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“Two Degrees” of Separation: Obama Needs to Outline his Yardstick on Global Warming

2009-06-29T20:23:16Z

In the midst of the fight of our lives (the House floor debate on the American Clean Energy and Security Act), a coalition of major U.S. groups called for the Obama Administration to outline its "yardstick" on global warming. What is it that this "scientific and pragmatic" Administration will use to measure our efforts to solve global warming pollution -- its yardstick?

Well the CEOs of 47 U.S. organizations, representing environment, faith, development, and youth groups have an answer. As the letter from these groups to the Obama Administration says:

"We are writing to urge you to work with other world leaders at the upcoming G8 Summit to set a strong science-based goal for reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases aimed at keeping the increase of global average surface temperature, compared to pre-industrial levels, as far below 2 degrees Celsius/3.6 degrees Fahrenheit as possible."

The "two degrees" threshold is a pretty important yardstick. The impacts of global warming will be potentially severe in a number of regions around the world, including the US, if we cross this threshold.

And it isn't like these groups made up this "yardstick". After all, it is the goal called for in the:

climate and energy recommendations to the Obama transition team from the 29 largest U.S. environmental, conservation, and development organizations;
American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) that just passed the U.S. House of Representatives;
Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007, which Senator Obama co-sponsored;
Principles of the National Council of Churches;
Statements of a number leading climate scientists; and
Positions of a large number of governments around the world.

Having a clear measure against which to judge progress will be central to ensuring that the American public continues to be bought into solving global warming. After all, the American people generally have a "can do" attitude. Once we fully get to grips with the problem, we want to solve it -- not half way, but all the way.

So that is why having such an overarching "yardstick" as holding global temperatures to below a certain threshold is so critical -- it frames why we are working to solve global warming. It will frame how we judge whether or not we are heading in the right direction or whether we need to do more.

Where President Obama stands on "two degrees" will be a consistent question when he attends the Group of Eight (G8) meeting in early July. Ambiguity breeds mistrust and on global warming the U.S. has had a lot of goodwill destroyed over the last 8 years -- thanks to the efforts of the "unnamed Administration". The Obama Administration and now the House of Representatives have made serious efforts to rebuild international trust on global warming. But not providing clarity on "two degrees" spurs mistrust as evidenced in a recent Reuters story about the Obama Administration not wanting to reference the 2 degrees Celsius objective in the G8 statement.

So the letter from these 47 groups to President Obama as he is just about to embark on his G8 trip provides a simple recommendation -- embrace 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degress Fahrenheit) as the U.S. yardstick on global warming. Don't be separate from it any longer. Taking it as your own will help spur the U.S. public to action and build a huge amount international goodwill.

Coming out in support of this "yardstick" is a small, but hugely important signal to the American people and the world that we are truly committed to solving global warming.

US is Starting to Make a Down Payment on Funding International Climate Change Efforts

2009-06-19T21:27:57Z

This past Wednesday (June 17, 2009) the Appropriations Subcommittee of the House of Representatives that has jurisdiction over the international global warming pieces of President Obama's budget passed a bill that supported increasing US commitments to these needed efforts. The funding will make a "down payment" in helping developing countries deploy clean energy, reduce global warming pollution from tropical deforestation, and support adaptation in the most vulnerable populations around the world.

Funding this "down payment" is critical as it provides a bridge to the significant source of funding that could come for these activities through the US clean energy and climate bill. For example, the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act, which passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and is poised for action on the House floor provides funding in the future for these needed investments (as I've discussed here):

Clean energy exports: $476-768 million per year through 2020;
Deforestation emissions reductions: $2.4-3.8 billion per year through 2020;
International adaptation: $476-768 million per year through 2020 (based upon the calculations here)

In response to the House Appropriations Subcommittee vote NRDC, Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Sierra Club released the following statement.

"Today's action is an important sign of commitment by the Obama Administration, supported by leaders in Congress, to reasserting US leadership in tackling global warming. The funding in the legislation will help support efforts in developing countries to drive clean energy solutions, reduce tropical deforestation, and aid the most vulnerable in adapting to climate change. Such funding represents a concrete step to address the international dimension of global warming while strengthening the US position leading up to negotiations on an international climate agreement in Copenhagen this December.

While it is a first step, however, much work remains to be done to ensure that the funding is used exclusively to finance truly strong clean technology investment that will advance the effort to avert catastrophic global warming, rather than undermining it. In approving this funding, Congress should direct the Treasury to (i) ensure that no funding from the World Bank's Clean Technology Fund be used to finance coal-fired power plants without carbon capture and sequestration technology, and (ii) ensure that the World Bank employ comprehensive carbon accounting for all of its relevant projects that reflects the global economic, social, and environmental cost of carbon emissions.

In addition, we urge President Obama and Secretary Geithner to take a stronger and more proactive role in ensuring that the broader funding carried out by multilateral development banks and export-import banks, including the World Bank as well as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Export-Import Bank, pursue their objective of promoting economic growth in developing countries in a way that supports international efforts to address climate change.

We look forward to working with Members of Congress and the Administration to achieve these goals as the legislation moves through Congress."

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This action by the House Subcommittee and the signals emerging from the US climate bill are a good start. Of course, the "check isn't written" on either until they are passed out of both the House and Senate and signed by President Obama so we still have some work before these investments will actually help solve these challenges.

And the US will have to increase its investment if we are going to secure a strong agreement in Copenhagen and one that encourages significant reductions in developing country global warming pollution and addresses the impacts of global warming on the most vulnerable.

So some work to still to be done, but some steps in the right direction.

Onward & Upward on Global Warming Negotiations towards Copenhagen

2009-06-12T14:05:26Z

Two weeks of negotiations on the new international agreement to address global warming pollution are just wrapping up here in Bonn, Germany. What has emerged this week clearly signals that the international negotiations need to move "onward" with progress on the negotiating text and "upward" to commitments on real actions by world leaders.

Before the meeting, countries were presented with a draft negotiating text (which I discussed in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). And through two weeks of discussions on the negotiating text, it moves forward to subsequent sessions where the real negotiations on the text will occur.

So what emerged from the negotiators effort to go through the draft negotiating text?

There has been some progress on the negotiating text, some "sticky" issues, and the thinking of some countries.

Laundry list has grown. The text began at just over 50 pages and will leave here at over 200 pages. That was the process that we needed to undertake here in Bonn -- everyone has to put forward their proposal before it can be whittled down to a document that reflects the key agreements. Negotiators have their work cut out over the next 6 months to condense this text to the core options, but it can be done.

Some emerging ideas and consensus. The one key benefit of having a negotiating text in front of negotiators is that it forces them to respond to specific ideas -- instead of abstract concepts. And on a couple issues some small progress was made. In particular, some new framing emerged on the complicated issues of "binding" commitments for developing countries, incentives for addressing deforestation will be a part of the Copenhagen agreement, and developing countries will undertake action to reduce their emissions.

And all of this was occurring with complete transparency, so everyone can keep an eye on what their country is saying. More pressure will need to be brought on countries if they are going to move from their current opening positions, so a little "tracking" couldn't hurt.

Important things have to occur outside the formal negotiations. A high-level US delegation went to China to continue efforts to see if the two key sides could come to agreement on some central issues that are standing in the way of getting a strong agreement in Copenhagen. While the outcome of this trip didn't produce a new agreement, some hints came out of China that they are considering putting a limit on global warming pollution in their next national 5-year plan (the main Chinese government policy tool). As my colleague Alex Wang and I discussed, this could provide a very positive "opening" in the debate with China about taking action to control global warming pollution.

