The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) aims to help countries reach the nature protection targets set by the breakthrough Kunming-Montreal biodiversity deal signed last year.

The fund, which will contribute to the goal of protecting 30% of the world’s land and water ecosystems by 2030, has been set up by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), a multilateral financial partnership.

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Its 185 member countries officially approved the creation of the financial mechanism at the GEF’s meeting in Vancouver, Canada, on Thursday.

At the opening plenary, Canada and the United Kingdom announced initial contributions of C$200m ($147.3m) and £10m ($12.6m) respectively.

Small initial contributions

Ahmed Hussen, Canada’s international development minister, said his government is making “a significant contribution” to this new fund, which “will play a key role in addressing biodiversity loss”.

To light applause, the UK’s nature minister Trudy Harrison told the GEF assembly that the money is “a downpayment” which will “ensure that the fund is open for business as quickly as possible”.

She said that the UK was “deep in its current fiscal cycle” which “limits its ability for financial manoeuvre” but “we look forward to making further payments in future”.

Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, CEO of the GEF (left) opens the Assembly meeting alongside Canada’s Steven Guilbeault and Ahmed Hussen. Photo: IISD/ENB | Angeles Estrada

The fund needs at least $200m from three donors or more before December to get up and running, according to GEF rules. Japan, the USA and others have indicated they will support the fund, but haven’t committed any money yet.

After this start-up phase, however, the fund will have to attract much more substantial resources if it wants to fulfill the “game-changing” role its creators touted.

Rich countries obligation

As the main mechanism to deliver the Kunming-Montreal deal, it is expected to ramp up financial support for protecting nature.

Governments agreed last December to mobilize at least $200 billion a year from a variety of sources including public and private finance and philanthropies.

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The biodiversity fund is set up to draw in money from all of those actors, but initially, the bulk of the capital should come from the public purses of wealthy nations.

At the COP15 biodiversity summit, developed countries agreed to provide at least $20 billion a year by 2025 and $30 billion by 2030.

Michael Degnan from the Campaign for Nature advocacy group told Climate Home News that the target has to be achieved if countries are serious about making biodiversity conservation a priority.

“Launching the fund is a really important first step – but it’s only half of the equation,” he added. “The next step is for donor countries to outline their plans.”

Funding compromise

The make-up of the new biodiversity fund was one of the major sticking points during negotiations last year. Many Latin American and African countries had pushed to create a new financial mechanism separate from the GEF.

The issue came to a head on the final day of the talks when the negotiator from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) appeared to block the final deal, telling the plenary that they could not support the agreement in its current form because it did not create a new fund for biodiversity. But minutes later the meeting’s chair brought down the gavel, effectively overruling the objection.

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The final text put the GEF in charge of creating the new fund in 2023 and running it until at least 2030.

Juliette Landry from think-tank IDDRI thinks this was a “rational compromise”. “It would have been hard to create out of nothing a new fund that has a relatively short implementation period”, she added, “but there is still room to improve procedures within the GEF”.

Some developing countries have called for a “simplified process” to access the money during Thursday’s opening session. The representative from the DRC said the fund “must be accessible to all”.

Indigenous communities role

The GEF’s historical top recipients – China, Brazil and Indonesia – are expected to receive the lion’s share of the money, experts told Climate Home News.

But the GEF says a third of the resources will go to least developed countries and small island states, while as much as 20% of the fund should support Indigenous-led initiatives.

“Indigenous communities with their generations of land stewardship and fire management expertise hold the key to preventing catastrophic wildfire and other environmental contingencies,” said Dario Jose Mejia Montalvo, chair of the UN permanent forum on Indigenous Issues. “Yet, despite their unparalleled understanding, they continue to be overfunded and overlooked”.

This is an opportunity to rectify that, he added.

The Indigenous Peoples press conference following the launch of the new biodiversity fund. Photo: IISD/ENB | Angeles Estrada

Midori Paxton, head of biodiversity at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), hopes the new fund will change the attitude of politicians and business leaders towards financing nature protection.

“It sends a signal that biodiversity loss and deterioration of nature is a critical global issue”, she told Climate Home. “We often hear ‘we are busy with climate, nature can wait’, as if they are totally separate things”.

But the biodiversity and climate crisis are very much interlinked, Paxton added.

