Climate Change

What can make COP27 a success? History tells a sad lesson.

The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is taking place in Africa, the continent hardest hit by climate change. In 2009 at the annual climate summit in Copenhagen G77 coordinator Lumumba Di-aping lamented to the closing plenary that 100 million Africans would die because of our collective failure to address the adverse consequences of climate change. At every COP since then, inadequate action has been taken, while at the same time the international community has feared admitting failure.

When the UNFCCC was adopted in 1992. Annex I States agreed to undertake a legal obligation to bring their emissions of greenhouse gases back to 1990 levels in article 4(2)(b) and to provide finance (art. 4(3)), especially for adaptation (Art. 4(4)), technology transfer, and capacity building for developing countries (Art. 4(5)). Since then most COPs have be used to back track on these commitments, or one might say to violate them.

In the early COPs the attention was on setting binding standards. COP3 in Kyoto, Japan, adopted a namesake Protocol that included concrete obligations. At COP6 in 2000 held in the Hague, the Netherlands, Dutch COP President Jan Pronk actually had the courage to call the COP a failure after the United States proposals for carbon trading. But instead of leaving it at that it was agreed to reconvene COP6 in Bonn, Germany, in the summer of 2001 where many of the carbon trading proposals were adopted after US pressure. The compromise did allow the Kyoto Protocol to be finalized and opened ratification at COP7 later that year and to include a weak compliance mechanism. In fact, the Kyoto Protocol, which implements the UNFCCC, was probably the most effective mechanism within the climate regime, as Michael Grubb recognized in his 2016 article in Climate Policy (16:6, 673-681) entitled “Full legal compliance with the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period – some lessons.”

Despite the effectiveness of legally binding commitments States drifted away from legal obligations in subsequent COPs, mainly encouraged by the United States that had refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol despite being a party to the UNFCCC. Instead at COP 13 in Bali, Indonesia, States adopted a non-legally binding plan of action. And in COP14 in Poznań, Poland, COP15 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and COP16 in Cancún, Mexico, developing States had resolved to making empty promises that it appears they had no intention of keeping. In Poznan, Annex I countries reiterated their commitment to provide financing to developing countries.

At the end of 2009 at the Copenhagen COP15, US President Obama torpedoed a long and arduously negotiated agreement on extending the Kyoto Protocol's binding emissions limits or commitment period, which was expiring in 2012. In its place he offered a non-legally-binding and embarrassingly inadequate agreement. And in Cancún, Annex I States agreed to a 100 billion USD per year Green Climate Fund.

The financing has still not materialized. Annex I States have not gotten close to this amount, especially if loans and other forms of profit-making financing are not counted as the OECD has repeatedly done to claim that Annex I States are getting close to their commitments.

The extension of the Kyoto Protocol in Doha, Qatar at COP 18, also turned out to be a hoax when it was agreed only by States that account for less than 15% of the greenhouse gas emission worldwide. When the COP19 was held in Warsaw, Poland, civil society actors—who had been perhaps the main drivers of ambition—were so disgusted by the inaction of States, that they walked out of the COP in large numbers. And the subsequent COP20, in Lima, Peru, was overshadowed by the Pre-COP hosted by Bolivia and featuring civil society and leftist South American leaders calls for action, including legally binding obligations by Annex I countries on mitigation, financing, capacity building and technology transfer. None of those materialized, again in large part because the United States blocked any action that would impose legally binding obligations on them.

At COP21 the aversion to legally binding obligations came to a head as the United States chief negotiator John Kerry misled States about the nature of the Paris Agreement. Kerry led States to believe that the Paris Agreement would be a legally binding treaty for the United States, when he knew it would not be ratified and would only be an Executive Agreement, which under US law can be ignored by the government on a whim as actually happened. Moreover, the Paris Agreement includes only de minimus obligations of reporting and no obligation to take concrete action to address the adverse effects of climate change. It is not like the Kyoto Protocol, which imposes has legally obligations to cut emissions.

The Paris Agreement is instead largely an aspirational instrument, and for the United States on which can be ignored without legal consequence. The French COP President, Laurent Fabius, further diluted the already weak Paris Agreement in the closing session of COP21, by disingenuously proposing as a technical correction to the phase “[d]eveloped country Parties shall continue taking the lead by undertaking economy-wide absolute emission reduction targets” in article 4, paragraph 4 that changed the word “shall” to “should”. This 'technical correction' had been agreed with US envoy John Kerry behind closed doors. objections made in the plenary were ignored by the COP President without giving the objectors the floor. Many civil society actors and representatives of the countries most effected by climate change continue to trust in the process calling COP21 a 'success' for its aspirations to keep global warming “to well below 2°C” and “to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”. But will this extraordinary patience continue as we see the deadly consequences of climate change for the people of vulnerable countries? At COPs 22 through 26 States merely reiterated the Paris aspirations and worked to try to realize them. It also became apparent, however, that the aspirations expressed in the Paris Agreement were not being fulfilled.

At the same time, the United States, European States, and their allies were using the Paris Agreement to distract attention from their own obligations by calling for false solutions. These false solutions include carbon trading, carbon capture, unspecified future net-zero goals, and geoengineering that threaten the already heavily disproportionately impacted lives of indigenous and local peoples. These false solutions are often used as an excuse for the continued use pf fossil fuels and often shift the burden for action to developing countries at the expense of their right to development. The lack of a commitment to legally binding obligations has been emphasized by last year's COP26 President, the United Kingdom. Its new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak not only threatened not to attend COP27—an insult to the Egyptian hosts—before making a forced U-turn, but has forbidden King Charles III (formerly Prince Charles) from attending COP27 even through the latter's climate credentials are perhaps the most significant of any statesperson in the British Isles. The UK's message appears to be 'we just don't a care about those suffering from climate change'. It is hard to imagine a greater insult to Africans suffering from the adverse effects of climate change, many countries, including Egypt, that also suffered through British colonial rule. It is also hard to imagine a more irresponsible act at COP27, than the leader of the country that holds the outgoing Presidency of the COP refusing to attend.

Unfortunately, the host's Egypt have not shown much more commitment. Instead, Egypt has shown show that it is using COP27 to try to whitewash its massive and serious human rights abuses, to wring foreign currency out of poor Africans and every other visitor to COP27 with price-gouging by hotels and dishonest business practices, and to further suppress the voices of civil society by them participation rights to a greater extent than at any COP in the past. The main driver of ambition at past COPs has been civil society organizations, but at COP27 civil society is being prevented from participating by egregious price-gouging by hotels and intimidation by the Egyptian government. In addition, Egypt seems to have stepped-up its arrest, arbitrary detention and torture of Egyptians who oppose the government that came to power by a military coup. In September, Egypt held a meeting in which it invited American climate envoy John Kerry—who is back again leading the US delegation to COP27. The Egyptian President sat by silently as Kerry declared that paying for climate change (read: meeting obligations to assist developing countries) is just too expensive. At the same time, Egyptian diplomats used the gathering to meet with US and European diplomats in an effort to try to prop up Egypt's failing economy. These actions raise suspicions that Egypt may be planning to sell-out the Africans and other vulnerable countries on climate change to try to prop-up its own oppressive regime at home. These actions also appear to add credence to activist Greta Thunberg's criticism of COP27 to Reuters as a meeting being “held in a tourist paradise in a country that violates many basic human rights … as an opportunity for "people in power ... to [use ] greenwashing, lying and cheating” to maintain their power. Despite the criticism Egypt has pushed ahead. It has setup the Lamborghini Conference Center to host the COP in Sharm el-Sheikh and taken over the tourist designation's public facilities to enlist them in the service of the hosting. It has been holding many behind the scenes meeting with other States diplomats, which despite their lack of transparency or noticeable accomplishments, the Egyptian government has frequently claimed to have been useful. He has also asked Pakistan Prime Minister Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to be a Vice-President of the COP27 to emphasize the horrific effects of climate change, which are exemplified by the devasting flooding that Pakistan recently suffered. The Egyptian officials have also held meetings with civil society, often naively admitting how they will limit their participation, but always ironically stressing that the COP27 will be inclusive. It is within in the above context of a trail of broken promise that COP27 is being held in Africa. The main barometer of success, however, will be what is accomplished. Egypt has emphasized that this will be the implementation COP, meaning that it is time to deliver on promises made, not to merely make new promises that remain unfulfilled. If that is the case, there are at two things that will need to be accomplished if COP27 is to be even a minimal success.