And prior to this session, the American Clean Energy and Security act passed out of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce committee. Key elements of this bill put the US in a strong position to help secure an international agreement in Copenhagen. Of course more will need to be done, but having a strong signal from the US that it is really going to help drive clean energy and cap our global warming pollution this year will have a huge impact on these negotiations. Progress on that front will spill into every key element that is currently having trouble seeing the light of day in these negotiations.

So what is needed to be in a position by December to secure a strong agreement to address global warming?

Let me answer that with a little reflection and call to action for world leaders.

How have true leaders and countries rallied around past challenges that confronted them? After all, the German Marshall Fund to rebuild war-torn Europe in order to avoid future conflicts and the Montreal Protocol to address the hole in the ozone all found a way forward. While these aren't perfect analogies to the challenge that confronts us today as each had a different set of issues, these challenges were resolved by rallying around a shared objective, discussing the needs of various interested parties, and by taking tough decisions.

That is what the world needs now to address global warming. Rise above and solve this challenge as if the fate of humanity, the planet, and your country depends upon it...because it does!

You've done it in the past and I know you can do it again. We are counting on you!

Transparency in International Global Warming Negotiations…the doors are open

2009-06-10T19:50:32Z

You might think that the international global warming negotiations are occurring in some backroom, filled with smoke, and outside the view of the world. That is after all, what some opponents to global warming solutions would have you believe.

But that is the farthest thing from the truth. Let me give you some examples from the current negotiations in Bonn, Germany.

Negotiating Texts are Publicly Available. Those texts that I discussed (in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) are all available on the United Nations Framework Convention website. You and everyone else in the world (when they are translated to all UN languages) can see and review them here. (And by the way, you can see documents from all the past UN negotiating meetings on global warming here).

And when countries suggest changes they are often doing it in the open "plenary" session where every country and observer (including yours truly) can watch what countries say. This time, when going through the text the Chair made countries flag where they had issues or options to add (as I discussed here).

Then countries submitted specific changes to the text and these were incorporated into a new text that was once again shared with everyone at the meeting (I have a copy with me right now of the revisions that have come out so far). If a country had a change that they didn't get into the document, the Chair made them put it on a giant screen at the front of the plenary (that was once again open to all participants).

This is in no small part thanks to the US delegation that insisted that this "second reading" was open to the public the way the "first reading" was. Thank you transparency in government!

Watch the Plenary discussions Live. You might think that this transparency is only available to those that fly, take a train, or bike to Bonn, Germany....or those that can decipher international negotiating text. But that is far from the truth. Everyone throughout the world (including you) can watch the entire "plenary" session live on the UN's website (see here, look for the one called AWG LCA informal plenary). And if you have trouble because the time zone in Bonn, Germany doesn't work for you or you can't get away from other things at that moment, you can watch the old webcasts here.

Read a Short Summary Every Day. And if that isn't enough, you can read a short summary of all the negotiation sessions (here) put together by the Earth Negotiations Bulletin every day. This coverage can be a little technical, but it covers in broad brush all the negotiation sessions for the previous day (including the ones that aren't webcast). And past issues are also available.

If you want a little humor and advocacy with your negotiations...you can also check out ECO (here). ECO is put together by the environmental non-governmental organizations daily.

Read Blogs or Participate in Live Chats. You can also read some of the blogs from people participating in the negotiations. While these aren't daily posts and don't cover every aspect of the negotiations, they can give you a "window" into the key elements of the negotiations (you can track some of them on Twitter by searching for #bonn). That is what my blog aims to provide so I hope you find some good information and insights from my posts. Check them out here.

Or you can join a Live Chat (as NRDC just tried). Check it out here.

Follow a Negotiator. A new thing at this session is called "Adopt a Negotiator". A group of motivated youth are each following a negotiator from their country. They are following what the lead negotiator from their country is saying in public forums (and in some cases they are even getting to speak directly with the delegate). They are reporting back to people in their own country so they can track what is going on and "nudge" at home where needed (see more about this here).

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Not all sessions are open and some negotiation has to occur behind close doors in smaller settings, but this process is about as transparent as you can get in international diplomacy.

Want to find out if the things that your country's representatives are saying are really the countries position? Want to know how this whole international global warming negotiations thing works? Want to find out how to interact in getting a strong global agreement in Copenhagen? Want to help "nudge" world leaders to putting aside their differences and getting agreement?

Watch it all unfold live and transparently! And then motivate, nudge, and encourage world leaders to solve global warming.

LIVE CHAT: International Climate Talks from Bonn

2009-06-09T19:00:00Z

This December, the nations of the world will meet in Copenhagen to forge a new climate accord that replaces the Kyoto Protocol. With those meetings just six months away, world leaders are gathering this week in Germany to make progress toward an agreement. Jake Schmidt is representing NRDC and will answer your questions from Bonn in a live chat on Tuesday, June 9, at 1 p.m. EDT here on NRDC's Switchboard. Twitter users can also participate by marking updates with the tag #greenchat. Follow Jake's updates from Bonn.

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Day 17 in the Sprint to Copenhagen…Global Warming Negotiations in Germany

2009-06-08T21:26:46Z

I've been participating since last Monday in the global warming negotiations in Bonn, Germany. This is the second session of the year. There are 53 days of official negotiations before Copenhagen and this is day 17 (the first 10 days were held in the first session in Bonn in March -- as I discussed here -- and days 11-16 were held last week).

The first week slowly worked its way through the things that need to be addressed at this stage in the negotiations. The pace will need to pick up the rest of the week and, most importantly, the rest of the year if we are to secure a strong agreement in Copenhagen. (As an aside there is a clock that sits on the front screen of every session that is the "Countdown to Copenhagen" reminding delegates of how little time is left).

Granted, not all the negotiations are occurring in the official sessions as a number of key efforts are occurring outside the UNFCCC framework -- such as the Major Economies Forum which brings together the 17 largest emitting countries (as I discussed here) and the US-China bilateral effort (which I discussed here).

So what has occurred in day 11-16 of the global warming negotiations?

Starting to Stake out Firm "Opening" Positions

We've been slowly going through the draft negotiating text that was released prior to the session (as I discussed in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) -- the so-called "first reading". This is where countries flagged which issues they want deleted (by suggesting that it be [bracketed]), where they have an issue that isn't reflected in the existing text (by suggesting they will bring forward a specific proposal), and where they are open to discussion ("we can work with this option").

This can be painfully slow (especially to outsiders), but it is a necessary process. After all, you can't get agreement if you don't know exactly where you disagree or where there might be room to talk. And that is just what occurred.

Divisions, [Brackets], and Some Consensus

Countries are clearly in "opening bid" mode. At this stage in the negotiations you have to take everything with a dose of reality: "are they flagging that because it is a real concern or is that just their opening position which they will trade in exchange for movement on other things?" These are the thoughts that are running through every negotiator's head. Of course this is not a game, but securing a deal amongst 180 plus countries requires these dynamics, especially at this stage.

As we get closer to Copenhagen and as Heads of Government start to make some tough decisions, consensus on things will start to emerge more clearly. Here are the things that I think have some [division right] now but where there is a potential emerging consensus.

"Binding" Commitments. As I discussed in a separate post, there is a debate right now on the "nature of developing country commitments" -- are they internationally binding, only domestically binding, or somewhere in between? I don't see this getting resolved this week (and maybe not until either this is resolved between the US and China in a bilateral agreement or in the final moments of Copenhagen). But there is a large amount of focus (and in some cases anger) on the push to get some developing countries to undertake "binding commitments."

In one exchange I had with a delegate (that I know very well) he was furious at the US for pushing "binding commitments" for developing countries so front-and-center as he was concerned that the US was just trying to blow up the agreement by pushing the rest of the world way past where he thought they would go. When I told him that President Obama, the US negotiating team, and US environmental groups were committed to pushing adoption in US law of an international global warming agreement, he was less mad. This is just one example of the huge toll that eight bad years has had on the US ability to lead in this negotiations. Everyone thinks the US has some sneaky motive...after all that is what they did for eight years.

