COP19/CMP9: A Review.

Ever since Svante Arrhenius quantified the way in which greenhouse gases (ghg's) trap heat back in 1896 scientists have speculated that increasing the amount of ghg's in the earth's atmosphere could cause global temperatures to rise. Following the start of the space race in the 1950's which saw us put increasing numbers of satellites into orbit to measure things like the volume of ghg's in the atmosphere and global temperature the volume of evidence to support this theory has only increased.

So much so that in 1995 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held it's first Conference of Parties (COP) Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. Unfortunately many developing nations saw this as an opportunity to try and con large amounts of money out of developed nations while developed nations saw it as an opportunity to give developing nations small amounts of money in return for trapping the developing nations into complex negotiations they didn't really understand.

While the politicians had their fun though the levels of ghg gases continued to increase and the earth's temperature continued so rise bringing us to a point where UNFCCC negotiations couldn't really continue without the developed nations actually doing something. So in 2012 the developed nations insisted that the 18th COP (COP18/CMP8) should be held in Doha, Qatar - a nation whose entire existence is dependent on other nations continuing to release ghg gases by burning the fossil fuels that Qatar produces. The hope being that this Summit would go so badly that no-one would turn up for the 2013 Summit and the whole issue could be quietly forgotten about.

Fortunately though the process just about survived and the 2013 COP Summit (COP19/CMP9) took place between November 11th (11/11/13) and November 23rd (23/11/13) in Warsaw, Poland. Unfortunately though rather then making any major leaps forward in the battle against climate change the COP19/CMP9 was all about steadying the ship after the storm, checking for damage and trying to agree in which direction to sail next.

This task was not made any easier by the fact that many seemed intent for the maelstrom to continue. Lead amongst these was the US who - as I've explained at great length - sent the popstar Rihanna on a 9 month world tour with the intention of getting everybody so confused, frustrated and angry that they would have spent the summit arguing about whether it is ghg gases or Rihanna's mood swings that are the main driving force behind climate change. Then there was the UK who put me on trial over allegations of criminal damage on the second of the COP19/CMP9. After the case was dismissed through a lack of evidence the UK proceeded to attempt to further disrupt the summit by wildly speculating which criminal conspiracy was responsible for bringing me to trial. Then of course the Gulf and European Monarchies were continuing to try and bash Russia and Iran over Syria's continuing attempts to repel the Saudi and Qatari invasion of their county.

Under those circumstances you wouldn't imagine that anybody would be able to get anything done but still the COP19/CMP9 set about it's task of adding flesh to the bones of the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) which was established at the COP17/CMP7 Summit in Durban, South Africa to provide a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol. Prior to the start of the COP19/CMP9 six main areas were identified as needing progress in order to allow the ADP to take shape;

Mitigation; This covers all the ways in which nations can reduce their ghg emissions through for example capping the emissions from power stations or designing new cities so they use less energy to begin with.

Adaptation;  This covers all the ways that nations can adapt to the increased environmental hazards such as desertification, flooding and typhoons/hurricanes that increased global temperatures bring.

Finance, Technology and Capacity Building;  This covers finding technological solutions to both mitigation and adaptation problems and finding a way to meet the cost of implementing those new technologies.

Economic Instruments;  This covers all the economic mechanisms such as simple donations from one nation to another through to things such as loan guarantees and carbon credit trading schemes that are supposed to help pay for the technical solutions mentioned above.

Transparency;  This covers the oversight of all the data required in the above four areas such as money spent and emissions reduced in order to make sure that it is accurate and not fraudulent.

Periodic Review; This highly technical area simply covers the way in which all the technical data is periodically reviewed in order assess what if any effect all the mitigation and adaptation actions are having in order to give us a clearer understanding of the world around us.

While it was wrestling with these complex topics the COP19/CMP9 was also stung by some inflammatory announcements by nations on matters actually relating to the UNFCCC;

On Wednesday November 12th (12/11/13) the Australian government announced that it was introducing a Parliamentary bill to scrap a ghg emissions tax and replace it with an incentive scheme that would reward business for voluntarily reducing their ghg emission. This obviously looked like Australia giving the COP19/CMP9 the finger. However the bill is not expected to pass the upper house of Parliament so seems intended to promote discussion within Australia about whether the vaguely  Communist carbon tax is the best way to proceed when the ADP favours carbon credit trading schemes.

