By Guy Edwards and Timmons Roberts 



As delegates begin to reflect on the limited success of the UN Climate Change negotiations in Warsaw which ended last week, eyes are now turning optimistically to Peru as the incoming president of COP20 in 2014.



Poland, as host of COP19, has now taken three bites at the apple of leading UN climate negotiations, and a number of observers believe the country is too compromised with its coal dependency and drive for economic growth to guide the world to a low-carbon future requiring tough choices.

Although the conference in Warsaw managed to secure some progress on a range of issues, Peru will have to do some very heavy lifting to ensure the delicate timetable of agreeing a new climate deal in Paris in 2015 is kept on track.

This is all sounds slightly familiar. After the train wreck in 2009 at the COP15 in Copenhagen, Mexico rode to the rescue of multilateralism the following year at COP16 in Cancún.

Mexico created a Special Representative for Climate Change and dispatched one of its top diplomats, Luis Alfonso de Alba, to rebuild confidence in the process. De Alba spent roughly 250 days in 2010 travelling around the world, listening to countries rich and poor. Mexico lowered expectations and adopted a pragmatic approach that served to rebuild trust and encourage consensus.

Mexico’s position as a middle-income country helped to build consensus. Former Mexican President Felipe Calderón and his foreign minister, Patricia Espinosa, put climate change at the top of the political agenda and were committed to a successful outcome at COP16.

Calderón decided that the process needed extensive multilateral experience, so the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took responsibility instead of the Ministry of Environment. At COP16 considerable attention was placed on the process of inclusion as much as the content.

Consequently, nearly all countries had only praise for Mexico’s stewardship (Bolivia was a lone resistor).

Peru is next up and has great potential to secure progress in the global climate negotiations at COP20 in Lima in 2014.

Peru is a bridge builder between developing and developed countries and is considered a leading actor on climate change. In 2008, it was the first developing country to announce a voluntary emission reduction pledge, offering to reduce the net deforestation of primary forests to 0 by 2021 and produce 33 percent of its total energy use from renewable sources by 2020.

In 2010 Peru’s Ministry of Environment published its Plan of Action for Adaptation and Mitigation of Climate Change (Plan CC). However, according to the Latin American Platform on Climate, the low level of implementation of its domestic climate policies still needs urgent attention.

At the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Peru is part of the Association of Independent Latin American and Caribbean States (in Spanish, AILAC) alongside Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Panama.

AILAC attempts to build consensus between developed and developing countries on the need for all to take ambitious action on climate change, and on the importance of there being a legally binding agreement holding countries to account. However, AILAC countries at times come under fire for their domestic policies, which seem to clash with their progressive rhetoric at the UNFCCC.

Alongside its AILAC partners and others—including the United Kingdom and Bangladesh—Peru also participates in the Cartagena Dialogue for Progressive Action. The Dialogue is an informal space, open to countries working towards an ambitious, comprehensive and legally binding regime, and committed domestically to becoming or remaining low-carbon economies. The Dialogue has been able to achieve progress at the negotiations by seeking collective ambition from all countries, particularly at COP16 and COP17.

En route to COP20, Peru has a year to make a vital contribution to restore confidence and ratchet up global climate action. Otherwise, the goal of producing a draft text in Lima to be decided in Paris at COP21 in 2015 will be simply unreachable.

Peru could focus on three key strategies. First, Mexico’s extensive and tireless preparations and management of COP16 should serve as a template. Mexico’s participation in the Cartagena Dialogue as COP16 president was also crucial.  This experience shows that Peru can be more active in the Dialogue without undermining its neutrality.

Peru’s climate diplomacy in 2014 could focus on the following key players. A major step is to reach across to the major emitters – including the U.S., Japan, Australia and Canada.

Peru and the EU share similar views on the need for ambitious action to increase progress in the negotiations. Discussions surrounding an increase in ambition by the EU and Peru and its AILAC partners could increase confidence. As Venezuela will be hosting the pre-COP20 event, close collaboration between Peru and Venezuela and the other ALBA countries (e.g., Ecuador and Bolivia, the group is the Bolivarian Alliance for Our Americas) will be essential in ensuring a strong regional voice calling for progress in Lima.