First, Annex I states would have to put finance on the table for developing countries by contributing to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) at least the 100 billion per year they already promised but failed to provide. Today the GCF has less than 10 per cent of the that amount in its coffers. More promises to provide the 100 billion—which is woefully less than the 3 to 5 trillion estimated as being needed each year due to the failure of Annex I countries to meet their earlier pledges—are not enough. That money needs to be transferred to the GCF during COP27. While this is tall order, States reacted quickly and with much more money to the COVID-19 crisis. They can do it if they want.

Second, concrete commitments or at least a way of arriving at concrete and legally binding commitments on mitigation—cutting greenhouse gas emissions—must be agreed in a manner that reflects the much greater historical responsibility of Annex I States. This is an even more difficult task. The G77 and China have been arguing about this with the Western Group and Others (Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia, etc. ) for the good part of two decades with little progress. While the Kyoto Protocol did establish concrete and legally binding mitigation obligations based on a common but differentiated responsibility, the Protocol has not been renewed. The open-ended and largely unfulfilled promises of the Paris Agreement have merely been a delaying strategy. Quite simply rich States do not want to give up the advantages that they acquired by the over exploitation of the atmosphere for over a century; while poor States simply cannot shoulder any more of the burden of protecting the atmosphere without serious harm to their people. This makes the issue one between and rock and hard place.

Will enough States be enlightened enough to give-up their selfish interests for the common good? Can the Egyptian Presidency convince them to do so, despite its own political background? At least these two goals are what the Egyptian Presidency and their government colleagues in Sharm el-Sheikh must try to accomplish. While there will be a few observers there to watch, they really don't have to tell States what they have to do. They have done so repeatedly. Now they can just watch to see if States actually do what is needed.

COP27

The upcoming COP27 is being held in a country ruled by a government that came to power by a military coup and has remained since 2013...almost a decade. Originally the African Union's Peace and Security Council suspended Egypt from the African Union because of the military coup as they are required to do under their own rules. However, that condemnation was short-lived and Egypt used its quite competent diplomates to secure approval by the international community of a military coup that violated the right to participate in their own government of every Egyptian.

The right to participate in one’s own country’s government is a right guaranteed by article 13 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. It is also the subject of a communication brought against Egypt that the Commission has refused to address for years claiming that it is still translating the brief submission from English to Arabic as the Egyptian government requested.

As a consequence, COP27 is being held in a country where the government came to power by undemocratic means and then perpetuated its own existence by holding elections after it detained, in some cases murdered, and eliminated all opposition, including from the members of the last fairly elected government in Egypt. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, the Egyptian government is propped-up by western governments. The US and EU were allegedly involved in the military coup of 3 July 2013 and thereby contributed to the death of the last fairly-elected President of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi in an Egyptian prison in July 2019.

Under these circumstances, one must ask can COP27, which is the African COP hosted by Egypt, be representative of the needs of the people of Africa?

Egypt has skilled diplomats and will undoubtedly deploy them to try to argue for the interests of Africans to some degree. Indeed, in preparation for COP27, even an Egyptian coup leader and still president since shortly after the coup Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, has stressed traditional African concerns like finance for adaptation and loss and damage. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Soukry is a seasoned diplomat and has focused on ‘implementation’ as the goal for COP27, a goal that has not been achieved in any recent COP. In response to a call to open civic space Soukry said protests would be allowed in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh where COP27 is being held, but only those sanctioned by the Egyptian government and the not canceled or postponed by that government.

Sharm itself is already a tourist haven created to bring in foreign currency and to give Cairo’s elites an Egyptian based holiday alternative. It is also a town that already has a heavy security presence to protect tourists and Egyptian elites, with COP27 this security presence is likely to be multiplied several fold. If Egyptian security can suffocate civil society in sprawling Cairo, it can utterly eliminate it in Sharm.

The long-arm control of Egypt’s security forces were on display recently in new Cairo—the new Administrative capital of Egypt that is just a few miles outside of the borders of the sprawling 20 city of Cairo. This new center of government and housing for foreign and Egyptian elites. There was, of course, no civil society demonstrations, not even those calling for the same things the Egyptian government claims to be advocating.

More disturbingly perhaps is the fact that Egypt seemed to give more attention to the message by US Climate Envoy John Kerry. Yes, the very same Kerry that weakened the Paris Agreement to the state of an almost useless instruments by lying to the world that it was a treaty for the USA, when it is not as it is an unratified mere executive agreement that can be ignored whenever the US government wants to ignore it. Kerry’s main message at the secured Egyptian administrative capital was that climate action is too expensive and therefore we can’t expect the rich to pay their fair share. Egypt’s embrace of this message coming from one of its paymasters was not obvious but also not to difficult to discern between the lines of their silence in reaction and their failure to contradict the message.

Nevertheless, there are other similarly worrying signs. The finance interests advocated by Egypt, while also an interest of the African Union, the G77 and most developing countries, are also in the interest of Egypt's unconstitutionally imposed government. This government has hobbled the Egyptian economy and caused it to survive on handouts from western allies or allowing western allies to exploit Egyptian resources and markets for the profit of western companies and not the Egyptian people. Can such a government be counted on to oppose the developed counties efforts to impose unbearable burdens on developing countries. Or will Egypt sell-out to the interests of the developed countries (USA and EU) to ensure its own economy and foreign currency reserves. Past practices indicates that a sell-out is coming. However, a better question might be will we see it right away or even in time to stop it. The climate talks have been characterized by secrecy, under-the-table deals, elite-to-elite deals, and everything but transparent and inclusive good-faith efforts to achieve the implementation of obligations that the States agreed to in 1992 in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Although at a significant disadvantage at a COP held in a country governed by an unconstitutionally installed government, the real challenge for civil society will be to watch closely enough so as to expose and hopefully stop efforts by the hosts to sell out their own continent and the developing countries. African is poised to lose more than 100 million Africans to the adverse effects of climate change by 2100. This number could increase significantly unless adequate action is taken to increase African States capacity to adapt to climate change. This requires that adequate funds are provided African countries to compensate them for the huge loses already sustained through loss and damage or another compensation mechanisms. The world is long past the deadline for action. Egypt, the G77 and most of the world is correct to point to the good faith implementation of priori obligations as an overdue necessity. But will Egypt have the courage to put its own interests aside for the good to the people of Africa and indeed all of us? Civil society’s efforts to hold the Egyptian authorities to their words, will be crucial.

UN Human Rights Council to Create Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change

The UN Human Rights Council is poised to create an UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change. This mandate holder would report to the Council on States' efforts to ensure the human rights of their citizens in the face of the adverse effects of climate change.