On Friday November 15th (15/11/13) the Japanese government announced that is scrapping it's target to reduce its ghg emissions by 25% of 1990 levels by 2020 and instead introducing a target of 3.8% which actually represents a 3% increase on 1990 levels. Again this looked very much like Japan giving the COP19/CMP9 the finger. However this is something we've all really known Japan was going to have to do since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima nuclear power plant forcing Japan to replace all 50 of its nuclear power plants with coal and natural gas fired power plants simply to keep the lights on. Therefore I think this was Japan making its shameful admission while apologetically trying to highlight the importance of having a diverse energy policy and drawing attention to the fact nuclear is such a dangerous form on energy that should not be considered a technological solution under the ADP. That last point also seemed to be an effort to discourage non-nuclear nations from getting to caught up with the Iran nuclear talks that both the US and the European Union (EU) were trying to disrupt the COP19/CMP9 with.

On Monday November 18th (18/11/13) the Canadian government admitted that it had only succeed in cutting its ghg emissions by 4.8% of 2005 levels meaning they are only one quarter of the way to the 17% cut on 2005 levels they'd pledged to achieve by 2020. This was simply Stephen Harper's government giving COP19/CMP9 the finger.

Despite all this and an unscheduled extra day of negotiations the COP19/CMP9 did succeed in making significant and real if highly technical progress in some significant areas;

Mitigation; In this critical area there was sadly very little progress. That is because with sadly too many people clinging to the Kyoto Protocol notion of Annex I developed nations and Annex II developing nations progress here would require developed nations to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Commitments (NAMCs) which essentially means emissions cuts. Developing nations would have to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) which are essentially green development plans. Unfortunately the developed nations have no real desire to submit NAMCs and the developing nations are holding off submitting NAMAs in an attempt to leverage developed nations into action. This strikes me as an extremely foolish negotiating position by the developing nations because deadlocking negotiations actually gives the developed nations exactly what they want. Also it prevents the developing nations taking advantage of the benefits that NAMAs offer them. Take Nigeria as an example that I'm just familiar with. One of their main economic development problems is that they lack a national power grid which forces people to generate their own electricity using kerosene powered generators. This is both very expensive and very polluting. Therefore by classing building a national power grid as a mitigation action in its NAMA Nigeria could take advantage of the technical expertise, technology and funding mechanisms available through the ADP.

Adaptation; This is the area that saw the most, erm, exciting progress with the adoption of the "Warsaw Loss and Damage Mechanism." This is important because it creates a mechanism in which the way that loss and damage caused by climate hazards can be properly quantified. Primarily this gives us a much clearer idea of exactly what the problems created by climate change are and how effective our solutions to those problems are being. With the Warsaw mechanism being overseen by an executive committee of experts this also helps bring technologically advanced and less technologically advanced nations together offering the less advanced nations technical assistance. The increased oversight also helps build confidence amongst donor nations and private sector partners that their investments are producing results rather then helping line the pockets of corrupt local officials.

Finance, Technology and Capacity Building; This is another area where progress is extremely hard work. Essentially the problem is that developing nations are still insisting that donations from developed nations should be the primary source of all funding (Capacity building is often used as a codeword for "more funding"). Developed nation are simply not agreeing to this.

However the COP19/CMP9 was successful in making progress in consolidating the various funds into the single Adaptation Fund and placing it under the control of the Adaptation Committee to increase the fiduciary oversight of how its funds are dispersed. In return developed nations not only met the Adaptation Funds target of USD180million but exceeded it by USD4million. Further more at COP19/CMP9 great effort was made to involve the private sector in the Green Climate Fund (GCF) although this drew some ire from certain developing nations for being too capitalist.

Again I think this is the developing nations making a mistake by trading help that is available for help that is unlikely to ever arrive. Take for example the Sahara which is a case study always comes up in climate negotiations because something is causing that desert to expand. All there is in the Sahara is sand, sunlight and the occasional Islamic terrorist. The human race is now at the point where it can turn sunlight into electrical energy. Obviously country specific, inter alia work needs to be done but many have suggested that building solar farms in the Sahara could not only produce enough electricity for north Africa and the Sahel belt but also parts of southern Europe. The problem is that often the nations that surround the Sahara that lack basic power grids and certainly don't have the money to build solar farms. What the GCF is set up to do is put any one of these nations in contact with a private company that builds solar farms and provide loan guarantees that would allow the nation to pay back the cost of the construction through the revenue from the sale of the electricity over a period of 25-50 years in what is essentially a very complicated mortgage deal.

Economic Instruments; This is an area where absolutely no direct progress was made. Although there are issues tied up with the GCF the primary economic instrument that everybody is pursuing is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which is funded through the capping of ghg emissions and the trading of permits to exceed those caps. The primary problem is that with that very few nations imposing caps on ghg emissions the market for permits and therefore the revenue they generate has collapsed. The other main problem is that socialist nations, primarily ones in South America along with full blown Communist nations in South-East Asia refuse to participate in the CDM because it's Capitalist and instead prefer to use negotiations about it as a way to rage against America.