Peru can also attempt to facilitate dialogue between the U.S. and the BASIC group—Brazil, China, India and South Africa. Finally, Peru’s diplomacy with the least developed countries (LDCs) and the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) is paramount in ensuring that the most vulnerable are actively involved.

Second, Peru’s flexible interpretation of the critical phrase “Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities”, and its view that all countries need to act to varying degrees to reduce emissions, will be essential. So will driving forward discussions on equity, which again arose this year in Warsaw.

Peru’s membership in AILAC and the idea of the “beautiful middle” can help put medium-sized countries at the center of the climate debate. A focus on reducing emissions by all—which is contingent on developed country support on climate finance, adaptation and capacity building—can help establish a more holistic narrative tying together the myriad threads of the negotiations.

As a medium-sized country, Peru can develop and drive forward this narrative and avoid the polarizing debates between the North and South that undermine the talks.

Third, when Peru put forward its voluntary pledge, it established a new climate discourse. This discourse needs a boost and a major platform to test its utility. COP20 can be that space.  Peru, alongside its AILAC partners, can put ambition front and center by promoting their collective pledges. AILAC may also consider increasing their own pledges and activities in the interest of generating confidence in the process and promoting low-carbon growth.

Combining these strategies could revitalise the UNFCCC process following the modest results in in  Warsaw. As a country very vulnerable to climate impacts, Peru can promote urgency, ambition and equity. Lima will be a decisive battleground to ensure the 2015 deadline for a new deal is not missed. Peru must start this daunting task now in earnest.

This article was published on the RTCC website. An earlier version was originally published on Brookings. 

By Olivia Santiago 

With the onset of sea level rise and increase in extreme weather events, entire island nations face extermination. Islands in the Pacific Ocean are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and are some of the first countries being forced to migrate from their homeland.

At the closing of the UN climate negotiations today, these small island states are negotiating for their very survival as they are forcibly being driven from their homes as a result of climate change.

Kiribati, a low-lying South Pacific country, is using the UN climate negotiations as a platform to bring light to these climate-induced forced migrants. Recently, the Kiribati government has suggested relocating the entire island’s population of 100,000.

The process of relocation has already begun. Earlier this year, Kiribati President Anote Tong confirmed plans to buy 6,000 acres of land in Fiji to ensure food security for his people. Kiribati’s food production has been hard-hit by the sea level rise, with saline water intruding on the fertile soil of the island.

Last month, Ione Teitiota from Kiribati sought asylum for his family in New Zealand, asking that country’s High Court to allow him to claim climate change refugee status. The verdict is pending, as no international law currently exists to address the rights of climate change refugees.

According to the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee has historically been defined as a person whose “fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion” has made him or her “unable” or “unwilling” to seek protection in the home country.

Written in 1951, the document primarily addressed migrants from war and persecution. The idea of displaced peoples due to global warming did not exist.

The term “refugee” implies something temporary. Island states like Kiribati are not dealing with people who seek sanctuary elsewhere because of the political, social, or economic situation in their homeland. These are people who have been permanently displaced due to climate change – circumstances neither they nor their governments created. They do not have the ability or choice of returning one day to their homeland, as it will be submerged underwater.

Many ambiguities and problems remain with addressing the rights of these people: When does an island nation decide to move? And if so, where? When a country moves to a new land, does it still exist in law? Although these issues are being included in discussions about a “loss and damage” mechanism within the UN climate negotiations, how do governments and policy makers quantify the loss of an entire homeland?

Ambassador Ronald Jumeau, who represents the Seychelles at the United Nations and who is chief negotiator of the Small Island Developing States, is addressing these questions. He points out questions about how “host” countries take these immigrants in, and how sea level rise even in their own countries could make less land available for newcomers.

“How does the Seychelles start a discussion, if we don’t know where we’re going in the first place? At what time do we decide to move?” he asks.