While the Council has created dozens of mandate holders, the wealthy developed countries have resisted creating the mandate for a Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change since 2009, when the overwhelming majority of NGOs from all corners of the globe began calling for the creation of this mandate. Originally they complained about costs and/or redundancy with another environmental mandate, all the while they continued to create country mandates on a politicized basis. Moreover, while adopting several resolutions on the impact of climate change on human rights--acknowledging that the adverse effects of climate change was one of the greatest challenges to human rights in this century--they dragged their feet for predominately selfish and apparently discriminatory reasons.

Finally, in 2019-2020, the developing countries of the Climate Vulnerability Forum demanded the creation of this mandate and found the financing for it. The pandemic in 2020 delayed the creation of this mandate, but in 2021, with the President of the Human Rights Council, Fiji Ambassador Nazahat Shameen Khan, who has been President of the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) when Fiji officially hosted the COP (held in Bonn, Germany), it seems inevitable that this mandate will finally be created if developing countries continue to insist.

The key challenge will now be to find a mandate holder with competence in both human rights and climate change; who is knowledgeable about both the UNFCC climate forum and the Human Rights Council; who is committed to human rights and does not have a record of supporting the views of States who have hampered climate action and climate justice; who has demonstrated credibility in both the field of human rights and climate change; and the who has demonstrated the energy necessary to both advise and encourage States to take adequate action to address the adverse effects of climate change on human rights.

Civil society, particularly in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas, must not only be involved in this process they must lead it. They must put the interests of their people first and ensure that this is a significant step towards the climate justice they have so long been denied.

Letter by Leonardo Boff, Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann and Ramsey Clark

Excellencies
President Daniel Ortega
President Evo Morales
President Rafael Correa
President Nicolás Maduro
President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
President Anote Tong
President Abdulla Yameen
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves
Pope Francis

27 August 2015

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The responsibility of humanity for our planet is a moral concern of the highest degree of urgency, as recognized by the compelling encyclical letter entitled ‘Laudato Si’ from Pope Francis. Humanity requires actors with courage and integrity to take urgently needed steps at this year's COP21 in December in Paris to protect all of Humanity. We urge you to act as your conscience dictates and steadfastly resist those willing to settle, or even strive for, mediocrity and political compromise. If you delegates act, together, with courage and conviction, we can achieve some specific common goals and save future generations from the adverse effects of climate change.

Now is the time to act as steps are already underway setting a path for future generations while defining the legacy of our current generation.

The Third Financing for Development Conference that recently concluded and the Addis Ababa Agenda that was agreed to is the first of three steps towards creating some momentum towards a sustainable and humane world in which all people, especially the most vulnerable enjoy solidarity and development. The Conference agreed to an outcome document that did little to change existing structures. These are structures that the encyclical Laudato Si’ correctly noted embed a current economic system that is both fuelling the climate crisis and preventing us from taking the necessary actions to avoid disaster.

Similarly the Sustainable Development Goals that will be adopted in September constitute another opportunity to move towards a more equal world based on equity and respect for all persons' human rights, including the right to development. Although there is a stronger defence of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and other important principles, there are few concrete commitments to action. Again, it appears that, in general, the lowest common denominator will be achieved in this second step towards securing development for all.

The final step will be the climate talks that will be held in Paris. The two negotiating sessions that will be held in Bonn in August/September and October of this year offer the final opportunity to raise our level of ambition in the new agreement.

We urge you to coordinate together to call for, at minimum, the following:
(1) To put in the new agreement emission limits that will keep global average temperature rises under 1.5 degrees Celsius;
(2) To ensure respect for the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities; (3) To ensure that Annex I countries take the lead in providing adequate mitigation and adequate financial resources, capacity-building and technology access to developing countries. In this regard we call upon you to support the proposal to allocate 0.5% of the GNI for climate finance;
(4) To ensure that health consequences climate change are clearly identified as a major concern in the Adaptation section of the new agreement; and
(5) To call for the establishment of an International Climate Justice Tribunal.

We are aware that defending these actions is extremely difficult in the current political environment. It will require the courage to stand-up to significant dissent, based on the narrow self-interests of a small minority of specific but powerful States, but meeting today’s challenges and undertaking all these actions are necessary to fulfill our responsibilities towards our fellow human beings, the community of life and towards God. Our choice is between acting now or perishing as fools.

Leonardo Boff
Ecotheologian-Brazil
Member of the International Initiative on The Earth Charter

Ramsey Clark
Attorney General of the United States of America, 1967-1969
Deputy U.S. Attorney General 1965-1967
International Human Rights Lawyer and activist

Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann
President of the 63^rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, 2008-2009
Foreign Minister of the Republic of Nicaragua, 1979-1990

Bonn ADP2 and one step closer...maybe

As States and civil society have begun their discussion in Bonn around the new agreement to implment the UNFCCC some things are now becomign clearer.

1. Developed States are still unwilling to take adequate action and don't seem like they will budge before December, or soon afterwards.

2. Developing States now face irreversable harm and are focused on loss and damage to try to deal with it, after mitigation to avoid it and adaptation to protect them from the adverse consequenecs of climate change seeme to have failed to materialize in the needed timeframe.

3. Bolivia is still pushing for a Climate Justice Tribunal and for non-market mechanisms, but both seem distant dreams.

4. Mitigation is a disaster. Less then 50 (of the 194) States have accepted the Doha interim agreement and no developing State seems willing to undertake any thing near the emission reductions that are needed.

5. The talk of keeing global warming under 1.5 degrees Celisus seems like a red herring being perpetuated by the developed countiries as much as by developed countries. The latter see it as a necessity to protect their people. The former see it as a carrot they can use to keep more innovated ideas from getting a hearing. In the end it is likely States could agree on 2 degrees, but even that will be meaningless as there is so little in the new treaty that will help us to achieve this goal.

Finally, Leonardo Boff (renown theologian), Miguel D'Escoto (former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister and 63rd UN GA President) and Ramsey Clark (former 66th US Attroney General) joined a letter to about ten world leaders urging them to act with courage on climate chnage. The letter will be posted shortly.

Compromises and Double-Speak: The Lima Climate Summit: a Failure in All but Name

The 20^th Conference of the Parties (COP20) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that was held in Lima, Peru during the first two weeks of December 2014 was never intended to be a break-through Summit. It was merely hoped that it would keep States on track for the new agreement that they had agreed to conclude at COP21 in Paris, France in December of 2015. The new agreement was to build on the UNFCCC, applying the agreed principles and commitments in the former and strengthening the emissions limitations commitments that States had agreed to in the Kyoto Protocol and the 2012-2020 bridging agreement that had been agreed at COP18 in Doha, Qatar.

Crucial to building a new agreement anchored in already agreed principles and improved ambition is the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. This principle, properly applied, enables developing countries to continue to develop and places a responsibility commensurate to their historical overexploitation of the planet’s atmosphere on developed countries. It is a principle of fairness and justice. It is the legal principle that is the foundation of the UNFCCC.

Before COP20, with little attention to this principle, however, the UNFCCC Executive Director in her remarks for months, the UN Secretary-General at his High Level Climate Summit on 23 September, and several optimistic delegates predicted some break through success in the negotiations. Instead, in the aftermath of COP20 we are left picking up the pieces after yet another failed attempt to take the action that the science and existing international law tell us is necessary to deal adequately with climate change. Below this piece examines some of the reasons why this was the case.