Incentives for Cutting Deforestation Definitely in the Copenhagen Agreement. While there has been an emerging consensus for awhile that incentives for reducing deforestation emissions has to be a part of the new agreement, it wasn't until we actually went through the text that this became really clear.

No country suggested completely eliminating incentives for deforestation reductions for the negotiating text. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of differences on how best to do that, but no country essentially said: "if deforestation incentives are included in the agreement I walk". That is huge progress since 1997 when that is effectively what occurred.

Developing Countries will Undertake Action to Reduce their Emissions. Some countries are playing semantic games (such as the Philippines and to some extent other developing countries) and still trying to hold back this consensus, but most major developing countries are hinting at: "we will undertake some action to reduce our emissions". This is sort of what China said at a very high level last week as I discussed here.

How much action developing countries do without developed country incentives and how much is supported with incentives is still under serious debate. But there is still progress as this notion -- that developing countries will (1) take some action on their own and (2) go further with incentives -- is at the heart of the developing country negotiations.

Waiting for Clarity from the US

This isn't surprising to say, but it is still worth repeating: "without clarity from the US by capping its own global warming pollution, no serious agreement in Copenhagen is possible".

While the passage of the bill out of the House Energy and Commerce committee provides some serious momentum in the US, it is like having a megaphone but with a lid on the end. The US negotiators can't take pieces of this bill and start to negotiate on this basis until the consensus in Congress crystallizes more.

And that is kind of how I feel right now: the US can't help lead this process to solving this challenge if it can't get its own house in order. I believe the world is waiting for US leadership, but the question in everyone's mind is: "will they lead us to a higher ground" to solve global warming. It is clear from conversations I've had with both developed and developing countries that the more the US does, the more they will be willing to do.

Clamoring for More Clarity from the Other Developed Countries

It isn't just the US that other countries are still waiting for as some other developed countries are holding out on what additional emission reduction targets they will commit to -- namely Russia, Ukraine, Japan, and Canada. And what some other countries are putting on the table -- such as the range proposed by Australia -- has sparked some grumbling.

Some of these countries are hiding behind the lack of clarity from the US and others are using the efforts under discussion in the US as an excuse for not taking stronger commitments.

Push for Urgent! Action

A number of brave souls (not me as I was at another meeting) suffered in the rain of Bonn to pose in the shape of an !exclamation point! that said: "YES YOU CAN!". I'm sure it was even better to witness live, but you can see a picture of it here.

I have to think optimistically that if these people can brave "rough weather" and "get organized" to form such a picture then the world's leaders can brave the rough weather of different negotiating positions and organize around a deal that puts the world solidly on the path to solve global warming. [Sorry for the cheap analogy but I couldn't resist].

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This week negotiations will be focused on getting a negotiating text that includes all the key proposals, [brackets] the contentious issues, and lays out clearly the work ahead. This way all the countries can move towards consensus and then commit to serious actions to solve global warming.

But much more global political will need to be generated over the next months if the world is to truly move in a clean energy direction, and one that begins to solve global warming.

Coming Global Warming Limits in China…some news with hints

2009-06-08T05:00:00Z

News coming out of China provides some hints that they might adopt a domestic limit to reduce their global warming. As China Daily is reporting:

" China will put in place carbon dioxide emissions targets for its economic and social development programs, the central government has promised.

It also signals that China may be considering national goals for carbon dioxide levels when it maps its 12th five-year national development plan (2011-15)."

The central government announced the plan at the State Council meeting that was chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao. The State Council is the highest executive and administrative body in China and is equivalent to China's cabinet. So this announcement was made at a very high-level within the Chinese government.

Inclusion in the "5-year" plan would be significant as this is the governments overarching strategy. Achieving the objectives of this plan becomes the main focus of the central government as achieving them often becomes a metric for determining whether or not government officials move up in the ranks. And, inclusion of such a goal in the 5-year plan drives the implementation of Chinese government policies, regulations, programs, etc. over the course of the 5-years. This has occurred as a result of the inclusion of an energy-intensity target in China's current 5-year plan -- to cut energy intensity by 20% between 2005 and 2010 -- as the government has implemented a number of policies and regulations to achieve it.

If you haven't noticed, getting an agreement with China on global warming pollution is at the top of the US international global warming agenda. Key members of Congress were just in China and now some of the Obama Administration's key policymakers on global warming are headed to China -- including senior global warming officials from the Department of State, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, Treasury Department, and the President's Science Advisor.

So this announcement comes at a critical time as it provides a potential opening to firm up a bilateral agreement on global warming between the US and China. This has been in the works since President Obama was elected as signaled by Secretary Clinton when she went to China in February. As Special Climate Envoy Todd Stern recently said:

"Certainly no deal will be possible if we don't find a way forward with China."

NRDC made a series of recommendations on actions that the US and China should do together, including address the key sticking points to reaching a meaningful agreement in Copenhagen in December 2009. While the international global warming negotiations are focused on starting to flesh out the "text" of the agreement (as I discussed in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3), getting agreement between the US and China has become an even a stronger "key to success" in getting a strong international agreement to address climate. The text can't have "life" without these two countries resolving some differences.

High on the agenda of this US delegation headed to China needs to be three key things to lay the groundwork for agreement with China on global warming. The US and China need to get agreement on the:

Actions that will be taken to reduce their global warming pollution. Key to this in the US will be passing a bill on global warming pollution by Congress this year. And this effort has gained some serious momentum with the passage of the House Energy and Commerce Committee bill. The news that China will place limits on emissions provides some hints that China might be moving in the direction of taking an emissions reduction limit (although the exact structure would likely vary from the US approach in the near-term).
Form of that commitment. As I've discussed here, there is an emerging debate with some progress on the "binding" international nature of commitments. The US has proposed binding international commitments for all countries. China has been silent in their formal submission. However, they have been reluctant in the past to internationally binding commitments but have shown a willingness to implement domestically "binding" actions.
Reporting and verification of actions and emissions. The negotiating text contains some proposals for how that would occur, but as I discussed here there is a focus on the commitment of developing countries to "nationally appropriate mitigation actions" with those actions reported to a registry. The US has proposed annual emissions inventories for all countries (including developing countries) as a way to get more real time information. And there is debate around having the developing country actions internationally verified as a part of the agreement -- although a number of developing countries are currently opposed to that. Having China and the US resolve this difference is critical.

Not to hold up to high expectations, but we need one of those "Nixon goes to China" moments when the dynamic between the two countries completely shifts. We need a moment where the two sides break the stalemate on global warming. This moment would have a huge ripple effect on the rest of the negotiations to Copenhagen and on our path to secure an international effort to solve global warming.

Both the US and China need such an agreement to materialize soon! Each for different reasons, but there are strong reasons why both need a mutual agreement on this important issue. And there are some openings emerging that this isn't just wishful thinking.

So stay tuned for more news out of China and the US.

“Binding” Up an Agreement in Copenhagen – some heated exchanges from Bonn

2009-06-07T13:51:22Z

In the climate negotiations occurring in Bonn, Germany there is an emerging debate on the form of "commitment or action" developing countries will undertake (as the Economic Times in India points out). This has been a long running debate in the international global warming negotiations, but it has gained more focus as the negotiating text (that I discussed in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) has included proposals where all countries undertake binding international actions.

As countries were doing the "first reading" -- going through the text to flag areas of disagreement or where they wanted to add text -- a number of developing countries raised serious concerns with these proposals for international "binding" commitments (I put "binding" in quotes as I'll discuss later how what this means in practice is complicated).

The proposals in the text are based upon the US and the Australian submissions (as I discussed in Part 2), which proposed slightly different ways to incorporate "binding" commitments.

