By Camila Bustos

In 2009, Members of Indigenous Organizations Including COICA Gathered to Form a Human Banner. Photo Credit: www.galdu.org
As climate finance and “loss and damage” payments dominated the agenda at last November's United Nations climate change negotiations in Warsaw, Poland, indigenous peoples’ groups fought to be heard.

One of the most vocal and visible indigenous groups at the UN climate talks, COICA (The Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon) was founded in 1984 as the umbrella group for more than 350 indigenous organizations in nine different countries. It works to address issues of human rights, self-determination, and natural resource protection.

By David Ciplet and Alison Kirsch



Subsidies to dirty and wealthy fossil fuel companies represent a paradoxical misalignment of priorities. Action to remove fossil fuel subsidies must be a centerpiece of international and national climate efforts.



The final embers of heated debate have fully fizzled out at the UN climate change negotiations in coal-friendly Poland. While the formal negotiations were plagued by inaction, one hopeful dialogue emerged in Warsaw among some of the most influential players in global politics.

In a series of panels, representatives of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, International Energy Agency and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development all argued the benefits of, and need for, fossil fuel subsidy reform.

As Rachel Kyte, vice president of Sustainable Development at the World Bank explained during a panel on the subject, "This is the ultimate test of policy coherence. We can try to raise $100 billion. We can, as multilateral development banks, invest $27 billion in climate mitigation and adaptation projects [as we did] last year alone. But we're wasting $500 billion in fossil fuel subsidies each year."

Data from the organization Oil Change International confirms that the wealthy world is subsidizing the extraction, processing, transportation and use of oil, coal and natural gas at a rate of more than five times that of what we are contributing to help countries affected by climate change to adapt.

This is a gross and paradoxical misalignment of priorities. Governments waste precious time and money maintaining an uneven playing field for the largest fossil polluters, providing $6 to carbon-intensive fuels for every $1 that goes to renewable sources. Meanwhile, poor countries continue to experience climate change impacts worst and first. Those in the least-developed countries experience deaths from climate-related disasters like typhoons, droughts and floods at a rate of nearly six times the global average.

Yet, the current dialogue and efforts among the large multilateral development organizations are incomplete. The World Bank, for example, despite progress on a new policy to limit loans to coal, continues to finance fossil fuel projects. According to Oil Change International, fossil fuel lending from the bank actually increased from 2012 to 2013, with $336 million of continuing support for fossil fuel exploration projects.

Steve Kretzmann at Oil Change International explained, "Without a doubt, we have to think about putting production subsidies, particularly subsidies for new exploration in the red [unfavorable] category, and that's because we have IEA [International Energy Agency] and IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] telling us we need to leave roughly two-thirds of the existing fossil fuels in the ground if we're going to meet our goals of staying under 2 degrees of climate change."

He continued, "Why in God's name are we spending billions more, incentivizing companies to find more of something that we can't burn? That makes absolutely no sense."

New research published in the journal Climatic Change revealed that just 90 companies produce two-thirds of all greenhouse gas emissions, with many of the biggest receiving large annual subsidies. In the United States alone, the top five investor-owned corporations on this major polluter list - Chevron, Exxon Mobil, British Petroleum, Shell and ConocoPhillips - receive $2.4 billion of tax breaks from Congress annually, despite holding more than $71 billion of cash reserves.

The growing international attention on this issue is beginning to pay off. The UK and the United States recently committed to stop funding coal-fired power stations in developing countries. And this week, the ministers of 28 member states of the International Energy Agency committed to phase out "inefficient" fossil fuel subsidies. They also encouraged countries to take subsidy reform into account as they prepare their commitments for a new international climate framework, to be agreed upon in 2015.

However, previous commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies made in 2009 by governments of the Group of 20 major economies have yet to be fulfilled. If we are to have any chance to prevent catastrophic climate change and redress the impacts of already-locked-in warming experienced by vulnerable peoples around the world, eliminating fossil fuel welfare to mega-polluters like Chevron and Exxon Mobil will need to become a centerpiece of the UN climate negotiations in 2014.

This will require civil society to ramp up efforts to challenge government handouts to big oil, gas and coal. These efforts already have broad public support. Fossil fuel subsidy reform means taking a firm stand against giveaways to the wealthiest and dirtiest corporations on the planet, while providing targeted support to the poor as we transition to sustainable energy.