A New Agreement: Paris2015 text

The main task of COP20 was to provide more form to the new agreement that was to reach by the end of next year. This was to be done in two steps. First, a COP decision was to be agreed that would be a roadmap for getting to an adequately ambitious agreement in Paris in 2015 based on the Adhoc Durban Programme (ADP). Second, progress was suppose to be made in shaping the elements of a text into the text of an agreement (Paris2015 text). In addition, progress was to be made on operationalizing the Warsaw Loss and Damage Mechanism, on finance, and on a process for increasing ambition. Despite the apparent optimism most participants knew that any progress would be difficult, if not impossible.

One stumbling block that had been addressed at COP19 in Warsaw was the whether or not the new agreement would replace the UNFCCC. After some heated discussions States had agreed that they where working to draft a new agreement under the UNFCCC. This meant that any action taken at COP20 would need to be consistent with the UNFCCC, its objective, principles and commitments. As a treaty that has been ratified by more States than the Charter of the United Nations, one may have thought that this understanding would be obvious.

During the first week of COP20 scant progress was made on elaborating the elements of the Paris2015 text. In most instances, the progress was aimed at clarifying the positions of the State parties, broadly divided by developing and developing countries and their allies. States from each block proposed alternative text for the different components of the treaty. In fact, they proposed alternative texts for almost every substantive article of the treaty. This created a list of alternative proposals pointing in very different directions. For example, developed countries saw the burden of addressing the adverse effects of climate change as a shared responsibility of all States. Developing countries, however, objected. They pointed out that to share the burden equally after it had been caused by the developed countries was unfair. To do so, they said would keep them impoverished. There was no agreement. Like two explorers who cannot decide whether to head out North or South, it was merely agreed that North and South existed. This was heralded as progress by observers seeking at least a ray of hope.

Due to the intransigent positions, by the end of the first week, the Paris2015 text had been all but laid aside. This was because, while that text would be dealt with in meetings in additional February and May 2015, COP20 had to arrive at a decision on how to proceed in Lima. This required agreeing to some minimum rules of procedure and guidelines for progress. The second week, and then some, was devoted to the task of taking a decision in Lima.

Common But Differentiated Responsibilities

Emboldened by the weak leadership of Peru as COP20 President during the first week, developed States addressed this task by renewing their already once failed efforts to circumvent their obligations in the UNFCCC. Their most straight forward attack came in the form of the introduction of language in the COP decision on the Adhoc Durban Platform (ADP) that backed away from the principle of common but differentiated responsibility (CBDR), which is expressly stated in article 3, paragraph 1, of the UNFCCC. Developed states suggested text attempting to qualify this principle as ‘evolving’. One European negotiator explained that this would enable CBDR to be interpreted with more flexibility.

Developing countries, led by the Group of 77 (G77), more than 132 of the United Nation 194 States, maintained that the principle of CBDR had been clearly agreed in the UNFCCC. Furthermore, as is stated in article 4 entitled ‘commitments’, for example, it was further elaborated to mean that wealthier developed countries should provide leadership on climate action by significantly cutting their remissions and ensuring developing countries access to the technology, the capacity building, and new and additional finance for their mitigation and adaptation actions. Developed countries were intransigently unconvinced.

Speaking for about three dozen developing countries on the morning of Saturday, 13 December 2015, while the meeting was still struggling to adopted a text a day after the conference should have concluded, Malaysia explained the problem recognizing that States “started off from different starting points.” Recalling developed countries historical overexploitation of the planet’s atmosphere the Malaysian delegate, supported by the G77 think-tank, the South Centre, said, “Many of you colonized us; so we started from a completely different point and that is why one of the manifestations of differentiation is in the Convention itself.”

Finance and Loss & Damage

One manifestation off differentiation is in decisions that implement the provisions of the UNFCCC obliging developed countries to provide adequate finance to developing countries so that they can continue to develop while making adequate contributions to addressing the adverse consequences of climate change.

The discussion began cordially with was developing countries expression their appreciation to the developed countries for providing 30 billion USD in fast-track finance that they had pledge to provide in 2009 at the COP held in Copenhagen. At the same time, there was concern about how States would come up with the 100 billion USD per year that was pledged by 2020 and every year there after. This concern was accentuated by the fact that many of the most knowledgeable climate finance voices were suggesting that in reality in excess of a trillion USD would be needed annually.
Developed countries were keen to put their faith in the private sector and market mechanisms, even through most also admitted that only a fraction of the these significant sums could be produced without public commitments.

While head to head discussions were being held about how to come up with adequate finances, the UNFCCC Secretariat and the UN Secretary-General were busy applauding the just over 10 billion USD that had been raised for the Green Climate Fund. One had to wonder however, how that would add up to 100 billion a year by 2020 and how the short coming between the 100 billion that is to be pledged and the more than 1 trillion per year that is needed will be covered. Nobody had answers for these questions.

The final decisions on finance adopted on the Saturday after the meeting should have ended, merely called for more discussions about how the required amount of finance would be found by the Standing Committee on Finance, the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environmental Facility, and the COP. These decisions also reiterated the 100 billion USD figure that had already become discredited as an unrealistic appraisal of the funds might have been viable five years ago if adequate action had been taken, when no action had been taken. Like the COP decision, the finance decisions did not admit defeat, but neither did they accomplish a significant step towards resolving the problem of how the differentiation required under the UNFCCC would be supported.

Because of the failure to adequately mitigate their own emissions or to provide adequate resources to developing countries for adaptation, developed countries agreed at COP19 held in Warsaw, to provide assistance to the worst effected countries. This was done by an agreement to create a loss and damage mechanism. The exact nature of the assistance that will be provided remains as ambiguous as the mechanism itself.

At one extreme, developing countries sought to make it a lex specialismechanism. As such it would be a separate legal regime for dealing with the loss and damage that States, mainly developing States, suffer from the adverse effects of climate change. Such a lex specialis mechanism could extinguish the existing rights to compensation and other types of restitution that effected States already have under international law, abet often without effective means of implementation. Developing States, however, point to its vague mandate as merely providing advice on how States can deal with loss and damage caused by climate change.
Despite the ongoing disagreement, COP20 merely agreed to the makeup of the membership of the Executive Committee of the Loss & Damage Mechanism. It was agreed that it should be balanced between mainly developing and developed countries. What is still left to be seen is what the Loss and Damage Mechanism can actually accomplish.

Real Commitments Forgotten

The final COP20 decision that was hammered out almost two days after the conference was to have ended and after most delegates had already left, said very little about any really commitments on the most important of all issues: how States will limit their greenhouse gas emissions.

Instead of committing to emissions limitations that are more meaningful than those agreed in the deficient Kyoto Protocol or its equally weak Doha amendment, States merely reiterated their intention not to agree to any commitments. The COP20 decision refers to the confusingly named ‘intended nationally determined contributions’ (INDCs) as the standard of action. INDCs are voluntary statements by States about how much they intend to limit their emissions (mitigation) as well as how much they intend to contribute to adaptation, finance, technology transfer and capacity building. But even what would be actually be stated in the INDCs was a point of contention.

Equally contentious was how to ensure that INDCs actually equal what is needed to protect the planet from a climate disaster. While developed States continued to insist on mechanisms to ensure developing countries spend any money provided them correctly, developing States sought assurances that they would actually get adequate money.

In the end, the COP20 decision contains a confusing mix of compromises, double-speak, and often just simple says nothing of any significant meaning.

Planning for Inaction

The fact that COP20 made little or no progress was not by chance. The hype and enthusiasm coming from United Nations officials and some States, especially France and Peru, before COP20 was just a fog obscuring the reality that some States just don’t want to take responsibility for action. It is not a new problem. It has existed for years.

