response to the economic crisis must advance climate goals, and our response to the climate crisis will advance economic and social goals.”

He said leadership was required from the European Union (that appears to have been watering down its targets in order to accommodate the interests of the industry) and the United States.

Ban welcomed the incoming Barrack Obama administration’s “plan to put alternative energy, environmentalism and climate change at the very centre of America’s definition of national security, economic recovery, and prosperity.”

But there was “encouraging movement elsewhere, as well,” he said.

China is dedicating one-fourth of its sizable economic stimulus plan to scale up renewable fuels, environmental protection and energy conservation.

Denmark (that will host next year’s landmark conference) is investing in green growth. Since 1980, it has grown its gross domestic produce (GDP) by 78 percent with only minimal increases in energy use.

Brazil has built one of the greenest economies in the world, creating millions of new jobs in the process.

India has launched a comprehensive National Climate Change Action Plan that lays out the path for shifting to greater reliance on sustainable sources of energy, particularly solar power. India is also fourth in the world in terms of new wind capacity.

Government ministers from 189 countries met in Poznan for the first time since the landmark UN climate meeting in Bali December last year to discuss a path forward towards a new global climate change deal.

Picking up the thread from Ban, UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer told the ministers: “Time is running out. You must give these negotiations a positive start. You can do that, because you are not starting from scratch.”

Mexico, South Africa and Indonesia have new climate change strategies, he said. India, China and Egypt have climate change plans and programmes. Nigeria, Angola and Pakistan are developing theirs. “All these parties and more have identified additional mitigation actions that can be implemented with measurable, reportable and verifiable support.”

Yvo de Boer reminded the ministers that the Bali road map they had launched a year ago was “about issues of today, not about delay,” and there were already clear signs of urgency. “Mauritania is already in the grip of a triple stranglehold: a growing desert, encroaching ocean and worsening floods. The Maldives are saving up for exodus because of rising seas. These are issues you must address today.”

The Poznan conference, which has drawn 11,600 participants, constitutes the half-way mark in the negotiations on an ambitious and effective international response to climate change, to be agreed in Copenhagen at the end of 2009 and to take effect in 2013, the year after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires.

“The agreed outcome must spell out commitments on the part of industrialised countries, including mid-term emission reduction targets, and agree ways to raise large-scale funds and deliver them effectively and transparently to support the efforts of the developing world in mitigation and adaptation,” said Yvo de Boer.

“So we need a policy framework that provides clarity on targets, clarity on financial support and clarity on institutions. We must have a politically ratifiable outcome that can enter into force in 2013.”

UNFCCC said in a background paper: “The discussion has in Poznan meanwhile moved on from elements of the agreed outcome to concrete components, describing areas of convergence in the ideas and proposals of parties (to the UNFCCC), exploring options for dealing with areas of divergence and identifying the gaps that might need to be filled in reaching the agreed Copenhagen outcome. Parties have agreed that a negotiating text on the agreed outcome will be put forward for consideration at a UNFCCC gathering in June next year.”

A key event during the high-level segment concluding Friday will be a ministerial round table on a shared vision on long-term cooperative action on climate change, the UNFCCC said.

“Negotiators have been discussing a number of issues that are important in the short run – up to 2012 – particularly for developing countries, including adaptation, finance, technology and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation,” Yvo de Boer said in his statement made available to IPS.

“The round table event will be an important opportunity both for ministers and heads of delegations to look at what kind of mechanisms need to be put in place to deliver on finance, on technology and on capacity building to curb emissions, spur green growth and to cope with the inevitable impacts of climate change,” he added.