The US proposed that all countries (including developing ones) undertake emissions reduction actions and those actions are established in an Annex to the new international agreement reached in Copenhagen. In addition, the US proposed that developing countries whose "national circumstances reflect greater responsibility or capability" would outline the date when a country would undertake an economy-wide absolute emission limit. The actions in the Annex would then become internationally binding in some manner.

Australia proposed that all countries would commit their actions to a Schedule (New Zealand is also intrigued by this approach). This schedule would contain either a single set of actions at the time they were committed with the idea that more would be added over time or, when they were entered, countries would outline a series of actions that they would take over the near- to medium-term (e.g., sectoral intensity target in the near-term phasing into a an absolute sectoral limit and then an economy-wide limit). The actions in the schedule would be internationally binding in some way. This is similar to how the World Trade Organization actions are included.

A third, sort of a "middle-ground" approach, has been floated by South Korea (as articulated in this Associated Press story). In this proposal, developing countries would:

Undertake nationally binding actions to reduce their emissions (e.g., enforce sectoral intensity targets through their domestic law);
Report those actions into an internationally approved registry that would be endorsed by the new international agreement; and
Subject the reported actions to international verification (e.g., third party teams review them against reported information to see if they were achieved).

So you can see why this has some developing countries ruffled. Binding commitments for developing countries has been an issue that has been pushed for a while, but has received strong resistance from the developing countries.

But do these proposals offer some promise to finally "crack this nut"? I think yes (although I'm getting mixed reactions from developing country negotiators that I'm speaking with) and here is why.

All three of the approaches don't envision international compliance penalties for not living up to the commitment. Penalties for non-compliance have been a complicated issue internationally as it often boils down to "name and shame" -- that is publicly calling out the laggards and make them come into compliance because the world considers them a rogue (and most countries don't want to be rogues). With a few exceptions, this is the framework that is used in the vast majority of international agreements as most don't have strong international sanction mechanisms. See for example, the efforts to impose international sanctions on countries that don't live up to the requirements on nuclear weapons. The trade agreements are one of the rare international agreements that have a strong international compliance mechanism that is automatic -- that doesn't require a group of countries to approve its use.

National sanction mechanisms are often used -- where one country imposes the sanction unilaterally on the other -- but these only work if either a large group of countries does the sanctions or if the country imposing the sanction has large influence in some manner over the other.

Most countries need "international recognition" for their actions. While this didn't used to be true, I believe that most countries want the world to recognize that they are taking serious steps to address global warming. With the attention on global warming and with world leaders now focused on it at almost every high-level engagement with each other, nobody wants to be the leader that says: "my country isn't doing anything to address our pollution". There are still leaders and countries like that, but they are a shrinking bunch.

And with the growing political focus in countries, the fear of some sort of ramification for not taking action lingers over many world leaders. If a country doesn't take action, what impact will that have on other issues that they want to pursue (e.g., trade)?

Financing support for developing countries will be tied to how much action is undertaken. While some developing countries are asking for incentives that are provided no matter what they do to reduce emissions, I highly doubt any country will provide incentives that aren't somehow related to the actions that are taken. "Payment for performance" -- i.e., your incentive is dependent on actually meeting your stated aim -- is an often discussed framework in the international negotiations these days.

And this is the framework that is included in the US climate bill that just passed out of the House Energy and Commerce committee. Countries receiving incentives have to be undertaking national actions that seek to achieve "substantial" reductions.

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So it will be essential to resolve whether developing countries have to undertake "binding commitments" (as the US and Australia have proposed) in the Copenhagen agreement or whether they undertake some other form of commitment that has a strong international verification system (as in the South Korean proposal).

As the Bruce Springsteen song says:

"The ties that bind. Now you can't break the ties that bind"

Whether or not the world commits to a strong set of actions to start to solve global warming in Copenhagen will somewhat depend on how those "binding" differences are resolved.

The planet (and our future) doesn't care as long as countries are taking and living up to their commitments to solve global warming.

Texting Copenhagen: Draft Negotiating Text Proposed for Copenhagen Agreement (Part 3)

2009-06-03T11:37:56Z

I've discussed in part 1 -- shared vision and developed country emissions reduction commitments -- and part 2 -- developing country emissions reductions and the incentives to encourage them to go further -- key proposals that have now been produced in a new draft negotiating text for the Copenhagen agreement.

I'll now discuss the last 2 of the six key elements of the Copenhagen Agreement contained in these texts -- deforestation emissions reduction efforts and adaptation assistance.

Deforestation Emissions Reduction Efforts

Providing incentives to slow the loss of the world's tropical deforestation is an essential component of the world's efforts to solve global warming (as I've discussed here and here). So not surprisingly, incentives to reduce deforestation emissions will be an important part of the agreement in Copenhagen (as NRDC has identified here). And that is reflected in the draft negotiating text (reminder there are a number of options and {brackets} which implies that there isn't exactly agreement on these pieces yet).

Incentives for forestry and {other land-use emissions}. Since the Bali Roadmap was agreed there has been a push from some countries to ensure that forest degradation, increased forest cover, {forest management}, and {other land-use emissions} are also eligible to directly receive incentives for their emissions reductions or increased sequestration (I put in the brackets, partly to reflect avenues that I believe have a "proof of concept" internationally before they are ready for a full blown set of incentives). Not that these bracketed pieces aren't important, but rather that these actions have some work ahead on their methodologies, data, etc. before these activities are ready for large incentives. This is why people now talk about Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) Plus (or REDD+).

This difference of vision on the land-use activities that should receive which type of incentives and when those incentives should be available still exists as the negotiating text proposes several options:

Inclusion of all land-use activities from the outset under the same set of available incentive mechanisms;
Different incentive frameworks for different set of land-use activities; or
An evolving set of incentives where actions that have proven methodologies are eligible from the outset and other activities come in as they are better defined.

The American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) act that just passed out of the House Energy and Commerce committee directly approves incentives for deforestation and some elements of forest degradation through both the set aside of allowances and the offset provisions (as I discussed here and here). Protection of existing forest cover (e.g., leakage avoidance) is available for incentives under the set aside of allowances. If recommended by the Offset Integrity Advisory Board (as I discussed here) and if approved by key government agencies, other emissions sources and sequestration activities would be eligible for offset generation.

Need for Market and Non-Market Based Funding Sources. There has been a debate about whether or not emissions reductions from deforestation and forest degradation should be supported through market incentives (i.e., as offsets) or through a non-market approach (e.g., through setting aside a portion of the allowance value under a cap-and-trade program). Different countries have aligned themselves with different positions on this (as was witnessed at one negotiating session last year and is witnessed in the European Union proposal which largely called for a non-market approach). This difference is reflected in the negotiating text.

The ACES bill includes both types of incentives through the set aside of allowance value and the eligibility of credible reductions for offsets (as I discussed here). Both of these incentives are critical as outlined by a new coalition that NRDC is involved with.

What does a country receiving incentives have to do? The text includes some elements that a country would have to implement in order to receive incentives:

Develop plans/strategies that outline how the country will begin to address these emissions sources and what they might need in the manner of incentives (similar to the national low emissions development strategies as I discussed in part 2);
Establish a reference level against which performance would be measured;
Payment for performance (e.g., incentives tied to actually reducing emissions); and
Provide protection for indigenous peoples and communities.

The ACES bill (as I discussed here) provides more detail on a number of these elements including the need for a land-use plan, development of a declining baseline to zero emissions, and accounting for all significant sources of emissions.

Incentives for National Reductions or Subnational Reductions. For deforestation and forest degradation emissions, countries have proposed that market incentives should be eligible only for national level reductions or subnational level reductions under an interim phase. There is general agreement that non-market incentives should be available for both subnational and national reductions.