“We haven’t prepared for it,” he says. People in his country “are very much aware, but this is the last thing you want to talk about.”

There is a very real potential of entire societies disappearing. A conversation to respond to this crisis needs to start within the United Nations, incorporating impacted peoples, elected leaders of island communities and states, and human rights groups and academia in the process. And it needs to start immediately.

A loss and damage mechanism established by the U.N. to provide compensation for climate impacts should be a critical step. However, additional steps must be taken to update the U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and related legal frameworks and support systems. Some nations are beyond the point of loss – they are facing extinction.

This article was originally published here. 

By Timmons Roberts and Claire Langley 

The winter skies were a dim grey as the second and final week began at the United Nations climate change negotiations in Warsaw, Poland.  Sadly, the hopes for an ambitious global effort to address the grave risks of a destabilized climate look similarly dim. 

The drumbeat of negativity is drowning out those who would put a brave face on the hopes for a strong global effort on climate.  Typhoon Haiyan has brought on a desperate response from some developing countries and NGOs, as it is being seen as a reflection of the urgency with which to address climate change.

In the big picture, a plan was put forward two years ago in Durban to reach a new agreement on climate change by 2015, which would then enter into force in 2020.  This agreement may take the form of either a "protocol, [a] legal instrument or [an] agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all parties."

It is still unclear at this point which outcome is most likely or how meaningful the agreement might be.  Debate continues around a number of issues:  the character of nations’ commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, the nature and extent of differentiation of commitments between rich and poor countries, and a process to assess and consider commitments and how to change them if they are too weak.

Another issue under discussion is whether countries should have pledges in hand by September, 2014, when Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called for a high level meeting of the United Nations in New York, and what to do if those pledges are too weak to address the problem.  But even having them in hand in time for this deadline seems increasingly unlikely.

These yearly Conference of the Parties (COP) negotiations often hit a nadir about this time in the two-week cycle, but this year is worse than usual.  Japan and Australia have emerged as the villains this year. The new Australian government has repeatedly been voted the “Fossil of the Day” by the international NGO Climate Action Network due to its refusal to send a minister to Warsaw and for undermining discussions on climate finance. And Japan sharply walked back its pledge to reduce emissions from 2005 levels by 25 percent, instead seeking a 3.8 percent reduction in emissions by 2020.  A large network of African NGOs has asked the African negotiating group to simply walk out.

Finance is seen as the main issue at Warsaw that has the potential to clear some roadblocks on the path to a 2015 agreement, but progress here has stalled also.  There was a groundbreaking commitment made in Copenhagen and implemented in Cancun to scale up financing from about $10 billion a year to $100 billion a year by 2020, but several elements are still unclear: how much of the funds should come from public or private sources; how much should go toward helping countries adapt to climate change; and how to measure and track the funds.  Adding to the lack of progress on this long term goal is the absence of concrete commitments for midterm financing to fill the gap through 2020. The least developed countries proposed early this week a midterm target of $60 billion by 2016, while the Africa Group has called for $70 billion by 2016.

Now, the co-chairs of the ADP track (the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action) have produced a new text from which to negotiate the 2015 agreement.  Yet even this text is basic and reads like a “to do” list.  It does not set a date for when parties should put forward their pledges for emissions reductions or for scaled up finance commitments.  The new text also does not define the scope for new finance commitments, which alternatively could be addressed by Ministers releasing statements on this in the high level segment of negotiations beginning Wednesday.

The United States, United Kingdom, Norway and Germany are reported to have pledges forthcoming on finance for the protection of standing forests under the REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) program, while Australia leads another group in arguing that the lion’s share of climate finance will need to come from the private sector and that there are many emerging economies that are wealthy enough to make their own pledges.  Given the recession and need for economic growth, they say, obligations or mandatory obligations from developed countries are not realistic and therefore not acceptable.

