Second reading on adaptation widens divides

June 15, 2009 – 8:13 am

The second reading on adaptation began with an introduction to the introduction by the Chair, Mr. Michael Zammit of Malta, of his document reflecting comments provided by Parties on the negotiation text during the first reading on adaptation. A second forty-one pages long document was included presenting the textual submissions made by Parties in preparation for the second reading. A total of 29 individual and 5 regional submissions were made and compiled a document to be finalized and made available soon as the closing of the AWGLCA session.

UNFCCC negotiations in Bonn

UNFCCC negotiations in Bonn

During the session, Ecuador, on behalf of the Bolivia, El Salvador, and Venezuela, presented new text on objectives, scopes, and guiding principles section stressing the historical responsibility of developed countries. The framework to enable support, facilitate, and implementation adaptation by ensuring the predictable, stable, adequate, and timely flow of new and additional financial resources for development, deployment, diffusion, of technology to support national, sub-national, regional, adaptation projects and programmes in all developing countries in accordance with commitments under the Convention.
Pakistan requested the inclusion of new text in the monitoring and review of adaptation action and support section to the establishment of a committee of experts on the implementation of commitments by developed countries.
Saudi Arabia requested the inclusion of text recognising the special adaptation needs of countries economically dependent on fossil fuels production, use, and export in the preamble of the section. Read More »

By juanhoffmaister | Posted in Adaptation, Politics, UNFCCC | Comments (0)

Developing countries request focus on concrete actions for action on adaptation in first reading of LCA negotiation text

June 7, 2009 – 2:50 pm

Some notes from Bonn.

The AWG-LCA completed the first reading of the adaptation chapter of the negotiation text between Wednesday June 3 and Thursday 4, 2009. The chair, Mr. Michael Zammit of Malta, requested Parties to use the first reading to seek clarification, set markets and placeholders, and identify gaps.
The Negotiation Text chapter on adaptation is divided six sections: A.  Objectives, scope and guiding principles (A); Implementation of adaptation action (B); Means of implementation (C); Risk reduction, management and sharing (D); Institutional arrangements (E); and Monitoring and review of adaptation action and support (F).
The Philippines, speaking for the G77 and China, said that the section on adaptation was heavily focused on assessment and not enough on means of implementation. Requesting for a placeholder in the chapter, there must be an institutional approach for adaptation under the Convention with strategic programmes of action, setting up permanent committees and subsidiary body on adaption, as well as means of implementation through a multi-window mechanism under Convention. The chapter on adaptation places the burden and responsibility for adaptation on developing countries rather than facilitating access to financing to implement adaptation activities according to the obligations of developed countries under the Convention. Read More »

By juanhoffmaister | Posted in Adaptation, Politics, UNFCCC | Comments (0)

Discussions on Adaptation to begin in the Road to Copenhagen

June 3, 2009 – 9:15 am

The UNFCCC has begun the reading of the negotiation text in Bonn, Germany. I will be providing some views on the discussion here shortly. Governments have begun to provide their general comments.  For now, a great source of updates on the negotiations can be found here.

By juanhoffmaister | Posted in Adaptation, Politics, UNFCCC | Comments (0)

Getting ISDR out of the darkness

May 24, 2009 – 1:09 pm
Residents are evacuated from their flooded homes in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, January 2009. REUTERS/Crack Palinggi (INDONESIA)

Residents are evacuated from their flooded homes in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, January 2009. REUTERS/Crack Palinggi (INDONESIA)

A press release on the Reuters caught my attention a few days ago. The World Bank, the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed an agreement to cooperate on reducing the risk of disasters in the region. In view of the lack of political will to fund disaster risk reduction, pooling funds and knowledge is an emerging trend in efforts to prevent disasters.

It is sad to see so little support for the implementation of throughout strategy of magnitude and appropriateness of the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR). Agreed in 2004, the implementation of the strategy is ready for implementation to assist in the integration of disaster risk reduction into sustainable development policies and planning; the development and strengthening of institutions, mechanisms and capacities to build resilience to hazards; and the systematic incorporation of risk reduction approaches into the implementation of emergency preparedness, response and recovery programmes. In the context of climate change adaptation, somehow governments have managed to effectively ignore everything the Strategy has to offer. Perhaps as South East Asia starts to implement some of it with World Bank Loans they might realize that this strategy should be brought under the UNFCCC and receive access to funding there.