The ACES bill contains provisions for high-quality forest carbon offsets at several scales: national, state and province, and program and project. State/province and program/project level programs are phased out over time for countries with different sizes of deforestation emissions.

Strong monitoring, reporting, and verification provisions. All incentive mechanisms should undergo some level of monitoring and verification, but there is some emerging consensus that activities that receive market incentives through offsets must meet a higher level of requirement.

This is reflected in the ACES bill and the consensus on deforestation that NRDC just joined as carbon offsets from deforestation must meet a rigorous set of rules. Of course many of the rules have to be written, but the bill sets up a strong framework towards this end.

Adaptation Support

Some levels of impact are already occurring or will likely occur as a result of existing global warming pollution. And many of these impacts will increase in the future. So there is a need to support developing countries (especially the most vulnerable) in addressing the impacts of global warming pollution. This is reflected in the negotiating text and has been a strong emphasis in the international negotiations.

The ACES bill recognizes this need and sets aside a dedicated source of allowances (funding) for the most vulnerable by supporting bilateral and multilateral adaptation assistance (as I discussed here and as a powerful coalition of religious and military leaders is calling for).

Supporting the Most Vulnerable. There has been a general agreement that the majority of developing country adaptation assistance should go to the most vulnerable countries and populations. However, actually getting agreement on who qualifies as the most vulnerable has been complicated. The text begins down this path by outlining a set of "criteria" for the most vulnerable including: least developed countries, small island developing states, countries in Africa experiencing certain impacts, and particularly vulnerable populations.

Implementation, implementation, implementation. While it is important to develop adaptation plans to focus funding on the most important needs, the developing countries have been arguing for years that what they really need is support for implementation of adaptation actions. After all, many of them are feeling the impacts now. So the text contains a number of elements that identify implementation actions that would be supported in an effort to expedite the deployment of actions on-the-ground.

Financial support. The key piece of the adaptation discussion often boils down how much money is provided to support adaptation actions, where this funding is sourced from, and how is it structured. This text proposes a variety of sources, but still contains a number of options as there isn't agreement on any of these aspects at this stage.

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So a blueprint for Copenhagen is beginning to emerge (as I've discussed in part 1, part 2, and now part 3. A draft negotiating text has emerged and this will encourage countries to begin to focus on what they really want, how much they are willing to move from their current negotiating position, and how all the pieces will fit together into a coherent international strategy to solve global warming.

The text of that agreement is beginning to emerge. But now we need to turn it into a working engine that drives solutions to global warming pollution. That engine won't get started without being fueled by real political commitments from leaders around the world.

I'm sure it looks like a lot of pieces that need to come together in a short amount of time -- less than 6 months. But I'm still confident it can be done if countries decide to "move past rhetoric" and to agreement. The fate of the planet and our future depends on countries committing to a strong set of actions that put the world solidly on the path to solving global warming.

So let's get texting...a strong international solution to global warming!

Texting Copenhagen: Draft Negotiating Text Proposed for Copenhagen Agreement (Part 2)

2009-06-01T15:28:30Z

As I discussed in my previous post, the draft negotiating texts for the Copenhagen agreement are now out. With the release of these texts the world now begins the serious work to get an agreement in Copenhagen -- marking them up and getting agreement.

As in the other post, I'll briefly discuss how the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) act that just passed out of committee touches upon these issues. For more details on the tools to help secure a strong international agreement contained in this bill see this post.

There are 6 key elements of the Copenhagen Agreement contained in these texts. I discussed elements 1 and 2 -- shared vision and developed country emissions reductions in my previous post -- so this post will focus on the details of the 3rd and 4th elements - developing country emissions reductions and the incentives to encourage them to go further.

Developing Country Emissions Reductions

There is a bit of agreement emerging that developing countries would do five things (apologies in advance for the acronyms, but international climate negotiations are filled with them and I spared you many of them):

Put together a "national low emissions development strategy";
Undertake a set of actions to reduce their emissions (called Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions or NAMAs);
Outline how much further they could go in cutting emissions with incentives and the nature of those incentives
Propose their mitigation actions internationally (through a "Registry") with some kind of monitoring, reporting, and verification of action (MRV); and
Gain access to carbon markets under certain conditions.

There is still some ambiguity on the details on each of these elements, how they are different, and exactly what is committed to as a part of each. That is why there are a large number of options proposed by countries for each of these pieces and a lot of {brackets} (both of which mean that there isn't agreement yet).

But here are what I think are the key elements of each.

National low emissions development strategy. Countries would develop these strategies, which would outline an emissions pathway outlining where their emissions could head under a low carbon development effort. These plans would also outline the set of actions (the Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions) that the country is currently undertaking or will in the future.

Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions. Countries would elaborate a set of specific actions that they are undertaking or will implement to reduce emissions on their own (unilateral actions without support from the developed countries), actions that they could implement with some assistance from the developed countries, and details on the assistance that they would need.

These actions could take a variety of forms as proposed by countries, including:

Cap and trade programs;
Sectoral programs to limit emissions in a particular sector or group of sectors;
Economy-wide emissions intensity targets; and
Efforts to reduce deforestation emissions (as I'll discuss in greater detail in part 3).

There is significant promise in a sectoral approach for developing countries as I've discussed how we need to evolve from "offsets" to sectoral approaches for developing countries. The ACES bill that just passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee provides some key tools towards this effort as a sectoral approach is developed for offsets from certain countries and sectors.

Other approaches might also be important for a country to adopt as there is a wide-variation in the capability and expectations of developing countries.

Some countries (i.e., the US and Australia) have also proposed having developing countries outline how their emissions reduction actions will evolve over time. This would include increasing in stringency and scope (e.g., covering a greater share of the countries emissions) so that at some defined point their action would mirror the kind of absolute economy-wide targets that developed countries are undertaking (as I discussed here).

Incentives for Undertaking Further Emissions Reductions. Developing countries would outline the set of actions that they could implement if they had incentives to go further (as I'll discuss in more detail below).

Documenting, Tracking, and Providing a Platform for Supporting Action (the "Registry"). So all this outlining of efforts, documenting of actions, and incentives for action needs to have a place to be scored in the international context. That is where the registry would come in. In its simplest form, the registry would serve as a place for countries to document their actions internationally so that there would be some means to see what countries are proposing to do and are actually doing. But the registry needs to do even more, as some countries have proposed to have it:

provide a framework for mobilizing and matching developing country action with the set of incentives from developed countries; and
support the monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of developing country action and the incentives from developed countries.

Some countries have proposed a set of technical boards to help with each of these functions (e.g., for verifying actions and support).

Technology and finance assistance to support further emissions reductions in developing countries

Countries have proposed the use of private (e.g., carbon markets) and public financing, as well as technology support as a means to provide incentives for further emissions reductions in developing countries.

Design of Carbon Markets. Countries have proposed three "evolutions" of the current carbon markets:

Crediting for verified nationally appropriate mitigation actions. This proposal is still a bit loosely defined at this stage, but the general concept is that verified emissions reductions by developing countries would be eligible to generate carbon offsets.
Sectoral crediting. Under this approach, a developing country that beats a "pre-defined" emissions level for an entire sector (e.g., electricity) could generate offset credits (as I've discussed here and as the ACES bill includes as I've mentioned here).
Crediting reducing deforestation and forest degradation emissions and increased forest cover. I'll discuss the details of this in part 3.

To assess whether a country's actions under any of these approaches should generate offset credits, the text proposes creation of either a single technical body or bodies for each mechanism.