Copyright, Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission.

By Alison Kirsch and Guy Edwards 



Chile is at a crossroads. Copper prices are falling, the gap between energy supply and demand is widening, and in December the second round of presidential elections will determine who will lead Chile in the next administration. Chile faces a difficult balancing act to maintain its strong economic growth and the energy this requires, while ensuring progress on its climate, environmental and clean energy goals. In this whirlwind of domestic change, Chile has the opportunity to reaffirm its position as a global leader on climate change.



Chile has the highest income per capita in all of South America, largely thanks to a recent boom in copper exports to China. Yet mining is energy-intensive and the government estimates that Chile will need to increase its energy supply 16% by 2020. As an energy-poor country, Chile is forced to import 75% of its energy, including expensive liquid natural gas. Sourcing this energy and its high price tag has generated a politicized and difficult debate without an easy way forward.

Meanwhile, Chile is making progress on its pledge to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 20% below 2007 levels by 2020. Chile also recently doubled its renewable energy target from 10% by 2024 to 20% by 2025. At the UN climate change negotiations, Chile is part of the Association of Independent Latin American and Caribbean States (AILAC, in Spanish), which includes Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, and Peru. This group, currently co-chaired by Chile and Colombia, emerged in 2012 in an effort to break away from the stifling North-South divide and push for binding emission reductions for all countries in a new treaty by 2015.

As the recent COP19 climate negotiations in Poland entered their second week, former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet secured an easy victory in the first round of presidential elections. In December Bachelet will face a runoff with the second-place candidate, Evelyn Matthei, from which she will likely emerge the winner.

Current president Sebastián Piñera will leave office without establishing a clear vision on national energy policy. Bachelet supports a variety of energy projects, including new coal-fired power plants and expanded import of liquid natural gas. Alarmingly, discussions of climate change and low-carbon development were largely absent from the presidential campaign.

At the center of this prickly energy debate is the controversy surrounding HidroAysén, a proposed 2,750-megawatt hydroelectric project in Patagonia. Piñera’s administration has postponed a decision on HidroAysén until after the elections. Bachelet is often quoted as saying that HidroAysén is “not viable.” Yet Waldemar Coutts, from Chile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, believes Chile “needs to seek new energy sources to maintain growth, highlighting, in particular, non-conventional renewables.” Though Bachelet continues to promote importing expensive liquid natural gas, mounting pressure to feed the country’s hunger for energy could push her to reconsider her position on HidroAysén.

Andrés Pirazzoli, from Chile’s Office of Climate Change, said of the election, “We don’t foresee that it’s going to have significant impact [on climate change policy] due to nonpartisan consistency across administrations.”

Enrique Maurtua, regional coordinator for the Latin American branch of the Climate Action Network, is confident in Chile’s ability to lead AILAC alongside Colombia, but notes the tension between environmental concerns and Chile’s interests as a mining country. “If they succeed on the energy issues they are having, they will be a good model for the rest of Latin America,” he said.

Chile is not the only AILAC country whose economy depends on the extraction of natural resources. AILAC’s members’ similar backgrounds support collective ambition:  all AILAC countries have pre-2020 mitigation commitments, which is not true for many other developing countries. Might Chile take the plunge to further solidify its leadership and increase its own ambition before 2020? “It is still early to say, but Chile is doing its best to build capacity at home and develop as many domestic mitigation actions plans as possible. We want to quantify our every effort towards our goal, with an aim to exceed the challenge,” said Pirazzoli.

In the meantime, Coutts states, “We are a constructive group of countries, but we do not hesitate to demand that developed countries do more in terms of providing leadership and financial assistance.”

After the limited success of COP19, attention is shifting rapidly to the UN climate negotiations in 2014. With the pre-COP in Venezuela and COP20 in Peru, 2014 will be Latin America’s year. This is an opportunity for Chile and AILAC to exert a larger influence in the push for significant commitments and a new climate change regime by 2015. Yet AILAC can only be an international pacesetter if the domestic policies of its member countries reflect the group’s ambitious rhetoric at the UN.

With a new administration and shifting dynamics in the energy and mining sectors, Chile is on the precipice of change and can seize the opportunity to consolidate and enhance its actions on climate change. Backtracking now or failing to sufficiently implement its domestic policies will only serve to dilute Chile and AILAC’s progressive voice and leadership. Both are urgently needed to push aside the North-South divide and progress towards an ambitious and binding agreement for all countries in 2015.