The post Nature fund launched but financing questions remain appeared first on Climate Home News.

The fund will help implement the goal of protecting 30% of the world’s land and water ecosystems by 2030, also featured as the central target of the biodiversity agreement. 

In the final text, countries agreed to mobilize $200 billion from different sources (including direct grants, philanthropy and private funds), while ending at least $500 billion worth of harmful subsidies. 

To channel some of that money, countries adopted an initiative by Brazil and African countries to establish a new trust fund. The Global Environmental Facility (GEF) will establish the fund by 2023 and it will later have its own governing body. 

EU president Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement it was “very positive” that countries adopted measurable targets to protect nature, “as well as a mechanism to finance their implementation with the Global Biodiversity Fund.” 

The Plenary: Adoption of Decisions has officially started!

Watch live in order to learn what is happening at #COP15

: https://t.co/ZjGOFDkUTM pic.twitter.com/2oU1BIwrbs

— UN Biodiversity (@UNBiodiversity) December 19, 2022

In Montreal, delegates from every country in the world except for the US negotiated a deal to reverse the loss of biodiversity by 2030. Governments agreed to protect 30% of the world’s land and water ecosystems by that date.

To achieve this goal, backing it with proper finance was a key lesson from last decade’s Aichi biodiversity agreement, which failed to deliver on every target set. The funding gap for biodiversity has been estimated at $700 billion per year.

Lina Barrera, vice-president for international policy at Conservation International, said the creation of the new biodiversity fund is a “necessary step”, but added “there is still farther to go” to close the funding gap. 

Quick cash 

One Latin American negotiator told Climate Home the initiative for a new fund emerged from the need of some developing countries to access cooperation funds quickly, which was often not possible through the GEF.

“It takes too long from the moment you apply (to GEF funds) until the money gets to the field. The risk is implementing (the Kunming-Montreal deal) quickly, given we have only eight years left until 2030,” the delegate said.

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Early in the negotiations, a group of 20 countries harbouring 70% of the world’s biodiversity called for a “supplementary global biodiversity fund” to be set up in order to “overcome the concerns regarding accessibility of funds”.

The final text reflects some of these concerns, as it calls on the GEF to set up a fund “with a simple and effective application and approval process, providing easy and efficient access to resources.” 

Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, CEO of the GEF, welcomed the adoption of the Global Biodiversity Fund and said the facility would work to operationalise the fund “in a timely manner”. “Today’s agreement is wonderful news, and it creates real momentum as we push toward 2030 and the critical goals ahead of us,” he added in a statement. 

Who pays? 

Donors to the fund will include developed countries and developing “countries that voluntarily assume obligations of developed country parties.”  

However, most of the fund’s money will come from other sources such as private sector or philanthropy, as developed nations only committed to directly provide $20 billion a year by 2025 and $30 billion by 2030.

Megaforested nations such as Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo both criticised this financial pledge, with the DRC threatening to veto the whole agreement over this. In the final plenary, the country’s vice-minister Ève Bazaiba welcomed the Kunming-Montreal deal while “expressing reservations” on the financial target.

Cop15: Governments split on ditching nature-harming subsidies in Montreal

Observers welcomed the creation of the Global Biodiversity Fund as well as the targets from the Kunming-Montreal biodiversity deal, while stressing the need for broader reforms.

“[The biodiversity fund] will not be sufficient to solve the biodiversity finance challenge: we need deep reforms in financial institutions, in particular the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank,” said the human rights NGO Avaaz in a statement. 

Just a month ago, at the UN climate change talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, the world’s governments also agreed to set up a new fund to aid victims of extreme weather events. 

This was regarded as a big breakthrough, but there are still questions on how to get it running, which countries will contribute to it and which countries will be eligible for support. 

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At around 1am on Wednesday, more than 60 developing countries including India, Indonesia and all African countries walked out of the negotiations on finance. They claimed there was a lack of commitment from developed countries to fund efforts to protect nature. 

“We feel that resource mobilization has been left behind,” one delegate who walked out told CTV News. “It’s everyone’s problem, but we are not equally responsible for the drivers that have led to the destruction of biodiversity.”

Rising tensions have put talks “on the edge of a full breakdown,” WWF campaigner Innocent Maloba said. So ministers will have to rescue a last-minute agreement before the talks end on Monday.  