As the Lima COP indicated, many negotiators are ready to give up on an agreement that will honor what science and existing international law, especially the UNFCCC, require to deal with the adverse effects of climate change. Instead they are resigned to adopting a series of face-saving gestures that leave the most vulnerable people in the world increasingly exposed to the harrowing consequences of climate change.

The writing was on the wall as Peru was chosen to host COP20 about eighteen months ago. Initially Venezuela had been the main contender for hosting the COP for South America, the region whose turn it in the regular geographic rotation. Venezuela was a natural choice as it was one of the most outspoken States calling for adequate action on climate change. Its views on the needed action aligned with the views of the overwhelming number of countries, mainly developing countries.

This did not suit the rich and politically powerful developed countries. To get their way they went to Peruvian President Ollanta Humala and convinced him to put forward his country to host COP20. Peru’s relative irrelevance to the last decade of COPs made them a natural choice for developed countries seeking to fight the real battles on their home turf at next year’s COP in Paris.

Peru obliged, but quickly exposed the game being played when some of its diplomats, including those at COP19, did not even know that they were to host COP20. Similarly, Peru’s diplomats at the United Nations in New York and Geneva seemed total bewildered by the mention of the climate change summit.

Western States also preyed on the fact that Peru’s President Ollanta Humala, although in the past a close friend of Venezuela’s strong-minded President Hugo Chavez, had evolved into a leader closer to past Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, who had been propped up by Western power until he fled the country. Fujimori eventually returned to Peru and is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for his crimes against humanity. Today Keiko Fujimori, the former right-wing dictator’s daughter and current candidate for President in the 2016 elections, agrees with many of Humala’s policies, which often appear critical of Venezuela’s socialism.

For developed countries, Humala and Peru seemed to provide an adequate setting for maintaining the benefits they had gained by their historic overexploitation of the planet’s atmosphere. And if there was to be a battle at least it would not be a battle they had to fight in hostile territory.

As if to put authoritarian tendencies on display and warn delegates that derogations from the status quo were not welcomed, COP20 was held in a military compound. The military compound was in Lima’s sprawling upscale San Borja neighbourhood and securely guarded by legions of police, military police, and soldiers nestled within the security of barbwire, tank blockades, and security cameras. Even as the COP was taking place military jet and helicopters made fly-overs and a several points, explosive could be heard detonating as delegates negotiated.

To pay for this extravaganza, or merely to profit from it, Lima’s hotels and restaurants often tripled their prices, something is admittedly common at UN Conferences. Even money changers offered about 30% less when exchanging dollars or Euros than they did a few weeks ago. It was not that Peruvian Soles had increased in value, it was just that the UN was in town.

By the time COP20 started the writing was on the wall. Ironically, even United States Secretary of State John Kerry observed in his flying second visit to the COP that “we are still on a course leading to tragedy.” He failed to note that it is few wealthy nations like his own that need to show leadership to in order to avoid tragedy.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that once again the COP meeting did not inspire the leadership that is necessary for global climate action. It failed to move us closer towards taking adequate action as time was quickly running for many of the most vulnerable people exposed to climate change.

For some it may already be to late. Low lying island States, such as the Maldives are already doomed to disappear under the rising sea tides. Thousands of vulnerable people in countries like the Philippines have already succumb to storms of increasing intensity. And, as the chief negotiator for the 133 States that make up the Group of 77 or the G77, Sudanese Ambassador Lumumba Daping, warned already half a decade ago, unless we act now as many as one hundred million sub-Saharan Africans will die due to the adverse effects of climate change.

When the Ambassador Lumumba Daping stated the grime reality at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009, several wealthy States dismissed as scare mongering. Today, the harrowing scenarios he predicted coming true. Still, the same governments that benefited from almost two centuries of overexploitation of our planet’s atmosphere continue to obstinately defend these ill-gotten gains, even as others have to bear the deadly consequences. It is hard to see how this can be called anything, but a failure.

From an article published in Counterpunch.org on 22 December 2014 by CFJ Doebbler

COP19 ends with a whimper and scarey omen for COP20

COP19 finally end on Saturday evening with little concrete action.

A text on Loss and Damage was so confusing that even the COP19 President Korolec said he wasn't sure what it meant.

A text on Finance kept the issue alive, but didn't add much money. The results for the Adaptation Fund whcih set itself a modest goal of 100 million USD, when an estimated 400 to 650 billion USD is needed annually, was achived, but the Green Climate Fund remains empty. At the same time the US does not even want to talk abotu longterm finance, but even in the short term only 6 billion of the meagre 100 billion to be raised by 2020 and then for each year thereafter has been raised. Again reasonable estimates say at leaset 1 trillion is needed annual to mitigate and adapt to climate change by 2020 and this figures goes up every year that we do not take effective action.

And on REDD COP19 agree to a text that faours market mechanisms, but also included non-market approaches.

Most environment NGOs assessed COP19 as a failure.

In light of that assessment their weer some pretty worried faces when the COP19 President announced that he had worked closely with Peru and France, where the next two COPs will be held and that these two coutries shared responsibility for the outcome at COP19.

International Law Matters to Climate Change

To many international law may appear as a lofy idea that has little consequence for the practical action to address climate change. May delegate and their governments representing almost very person on the planet understand that international law is the foundation upon which international relations rests and the common denominator that has been agreed among States.

In relation to climate change, international law is particularly important. The core document of international climate change law has been agreed to by every country in the international community, developing countries as well as developed countries, rich countries as well as poor, and large countries as well as small. This document is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The UNFCCC contains the most fundamental principles for combating climate change. They are principles that States considered for decades before putting them down on paper and solemnly agreeing to abide by them. More importantly, perhaps, it is attempts by some States to ignore or violate this international law that is at the foundation of the international community's failure to take adequate action to date to protect all people from the adverse effects of climate change.

The UNFCCC is based on good science. It's ultimate objective is to ensure that dangerous emissions by humans do not interfere with the global climate system. The Nobel-prize winning International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just recently released its fifth report stating with almost absolute certainty that climate change is being caused by human action.

The UNFCCC was drafted and exists to deal with the human action that is causing climate change. Wile it does no always prescribe exact remedies, it lays down principles that must be respected when any action to deal with climate change in article 3.

One of the most frequently cited of these principles is that action should be taken based on common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. This means that States who have contributed more to climate change, not merely right now, but since at least 1850, should take more action to cut their emissions. The reason for this principle is that many States—for example, the United States, Australia, and most European States—developed for decades by over-exploiting the Earth's atmosphere. These States became wealthy and developed, while many other States remained poor.

This principle is reiterated in the greater commitments that Annex 1 States have in article 4 and elsewhere in the UNFCCC as well as in the Kyoto Protocol and in any new treaty under the UNFCCC.

Today the situation is changing and many developed States are developing, but the situation it is far from changed. It will take decades if not centuries for most developing States to catchup to the level of development enjoyed by Annex I countries. Imposing legal obligations on them without providing them the means to achieve these obligations will ensure they never catch up.

Moreover, the UNFCCC expressly states that it was meant to address climate change in an equitable manner. Equity requires that all States be allowed to develop to the same general level. In today's word it is impossible to claim that Americans are people who have some higher value than the people of the Maldives. Under international human rights law all people are of equal value. All people have the right to health, to life, to a healthy environment, and the right to equally enjoy these rights. The principle of non-discrimination is even a pre-emptory principle of international law. This does not mean there are not differences, but only that everyone should be give the same opportunities, the same chances.

