Doha wins 'damage aid' for poor countries

For the first time, developing countries have won recognition of the danger they face from climate change, securing a promise from developing countries that they will receive funding to repair the "loss and damage" incurred.

US negotiators fought hard against this proposal and made sure no term implying legal liability was used, to avoid the possibility of litigation; the money will instead be described as aid. It is already being called 'damage aid'.

But “climate finance is not charity or foreign aid,” said Brandon Wu, Senior Policy Advisor, ActionAid. "The Doha outcome completely fails to provide clarity. Lacking concrete numbers and dates, it lets rich countries off the hook. Developing countries have no idea whether climate finance will go up or down, or even whether it will reliably flow."

Ronald Jumeau, the Seychelles negotiator, told his American counterpart: "If we had had more ambition [on emissions cuts from rich countries], we would not have to ask for so much [money] for adaptation. If there had been more money for adaptation [to climate change], we would not be looking for money for loss and damage. What's next? Loss of our islands?"

Observers now expect armies of consultancies to spring up, which will debate from both sides the scientific basis of attributing specific extreme events and weather effects to climate change

The Doha Gateway Package

“What we have on the table is extremely weak. I think it worse than people expected,” concluded Hoda Baraka, Arab World Project, Greenpeace at the end of the final 36-hour session of the fortnight-long UN climate change talks among 195 nations in Qatar.

The other headline results from what is called the Doha Gateway Package, are:

negotiators resolved the Second Commitment Period of the Kyoto Protocol by adopting amendments;

concluded the long-term cooperative action (LCA) track, including rules around finance, accounting and review;

and agreed to move forward with the Durban Agreement, with a workplan for 2013. This will begin negotiating the global legally binding agreement, which is scheduled to be signed in 2015 and will come into force five years later.

The final Doha Gateway text was rushed through the last plenary by the Qatari host over objections. "Saving the process; killing the planet", as the Sierra Student Coalition's International Committee put it.

Two activists, Libyan Raied Gheblawi, 22, and Algerian Mohamed Anis Amirouche, 19, were deported from Qatar on Thursday after holding up a banner in the central meeting point reading "Qatar, why host not lead?"

Kyoto Protocol

The Doha outcome confirmed the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol starting on 1 January 2013. Its participants, however, account only for around 14% of world emissions.

It will run for eight years, up to the entry into force of a promised new global legal agreement in 2020.

The adopted target by the EU and Croatia and Iceland, of cutting emissions by 20% of 1990 levels by 2020, is open to being increased to 30%. The targets of all participating countries will be revisited by 2014 with a view to considering raising ambitions.

The EU and other countries taking on targets will have a limit on the number of purchases they can make of surplus emission allowances ('AAUs') left over from the first commitment period.

The EU Member States, and all other potential buyers (Australia, Japan, Liechtenstein, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland) have declared anyway that they will not purchase AAUs carried over from the first period.

EU finance

The agreement leaves the EU as the world's leading provider of official development assistance and climate finance to developing countries.

The bloc had pledged €7.2 billion in 'fast start' finance for the period 2010-12 and has assured its developing country partners that climate finance will continue after this year.

Several EU Member States and other developed countries such as the UK announced specific finance pledges for 2013, and in some cases up to 2015.

The decisions also extend a work programme on long-term finance for a year, with the aim of helping developed countries identify pathways for scaling up climate finance to $100 billion per year by 2020 from public, private and alternative sources.

Greg Barker, UK Energy and Climate Change Minister, and Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of UAE’s renewable energy company Masdar, announced they will launch a new roundtable for the world’s largest public and private sector investors in low carbon industries during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, in January. This aims to scale up investment to combat climate change in developing economies.

Barker said: “Alongside the formal negotiations taking place here in Doha, there’s a formidable amount of informal discussion around how to mobilise at scale the private finance needed to tackle climate change".

The winners at Doha

“Any government walking out here saying it is a success is suffering from a terrible case of cognitive dissonance,” said Kumi Naidoo, executive director, Greenpeace, articulating the feelings of most leaving the conference.

"They have to align the political reality of these conversations with what the science says. This failure is a betrayal of the people in the Philippines and all the other people who face climate impacts now."

Who was to blame for this failure? “It was only a handful of countries, such as Poland, Russia, Canada, the US and Japan, who held the negotiations to ransom,” thought Samantha Smith, leader of WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative.

Asad Rehman, Friends of the Earth International spokesperson in Qatar, added: "most notably the US”. Sophia McNab, UK Youth Climate Coalition delegate, went even further: “This text is a win for the USA, developed countries and fossil fuel interests. It’s a betrayal of all vulnerable nations, and our future.”

“The coal industry won here, the oil industry won here,” agreed Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy, Union of Concerned Scientists. "You saw on display the power of these industries and their short term profit to influence the governments of the world."