Cop15: Governments split on ditching nature-harming subsidies in Montreal

During the high-level plenary, which marks the last part of the negotiations, hosts Canada said they were “ready to engage on discussions on the scale of funding” needed to achieve a successful agreement. 

“Many of you have made it clear that ambition must be supported by an increase in funding, as well as improvements in the predictability, transparency, comprehensiveness and accessibility of funding,” said the country’s environment minister, Steven Guilbeault.

The #COP15HighLevelSegment has kicked off!
Xi Jinping, President of delivered a video message to #COP15 @Csaba_Korosi_ president of @UNGA, @AminaJMohammed DSG @UN, @s_guilbeault Minister of @environmentca, Mr. Wang Xiangxiang, @francoislegault, & @mremae delivered remarks pic.twitter.com/EyOrGlC9MF

— UN Biodiversity (@UNBiodiversity) December 15, 2022

China is co-hosting the talks, which were originally supposed to be in the city of Kunming. Its government was less specific about the actions needed.

During the plenary, the country’s president Xi Jinping sent a video message urging countries to “push forward the global process of biodiversity protection, turn ambitions into action” and “support developing countries in capacity building”.

Where is the money? 

Countries are negotiating a plan to reverse nature destruction this decade. A 2017 study shows that immediate action is needed to halt mass extinctions, which threaten essential ecosystem services for humanity.

To achieve this, finance “is critical”, but negotiations around it have stalled and they currently have more issues up for debate than other sections of the text, observers said.  

“As in prior Cops for both climate and biodiversity, the hardest parts get left to the very end,” said Mark Opel, finance lead for the observer NGO Campaign for Nature. 

The world needs to mobilize around $700 billion per year to reverse the destruction of nature, a 2019 report by The Nature Conservancy, the Paulson Institute and the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability estimated.

The latest draft of Montreal’s “nature pact” proposes $200 billion in direct funding and $500 billion by eliminating and redirecting subsidies that harm nature, for example by promoting overfishing, monocultures or fossil fuel expansion.

Brazil and African countries have pushed to create a new fund for biodiversity separate from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), the leading UN financial mechanism for nature. 

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One Latin American negotiator told Climate Home many developing countries have faced difficulties accessing GEF funds.

Developed countries want to strengthen the GEF and mobilise non-government sources of funding instead of creating a new fund. “We need to unlock private and philanthropic support, development bank modernisation and subsidies realignment,” said Guilbeault. 

Realigning subsidies plays an important role in getting new funds for biodiversity but negotiations around this topic have also proved difficult. The world spends an estimated $1.1 trillion per year subsidising nature-harming activities. 

Maloba said funds from developed countries would be crucial for a successful outcome in Montreal. “It is particularly concerning that donor countries don’t look to be ready to step up on international biodiversity finance, despite some welcome commitments in the lead in,” Maloba said. 

The post After developing country walkout, ministers arrive to rescue nature talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

A report commissioned by Business for Nature estimates $1.8 trillion is spent each year on subsidising destructive activities for nature such as the growth of fossil fuels, monocultures and overfishing.

The European Union has backed a proposal at the Cop15 biodiversity summit to redirect harmful subsidies towards activities that protect nature, as well as eliminating harmful subsidies by 2025.  

“As a priority, existing resources need to be used more effectively, including by aligning all financial flows with nature-positive objectives and by addressing harmful subsidies,” said the European bloc in a statement. 

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Countries like India and Japan have opposed entirely eradicating subsidies. India’s lead negotiator, Vinod Matur, told Carbon Copy the country’s farmers “who are poor and disadvantaged need both social and economic support”. Japan pushed to remove references to agricultural and fishing subsidies in the lead up to the negotiations.

Argentina, one of the world’s largest meat producers, supported the elimination of harmful subsidies but questioned the world’s capacity to actually redirect them, considering it a form of “creative accounting” to justify current subsidies. 

One Latin American negotiator, who wished to remain anonymous criticised the EU’s position. “We think the situation is concerning. We think the lack of flexibility of some developed countries is particularly worrying,” they said.

Sweating the small stuff

It is a key battleground this week when the issue is formally discussed in plenary negotiations, said Costa Rica’s lead negotiator Eugenia Arguedas. Costa Rica is chairing a coalition to protect 30% of the planet’s land and water ecosystems by 2030.