UN, World Bank to help Southeast Asia reduce disasters –22 May 2009 15:26:00 GMT

Residents are evacuated from their flooded homes in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, January 2009. REUTERS/Crack Palinggi (INDONESIA)

Earlier this month, the World Bank, the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed an agreement to cooperate on reducing the risk of disasters in the region. Read More »

By juanhoffmaister | Posted in Adaptation, Climate Justice, Concepts, Disaster Risk Reduction, News, UNFCCC | Comments (0)

A rights-based approach to food

May 7, 2009 – 4:13 pm

A note from the Commission on Sustaianble Development from the UN in New York. Discussion on land, drought, and agriculture have brought the right to food to the spotlight. Below a statement from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter.More analysis to come…

GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS, VOLATILE FOOD
PRICES, MAKE AGRICULTURAL FOCUS
URGENT, UN HUMAN RIGHTS
FOOD EXPERT SAYS
xxxxxxxxxx
7 May 2009

NEW YORK / GENEVA — The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, has outlined some of the crucial choices that must be made to design more sustainable food systems in a world facing climate change and declining natural resources. In a submission to the Commission on Sustainable Development, Mr. De Schutter said that only by considering food as a human right, and looking at agricultural development through that perspective, could the correct choices be made.

Mr. De Schutter, who took up his functions as Special Rapporteur in 2008 when the world was experiencing dramatic food price increases, said it was urgent that governments make the connection between sustainable development and a rights-based approach to food. “In responding to the global food crisis, it is easy to move from the symptom – prices which have suddenly peaked – to a possible cure – produce more, and remove as soon as possible all supply-side constraints,” he said. But if we think of food as a human right “we must ask a very different set of questions.” Will the measures we adopt to boost production benefit those who are food insecure? Or will they simply mean a return to low prices and only further discourage small-scale farmers and marginalize them further?

“The right to food framework can assist in guiding governments towards making the right choices” by prioritizing the needs of the most vulnerable, he said. It could also improve government accountability, by “ensuring their policies remain constantly guided by the need to alleviate hunger and malnutrition – and by building the resilience of the most vulnerable, whether against policy changes or internal or external shocks.” Read More »

By juanhoffmaister | Posted in Climate Justice, News, Politics, UNFCCC | Comments (0)

New Report dooms South East Asia

April 27, 2009 – 11:46 am

The Asian Development Bank has published a new study warning of the vulnerability of southeast Asia to climate, concluding that Vietnam is the most vulnerable country in the region. The report titled “The Economics of Climate Change in Southeast Asia: A Regional Review” concludes that regional economies are to contract by as much as 6.7 percent annually by the end of the century. Under current levels of action to mitigate climate change, the report concludes that Asian countries could see temperatures rise an average of 4.8 Celsius from the 1990 level and suffer drops in rainfall, more destructive tropical storms and flooding from rising seas that could displace millions of people and lead to the destruction of 965 square miles (2,500 square kilometers) of mangroves.

The also report provides an overview of current sources of climate change finance available, showing the sharp contrast between sources for mitigation and adaptation, and clearly showing the predominance of loans for finance. The outlook for developing countries gets gloomier. They can choose to get their economies further in-debt to address climate change, –a problem that they did not cause– or let climate change destroy their economies. Either option will have to soaked-up by the poor.

Storm waters in central Vietnam after Storm Lekima, 2007

Storm waters in central Vietnam after Storm Lekima, 2007 (Photo: J.Hoffmaister)

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Youth provide first contribution to Adaptation Fund

April 12, 2009 – 2:20 pm

This story brings different feelings: a sense of hope in knowing that people of the world are willing to cooperate and help each other, and a sense of profound sadness in realizing that young people have more holistic morals and sense of responsibility than any of the leaders of industrialized countries negotiating in the UNFCCC.

Crossposted from Itsgettinghotinhere.org by Robert vanWaarden

Students presents first donation ever to William Agyemang-Bonsu from the Adaptation Fund

Students presents first donation ever to William Agyemang-Bonsu from the Adaptation Fund

[Bonn, April 7, 2009] Today at the Bonn Climate Change talks a group of students from Gymnasium Marienschule in Euskirchen, Germany, took a step that no nation or organization on this planet has managed to take. In a symbolic gesture they provided the first contribution to the Adaptation Fund! After hearing a presentation by Stuart Scott, (a consultant & trainer with The Climate Project), the students of Marienschule (represented by Britta Börnicke, Jacob Klein, Fabian Beusch, Nicolas Gomez) decided to take matters into their own hands. The students asked for donations from their class and managed to raise €131.09. This bag of cash was then handed in a symbolic gesture to William Agyemang-Bonsu from the Adaptation Fund Board. Despite trillions of dollars being found to bail out the economy, the developed nations of the world have yet to commit any money to the Adaptation Fund.

The Adaptation Fund was established to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing country Parties to the Kyoto Protocol that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. It is supposed to be financed from the share of proceeds on the clean development mechanism project activities and other sources of funding. However, to date, no other money has been produced for the Adaptation Fund.