Wael Hmaidan, director of Climate Action Network International, said: “The path forward is actually quite clear: we have the technology and know-how. But we also need people in all regions of the world to demand leadership from their governments”.

Why Doha failed, and what to do about it

The blame for the failure at Doha to deliver a significant breakthrough to save the future world from devastating consequences of climate change once again lies with the lobbying power of the fossil fuel industry and the failure of politicians to act responsibly, in line with the scientific evidence.

In America in particular, but also in Britain, this industry is allowed to lobby and fund politicians and political parties, and in return they are expected to deliver political decisions in their favour. This is a far cry from responsible, participative democracy that citizens expect and need.

The website opensecrets.org documents the amount of money spent by oil and gas companies lobbying American politicians and financing their election campaigns. The top five companies spent the huge total of $42,470,000 on lobbying in 2012. They are: Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, Chevron and BP.

20 oil companies donated a massive $25,429,233 in political contributions during the last American election. The majority of it went to the Republicans, but enough went to the Democrats to secure the required response, given the make-up of Congress.

The result in Doha reveals what they got in exchange for this cash. For them, it represents a bargain.

For Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy, Union of Concerned Scientists, COP18 wasn't an environmental conference. It was "a trade fair" on behalf of the oil and gas industry which was there to protect its short-term profits.

Hence, the local paper's headline at the weekend: "Qatar is victory for the climate". This is sheer Orwellian spin, as in 1984's Ministry of Peace being actually responsible for war.

Qatar was widely criticised during the talks for failing to set clear targets for reducing its own emissions. Instead it argues that its liquefied natural gas exports mean it is helping other nations move away from using more polluting coal. This is like saying heroin dealing is okay because it's not as addictive as crack cocaine.

The fact that coal-dependent Poland is to host next year's talks means the takeover of the UN negotiation process by the fossil fuel industry is complete.

So if we can expect nothing of these talks, what can we do? Environmentalists and activists must realise that instead change has to come at a local and regional level.

I am just reading an excellent book, The Leaderless Revolution, by Carne Ross, a former diplomat who was Britain's Foreign Office representative at the United Nations in the run-up to the Iraq war.

His analysis of these types of international negotiations is spot on, and it comes from real life experience.

Entrenched positions and irresponsible decisions are the direct result of decision-makers being both far removed from the impact of their actions and being completely unaccountable for their decisions.

He quotes research showing that even when people with dramatically opposed opinions in a given community come together to make a decision affecting all of them, they will reach a reasonable and appropriate solution only if they know that they have genuine responsibility for the result.

That is to say, if the consequences of their decision affects them or others close to them directly.

Time and again, Ross cites examples where his own reports to ministers resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians in countries that he had never visited, and he himself was completely unaccountable for these deaths, just as they were.

He talks of his undying shame that he took such decisions so lightly. It took him a long time to come to his senses and realise that none of his reports for Whitehall, or the policies adopted by politicians based on his and many similar reports, went anywhere near to solving the problems that they were intended to address, such as making the world a safer place.

In fact, they had the exact opposite effect.

Politicians, he says, are incapable of doing the right thing because they cannot comprehend and arbitrate the forces that we assume, and which they persuade us, they are able to deal with.

Reality is too complex, they are preoccupied with many other concerns, including whether they will win the next election, and their hands are often tied.

An argument in a community today in Britain, over whether a windfarm should be sited nearby, frequently results in acrimonious and polarised debate, because the members of the community are not themselves responsible for the windfarm, or indeed for any form of energy supply to their community.

If they had to decide how to provide all the heat and power their community needed, if they had secured the finance themselves, if they had decided or been given a set of conditions, such as that whatever generation plant they chose should be as low carbon as possible, and if they could manage the plant afterwards, and received the rewards of their investment themselves, then the likelihood is that they would reach a reasonable solution.

In the debate, they would be prepared to listen to each other's point of view and take them into account in the process.

But communities are rarely given that responsibility.

Ross says that as a result we ourselves must take such responsibility, as, for example, citizens are doing with the Isle of Wight's Ecoisland project.

We give political power away at our peril, and when we do there is no guarantee it will result in a better situation than the one we can make on our own.

This would be true Localism, but far from what David Cameron intended when he made it a plank of his election manifesto.

His form of localism was a hollow promise. No politician will ever, in reality, give power away to the people. Why on earth would they ask you to vote for them if so?

Instead, they make promises that they know we want to believe, like “Yes we can” and ‘the greenest government ever”, and we do vote for them.

We are always let down.

Ross decries internet activism also, saying that the technology it uses is too easily appropriated by commerce and politicians.

Instead, he proposes, simply, talking to others in your community, and moving on from there.