Li Lin, senior director of policy and advocacy at WWF, added that countries focused on “minutiae” during the first week of talks, leaving the “big-ticket items” to the second week. “They have left themselves a lot to do in the next few days,” he said.

Almost 200 countries have gathered in Montreal to negotiate the world’s strategy to reverse biodiversity loss and protect the globe’s frail remaining ecosystems, which are key to stopping climate change.

A recent UN scientific report warned that at least a million species are threatened with extinction, an “unprecedented” decline in all of human history.  

Opening the talks, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said that divesting harmful subsidies is one of the key outcomes expected.

“[We need a deal] that addresses the root causes of this destruction — harmful subsidies, misdirected investment, unsustainable food systems, and wider patterns of consumption and production,” Guterres said.

Observers agreed that this will be one of the main clashing points, as it has been during the previous negotiations leading up to the Montreal summit. But the head of IUCN’s forests and land team Carole Saint-Laurent said these redirected subsidies could be a fresh source of resources.

“We see tremendous potential in redirecting harmful subsidies to investments in restoration of ecosystems,” said Saint-Laurent, who added this could become a “win-win” for all countries.

Overfishing breakthrough

Countries made some progress in June, when the World Trade Organization (WTO) reached an agreement to ban certain kinds of unsustainable fishing subsidies, an issue that had stalled since 2011.

For the first time, countries agreed to ban subsidies for unregulated fisheries, fisheries targeting overfished stocks and fisheries in the “unregulated” high seas. Now, two thirds of WTO member states need to formally accept the agreement and start implementing it.

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But after almost two years of online and in-person negotiations and with only a week left to reach a successful outcome, observers have also warned of the risk of not reaching an agreement in Montreal.

Campaigners have also called out delegates on the slow progress in other topics, such as a mechanism to monitor each country’s actions to meet the targets.

“Negotiators look to be taking a hatchet to the ratchet here in Montreal. We are sleepwalking into repeating the mistakes we made in Aichi [where the last deal was struck in 2010]. We are at risk of having vague commitments with no substance,” said Guido Broekhoven, Head of Policy Research and Development at WWF.

The post Governments split on ditching nature-harming subsidies in Montreal appeared first on Climate Home News.

Measures to contain the spread of coronavirus, also known as Covid19, are ramping up globally, with tougher travel restrictions forcing meetings to be postponed later into the year and squeezing timetables for decisions.

An intergovernmental conference aiming to establish a global ocean treaty to protect marine biodiversity in the high seas, beyond areas of national jurisdiction, is the latest of a series of global meetings to be affected by the virus.

A draft decision to postpone the meeting is expected to be considered by the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.

The fourth and final round of government negotiations on marine biodiversity had been due to take place at the UN headquarters in New York from 23 March to 3 April.

On Friday, UN Climate Change said it would not hold any physical meetings in its headquarters in Bonn, Germany, or elsewhere in the world from 6 March to the end of April.

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12 meetings planned between now and the end of April could be affected by the decision, according to UN Climate Change’s calendar. This includes the Adaptation Fund board meeting which has now been postponed.

UN Climate Change secretariat said it was working to find alternative arrangements, including virtual meetings, in coming months.

In a statement, executive secretary of UN Climate Change Patricia Espinosa said the decision to suspend meetings until the end of April acknowledged “the increasing challenges posed by travel restrictions and quarantine measures that some countries have imposed on travellers from Germany”.

Over the past few days, some meetings were unable to make progress because of delegates absence, she said, adding: “Some forthcoming meetings require quorum which can be affected by last-minute cancellations or non-attendance by members or alternates.”

The delays are putting increasing pressure on an already tight timetable ahead of a major biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, in October and UN climate talks in Glasgow, UK, known as Cop26, in November.

In Kunming, countries are due to agree on a new global framework to protect biodiversity over the next decade. In Glasgow, countries are under pressure to enhance their climate plans for the next 10 years and finalise rules for a global carbon market.

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And the impact is being felt across the UN.

Last month, a preparatory meeting for the biodiversity summit in Kunming, had to be relocated from China to Rome, Italy.

For shipping, the International Maritime Organisation has already postponed two meetings due to take place this month. A key meeting of the IMO’s environmental protection committee held in London from 30 March to 3 April could also be affected.