As if to highlight how stupid these nations are being on Tuesday (26/11/13) the world's largest Communist nation, China opened a carbon trading market in Shanghai that will serve around 22 million people. Today China opened a carbon trading market in Beijing that will serve 20 million people. In December China will open a carbon trading market in Guangdong that will serve around 100million people making it the world's second largest carbon trading market behind the EU. With Mexico also opening a carbon trading market on Tuesday this growing global commitment to the principles of the CDM seems to have shamed certain European nations into actions with Switzerland buying up USD109million worth of carbon permits, the UK buying up USD80million worth and Norway buying up USD50million. These nations don't really have any need for those permits but the extra USD239million should help keep the CDM afloat until something more permanent can be worked out.

Although they are important in their own right the areas of Transparency and Periodic Review tend to be covered through negotiations about the other areas so I won't give a specific progress report on them. However the increased transparency achieved through the setting up of the Warsaw mechanism on Loss and Damage and the Adaptation Committee will certainly make progress in the quality of the data that is available for periodic review.

A sort of progress was also made on the Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and forest Degradation plus (REDD+) project. Throughout its history - long before humans turned up - the earth has regulated the amount of ghg's in it's atmosphere through forests absorbing the ghg's emitted by things like volcanoes and turning it into oxygen and ever bigger trees. Therefore as something of an oxygen addict I think it is absolutely essential that developing nations are given an incentive to leave their forests intact rather then cutting them down for economic development as we did in the developed world. Ideally this would be done through an emissions trading scheme that allows nations with large forests to charge nations without large forests for doing the job of cleaning up their ghg emissions. Unfortunately we're having a bit of trouble putting that together so instead we're left with REDD+ which has got to be the most dodgy of all the projects to tackle global warming.

The main problem is that while most people are happy for this to be funded through a market-based carbon trading mechanism (especially if it doesn't cost them any money) the predominately socialist South American nations where most of the worlds forest are located instead want it to be funded through donations from capitalist nations - sort of 'Red Fund' if you will. This failure to agree how anti-deforestation projects should be funded has meant that up to now REDD+ has operated on an extremely ad-hoc basis with specific developed nations doing specific bilateral deals with specific developing nations over specific bits of forest.

In certain areas this approach has had limited success. However in South America it has largely resulted in corrupt officials taking money from donor nations to protect areas of forest whilst at the same time taking even larger sums of money from loggers and ranchers to cut down those same areas of forest. As a result in 2012 the rate of South American deforestation rose by about 30% despite all these very large sums of money.

In central Africa where the second largest amount of forests are located REDD+ has been even more devastating. Here rather then tackling deforestation developed nations have largely been using relatively small REDD+ donations to trick relatively weak governments into complex negotiations that have nothing whatsoever to do with deforestation or climate change.

The obvious sexual innuendo of asking things like; "Whose got the most wood? What are you going to do with your wood? and Can you keep your wood up?" means that more often then not REDD+ discussions actually turn into discussions about HIV/AIDS. Incase the sexual innuendo wasn't enough REDD+ also shares it's name with Live Nation supported "(RED)" charity set up to deal with HIV/AIDS in Africa. Discussions about HIV/AIDS in Africa are complicated enough on their own because they touch on issues such as colonial powers using contraception to control indigenous populations, sexual politics, homosexuality and religion to name but a few.

Also when we say that central Africa is one of the most resource rich regions on earth the resource we are primarily talking about is wood and timber. The illegal cutting, smuggling and sale of timber is often used to fund the myriad of vicious little conflicts that are going on in the region. So although I have no evidence to support it I have strong suspicions that REDD+ money has been used to fund groups like the M23, Seleka and the Lords Resistance Army (LRA).

So although there is some good work being done I personally would have liked to have seen REDD+ scrapped entirely. However with the CDM on its knees the scrapping of REDD+ would have caused many developing nations to completely lose faith and pull out of the UNFCCC entirely. So instead what happened is that REDD+ became a formal project with all funds being disbursed by the World Bank's BioCarbon fund. Before a project can be considered for funds it must first be submitted for assessment by a panel of technical experts who will consider it against defined benchmarks. If a project is successful and receives funds it will be periodically reviewed by both the technical panel and the World Bank who despite their many faults do not have a reputation for tolerating corruption. To incentivise this cleaning up of REDD+ Norway (USD135million), the UK (USD120million) and the US (USD25million) eventually agreed to allow the USD280m they'd contributed to the Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL) to be used to fund REDD+.

So in summary although it produced nothing in the way of headline grabbing or campaign slogan satisfying big announcements and while there is clearly still a lot of work to do COP19/CMP9 was an extremely successful summit that far exceeded both mine and I think anyone's expectations of what could be achieved.


20:20 on 28/11/13 (UK date).