The UNFCCC's principles ensure all States the same chance to protect their people. The failure to respect these principles and act on the basis of them, denies States this opportunity. Climate change effects us all, but only when we respect the principles of international law that all States have agreed upon can we successfully address the adverse effects of climate change.

ADP suspended with reiterations

The ADP2 was suspended after a week when States repeatedly reiterating their positions in just under two weeks of the resumed second session.

Playing with Fire

This past Friday the latest round of global climate talks ended at the UN's climate headquarters in Bonn, Germany. Once again the talks were inconclusive. In fact this time no real conclusions were intended. The meeting merely meant to explain the differences between the countries and to build their trust in each other, even if they differ. And formally the meeting was meant to launch new and more ambitious action in furtherance of the agreement reach in 2011 in Durban.

Officially the meeting was convened as the Ad hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action or the ADP. Its second session was thus known as ADP2. It's mandate emanated from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol. These two interrelated treaties form the basis of international obligations to which States have agreed to accomplish the end of protecting our planet's atmosphere from the most harmful human interference.

With the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, is one of the international legal instruments agreed to by all but a handful of States in which they agree to act to prevent the adverse effects of climate change. The problem is that most States, particularly developing States that agreed to the greatest responsibilities to act, have merely failed to act as they agreed.

The UN Framework Convention provides general principles and a few general commitments for action. Among its general principles is the principle that States must act in an equitable manner towards each other. Another principle is that all States must act in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities. The way that these principles have been translated into commitments for States in the Convention is by requiring the States that have exploited the atmosphere the most to take the most action to protect it. This means that developed States, whose development was in no insignificant part due to their exploitation of the atmosphere, have the greatest responsibilities to limit their CO2 emissions. In addition, according to the Convention they agreed to more than twenty years ago, this means that developed States have an obligation to provide the resources needed for poor countries to protect their citizens from the already unavoidable consequences of climate change.

The Convention has been agreed to by more States than have agreed to the UN Charter. Its Kyoto Protocol adds specific CO2 emission reduction targets to the obligations. The Protocol contains minimal legal obligations requiring developed countries who benefited from over exploitation of the Earth's atmosphere for decades to limit their CO2 emissions. The limits are not enough to prevent dangerous harm to the atmosphere, but even they have often not been observed. And to add insult to the injury suffered by developing countries, many of which contributed negligibly to CO2 emissions over the course of recorded history, several developed countries refused to agree to new emissions reductions targets as the Kyoto Protocol requires them to do when the old one's expired at the end of last year. Some States, like Canada, withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol because of their fear of responsibility for failing to meet their emission limitation obligations.

For a week about two hundred delegates and a handful of civil society and profit-sector attendees listened to panels, roundtables, and workshops in which the positions that States have held for the better part of the last decade were reiterated.

Developing States called for equitable treatment to be interpreted as requiring that developed States allow them to catch up to them in development terms. This, developing States argued, requires the sharing of resources, including technology, information, and financial means. Several developing countries expressed very strongly the view that they should not be forced to choose between raising their people out of poverty and providing them social and economic development and combating climate change. Richer developed countries retorted that now they were having a hard time and that they expected developing countries to do more.

The differentiation between developed and developing countries is embedded in the Convention. In effect what developed countries were saying is that they are refusing to obey the law unless a new law is made that developing countries have to obey.

The ADP process was intended to create that new legally binding instrument. The agreement is to be consistent with and under the authority o the currently existing Convention. At the same time the agreement is suppose to increase the ambition of States to cut their CO2 emissions. States agreed to this second track of the ADP process because it was unanimously recognized that the current action lacks ambition and will lead to a global average temperature rise of more than 2°C. Such global warming will cause serious suffering and even death to the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.

Despite the clearly laid out mandate, developed States still want to keep the door open for a new treaty to replace the Framework Convention. The reason for this, although thy rarely articulate it, is because some developed States n longer think that they should bear the burden of the obligation they voluntarily accepted more than twenty years ago. Instead these States claim, developing States must have comparable obligations in a new treaty.

Most developing States in tun have generally rejected creating new obligations for themselves while they are poor and less economically developed. Alternative, some developing States have left the door open for accepting obligations, but only after developed States have shown good faith in meeting their already exiting obligations. This chicken-and-egg game has been playing itself out for years at the climate talk and Bonn was no exception.

While political games appear to stay the same, the climate continues to deteriorate.

Even the rare innovative suggestions were sometimes based on old proposals. For example, at one point the Philippines suggested reconsideration of a proposal by Brazil that was made in 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol had ever been drafted, to provide an understanding of equitable apportionment of responsibility. The suggestion was prompted by the unwillingness of some developed States to admit that equity required more action from them. The European Union responded by calling for reconsideration of a technical committee's report on the Brazil proposal, in which several developed States express their concern.

The delegates also heard that although at the last annual global Climate Summit held in Doha, Qatar in December 2012, an extension of commitments under the Kyoto Protocol was finally agreed upon, the text has yet to be ratified by a single State, according to the Secretariat of the UNFCCC.

These contradictions indicate that at its core the problem remains the same. The rich developed countries don't want to limit their emissions in accordance with the rules they agreed to more than twenty years ago. They are afraid to give up their hight standard of living and to share their development with the people of developed countries who they have exploited for years.

Skeptics point to the Green Climate Fund that was also agreed at COP18 in Durban. It is suppose to be the major fund for assisting developing States both in mitigating their emissions of anthropogenic gases. Although a Secretariat has been created it has hardly any money and is not yet operational. The basis of this Fund was to be new and additional, fast-track financing of 30 billion US dollars that was suppose to have been provided by 2012. Hardly any of this money has materialized.

At COP18 the carrot and stick approach of developed countries was again used in the form of th e enticement of the loss and damage concept. This concept refers to compensation to developing countries when they suffer extraordinary harm from climate change. Developing countries jumped at the prospect of actually getting some financing, even though they have gotten hardly any of what they have already been promised for more than twenty years.

Few developing countries even noticed that they already had a legal right to what they were being offered. Indeed, when climate change interferes with the enjoyment of fundamental human rights a State under whose jurisdiction the victims are found has a legal claim for quite significant damages. These damages can be recovered against any State that has not complied with its legal obligation to mitigate climate change, for example, by failing to cut its CO2 emission, or a State that has failed to comply with its obligation to provide new and additional finances or the transfer of technology to a State that requires such resources to protect people under its jurisdiction. This is not new law, this merely the application of age old rules of State responsibility for actions that violate an international obligation and can be attributed to a State. The fact that there may not be an appropriate legal forum in which to sue the 'wrongdoing' State does not distract from the fact that a wrong has been done for which compensation, among other forms of redress, is due.

Moreover, even if the contribution of a single State to climate change is small, what is important is that the State has either acted in accordance with its international obligations or not. The basic obligations as explained above are found in the UN Framework Convention. The include basic duties of mitigation and the sharing of financial resources, technology and knowledge. In other words, if climate changed has caused harm and a State has contributed to causing climate change by failing to meet its Convention obligations, that State may be responsible for all the damages suffered by people anywhere.

The fact that even a States that is small cause of harm due to its illegal act can be responsible for disproportionate damage is a consequence of the sovereignty of States. With the significant rights of sovereignty come this basic responsibility. Of course, if a State thinks other States have contributed to damages it is at liberty to claim against them. Such claims and whether they are made at all should not limit the recover of the victims of human rights abuses due to climate change.