The committee is expected to review proposals to improve the energy efficiency of ships. A decision on whether to uphold the meeting could be taken later this week, an IMO spokesperson told Climate Home News.

Africa Climate Week, which was due to take place in Kampala on 20-24 April, was also postponed. Uganda is still due to host the meeting but at a later, unconfirmed, date.

Elsewhere, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) board meeting is taking place in Geneva, Switzerland, this week, instead of at its headquarters in Songdo, in South Korea. Attendance to the meeting, where board members are due to approve a new strategic plan for the next four years, has been restricted.

Liane Schalatek, an observer to the GCF meeting from the environmental think-tank Heinrich Böll Foundation who is unable to attend the meeting, told CHN this will be “an interesting test case” for whether transparency and remote participation can work at scale via webcasting.

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The scale of the impacts of Covid-19 on the global timetable for action on biodiversity and climate change is not yet known.

Speaking at the UN on Friday, Cop26 president Alok Sharma said the UK, alongside Italy which is hosting the pre-Cop, will be “creating a drumbeat of action in the calendar of international events leading up to Cop26”. The whole of Italy has since been put on lockdown because of the virus.

In private, climate diplomats told CHN the impact could be much greater if Covid-19 were to affect climate talks in Bonn in June, when countries are due to lay the ground work ahead of Cop26.

A spokesperson for the Cop26 presidency team said the summit was still many months away but it was “monitoring the situation closely”.

“Our officials are attending planned engagements but we are aware that this is an issue which may affect some international travel. We will adapt our plans accordingly to ensure necessary discussions and diplomacy with international partners can continue,” she said.

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Meanwhile, it is still unclear whether a key EU-China meeting at the end of the month in Shanghai can go ahead as planned.

EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council president Charles Michel are due to travel to Beijing to prepare an EU-China summit in Germany in September.

The EU is hoping to engage Beijing in a race to the top to ensure global action to curb emissions remains meaningful ahead of Cop26, even without the US on board.

Last month, EU Commission’s climate chief Frans Timmermans’ planned trip to Beijing was cancelled. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also cancelled his trip to Brussels amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

On Monday, the World Health Organisation reported 1,112 cases in Germany and more than 110,000 confirmed cases across the world. More than 3,800 people have died of the virus so far.

The post Coronavirus delays global efforts for climate and biodiversity action appeared first on Climate Home News.

It is of global importance that the October meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in the Chinese city of Kunming helps the world to stop biodiversity loss.

The recent coronavirus outbreak in China has already messed slightly with the process. Negotiators were expected to make progress at an initial meeting in Kunming this month on proposals for the biodiversity framework that were published in an embryonic “zero draft” in January.

That meeting, which starts on 24 February, has now been shifted to the FAO’s headquarters in Rome. This is particularly inconvenient for the Chinese government delegation, as no one from Beijing can attend the session due to FAO restrictions on people with recent travel history to China. Instead, China will dispatch diplomats already in Rome, as well as officials from the United Nations Environment headquarters in Kenya.

China now finds itself unexpectedly playing an away game, but many hope the changes will not have any significant impact on the Kunming talks in October, known as COP15.

Nevertheless, there are many long-standing problems with the CBD that have not yet been dealt with, despite calls for transformative change. Problems accumulated over the nearly 30-year existence of the convention will not be solved in a single meeting, but there is still time to address three challenges that will contribute to a strong and implementable Kunming outcome.

UN outlines 2030 goals to save planet’s biodiversity

1. Deploy urgent political attention to implementation and support

The failure of the 2010 Aichi biodiversity targets has shown that simply having a “vision” does not guarantee its fulfilment.

The zero draft for the post-2020 biodiversity framework looks bare when compared with the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change. This is because the bulk of the Kunming process so far has been taken up with haggling over targets. Imagine if climate change negotiators only discussed the 1.5C target, leaving the nationally determined contributions, rule books and funding aside.

If Kunming is to be a success, countries must give more attention to implementation mechanisms and resource mobilisation. Once the Kunming targets are adopted, it is crucial that individual countries provide domestic answers to each of them.

For instance, if a percentage target is set for global coverage of marine and terrestrial protected areas, each country must respond with targets for those areas under its jurisdiction. This basic requirement was not fulfilled when the Aichi targets were set, leaving many of those targets “orphaned”.