Public Financing could complement private sector financing or be utilized for actions that aren't easy to be deployed with private financing (e.g., hard to assess offset credit generation or for "advanced technologies"). To generate this funding there are variety of proposals including:

Official development assistance.
Setting aside a portion of the allowance value in a cap-and-trade program. The ACES bill does this for "clean energy exports" and deforestation as it sets aside a dedicated portion of the allowances for these purposes.
Fee on international aviation and maritime emissions.
A fee on the use of international offset mechanisms.

There is a difference of vision right now on where public funds should be channeled -- with some countries proposing that all funds should go to an international entity, while others are proposing that countries also be allowed to use national mechanisms that would follow similar international criteria for how that funding would be utilized.

Technology Support. Private and public financing could play critical roles in helping to speed up the deployment of clean energy solutions in developing countries. But countries have also proposed actions beyond financing that will be critical, including: development of technology action plans to accelerate research, development, and deployment; creating the appropriate country legal and policy framework (called "enabling environments"); supporting capacity building; and cooperative research and development.

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How these pieces all fit together, will be the heart of the negotiation towards the Copenhagen agreement, as the actions that developing countries undertake and the support they receive to go further are at the heart of this negotiation.

In the next post I'll discuss the last two key elements -- deforestation emissions reduction efforts and adaptation assistance.

Time to Solve the Loss of the World’s Tropical Forests…some tools to get us there

2009-06-01T15:16:45Z

I've been spending a lot of my time recently trying to get a strong structure for addressing the loss of the world's tropical rainforests as a part of the US climate bill. This took two parallel tracks -- developing a strong coalition for supporting specific provisions and trying to get good pieces in the climate bill that was working its way through the House Energy and Commerce committee (as NRDC discussed here).

Before digging into the details of how these efforts played out, it is worth taking a moment to remind ourselves why addressing deforestation is so critical. Here are a couple of reasons (as I've discussed here, here, and here):

Each year the world loses an area of tropical forests approximately the size of New York State to deforestation;
Untold amounts of biodiversity are lost in the process, not to mention the livelihoods of many people; and
Destruction of tropical forests is responsible for roughly 20% of the world's global warming pollution -- more than all cars, trucks, planes, and ships combined.

So how did those two parallel efforts on deforestation play out?

NRDC joined a strong coalition of environmental groups and businesses to push for a set of incentives to help reduce the loss of the world's tropical rainforests as a part of the US climate bill. This coalition was made up of: American Electric Power, Conservation, International, Duke Energy, El Paso Corporation, Environmental Defense Fund, Marriott International, Mercy Corps, National Wildlife Federation, PG&E Corporation, Sierra Club, Starbucks Coffee Company, The Nature Conservancy, The Walt Disney Company, Union of Concerned Scientists, Wildlife Conservation Society, and Woods Hole Research Center. A pretty impressive group!

Frances Beinecke, our President, and Michael Morris the head of American Electric Power were on a press call on behalf of this group to launch a set of principles to provide incentives to reduce deforestation emissions (see here for one story from the press call). These principles (available here) contain a number of key elements, but boil down to two key elements:

Setting aside 5% of the allowance value for near-term emissions reductions, market-readiness, capacity building, and leakage prevention; and
Carbon offsets for deforestation reductions that meet high standards of environmental accountability, with a transition from subnational to national crediting under certain conditions.

And, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) that passed out the House Energy and Commerce Committee largely recognizes and implements the provisions of this new coalition. The bill sets aside 5% of allowances from the cap-and-trade system for deforestation reduction activities in tropical countries and contains provisions for high-quality forest carbon offsets at several scales: national, state and province, and program and project. The largest emitting countries are only eligible at the outset to generate credits for national level deforestation reductions or only for states and provinces that reduce their total deforestation emissions during a transition period (5 years). For a transition period (5 years with the possibility of receiving an extension under certain conditions), small emitting countries are eligible to generate credits for program or project level reductions (e.g., subnational).

As a recent New York Times Editorial put it:

"...with the rain forests shrinking and the planet warming up, it's crucial to get the right incentives in place - first as part of broad climate change legislation in the United States, then as part of a new global treaty that the world's nations hope to negotiate in the fall."

So it was a good couple of weeks for the world's tropical forests -- a strong new coalition has emerged and the House bill that just passed out of committee has some strong incentives. Of course, simply creating the mechanisms isn't sufficient as everyone will need to work really hard to ensure that these incentives achieve tangible reductions in the global warming pollution from deforestation.

So no time to take a rest...we aren't quite there yet, but we are getting closer to have some of the tools necessary to solve the loss of the World's tropical rainforests.

Texting Copenhagen: Draft Negotiating Text Proposed for Copenhagen Agreement (Part 1)

2009-05-28T17:55:16Z

The draft negotiating texts for the Copenhagen agreement are now out. Just like in the US Congressional debate on climate legislation and other parliamentary debates around the world, you need to have a proposal on paper before you can make changes, find consensus, and get agreement that can be signed into law (ratified, etc.). Sort of like the "mark-up" process that has just occurred in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

And that is basically the same process that has now emerged internationally. The Chairs of the key negotiating groups under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have just released draft negotiating texts based upon the input from countries in their own submissions. (There are two parallel and related efforts, so there are two texts that are worth reviewing: here and here). These documents will be clarified, "marked-up", and changed to get agreement over the next 6 months.

The release of these texts begins the real negotiation towards Copenhagen. The world is now rolling up its sleeves and getting to work on an agreement to solve global warming pollution.

While the US submissions was short on many details, the bill that just passed out of the House Energy and Commerce committee -- the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) act -- contains a number of "tools" to get a strong agreement (as I discussed here). I won't provide a lot of detail on those elements in this post, but I will note where the bill addresses the same issues as in the draft negotiating text.

So let's dig in and see what is being proposed and what it all means. (Andy Revkin of the NY Times has an "annotated summary" on his Dot Earth website).

The text follows the five elements of the Bali Agreement, but I'll group them into different "building blocks" as I often discuss them (with parts 1-2 in this post and other elements in subsequent posts as there is a lot to cover):

Shared vision which provides the overarching long-term direction of the international community;
Developed country emissions reduction;
Developing country emissions reductions;
Technology and finance assistance to support further emissions reductions in developing countries;
Deforestation emissions reduction efforts; and
Adaptation assistance.

Shared Vision

A number of countries want to have an overarching direction for the agreement that provides more detail than in the existing Convention on Climate Change -- a sort of yardstick to measure progress over the long-term. While some of the proposals are more qualitative, many contain detailed quantitative objectives such as a:

specific atmospheric emissions stabilization level or temperature increase to stay below (e.g., less than 3.6 ºF increase);
global emissions reduction objectives (e.g., emissions peaking date or period; 50-85% below 1990 levels in 2050); and
targets for developed countries (e.g., 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020) and developing countries (e.g., a 15-30% cut below business as usual levels in 2020).

While this gets a lot of attention in the media and in the negotiations, the key is not what is in the overarching objective of the agreement but what are countries actually committing to do towards those aims.

Developed Country Emissions Reductions

The key structure that is proposed is for developed countries to undertake firm commitments to reduce their economy-wide emissions (called "quantified emissions reduction and limitation commitments"). In essence this is the same as what is in the ACES bill -- a firm absolute limit on US global warming pollution.

Two of the proposals included open up the possibility to weaken this effort. One (#61) could give the option for all developed countries to collectively undertake an emissions reduction target - which could be meaningless since it would take away the basic premise that individual countries have the authority to implement policies to reduce their own emissions (with the notable exceptions for groupings like the European Union that function as a block on non-global warming issues). The other (#64) would potentially allow industrialized countries to not undertake quantified targets -- allowing them to choose instead to undertake "policies and measures". This is serious step-back from the notion of undertaking economy-wide emissions caps and hopefully this proposal will end up in the garbage bin.