Discussions on a 2015 agreement are not progressing and are being put in jeopardy by a lack of movement on finance.  The G77+China group of 134 developing countries is pushing hard for finance pledges, saying that funding needs to be scaled up in line with what was promised through 2020 during negotiations in Copenhagen and Cancun, and that progress on this long term finance goal must be demonstrated before discussions on 2015 emission reduction commitments are allowed to continue.

In anticipation of weak financial pledges, the Climate Action Network staged a protest in the enormous national stadium in Warsaw on Tuesday, spelling out a giant “WTF?” to ask “Where’s the Finance?”  The exasperation of environmental NGOs at this point, however, is expressed in both meanings of the acronym.

Another hot topic in Warsaw concerns an interesting but difficult proposal by Brazil has been put on the table for calculating emission reduction pledges, using historical emissions based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) data.  This is based on the principles of equity and historical responsibility, central words in the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  Some countries (mainly in the European Union) feel that focusing on the one indicator of historical emissions is too narrow—there are concerns that this type of mechanism could politicize the IPCC’s work.  There are also fears that developing a new approach could delay agreement until after 2015, so Brazil’s proposal has been pushed to some sub-negotiating tracks and is currently still under discussion.

One of the most acute areas of disagreement is over a new issue under negotiation called “loss and damage.”  This issue is concerned with how developing countries are compensated for harm done by climate change that cannot be adapted to.  The issue was originally raised by the Alliance of Small Island States way back in 1989.  The issue came to the attention of the 48 least developed countries a few years ago, and they have pushed hard for it to be taken up in its own mechanism separate from the “adaptation” agenda— adversely complicating these efforts, several prominent developed countries (e.g. the European Union and United States) have indicated they would prefer loss and damage to be covered under existing adaptation mechanisms and institutions.

So in Warsaw we wait for the skies to clear—for a ray of sunshine and hope to shine into a darkly polarized world.  Even winter days can be brilliantly sunny; it remains to be seen if any of that sun can break through to the meeting rooms of the Warsaw stadium.  The question is who has a cloud busting machine that powerful.

This article was originally published here. 

By Olivia Santiago



The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has partnered with the Climate and Development Lab to provide a concise document to be presented by the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the upcoming United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference (UNFCCC) of the Parties (COP19). The briefing policy will be used by LDCs to advocate for more equitable and adequate access to finance to mitigate their vulnerability to climate change.



The paper highlights the worsening situation in LDCs to climate change. Although not responsible for the vast majority of climate-related issues, LDCs experience the impacts worst and first. LDCs suffered more than five times the global average of climate related disaster deaths from 2010 to July 2013. As climate disasters worsen and the intensity of sea level rise increases, the burden of responding to climate change should fall upon those most responsible for causing the problem and those most capable to address it.

Over ten years ago, the UNFCCC prioritized LDCs for support through National Adaptation Programs of Action (NAPAs) to improve these vulnerable countries’ adaptive capacity, or “the ability or potential of a system to respond successfully to climate variability and change” (definition taken directly from article). Working alongside the UNFCCC, forty-nine LDCs have created their NAPAs to identify “urgent and immediate needs” which have identified social, economic, and environmental vulnerability to climate stresses.

However, finance delivered from wealthy countries to enable the implementation of NAPAs has been inadequate, providing only US $4 billion of the estimated US$86-109 billion needed over the past three years. This lack of funding is further exacerbated because the funding from the wealthy nations is often diverted from other pressing development needs such as health and education. Unsurprisingly, climate finance, especially for adaptation, has been a top priority for the LDC Group in the UNFCCC negotiations. The group has made several submissions and interventions related to climate finance since the previous climate negotiations including: the full funding of NAPAs, provision of adequate and additional finance, ensuring predictable and sustainable funds, support adaptation, improving disbursement practices, and prioritizing the most vulnerable.

We hope the COP19 will provide the LDCs with the opportunity to make progress on some of these core issues and to continue pushing for the full funding for the NAPA program. The countries who are most impacted by climate change yet who have the least capacity to adapt need to be aided by those who are most responsible for the problem and the most capable of addressing it.

To download the full IIED Briefing Paper PDF, click here: http://pubs.iied.org/17181IIED.html