Another version of this article was originally published here. 

By Alexis Durand 

Photo: Push Europe
Activists lay down in the halls of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Warsaw, Poland last week, forming the letters “W.T.F.” with their bodies.  The letters stood for “Where’s The Finance?,” and their message was clear - the failure to revamp the funding to help developing countries green their economies and prepare for climate change impacts had turned the conference into a deep disappointment.

The frustration expressed in the action reflected the sentiments that defined the recent international climate negotiations, the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP19).  COP19 was expected by many to be ‘the finance COP,’ and some hoped that this round of negotiations would produce a fair agreement on the future of climate finance and pave the way for further finance negotiations in Paris in 2015, when the global climate deal is supposed to be struck.

Most nations agree that developing countries need pledges of financial assistance from wealthier nations to contribute to domestic efforts to reduce their emissions and to adapt to the effects of climate change.  The World Bank estimates that developing countries’ needs will increase to hundreds of billions of dollars a year by 2020.   However, developed and developing countries have vastly different ideas of the form this support should take.  Because of these tensions, COP19 has failed to produce a meaningful pathway towards equitable climate finance.  Should we be surprised?  An autopsy of climate finance and the political tensions surrounding it reveals that the possibility of a powerful and just climate finance deal for 2013 was truly dead on arrival.

In Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries collectively pledged US$30 billion per year to support mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries.  Parties pledged to scale-up the yearly sum to US$100 billion after this ‘fast start’ finance period ended in 2012.  Although countries indicated that they have successfully delivered the agreed-upon sum during the fast-start period, the outlook for long-term funding is grim.  It seems that mobilized finance has plateaued after the fast-start finance period, and the Overseas Development Institute notes that pledges to UN climate funds have dropped 71% in 2013.

The issue of increasing the overall quantity and effectiveness of funds was advanced only fractionally during the Warsaw negotiations - transparency remains low, recent pledges are modest, and effective and just delivery of funds is still not assured.

The political climate at the negotiations made progress towards an improved new period of scaled-up climate finance impossible.  At COP19, the climate finance conversation remained split sharply along the divide between the global North and South.  Many of the 48 Least Developed Countries continued to push for quantifiable pathways for developing countries’ efforts to scale up climate finance, arguing that predictability is critical for them to plan their actions.  Additionally, they want the newest multilateral UN finance channel, the Green Climate Fund, to be well funded and to finally begin operations.

But none of the developed countries have yet committed to a scaling-up pathway.  Indeed, the UK is the only developed country to declare that countries should commit to roadmaps to scaling up public finance.  This adverse political climate, spurred by North-South tensions and conflicting ideologies, made the creation of an equitable and just climate finance scale-up system unlikely.

Certainly, progress has been made at COP19.  Several developed countries have publicly pledged funds to UN climate finance channels.  The Adaptation Fund reached its modest US$100 million fundraising goal during the COP, and the Green Climate Fund announced that it is completing the final steps that will enable it to begin operations.

Nevertheless, new pledges fall far short of the agreed-upon value and developing countries’ needs.  Additionally, transparency remains dubious, and no further action was taken at the COP to ensure that the finance is “new and additional” (as promised), or that it is distributed as grants rather than loans.  Pathways to scale up climate finance to the agreed-upon US$100 billion by 2020 were not established; even proposals to create an intermediate target (US$70 billion by 2016) were not accepted.  Developing countries left COP19 without a predictable source of funding.

In light of the results of the fast start finance period and the political climate at COP19, it is not surprising that negotiators failed to justly resolve the issue of climate finance.  After all of the negotiations and dialogues, trust between developed and developing countries was lower than ever, and developing countries had no confidence that developed countries will scale up finance adequately.

This raises the question: Is the demise of the possibility for a just climate finance deal symptomatic of a greater disease?  For decades, conflicting ideologies have created a climate stalemate, preventing the creation of a robust international climate action plan.  Compromise is a difficult pill to swallow, and sometimes developed countries must be willing to reach an agreement on developing countries’ terms.  As we approach the milestone COP21 in Paris, nations need to act collectively to protect mutual interests, prioritizing finance delivery to promote global climate justice.  A paradigm shift is necessary to resuscitate the possibility of just climate finance and an effective climate regime.

This article was originally published here.

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