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By Rashme Sehgal Let's face it, says UNFCCC chief Yvo de Boer, without financial support the engagement of developing countries in climate change mitigation is inconceivable. Rich countries need to place $ 10 billion on the table to get the action plan moving, besides demonstrating clearly how developing nations can get long-term funding in order to pick up the bill to implement these changes
Yvo de Boer was appointed Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC in August 2006. He has been involved in climate change policies since 1994. He has helped prepare the position of the European Union in the lead-up to the negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol, assisted in the design of the internal burden-sharing of the European Union and has since led delegations to the UNFCCC negotiations. He has actively sought broad stakeholder involvement on the issue of climate change. To that end, he launched an international dialogue on clean development mechanisms and has partnered international discussions with the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, aimed at increasing private sector involvement. There seem to be any number of pitfalls before an agreement can be arrived at in Copenhagen. The negotiating time left is extremely small. Nations have to prepare a national comprehensive action plan before 2012. This action plan will look at several issues. It will look at the whole issue of technology transfer as capacity-building. Rich countries have to deliver clear emission targets and there needs to be clarity on what developing countries will do to contain emissions. The emission reduction targets announced by developed countries are not ambitious enough. But fixing targets is a relatively simple job. I believe getting the US, which has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, on board is a more complicated process. What about the financial packages being demanded by the developing world? There seems to be no agreement over that? The developing countries want to see a financial package on the table. There has to be clarity on the institutional package that will be worked out. I believe developing countries need clarity on four key points. These include greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for industrialised countries, action plans of major developing countries like China and India to limit the growth of their emissions, provision of financial support by industrialised countries to developing nations to undertake adaptation and mitigation measures and an institutional framework for leading global action on climate change. They need clear deadlines for this final stretch of the road. If the Copenhagen conference does not deliver on these key issues, it will be deemed a failure. Let's face it, without financial support the engagement of developing countries is inconceivable. The issue is not of providing short-term funding but of providing real money. Rich countries need to place $ 10 billion on the table to get the action plan moving. They need to demonstrate clearly how developing nations can get long-term funding in order to pick up the bill to implement these changes. They have to agree to a clear formula. Funding is of prime importance because once the spotlight moves away (from the conference) the attention (on this subject) will reduce. British prime minister Gordon Brown spoke of providing $100 million for this global climate fund? The British prime minister is talking about private funding. Our own estimates show that by 2030, we will need $200 billion a year to adapt to the costs of climate change. But at the same time I would like to believe that there is a very high probability that an agreement will be worked out because everyone wishes to see agreement. That is why I believe that President Obama wants the US healthcare issue out of the way. Once the US healthcare issue is out of the way, I believe he will make sure the US also comes aboard. Everyone is looking at the US to show leadership on this issue. The US in turn is keen that developing countries make emissions cuts which are close to what they are prepared to make. Last month, the Danish prime minister also talked about taking bilateral action. I believe the discussion must be kept focused and must concentrate on the essentials. How do you react to the criticism that the emission targets of industrialised nations are not ambitious enough? Before I reply to that question let me emphasise that a large part of this process is about how 145 very poor countries are going to adapt to the impact of climate change. They need to be helped to grow their economies in a cleaner way. The European Union has taken the lead on reducing CO2 output by promising to slash emissions by 20% by 2020, and by 30% if other industrialised countries follow suit. I know that people complain that my thinking is in favour of developing countries. I try to make a distinction between the Secretariat -- which is, and should be, neutral -- and my own personal role. So if you don't like it, shoot at me, don't shoot at the Secretariat. Recently, finance ministers of the G20 nations met and were asked to come up with options on how to deal with this situation. Talks on this matter will now continue in greater detail in Barcelona. What are your views on waiving of IPR rights on the whole issue of clean technologies? The issue of IPR rights is a complicated one. On one hand there is the recognition that we need to respect investments made in the field of private technology. These include solar, coal and a host of other areas. We need to pool revenues in order to make these available more quickly. Then there is work going on in the area of advanced technologies – high-risk technologies that have not proved themselves. Public money is being spent on these areas but we still have to prove them – to see whether they will work or not. People point out that we need to learn from the HIV/AIDS example. But here we are talking about one or two medicines that can be used around the globe. In the case of climate change, we are talking about the transference of thousands of technologies and that complicates the matter. Already there is an attempt to water down the Kyoto Protocol. The listing of targets is an easy step. It is bringing all the different groups to the negotiating table under the climate convention which is a much more complicated process. The UNFCCC’s Adaptation Fund has not taken off till now. Developing countries say that rich countries prefer to channel money through the World Bank’s climate funds because they can control them better. How are you going to resolve the issue? The Adaptation Fund is a new fund and has not taken off. We expect it to be fully operational before the Copenhagen summit. While developing countries are expected to take adaptive actions to the pollution that has already occurred, mitigation is an inclusive process and it requires innovation. Science and technology developments have a great role to play in mitigation. The setting up of a national climate change mitigation authority would be a welcome step in this direction. Will the Clean Development Mechanism be able to put a system of checks and balances in place? We need to change economic growth to a more sustainable manner of growth. Already, India is spending 2% of GDP on climate adaptation. I have all along maintained that we need to make the CDM more efficient. So far only a small group of countries are benefiting from it. Of course there are issues about the availability of carbon space. Developing countries are asking for 25-40% of this space. We must continue with the Kyoto Protocol. It provides us with a useful architecture and it will be with us till 2020. Emissions have gone up from 2007 and so it is time that we have firm commitments in place. Given the state of negotiations and the time constraints, is it realistically possible to achieve a robust agreement in Copenhagen? I am not a prophet. It’s very difficult for me to say. We do have the architecture under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. So I believe it’s technically possible to get an agreement finalised in Copenhagen. The problem is not the technical issue. Everything now depends on the political will. Infochange News & Features, November 2009
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