Road to Copenhagen : Communiqués

Steen Gade, GLOBE Europe Chairman, delivers the Communiqué to Connie Hedegaard, Danish Minister for Climate and Energy, at the UNFCCC COP 14 meeting in Poznan

The Communiqué will be developed thanks to the input received on the forums, via the Wiki, and during the final Road to Copenhagen III Conference in 8-9 December 2009.

As legislators and representatives of business and civil society we support the vision set out by the G8, under the Japanese presidency, including the global goal of a 50 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Parties must unite around a vision to limit the global temperature increase to at most 2C above pre-industrial levels. Global emissions growth must be stabilized by 2020 and emissions must be halved by 2050 compared to 1990 levels.

Under the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, industrialised countries should lead the way by taking on deep, binding emissions reduction targets. Whereas advanced developing countries should take steps to control and stabilise their own emissions by 2020, in line with their respective capabilities and with a view to making future absolute emissions reductions. This action should be conditional on:

In that context, we support the launch of the Climate Investment Fund by the World Bank at the G8 Summit in Japan and urge industrialised countries to pledge financial support ahead of the COP14 in Poznan. However, to be effective in fighting climate change, and realize the full potential of clean renewable technologies, we will need all actors to be on board and they will need effective standards and tools with which to work. Climate policies must have a strong base of democratic accountability where the role of Parliament is crucial. People of all countries have a right to be heard and to actively participate in the elaboration of National positions in the UNFCC negotiations. The Copenhagen agreement must allow for a bottom-up approach and develop frameworks and tools to enable action, not only for nation states, but also for business and civil society to evelop tools that can drive technological development and benefit-sharing (financial and other control over resources such as land). With this view we
recognise that:

Global Sectoral Agreements that cut across the borders of the nation state should be developed. Each industrial sector should agree on sectorspecific issues such as the promotion of key-technologies, burdensharing, human rights, gender equality, technology transfer, financing and on how to measure, report and verify emissions. Private-public partnerships on a national, regional or global level should be promoted and facilitated.
Clean technologies have a huge potential in terms of job creation and improving economic and social prosperity. We need more research, development and supporting structures to enhance the diffusion of existing patented and retrofitted technologies.
Emphasis should be given to broad-scale communication to citizens and consumers to drive awareness of energy-efficiency and sustainable consumer behaviour.
Given that millions of poor men and women affected by climate change live and work outside the reach of formal markets, clean energy technologies must be developed and accessible not only for use on a large scale in industrialized economies, but also at an appropriate level for developing countries based on their needs and their particular vulnerabilities. The Framework for Technology Transfer and the allocation of global funds (such as the Global Environmental Facility) should address this issue as a matter of ensuring climate justice and fair burden-sharing.

It is also crucial that industrialised countries take strong and immediate steps to increase assistance to the least developed countries for adaptation. Climate change impacts in particular on the world´s poorest and most vulnerable communities, including indigenous people. By the year 2050, 8 billion of the projected 9 billion global population will live in what are currently classified as developing countries. This dilemma substantially threatens achievement of the MDGs. Although estimates of the cost of adaptation in the developing world are very difficult to quantify, and can be indicative only, we estimate that, at best, 1 per cent of the resources required are currently available via the levy on the CDM mechanism. Hence new and innovative ways to create extra funding must be
found, ideally based on the “polluter pays” principle. As the poorest contribute least to the changing climate, this raises a question of justice and calls for the need for equitable solutions. Polluters must be held responsible for the damage they cause. Therefore we believe it is imperative that;

Climate justice is recognized as a guiding principle for the upcoming negotiations in Copenhagen. The real impact of a successor to the Kyoto protocol should be measured by universally acknowledged Human Rights Standards.
Treaties under the UNFCCC umbrella should ensure that action taken in the context of adaptation, mitigation and technology transfer are in compliance with human rights frameworks and international and national commitments on gender equality and equity, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
Recommendations that the OHCHR will put forward to the HRC in spring 2009 within the mandate to report on the human rights aspects of climate change should be incorporated in the negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Climate justice is intrinsically linked to adaptation since climate change will hit hardest on the world´s poorest and most vulnerable communities. Given the high estimated costs of adaptation (USD 30-80 billion per annum annually), substantial new and additional resources should be committed by all industrialized countries to ensure adaptation in the developing world.

Adaptation should be given equal prominence to mitigation in the post-2012 negotiations and should be a priority of action in the most vulnerable countries.
There should be stronger linkages between existing international, regional, and local bodies and the UNFCCC to ensure coordination of adaption planning assistance and funding.
Given the appropriate ownership by developing countries, any additional innovative funding sources for adaptation in developing countries should be equitably managed, and as far as possible, through the framework of the UNFCCC. National Adaptation Plans of Action should be strengthened and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers should be updated to include analyses of developing countries’ climate change risks, identify priority policies for reducing vulnerability, and provide estimates of financing. For this purpose a UNFCCC adaptation body should be established to provide support, better co-ordination, ensure human rights and promote gender equality and follow up on implementation.
Climate change adaptation strategies should build resilience of communities and be focused on reducing and managing risk for all sectors including weather-related hazards, coastal risk management and land use, natural resource management, public health, public displacement, forestry, agriculture and biodiversity. Emphasis should be given to the most vulnerable people and communities.