There is a discussion of which countries should be included in the "developed country" grouping and therefore have to undertake these absolute emissions reduction limits. The proposed list includes:

all current Annex I countries, plus all Current EU member states, candidate countries, and potential candidate countries -- so this would add Malta, the countries that were formerly a part of Yugoslavia, and Turkey;
all Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) members -- so this would currently add Mexico and South Korea; and
countries that are not OECD members, but whose economic development stages are equivalent -- this could add such countries as Qatar, Singapore, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Bahamas based upon the level of gross domestic product per capita.

Proposals included also discuss the length of the next compliance period for developed country targets -- ranging from 2013-2017 through 2020 -- and how countries will be held accountable for failure to meet their target -- the so-called compliance system.

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In subsequent posts I'll discuss the developing country emissions reduction proposals, the incentive framework for encouraging greater developing country action, the frameworks for addressing deforestation, and the adaptation proposals.

Putting the US in a Strong Position to Secure an International Climate Agreement: Waxman-Markey Bill

2009-05-20T18:37:09Z

The Waxman-Markey "American Clean Energy and Security Act" (HR 2454) is now out (see here for the full bill and here for NRDC's top line summary of the entire bill). The House Energy and Commerce Committee is focused this week on intensive sessions to pass the bill (you can watch it all live on the Committee's website).

Passage of a cap on global warming pollution - THIS YEAR - will put the US in a solid position to help secure a strong international global warming agreement in Copenhagen, Denmark this December. And as my colleague David Doniger said, this bill will begin a week-long marathon to pass long-overdue clean energy and climate legislation.

We have very few tools to help secure a strong agreement, so we have to use them effectively. And this bill does just that! It arms the US negotiators with a powerful set of tools. In some cases those tools aren't quite big enough to get the job done, so we'll have to work hard to make them more powerful as the bill progresses through Congress.

This bill uses the same five key tools to help secure a strong international agreement as were in the discussion draft but added more detail in several places. The most significant change was to spell out the specific amount of allowance value that would be dedicated to the clean energy export and international adaptation provisions. But they also made noticeable changes to the deforestation crediting provisions.

I'll discuss each of those tools in more detail below and any changes that were made from the discussion draft. This post should be read alongside my post from the discussion draft.

The five key tools that have been included are:

A cap on global warming pollution to drive energy and global warming solutions;
Designing international carbon market access rules to encourage unilateral actions from developing countries before they can sell credits into the US market;
Creating incentives for exporting clean energy technologies to developing countries that take on their own actions to reduce emissions;
Providing both dedicated funds and access to the carbon market for credible deforestation emissions reductions; and
Supporting the most vulnerable developing countries in adapting to the impacts of global warming.

Driving energy and global warming solutions. This discussion draft proposes a set of energy and climate policies which will result in US emissions sources being reduced to:

17% below 2005 levels in 2020 (4% below 1990 levels);
42% below 2005 levels in 2030 (32% below 1990 levels); and
83% below 2005 levels in 2050 (80% below 1990 levels).

The 2020 target was changed in the negotiations with other Members from a 20% cut from 2005 levels (7% below 1990 levels).

And, this bill adds to these emissions reductions in two ways:

Providing "supplemental funding" to incentive deforestation emissions reductions in developing countries-this is estimated to increase the US reduction effort by 10% in 2020; and
Requiring that international offsets provide "extra reductions".

The discussion draft proposed that all offsets provide these extra reductions, but this was changed to only require that international offsets must generate 5 tons of reductions for every 4 tons that a company used to comply with its cap.

The combination of these efforts is estimated to produce emissions reductions resulting in US emissions being 28-33% below 2005 levels in 2020 (or 17-22% below 1990 levels) - according to analysis by the World Resources Institute.

International carbon offset access rules. International offsets will be issued only to developing countries that are part of a multilateral or bilateral agreement with the US. International offsets may be issued from an international body (e.g., the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) if they meet the same requirements as established in the Act. This will provide an important safeguard against less stringent rules and an incentive for the international community, working with the US negotiators, to design strong provisions for international credits.

There are three different ways that international offsets are designed.

Sector-based program. The Act would have the EPA Administrator in consultation with the Secretary of State and Administrator of the Agency for International Development identify sectors of specific countries where emissions credits can be generated only on a sectoral basis (as I discussed in the discussion draft). The program could be applied to the same sectors as covered by the US cap so this would include electricity, industrial sources, and transportation.

Deforestation. Offset credits can be generated from deforestation emissions reductions, as I'll discuss in more detail below.

Other offset types. Sectors not covered by the sectoral regulation would still be available to generate credits, if the Administrator determines the offset category eligible. These sources wouldn't have to be controlled at a sectoral level before they can generate credits.

These provisions create important tools to help encourage emissions reductions by developing countries and to help reduce global emissions.

Incentives for reductions in deforestation emissions. The bill contains two incentive mechanisms -- dedicated set aside of allowances and carbon offsets -- to reduce emissions from deforestation (as in the discussion draft, with some changes). These two provisions will play a critical role in beginning to address the global warming pollution from deforestation. And NRDC just released principles with a major coalition of businesses, environmental NGOs, conservation, and development groups to support these efforts as the progress through Congress.

Market readiness and emissions reductions through the "supplemental". The bill sets aside 5% of allowances to aid in achieving deforestation reductions from 2012-2025. The amount declines to 3% from 2026-2030 and 2% for 2031-2050. This dedicated source of funding for deforestation will help provide needed incentives to slow the loss of the world's tropical deforestation and the associated 20% of global warming pollution from its loss. And this funding will help to supplement emissions reductions achieved by the cap.

In addition to achieving emissions reductions, the program is designed to prevent emissions leakage where deforestation shifts from participating to non participating countries. And it is to prepare developing countries to participate in international offset systems for deforestation. The program is designed to support a variety of activities, including supporting national and subnational emissions reduction activities, forest governance, illegal logging prevention, and enforcement.

Funds generated through this program may be distributed to an international fund to reduce deforestation emissions or through bilateral assistance.

Carbon credits for deforestation reductions. International offsets may be issued from efforts that reduce deforestation emissions. As in the discussion draft, the program allows offsets to be generated for national level deforestation reductions. Countries that generate credits must have established a baseline that declines to zero net emissions after 20 years, account for nationally appropriate mitigation commitments, and cover all significant sources of deforestation emissions. Eligible countries also are required to have developed a "land use or forest sector strategic plan".

This bill adds a new program that allows subnational emissions reductions. In countries that are significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, subnational crediting is only allowed for states and provinces that reduce their state/province deforestation emissions. For smaller emitters, projects and programs that generate emissions reductions are eligible to generate carbon credits provided that they meet strong environmental criteria. Subnational emissions reductions are phased out in order to ensure a transition to a national crediting system, with the possibility of extending the program for an additional time period for the least developed countries.

The program can be extended to other sources of forestry emissions (e.g., degradation and peatland carbon loss, as appropriate).

Incentives for clean energy export to developing countries that take on their own commitment. The bill includes the creation of an International Clean Technology Fund by dedicating a defined portion of the allowances to support the export of clean technologies to developing countries and encourage developing country actions. The amount of allowances dedicated is 1% from 2012-2021, increasing to 2% from 2022-2026 and 4% 2027-2050.

This investment will help provide tools for US global warming negotiators to secure strong actions from major emitting countries and create opportunities for US companies to export our clean technologies to these markets. This is an important signal of the need for this effort. It will need to be built upon as the climate bill progresses this year in order to help secure a strong agreement in Copenhagen.

The program recognizes that protecting Americans from the impacts of global warming requires global reductions and outlines a program to:

encourage countries to adopt policies and measures that substantially reduce emissions;
assist in the widespread deployment of technologies that reduce emissions; and
increase the demand for clean energy products and open up new markets for US companies.