In this context the loss and damage effort seems as if developed States are trying to sell a car they stole from it owner, developing States, back to the owner. In addition to cheating the owner, the seller is likely also trying to provide a justification for his or her own initially illegal act. And they are playing on the fear of the owner. Indeed, it might be easier for an owner who can afford to do so to buy back their own car from a thief and to thereby avoid a confrontation with a bully. Whether it is the proper way for a government representing hundred of thousands or even millions of people to act is more questionable.

Nevertheless despite the litany of broken promises. Developed States act as if they have been insulted when developing States indicate that they just don't trust them anymore. The indignity of developed States coupled with the financial pressure they can exert on developing States, has cowered some developing States into submission in recent years. However, as the comparative economic strength of developed States has weaken in comparison to their developing States counterparts, the latter have begun to again exercise their sovereign independence.

In Bonn the courage of developing States began to show, not in plenary meetings, but in the side-meetings of groups like the Like-Minded Developing Countries, the Africa Group, and even the usually more timid Association of Small Island States. Whether this courage will be translated into action that will convince the minority of States, mainly developed States to act as they have agreed to address the adverse effects of climate change, is yet to be seen.

Timing is running out.

At the COP15 held in Copenhagen in 2009, the Group of 77, a group of more than about 130 States and the majority of the UN Member States, stated that if action was not take immediately more than 100 million Africans would be sent to the furnaces created by climate change in the rest of the 21st Century. These developing States begged the world not to make this mistake. Still today the international community seems not to have heeded this advice and they are still playing with fire that could burn or even extinguish the lives of so many o the most vulnerable people on our planet.

**The auhor Dr. Doebbler is an international human rights lawyer who attended the ADP2 meeting in Bonn from 29 April to 3 May 2013 and who has published several articles in peer reviewed law journals on the responsibility of States for the human rights of victims of climate change.

International-Lawyers.Org Press Statement on COP18: COP18 OUTCOMES WOEFULLY INADEQUATE

COP18 OUTCOMES WOEFULLY INADEQUATE

FOR DEALING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE

International-Lawyers.Org regrets that the State Parties meeting at COP18 to the UNFCCC did not act with the ambition and responsibility that the law and the science requires of them.

The outcomes of COP18 are significantly below the international action that is needed to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

International-Lawyers.Org notes that when State Parties fail to act in accordance with the UNFCCC and, for those to whom applicable, the Kyoto Protocol, they incur State responsibility towards other States suffering injury from the adverse effects of climate change.

“Climate change hits the most vulnerable hardest. It already affects millions of people in developing countries where resources for adequate adaptation are still lacking. Future consequences will be catastrophic if States with the historical responsibility for climate change do not comply with their international obligations to take the lead in addressing climate change while at the same time enabling developing countries to mitigate and adapt,” said Margreet Wewerinke, an officer in International-Lawyers.Org. She added that “These actions are not a matter of charity; they are required under international law.”

Such State responsibility also extends to the consequences of climate change that interfere with, among other legal protections, individuals' human rights, peoples' rights to self-determination, and States' right to development.

For further information contact International-Lawyers.Org at Office@International-Lawyers.Org.

Latest COP18 texts (Saturday morning)

The final session convenes to be told new texts are coming. President says they are issued in his name and says there are five texts. In reality there are nine texts. As texts appear in back of room, delegates rush to get them virtually trampling over each other as UN Security yells 'get back' and 'take two steps back'. I expect to hear gunshots any minute as delegates don't seem to obey the orders.

The KP (FCCC/KP/CMP/2012/L.9) text holds nothing new and much unfortunate. It calls for de minimus commitments by the 15%, but it does say that these should be upgraded through an opaque and voluntary process to 25% to 40%...how, when, where? States not participating in the second commitment period are denied access to CDMs and Joint Implementation projects. AAU carry over is still 2.5%, but surplus reserve trading is cut .5% down to 2%.

Text on Arrangements between the Conference of the Parties and the Green Climate Fund (FCCC/CP/2012/L.18) are to be drawn up by GCF Standing Committee. Green Climate Fund report (FCCC/CP/2012/L.17) only says it has about 10 billion USD tops and then only for administrative costs. No mention of money for disbursement.

Text on LCA (FCCC/CP/2012/L.14) uses 2 degree benchmark and includes reference to equity and common but differentiated responsibility in Shared Vision, but not integrated in text. Text supports REDD+, but only through workshops and further call for comments by March 2013. Seems REDD+ blocked for another year, but not killed and still a threat to commoditize our planet. Text calls for consideration of new market-based mechanisms, but nothing on non-market mechanisms. Non-market mechanisms could be considered under general call for various approaches (paras. 41-49), but none mentioned. Text delays technology transfer action to COP19 in Warsaw, Poland, next November. Text calls for continued work of Cancun Adaptation Framework and for Adaptation Committee to "consider the establishment of an annual adaptation forum." Extends (really delays) discussion on longterm finance for another year. Similar decision is in Work programme on long-term finance decision (FCCC/CP/2012/L.15). Text also calls for next year's Durban Forum to consider capacity building and calls for vague review of ambition. There is a recognition of the need to respect the survival of countries and protect the integrity of Mother Earth.

Durban Plan of Action decision (FCCC/CP/2012/L.13 is an empty shell that says little. Only calls on Ad Hoc Working Group to keep working, Plan of Work to come later.

On loss and damage a decision is taken to keep studying the situation (FCCC/CP/2012/L.4/Rev.1) on the basis of mainly State submitted information. More significantly there is a decision to create institutional arrangements, but only at COP19. In meantime, UNFCCC Secretariat is asked to prepare an expert meeting, a technical paper on non-economic loss, a technical paper on institutional gaps in and outside UNFCCC system. Could be hopeful, or just more empty future promises.

The report of the Standing Committee on Finance (new name) to submit report on tracking climate finance (FCCC/CP/2012/L.).

Nothing really new. No ambition. No money. No adequate decisions to act.

With one day to go and no agreement in sight at COP18 Qatar turns to the Almighty for help

Thursday night the only meeting showing a scheduled for the rest of COP18 was the Friday Muslim prayer service, which the announcement said was opened to all and would include a sermon relevant to the climate talks. That reflects the state of the current talks at COP18: the need to to appear to the Almighty to help us.

Although the AWG-KP text was adopted to be sent to the Ministers, it reads more like a list of unresolved prolems than a coherent text. Of course, a new commitment period will be agreed, but it will be at such a low common denominator that it really won't make any difference.

The LCA text is another matter. So little text has been agreed that more agreements to disagree are reflected in the text then agreed text. The text is literally full of empty space where no text could be agreed. thee is not even agreement on the shared vision that will guide the text. There is also no agreement on any meaningful financing. Yes there are option, but there is no money. Yes, there have been promises, but we have been there before. About 4 billion USD of the promised fast-track financing actually ever materialized as new and additional financing. There is also no ambition in the emission reduction commitments of States. Is that surprising? Not really because the States concerned are those that pulled out of or never joined the Kyoto Protocol.

And the new Durban Plan of Action that is suppose to lead us into the future. Well not much has been done to finalize an elaborated plan of action because it depends on closing the KP and LCA tracks and we are very far from this point.

There will be an outcome most likely, but the chance that any outcome ha can be achieved at this point will help us combat the adverse effects of climate chnage is very slight indeed. We really do need to the inetrevntion of the Almighty.

COP18: Do we recognize that it is the latest in a series of failed climate talks?

Since 2007 when the 13th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP13) adopted the Bali Pan of Action as a hopeful effort to put the climate talks back on track the talks have been going backwards. A gullible observer might not know that. Fed with a stuffing media campaign that that puts a happy face on the most tragic outcomes there seems to always be progress.