Adaptation strategies should be built on existing institutional frameworks and agreements and contribute to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

We urge the UN negotiators to send a signal of urgency and set out a clear work plan for next year that maximises the chances of success in Copenhagen in December 2009, based on the principles outlined above. In return we will do all we can to create the political conditions for success through our contacts with political leaders, business and civil society communities.

Thank you to everyone who made amendments to the communiqué Wiki on this site. We used the input received here, together with the discussions at the conference in Brussels on 23rd November, to formulate the final version of the communiqué to go to Bali. Please, read the final version that was handed directly to Yvo de Boer, Chair of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, by Elliot Morley, President of GLOBE International, at Bali in December 2007. On the communiqué Wiki, we have responded to each individual’s Wiki amendments and explained how we have taken them on board or, if we have not, why we have not.

Our understanding of the science and economics of climate change is better than ever before and yet man's emissions of greenhouse gases are increasing rapidly. We urgently need a breakthrough at the UN Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC/Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Bali in December 2007 to help set the world on a pathway to climate stabilisation for the post-2012 period, when the first commitment period of Kyoto expires. At the same time we must quickly prepare for the increased risk of extreme weather events that are already affecting many countries. As members of legislatures representing views from across the political spectrum, former world leaders, business and civil society leaders we believe that a clear, fair and effective global treaty backed by strong national policies can reduce global greenhouse gas emissions on a scale necessary to achieve the stabilisation of our climate. Indeed, we strongly believe that a fair, effective and ambitious global treaty, negotiated under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is the most appropriate way to secure climate, energy, economic, health and physical security for all. It is clear from the Stern Review and the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the longer we delay action, the more costly it will be, both in terms of mitigation and in terms of the impacts many countries are already experiencing. The issue is about risk: physical, economic and regulatory risk. The low-risk path is to have an ambitious, global treaty with long-term, predictable and stable national, regional and international regulation. Such a treaty will minimise the risk of physical impacts of climate change and the regulatory risk of unpredictable and hasty or ill-considered reactions from governments. The high-risk path is to do nothing resulting in unpredictable climate impacts that, in turn, lead to increased regulatory risk as governments react hurriedly either unilaterally or regionally. We must minimise the risk and maximize the opportunities. Given the differentiated impact of climate change on women and men it is important that gender equality be a cross-cutting issue in the negotiations. We therefore urge negotiators in Bali to:

begin inclusive negotiations on a progressive, comprehensive and binding post-2012 framework that will set the world on a path to deliver a global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of at least 50 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050 with interim targets towards that goal (recognising that developed countries, who have more capacity to act, should accept targets of at least 60-80 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050)
determine the key building blocks around which negotiations will take place:

mitigation (including a shared long term goal; absolute emission reduction targets for developed countries to drive an international carbon market, including the aviation and maritime sectors; and the development of new and flexible types of contributions from developing countries such as policies and measures to decarbonise economic growth, measures to avoid deforestation and land degradation and protection of biodiversity);
adaptation (including support for vulnerability assessments, enhancing resilience, disaster risk reduction, access to information and capacity building);
technology (including a 5-fold increase in global R&D, including a commitment to greater international cooperation between leading industrialised nations such as the G8 and EU and technology transfer of new and existing technologies to developing countries); and
finance (the creation of a climate fund and support for innovative financing mechanisms for mitigation and adaptation, including disaster risk reduction, avoided deforestation, development and deployment of new and existing renewable energy technologies such as sustainable bio-fuels, wind and solar; and the expansion of the Clean Development Mechanism)

commit to a step-change in communications, strengthening links to business, NGOs and citizens who, although they do not have a seat at the negotiating table, are critical stakeholders
Create a roadmap from Bali to Poznan (2008) to Copenhagen (2009), with clear milestones, that lays the foundations for a successful conclusion in 2009.

using our domestic political processes to raise the urgency and scale of the climate change issue with our political leaders;
building support among our legislative bodies to create the political space for ambitious action;
further integrating climate change into our considerations of foreign, security and development policy;
integrating gender equality as a cross-cutting issue;
promoting innovative and strategic action in the private sector, encouraging business to help;
shape the policy process and to contribute in its areas of special capacity such as technological development and risk management;
using our links with citizens to create awareness of practical actions that we can all take to reduce emissions and promote a low carbon economy;
developing, via our interactive working groups, a substantive policy input to the negotiating process; and
reducing our own energy use