Biodiversity protection efforts also need greater support. This requires national governments to allocate more resources, use existing budgets more efficiently and cut the perverse subsidies that go into destructive industries. International finance pledges are an important piece of the puzzle and should form an indispensable part of the Kunming outcome.

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2. Concentrate on a core set of actionable targets and national obligations

The CBD has always suffered an identity crisis, struggling to articulate a clear objective when compared with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which aims to “reduce global greenhouse gas emissions”.

This is partly because biodiversity issues are complex and diverse, but also due to the CBD’s sprawling agenda, which has resulted in a lack of focus and effectiveness.

In the Aichi process 10 years ago, much of the CBD’s energy went into the editorial exercise of producing the perfect targets, leaving the more important question of how to move the underlying politics for the achievement of those targets unanswered. The failure to deliver the 20 Aichi targets demonstrates the limits of this approach.

During the upcoming talks over the zero draft, national representatives should perhaps ask themselves: If a target is hard to quantify, or success in implementation hard to measure, should it still be set? Or, if the vision captured in a target is good, but the pathway to and the role of the convention in achieving it is not clear, should it still be set?

Careful consideration of these questions will help the CBD to strategically allocate its limited resources to a set of actionable targets that will actually make a difference in the next decade.

Strategic focus is also needed in the fulfilment of national obligations. Parties to the CBD are legally required to develop national strategies and reports. These instruments may sound bureaucratic, but they are the nuts and bolts of an effective global environmental regime.

Unfortunately, many countries have failed to fulfil these obligations in a timely or consistent manner, or to any kind of reasonable standard. The CBD must urgently improve in this area before it ventures into experiments such as mobilising non-state actors – such efforts are important, but should only be explored after the convention manages to deliver on its core business.

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3. Build a clear vision and a political strategy to fulfil it

A clear political vision for COP15 is still lacking in the Kunming negotiations. Such a vision needs to articulate the main deliverables of the meeting. More importantly, it needs to convince the rest of the world that these deliverables will make a fundamental difference compared to Aichi.

As national leaders, such as President Emmanuel Macron of France, start to take an interest in COP15, such a vision will help guide the development of a high-level diplomatic strategy.

Biodiversity issues were raised in various multilateral and bilateral summits during 2019, but mere mentions are not enough. Identifying specific political obstacles and directing the energies of political leaders towards unlocking them will be critical in the next few months. It’s important also that the biodiversity talks in Kunming and this year’s climate talks in Glasgow can reinforce each other – to this end, the Chinese should collaborate with the British to develop a joint plan.

All in all, the Kunming talks should avoid making cosmetic changes and focus on solving the deeper problems that have hampered the CBD’s effectiveness. COP15 is a historic milestone for the CBD, and it deserves a legacy that can stand the test of time.

Li Shuo is a senior climate and energy policy officer at Greenpeace East Asia. The op-ed was first published in China Dialogue. 

The post UN biodiversity meeting needs to deliver transformative change, not just targets appeared first on Climate Home News.

The 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Copenhagen (Pic: UNFCCC)

By Richard Black

Most visitors’ memories of Copenhagen centre on the rituals of the Amalienborg Palace, a ride on the Tivoli Gardens’ rollercoaster and a quick selfie with Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid.

But for about 40,000 of us, the word ‘Copenhagen’ will always conjure up a very different memory – a fortnight that commenced exactly five yerars ago, spent in the boxy hangar of the Bella Centre, watching governments’ plans to agree a global deal on climate change unravel thread by thread.

So with the next big attempt to agree a global climate deal scheduled for a year hence in Paris, what lessons can we usefully draw from Copenhagen?

And what’s changed since 2009 that could meaningfully affect prospects for success or failure next year?

Three big trends

The climate world has changed in three meaningful ways since 2009.

Firstly, low-carbon technologies have become far more attractive, both economically and in terms of understanding how they can best be used.

The most dramatic change has been in solar power. The real price fall depends a bit on where you live in the world; a conservative figure is that the price has fallen to less than half of its 2009 level, while others analyses speak of an 80% fall.

Wind power prices have also fallen.

Both look like really mature technologies – manufacturing of standard models shifting to low-cost Asia, while western companies innovate with higher-efficiency solar cells and bigger, sometimes floating wind turbines.