It’s where the power revolution has to start. After Doha, it’s the only place to start.

Why Doha failed, and what to do about it

The blame for the failure at Doha to deliver a significant breakthrough to save the future world from devastating consequences of climate change once again lies with the lobbying power of the fossil fuel industry and the failure of politicians to act responsibly, in line with the scientific evidence.

In America in particular, but also in Britain, this industry is allowed to lobby and fund politicians and political parties, and in return they are expected to deliver political decisions in their favour. This is a far cry from responsible, participative democracy that citizens expect and need.

The website opensecrets.org documents the amount of money spent by oil and gas companies lobbying American politicians and financing their election campaigns. The top five companies spent the huge total of $42,470,000 on lobbying in 2012. They are: Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, Chevron and BP.

20 oil companies donated a massive $25,429,233 in political contributions during the last American election. The majority of it went to the Republicans, but enough went to the Democrats to secure the required response, given the make-up of Congress.

The result in Doha reveals what they got in exchange for this cash. For them, it represents a bargain.

For Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy, Union of Concerned Scientists, COP18 wasn't an environmental conference. It was "a trade fair" on behalf of the oil and gas industry which was there to protect its short-term profits.

Hence, the local paper's headline at the weekend: "Qatar is victory for the climate". This is sheer Orwellian spin, as in 1984's Ministry of Peace being actually responsible for war.

Qatar was widely criticised during the talks for failing to set clear targets for reducing its own emissions. Instead it argues that its liquefied natural gas exports mean it is helping other nations move away from using more polluting coal. This is like saying heroin dealing is okay because it's not as addictive as crack cocaine.

The fact that coal-dependent Poland is to host next year's talks means the takeover of the UN negotiation process by the fossil fuel industry is complete.

So if we can expect nothing of these talks, what can we do? Environmentalists and activists must realise that instead change has to come at a local and regional level.

I am just reading an excellent book, The Leaderless Revolution, by Carne Ross, a former diplomat who was Britain's Foreign Office representative at the United Nations in the run-up to the Iraq war.

His analysis of these types of international negotiations is spot on, and it comes from real life experience.

Entrenched positions and irresponsible decisions are the direct result of decision-makers being both far removed from the impact of their actions and being completely unaccountable for their decisions.

He quotes research showing that even when people with dramatically opposed opinions in a given community come together to make a decision affecting all of them, they will reach a reasonable and appropriate solution only if they know that they have genuine responsibility for the result.

That is to say, if the consequences of their decision affects them or others close to them directly.

Time and again, Ross cites examples where his own reports to ministers resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians in countries that he had never visited, and he himself was completely unaccountable for these deaths just as they were.

He talks of his undying shame that he took such decisions so lightly. It took him a long time to come to his senses and realise that none of his reports for Whitehall, or the policies adopted by politicians based on his and many similar reports, went anywhere near to solving the problems that they were intended to address, such as making the world a safer place.

In fact, they had the exact opposite effect.

Politicians, he says, are incapable of doing the right thing because they cannot comprehend and arbitrate the forces that we assume, and which they persuade us, they are able to deal with.

Reality is too complex, they are preoccupied with many other concerns, including whether they will win the next election, and their hands are often tied.

An argument in a community today in Britain, over whether a windfarm should be sited nearby, frequently results in acrimonious and polarised debate, because the members of the community are not themselves responsible for the windfarm, or indeed for any form of energy supply to their community.

If they had to decide how to provide all the heat and power their community needed, if they had secured the finance themselves, if they had decided or been given a set of conditions, such as that whatever generation plant they chose should be as a low carbon as possible, and if they could manage the plant afterwards, and received the rewards of their investment themselves, then the likelihood is that they would reach a reasonable solution.

In the debate, they would be prepared to listen to each other's point of view and take them into account in the process.

But communities are rarely given that responsibility.

Ross says that as a result we ourselves must take such responsibility, as, for example, citizens are doing with the Isle of Wight's Ecoisland project.

We give political power away at our peril, and when we do there is no guarantee it will result in a better situation than the one we can make on our own.

This would be true Localism, but far from what David Cameron intended when he made it a plank of his election manifesto.

His form of localism was a hollow promise. No politician will ever, in reality, give power away to the people. Why on earth would they ask you to vote for them if so?

Instead, they make promises that they know we want to believe, like “Yes we can” and ‘the greenest government ever”, and we do vote for them.

We are always let down.

Ross decries internet activism also, saying that the technology it uses is too easily appropriated by commerce and politicians.

Instead, he proposes, simply, talking to others in your community, and moving on from there.

It’s where the power revolution has to start. After Doha, it’s the only place to start.

DECC "pleased with progress" towards climate change targets says chief civil servant

Welshman Phil Wynn Owen, Director General of DECC's International Climate Change and Energy Efficiency group.