First, the Bali Plan of Action (BAP) adopted at COP13 in Bali, Indonesia was already a recognition that the climate were bogged down and needed something new. While climate talks have already been going on for well over a decade and half the main thing that had been recognized was that the ambition was too low. Even at the time of the adoption of the UNFCCC in 1992 it was agreed that we needed to do more. It was also agreed that let's at least get a foot in the door with a widely ratified legally binding treaty that establishes agreement on some basic principles and some very basic commitments.

COP14 was merely a housekeeping exercise to really get the BAP bodies, the AWG-KP and AWG-LCA operating fully. They had already met, but the climate talks in Poznan was the really chance to roll them out to the world. Even as the meeting was underway the sights for action were set of COP15 in Copenhagen, Denmark and the fanfare around a high expectation for action at COP15 was underway. There were only very limited expectations for COP14 and no one really cared if they were met or not as most were more administrative or procedural rather than substantive. We did see however that th BAP worked, although with plenty of substantive kinks than needed to be ironed out. The Danish set the expectation, already in Poznan, that they would facilitate this.

Indeed, no COP has had the enthusiasm and expectation for action that is required by law and science that COP15 created. The Danish government used it lavish resources and relatively good logistic infrastructure to draw almost 50,000 people to COP15 with the allure of an expectation of real action on climate change. More than a hundred heads of States pledged to attend COP15 before it started. More, including newly elected US President Barak Obama, fresh from winning both an election and the Nobel Prize for Peace, also agreed to attend as COP15 opened. All the enthusiasm vanished however when it quickly became apparent that what the Danish and their Western co-conspirators had in mind was not a climate agreement based on science and law, not even one based on negotiations, bit one based sole on the interest of the rich and the powerful and those who did not have the courage to stand-up against them. In the end, COP15 was a farce, adopting a set of empty promises that with every passing years seem more and more likely mere lies. The biggest one was probably the bribe that Annex I countries put on the table. They offered 30 billion in fast track financing and 100 billion per year in the future to all States that would sign-on to the Copenhagen Accord. Never mind that we already knew that at least 1 trillion a year would be needed for adaptation and mitigation and an indeterminate, but likely equal amount for technology transfer. But even the 30 billion has not materialized. In absolute numbers about 10 billion has materialized, but most of that old and repackaged rather than the new and additional money that is required by the UNFCCC and the Copenhagen Accord. Less than 4 billion is new an additional. Moreover it all should have been made available by now and it has not been. Developing States were duped. COP15 was doomed to be an even bigger failure every year. Nevertheless the Danish publicity machine painted the Copenhagen Accord as an achievement.

COP16 in Cancun, Mexico was no exception. There was much fanfare, although lower expectations and mainly questions. We moved back to the AWG-LCA and AWG-KP tracks, almost admitting that the Copenhagen Accord was a failure, even if few said it. In the end nothing much happened in Mexico again the hatching of a closed door set of decisions that were given to delegates just minutes before they were suppose to shut up and approve them. Some delegates protested, they were ignored. The Cancun decisions got us nowhere, but the UNFCC Secretariat, the Mexican government and the States behind the failed Copenhagen Accord claimed the meeting was a success merely because it made some decisions. No one seemed to care that the principle of consensus decision making had been trampled into the ground by the same States that had hide behind it to prevent climate action based on the law and the science.

COP17, held in Durban, South Africa, gave some renewed hope to activists and States that wanted meaningful climate action based on the law and the science. They hopes were based on low expectations, but maybe at least the Copenhagen Accord and the forced Cancun decision cold be put to rest and we could all get back to the arduous, but slowly progressing task of negotiating AWG-LCA and AWG-KP texts. The AWG-KP urgently needed a text as the first Kyoto Protocol commitment period was expiring fast and waiting until COP18 to renew it would mean a period of no legally binding commitments. Nevertheless the ambition was so low that even getting back ontrack was not achievable. Once again rich Annex I countries derailed any type of ambitious action saying that the terms of the UNFCCC, which they were all legally bound to observe, meant nothing to them. They attempted to extinguish the common but differentiated responsibility principle despite the fact that it was part of international law, both the UNFCCC treaty and likely customary international law. The rich and Annex 1 countries seemed to care little for the fact that the planet was dying and the future of future generations was being squandered while the COPs failed to take meaningful action. COP17 ended with the worse fears being met. Developing countries capitulated to allow the AWG.LCA and AWG-KP tracks to be closed, abet with a weak promise to finish their work. They were warned by a outcry from civil society that they were selling short the future of their very own people, but they had been coerced to such an extent that they appeared incapable of sanding up for their own people. COP17 was an embarrassment and right in the backward of the very continent whose people will suffer the most, dying by tens of millions because of inaction on climate change. Once again, however, wit the help of well-paid journalists from rich Annex 1 countries, the host country spun COP17 into something of a success.

COP18 has been no different. Rich Annex 1 countries again refuse to recognize the law and the science and like spoiled children don't want to give up the advantages that they have obtained by over-exploiting the planet's atmosphere. Rich Annex 1 countries again refuse to agree to meaningful mitigation obligations, in fact, they generally won't agree to any obligations to mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time they are even more stingy refusing to provide any new and additional funding or even pay the fast track funding they should have already paid. COP18 looks to be the latest in a series of failed climate talks. No doubt they will agree to a meaningless new Kyoto Protocol commitment period that locks in such a low ambition that it has almost already been achieved and will have very little impact on our planet's climate. And no doubt once again the host will ensure that the well-paid press from rich Annex 1 countries spin COP18 as a success so that we can all go to COP19 in Warsaw and claim another success, so that we can all go to COP20 … The story seems to be continuing infinitely a circular nightmare from which we need to one day wake up and recognize the great damage we have already caused our planet's atmosphere, the very air that we breath and the environment in which we live.

Youth and Climate Change

Youth are among the most effected by climate change because they will suffer the longest from the most serious consequences of climate change. As a result youth have one of the best rights to raise their voices and be heard in the international climate change discussions.

Youth can amplify their voices by contacting their government officials. Most decision at the COPs are made before delegates arrive at the annual climate meeting. These decisions depend on people influencing their governments at home. Many governments that need to influenced have special offices, advisers or ombudspersons for youth. Even if your government does not, most of you politicians know that you are voters or future voters, who will be voters for a long time. Remind them of this.

Youth can use their energy and creativity to undertake activities at the COPs and at interim meetings such as the meetings that takes place in Bonn, German each year in April, May or June. Unlike negotiators and older observers, youth are among the most energetic people at the COPs. Think about how to use your competitive advantage of energy to voice your opinion. Some of the most creative forms of expression at COPs over the last decade have come from young people. Also, don't give up. Stay at the negotiations until late in the evening or even early in the morning. Often when delegates are waiting for new drafts to appear is he best time to approach them to address your issues. Let them know that the youth will not give up.

To do any of the above you need to keep up with the negotiations and the issues. There is a lot of information out there for you to read and you should read as much as possible. Some information is however better than others. For example, one of the best of the regular publications are those of the Third World Network (TWN). There is also, of course, at the COPs the morning sessions of the YOUNGOs, the Youth NGOs, that will help you to understand the Youth agenda. You may be surprised at the expertise of some youth, but still define you own path.

Many NGOs are currently asking only for what they think they can get, while this might sound sensible, it is much less than we need to protect our planet's atmosphere. We need to push for more. Youth, who will suffer the most, can be at the vanguard of pushing for the action we need.