In order to receive incentives, the developing country has to: (1) have entered into a multilateral agreement where they undertake measurable, reportable, and verifiable emissions reduction actions; (2) have put in place national policies and measures to reduce their emissions; and (3) developed a mitigation strategy that seeks to achieve substantial emission reductions. Least developed countries are excluded from these eligibility criteria.

An interagency group, overseen by the Secretary of State, designs the implementation of this program. It is to be designed to encourage countries to undertake sector-based and cross-sector policies and measures and only to support programs that achieve substantial emissions reductions. The program can support: carbon capture and storage technologies to retrofit existing facilities and pay the incremental cost of new facilities, renewable electricity, energy efficiency, reductions in transportation emissions, black carbon reductions, and capacity building activities.

Funding can be provided through bilateral assistance or multilateral funds and institutions agreed under the international climate agreement. If funding goes to an international fund or institution the program can only be used for the eligible countries and activities specified. No more than 15% of bilateral assistance is to go to any single country.

The costs of the supported activities are to be shared by the developing country recipient, private sector, or multinational development bank. This cost-share is not required for least developing countries recognizing their different circumstances.

The supported activity is to be subject to a system to monitor and evaluate its performance. An annual report is to be submitted that details the amount of funding distributed, the activities supported, and an estimate of the emissions reductions achieved.

Developing country adaptation and reducing national security threats. The bill sets aside a dedicated source of allowances for an International Climate Change Adaptation Program. The amount starts at 1% of allowances from 2012-2021, increases to 2% for 2022-2026 and 4% for 2027-2050.

This investment will provide some needed resources to help reduce future national security challenges expected to arise from the impacts of global warming (as a new study from retired senior military officers and national security experts points out), help the most vulnerable populations adapt to global warming, and provide some funding necessary to secure a strong agreement in Copenhagen. More will need to be dedicated to these efforts, but this is an important signal of the need for these resources.

Funding can be provided through bilateral assistance or multilateral funds and institutions agreed under the international climate agreement. Between 40 and 60% of the allowances dedicated for this program are to provided to a multilateral fund or institution.

Multilateral funds or institutions receiving funding have to meet certain program requirements. These programs have to be governed by a body that includes representatives from the most vulnerable developing countries, protects local communities and indigenous peoples in areas that receive funding, and provides an annual report on the support activities.

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As one of our advertisements said at the beginning of the year: "It is time to get working"! Get working on clean energy solutions, a cap on global warming pollution, and the tools necessary to help secure a strong agreement in Copenhagen, Denmark later this year.

As this debate unfolds, we will be working to help provide the necessary tools for US global warming negotiators as they go into Copenhagen.

Faithfully Securing our Future: New Coalition Pushes for Global Warming Action and Adaptation Support

2009-05-06T15:00:24Z

A new coalition of U.S. Representatives, faith and military leaders unveiled a new push to secure strong global warming policy and ensure that the most vulnerable throughout the world are supported in efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change. This effort was launched with the support of U.S. Representatives Heath Shuler (D-NC) and Tom Perriello (D-VA).

The group launched a major new advertising and email campaign to push for action to address global warming (listen to the ad here and see the press release), bolstered by new polling that shows a strong majority of American's, Catholics, and Evangelicals support action on global warming pollution (see poll results here).

This campaign also focused on the need to ensure that sufficient international adaptation funding is included in the final legislation to ensure that "the most vulnerable populations in developing countries have the resources they need to proactively adapt to climate change".

When I told some "non-climate" people about the make-up of this coalition -- not normally aligned groups -- their eyebrows rose a bit. It seemed a curious collection -- military, religious, and Members of Congress -- why are they working together to address global warming?

Well it actually makes more sense than you would think.

A growing collection of religious organizations have recognized that addressing global warming is:

"a moral duty to care for God's creation and to care for the needs of those who are contributing the least to climate change but bearing the brunt of its burden", as Congressman Tom Perriello put it.

And a number of powerful voices in the military and security community have begun to stress that the impacts of global warming will increase "threat multipliers" around the world. As Rear Admiral Stuart Franklin Platt, USN Ret, a highly-decorated Vietnam veteran stated:

"Global climate change is one of the greatest threats to our national security both because it literally threatens the very planet we inhabit and because the droughts, famine, and floods it creates threaten to destabilize regions around the world."

And of importance to the international global warming negotiations occurring as we speak, this group has recognized that one of the key elements to address these "moral" and "security" challenges is to support the most vulnerable countries and populations around the world in adapting to impacts of climate change.

As I discussed here and as an NRDC alum discussed here, the discussion draft released by Chairmen Waxman and Markey included some key provisions to support international adaptation efforts. What wasn't spelled out was the source of the funding for these efforts and the amount of money provided to address the international adaptation challenge. And a lot of groups, including NRDC, are working to ensure significant funding for international adaptation (and see here).

This is a critical piece of the puzzle that needs strong support as US legislation moves towards becoming law and as the US climate negotiators go into Copenhagen with as many tools as they can get to secure a strong international global warming agreement.

This group of religious, military, and Congressmen are calling for just such international adaptation funding to be provided in the global warming bill. This is a very helpful push at a critical juncture.

So let's go forth and faithfully secure our future, by addressing climate change and supporting international adaptation efforts!

Some Small Steps in the Right Direction on Global Warming by the Major Economies

2009-04-28T21:46:17Z

The first meeting of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) on Energy and Climate has just concluded. This forum is a critical channel to help secure a strong agreement in Copenhagen. This process provides a unique setting for the largest emitting countries to come together to discuss strong actions to solve global warming -- by "moving from rhetoric to agreement".

Getting agreement will require all countries to move from their public positions some. And this process was an important small step towards building more trust. Much more leadership will have to emerge over the coming months if we are to secure a strong agreement in Copenhagen.

Countries will need to start discussing: "what if we did this, would you be willing to do that...and if you provided this, we could do that". Without that conversation occurring amongst the participants in the Major Economies Forum, the chances of getting Heads of Government to agree in Copenhagen are slim.

So this process has a lot riding on its shoulders.

This first meeting wasn't expected to deliver any tangible outcomes. From the outside the impact of this first meeting will be small. No major announcements were expected and none were delivered. But from some conversations I had with participants, the discussions on the inside provided some glimpse that this process can help in the lead-in to Copenhagen.

Here are just a few of the inside discussions that stuck out in my mind:

President Obama is truly committed to a clean energy and global warming agenda. Outside the cameras, President Obama took a bit of time out of his extremely busy schedule to meet with the lead delegates from the participating countries. This small step was very well received by the participants that I talked to...as it showed his true commitment to this issue. And especially because he didn't do it as a photo-op, but rather outside the limelight of the presidency. He signaled that the US was back, but mostly wanted to hear from the participants what they thought. Small gestures like this can go a long way in these international negotiations.
Congressional action is picking up pace and is serious. A number of delegates were very curious how the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearings went last week, what was happening this week in the House, how would things progress, and what was happening in the Senate? It is probably too obvious to say, but all international eyes are closely affixed on what the US does. US leadership is the cornerstone of an agreement in Copenhagen.
General goodwill, but some serious discussions. Overall, most participants seemed to feel that the spirit of the meeting was good. There was a lot less rhetoric than has recently emerged in the international negotiations, but there was enough disagreement on some key issues to know that countries were taking this forum serious. If they weren't serious, then you wouldn't have any moments of disagreement. After all, solving global warming will require every country to move from their stated public position and there are some differences at this stage that will have to be resolved.

There is a busy negotiating session before Copenhagen and two more preparatory meetings of the Major Economies Forum. Plenty of opportunity to get agreement, but only if a few countries signal their willingness to be leaders and stick their necks out.

Step-by-step the world will have to come together to agree to a solution to global warming. And this meeting is one small, but important step towards that goal.