The British Government is pleased with its progress towards meeting its climate change targets and in steering the European Union and the United Nations climate talks in a satisfactory direction, according to a senior official within the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

Speaking exclusively to me at The Energy Event at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre yesterday, the official said that, given the long timescales involved, DECC is happy with progress so far.

Phil Wynn Owen is Director General of the International Climate Change and Energy Efficiency group. Before that, he was an official in the Treasury. His remarks, paraphrased below, give an insight into thinking within senior levels of government.

UN discussions

The top-level Conference of the Parties (COP) United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks, designed to reach global agreement on limiting greenhouse gas emissions, happen at the end of each year. At the last of these talks in Durban, it was agreed that nations would put in place by the end of 2015 a binding legal agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions that will take effect in 2020.

The UK government was pleased and surprised by this outcome, given the pessimism that preceded these talks.

In between these annual talks are interim negotiations. UK officials were disappointed by the progress made at the last of these, which took place in Bonn earlier this year and ended without agreement. They therefore led calls, together with Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, for a further meeting, which happened in Bangkok at the end of August and beginning of September.

Whereas outside reports expressed dismay at the lack of progress made there, too, DECC officials believe that significant progress was made, laying the groundwork for a legal agreement.

There was also good progress in negotiating a successor framework to the Kyoto Protocol.

DECC had a large team negotiating in Bangkok, who played a significant part in the production of the first draft of a full negotiating text. This will be discussed at the next Conference of the Parties (COP 18) in Doha, Qatar in late November this year.

The UK Government believes it is very important that these forthcoming talks will take place in the heart of the oil-producing Gulf states.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker told an All Party Parliamentary Group meeting at the House of Commons on Monday that he feels the talks “offer a unique opportunity to encourage the major oil and gas producing states to recognise the benefits of signing up to a low carbon agenda".

DECC is thinking particularly about Saudi Arabia, which has recently announced a huge commitment to solar power. At previous COP negotiations its team has resorted to blocking and delaying tactics and watering down mitigation targets. DECC believes that this November's talks offer an opportunity for Saudi Arabia to see the benefits of behaving otherwise.

The long view

The senior DECC official turned to the disparity between Government and business attitudes towards the low carbon agenda, the latter of which on the whole are enthusiastic, since the sector is one of the few areas of the economy which is experiencing significant growth.

Here, with the longsighted vision of a long-serving civil servant, Mr Owen paid tribute to the manner in which the UK Government conducts its consultations and discussions on developing its energy policies.

While recognising that some sectors would like government to move faster, most appreciated that, with resources tight due to the ongoing recession, it was necessary to have a debate which took in the views of all sides on the most cost-effective way to decarbonise the country and adapt to climate change.

Dominant thinking is now that the greatest opportunities lie in cutting energy use, reducing demand, and energy efficiency.

The beginning of Mr Owen's presentation to delegates yesterday morning was taken up with extremely depressing figures about the rate of increase of climate-warming emissions and their likely effects on overall average global temperatures.

At present trends, the world is headed for at least 3°C warming, which will create a “very high risk of economic impact", he said.

By 2020 there is likely to be an atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide greater than 550 ppm, which means that after that year emissions will need to reduce by up to 2.5% per year, a daunting prospect.

DECC is still very aware of the recommendations of the 2007 Stern Review, which said that early action to tackle climate change would be much cheaper than waiting and taking action later. Mr Owen reported that its author, Nicholas Stern, is “very pessimistic" these days.

He, however, remains optimistic. Turning around the behaviour of a whole country, let alone the whole world, is bound to take far longer than turning around the behaviour of any single company, no matter how large.

Moreover, companies have a completely different command structure to government and nations, unless they are totalitarian and can therefore act more quickly. This explains the long timescale required.

Mr Owen said that the measures contained in the Green Deal, the introduction of 53 million smart meters by 2019 in 30 million properties, and the Renewable Heat Incentive, which will increase the proportion of renewable heat from the current 1% to 12% by 2020, all give grounds for optimism.

Within the proposed Electricity Market Reforms, the capacity mechanism, the carbon price floor, and contracts for difference, will all help to leverage the £110 billion of investment required by 2020 to decarbonise the energy infrastructure.

He backed Ed Davey's defence of these measures, published yesterday, saying that they will create at least a quarter of a million jobs.

Moreover, energy intensive users will be compensated for the effects of the measures on their energy bills.

Mr Owen added that DECC is still lobbying within the European Union for it to commit to a 30% target for reducing emissions by 2020.

Mr Owen is clearly proud of his department's achievements; that it, and therefore the UK as a whole, is playing a vitally important role in steering the whole world away from completely disastrous climate change.