Just as importantly, engineers are gaining an ever better understanding of how to build a renewables-based energy system.

A particularly good example is a report last week from the Fraunhofer Institute showing that the German Energiewende model is entirely and economically feasible with the right flexibility mechanisms.

Technology does not yet have all the answers. Nuclear is struggling in some countries, carbon capture and storage still languishing, electricity storage and electric cars exciting but still raw.

But there is no question that progress since Copenhagen has been startling. Countries such as China and India are already investing heavily in this future, and the end of coal use is now in sight – a huge boost for prospects of a climate agreement.

The second big change since Copenhagen is scientific.

It’s something of a cliché to say that ‘the science on climate change has become clearer’. It’s largely true; but the point is made more strongly when looking at certain specific areas.

Instrumentation is answering questions that remained murky before. The network of Argo floats is yielding far more data about the oceans than existed before. The Grace satellite mission has mapped changes in the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets in astonishing, unanswerable fashion.

On the analytical side, the science of attribution is developing fast, making it possible to assess how much the risks of extreme events rise with climate change.

As a result, governments can begin to calculate the costs and benefits to their own economies of decarbonising versus not decarbonising.

Another major development is the calculation of carbon budgets, illustrating how fossil fuel burning has to be constrained if governments are serious about the 2 Celsius target.

The third major development is political.

Copenhagen basically terminated the idea that government delegations would look at the messages from climate science and decide within the UN talks how to share out the carbon cuts indicated.

This model had in reality been dying for years, but it finally and visibly perished in the Bella Centre.

Painfully, slowly, confidence has been patched up after that shattering experience.

The US and China, which together account for almost half of global emissions, were then engaged in a stand-off. Now, for the moment at least, they stand together. Europe is just doing enough to stay in the game, and the highly vulnerable developing states have started to take a stronger leadership role.

As a result, much of the groundwork for a deal in Paris has already been done, both inside and outside the UN climate convention, in a way that was absolutely untrue before Copenhagen.

And as a result of these trends, investors and businesses are increasingly looking at their portfolios and asking whether investing in a fossil fuel future is sensible – which in turn reduces pressure on governments to keep stoking the boilers of energy-as-usual.

‘(Still No-)Hopenhagen’?

These developments have mainly come about despite Copenhagen. But a case can be made that the summit’s startling denouement changes did accelerate the transition to a more pragmatic politics.

It confirmed that a new model was needed where countries present their own plans and then haggle. It clarified that a ‘G2-plus’ process, as the recent China/US agreement can be termed, was necessary (although not sufficient).

Both have happened. The voices of the poorest countries most vulnerable to climate impacts have been somewhat marginalised in this new world order; but still, it is more orderly than the old.

And the acceptance of this new order within the UN climate convention means that the UN convention has stayed politically relevant; after Copenhagen, it could well have ended up as a sideshow to which the great powers paid little heed.

For the 2009 summit, the PR boys and girls decided to re-brand the city ‘Hopenhagen’. On one of my final despatches for the BBC from the snow-bound capital, I stuck the word ‘No’ in front of that.

A mere five years on, thanks to solar power, satellites and smarter politics, I don’t think that is what we’re looking at anymore.

Richard Black is Director of the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit – follow it on twitter @ECIU_UK

The post How have UN climate talks progressed since Copenhagen? appeared first on Climate Home News.

The 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Copenhagen (Pic: UNFCCC)

By Ed King

New documents released by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden reveal how the USA spied on climate negotiators before and during the 2009 UN summit in Copenhagen.

Files marked ‘Top Secret’ published by the Danish website Information suggest the US targeted communications from other countries to ensure it knew the positions of all countries at the talks.

They confirm the NSA provided the US team led by US Climate Envoy Todd Stern with “unique, timely, and valuable insights into key countries’ preparations and goals for the conference”, as well as updates on negotiating strategies.

It is now believed the US was well aware of a secret text the Danish hosts had prepared in advance of the summit, which suggested ditching the Kyoto Protocol, which committed all developed economies to legally binding carbon emission cuts – a treaty Washington has refused to sign.

The resulting Copenhagen Accord acknowledged the dangers of global warming, but did not contain tough commitments from countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Speaking from New York, Venezuela’s chief climate envoy Claudia Salerno told RTCC the new revelations are unlikely to affect the current set of talks, but warned that trust between nations is essential for any future agreement.