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Developing Countries Propose Financing Framework For Adaptation

April 7, 2009 – 10:53 am

An updated from UNFCCC meetings in  Bonn, also published by the Third World Network

The contact group on adaptation, under the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) focused on matching adaptation support with finance and technology, as well as capacity building at its meeting on the 3 April.  The meeting was chaired by Thomas Kolly of Switzerland and William Kojo Agyemang-Bonsu of Ghana.
Maldives, for G77 & China, said that the Adaptation Framework presented by the Group  on 2nd April is consistent with the financial mechanism proposal presented by the Group. Funding for adaptation must be additional to ODA, new, predictable, and grant-based. The scale and magnitude of predicted needs for adaptation needs to be matched by finance. The governance of the financing structure has to be under the authority of the COP.

On 2nd April, the G77 and China presented elements for a Framework on Adaptation that treats adaptation and mitigation on an equal footing and recognizes adaptation as an absolute necessity for all developing countries.

The G77 and China said that the Adaptation Framework would require  implementation arrangements to address enabling activities, such as knowledge sharing; functional implementation, and projects on the ground by national, local, and regional stakeholders; and coordination mechanisms. This framework should also include a mechanism to address loss and damage including insurance and requires compliance.

South Africa, speaking for the African Group, said that finance for adaptation must be massively scaled up and predictable with support for technology and capacity building, which must be additional to ODA, recognizing payment for agreed full incremental costs.

The amount needed for adaptation is in the range of US$28—67 billion per year by 2030, on the assumption that developed countries take ambitious mitigation targets. Otherwise, this amount will be higher. It stressed that the G77 and China financial mechanism proposal recognises the importance of a country-driven approach and direct access to funds.

The Cook Islands, speaking on behalf of AOSIS, said that the less there is mitigation, the more resources are required for adaptation, stressing the need to match needs with funds.  The scope of the framework needs to take into account new and additional finance consistent with polluter-pays principles, and should be directed to most vulnerable countries, particularly SIDS ands LDCs. Enabling activities can include project-based activities, long-term approaches, sector-based approaches and a mechanism for loss and damage, with priority for the most vulnerable. A matching mechanism, more than a clearinghouse, must record national adaptation plans as well as new and additional funds. Read More »

By juanhoffmaister | Posted in UNFCCC | Comments (0)

Times of Drought at the CSD

March 9, 2009 – 9:01 pm

A short statement delivered at the preparatory session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD).

Like was said by many delegations it is crucial to improve drought mitigation and prevention strategies that identify the most vulnerable people and livelihoods, improving early warning systems that reach poor and marginalized people, and emergency aid during droughts for vulnerable groups, such as pastoralist.  We continue to speak of reslience, but lets not forget that such as concept demands providing vulnerable groups with the information and resources to respond and adapt to change.
These must happen through initiatives designed and implemented in collaboration with local civil society actors and farmers; and some priorities are:
•    Promotion of agro-ecological practices,  and rainwater harvesting and conservation;
•    Proper livestock management including consideration of animal welfare;
•     Water recycling and  appropriate water restrictions;
•    Comprehensive land use involving carefully-planned crop rotation;
•    Increased investments in indigenous crops and crops research for drought-prone areas for better sustainable productivity.
Madame chair, Prevention and adequate response to drought is critical for food sovereignty and food security.  There is no doubt than when there is political will, combating global challenges is possible like we have seen over the last few weeks, and billions can pour over night.  The world can simply not afford the cost of inaction.
A few questions, to panelist and to governments; to the panelist, to the representative from  what are the limitations to designing and transfer EWS like those mentioned in other parts of the world, and of course, how do we overcome those?
It is clear that we need to work to enhance synergies between Rio Conventions. Dr Neely, Reflecting on practices like those mentioned, How can NSDS concretely serve to catalyze synergies between UNCCD National Action Programs (NAPs) and National Adaptation Programmes of Action under UNFCCC?
Second, developing countries have stressed the many challenges in obtaining funds to prevent and mitigate drought; what suggestions are developed country partners taking from the CSD process to discussions outside this forum?

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WFP and food vouchers: a positive step for food security

February 20, 2009 – 1:43 pm
Farm Kerala

The World Food Programme (WFP) launched this week a food voucher programme in Burkina Faso.  This is an intelligent step from the WFP, as it will help strengthen the local food markets rather than creating a dependency on foreign food to meet local demand. While this is only a first step on what should become a much larger programme across the continent, it must be applauded. For decades WFP has had to promote the importing crops from industrialized nations, creating a cycle of depending. While farmers in industrialized countries would benefit from dumping their surplus production whilst getting subsidies. Food vouchers are not a silver bullet—but if used at the right time they can help support local farming and enhance local markets, reducing vulnerabilities in the food systems.
In times of increased hardship due to the ongoing food crisis (no longer in the news, but still a concern in many vulnerable regions of the world) the food vouchers provide policy options for comprehensive response. The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008, an FAO publication noted in December that Soaring food prices resulted in the highest single increase in hunger since 1990–92, while stressing on the need for measures to enable the agriculture sector to respond to the high prices while creating safety nets and social protection programmes for the most food-insecure and vulnerable .

By juanhoffmaister | Posted in Disaster Risk Reduction, Research, Resilience | Comments (0)