“I’m not surprised they did that. They did many bad things in Copenhagen and I was the first one denouncing it. It wasn’t just about spying, it was way worse than that. You don’t need to spy, you need to build trust. And that’s what we’ve been doing from Cancun until now.”

“Good faith does not include seeking people’s emails and spying. It’s something that is a red line for Venezuela and many countries. The shocking thing is that it’s one country who had the technology to allow them to spy on others and to violate privacy and respect, and even international relations at large.”

Salerno’s view is significant, given her staunch opposition to the Copenhagen Accord, which led to her drawing blood on her hand to gain the chair’s attention in the closing stages of 2009.

Meena Raman, a negotiations expert from the Malaysian based Third World Network said the revelations could “crack” trust in the USA at a critical moment for the global talks.

“The UN climate talks are supposed to be about building trust – that’s been under threat for years because of the US’s backward position on climate action,” she said.

Known threat

One EU diplomat RTCC spoke to under condition of anonymity said that there had long been fears over data security, meaning that the bloc rarely prints sensitive documents, and often treats private discussion rooms as if they were monitored.

Asked whether the USA’s extra intelligence fundamentally changed the outcome of the summit, they replied: “I doubt it,” but did suggest security arrangements could be reassessed ahead of the 2015 summit.

A few diplomats have told RTCC they believed most rooms at the 2010 Tianjin talks in China were bugged. Another talked of ‘honey traps’ laid for influential envoys, with one delegate reportedly losing their official phone as a consequence.

The Snowden documents are not the first to identify UN climate summits as a bed of intrigue and dirty tricks.

In 2010 US diplomatic cables released by the Wikileaks site detailed how the US launched a secret diplomatic offensive to ensure the Copenhagen Accord was agreed. This included financial assistance to developing countries in return for support, as well as threats to those who were pushing for a stronger and more comprehensive agreement.

According to Salerno, the latest releases confirm what many have long believed. Behind the green façade, these negotiations are among the most bitterly contested on the planet, and are only likely to get harder as the 2015 date for a global emissions reduction agreement draws close.

“This is not an environmental agreement. It’s one of the largest economical arrangements for the world for the next century. It needs to be treated as such, and that is the complexity of the negotiation itself, that many actually tackle it as an environmental one, and it’s not.”

Significantly, she says the US attitude at the UN talks has slightly mollified since 2009. Big differences remain among all countries, but she says times have changed, even if painful memories of US diplomacy in the Danish capital persist.

“The big lesson from Copenhagen, we don’t need to push anything to happen. Things will happen when everyone is ready, and I think the point we are at right now will not be damaged by any leakage,” she said.

“We had a long way to mature our own relationships among countries and between negotiators, and that is why I’m so confident that whatever is said regarding the past, we are mature enough right now not to talk about it and let that undermine the future.”

NSA FILES: How US spied on negotiators

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His Holiness the Dalai Lama said climate change is a universal problem that is in everyone's interest to tackle. (Source: Flickr/Serjao Carvalho)

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has criticised the leaders at the UN’s 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit calling them “short-sighted”.

Speaking at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), His Holiness talked about the need for unity among those facing environmental challenges.

“In Denmark, at the Copenhagen Summit, you see, nations considered their own interest as more [of a] priority than [the] global issues,” he said. “So, that’s actually short-sightedness.

“No matter how big or great one individual country is, its still part of the world.

“So, therefore, it [climate action] is a common interest. Each individual nation, each individual person’s interest.”

Building on one of his key themes of global responsibility, he called on leaders to build trust.

“Without trust, how can we develop friendship? Without friendship how can we develop genuine meaningful cooperation?” he asked.

The Dalai Lama has a track record of backing environmental causes and calling for action on climate change, particularly in his native Himalaya.

Following a presentation from two leading climate scientists, his Holiness talked of the importance in continuing education on environmental issues. He added that because the effects of climate change and pollution are not as strikingly visible as war or famine, it was harder to make people act.

Wearing a UCSD visor, much to the delight of the audience, he said that the problem with most education systems was that they were grounded in modern economic, rather than ethical, thinking.

“This blue, small planet is our only home. We have to take care,” he said.

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