Copenhagen Climate Treaty Summary

Copenhagen Climate Treaty

Members of the NGO Community: Alden Meyer USA, Athena Ballesteros Philippines, Bill Hare Australia, Carlos Alberto de Maltos, Scaramuzza Brazil, CHENG Qian China, Christoph Bals Germany, Claire Langley UK, Claire Stockwell Canada, Dale Marshall Canada, Damien Demailly France, Daniel Mittler Germany, Diana Movius USA, Diane McFadzien Cook Islands, Doug Boucher USA, Emily Brickell UK, HOU, Yanli China, Irina, Stavchuk Ukraine, Jake Schmidt USA, Jan Kowalzig Germany, Jennifer Morgan USA, John Nordbo Denmark, Kaisa Kosonen Finland, Karen Regina Suassuna Brazil, Katherine Watts UK, Kathrin Gutmann Germany, Keya Chatterjee USA, Kim Carstensen Denmark, Kirsten Macey Australia, Kit Vaughan UK LI Yan China, Mark Lutes Canada, Martin Kaiser Germany, Matthew Findlay UK, Naoyuki Yamagishi Japan, Peter Lockley UK, Regine Guenther Germany, Richard Worthington South Africa, Roman Czebiniak USA, Sandeep Champling Rai Nepal, Shane Tomlinson UK, Srinivas Krishnaswamy India, Stefan Henningsson Sweden, Stephan Singer Germany, Sven Harrmeling Germany, Tara Rao India, Tasneem Essop South Africa, Wael Hmaidan Lebanon

The overall ambition of the Copenhagen deal must be to keep the rise of the world’s average annual temperature as far below 2°C warming as necessary, compared to pre-industrial levels, to avoid catastrophic climate change. The planet’s annual global carbon budget from all sources of greenhouse gases would in 2020 be no higher than 36.1 Gt CO2e (giga tons of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions), roughly equal to 1990 levels and would need to be reduced to 7.2 Gt CO2e in 2050, in other words by 80 % below 1990 levels. To put the world rapidly onto an emissions reduction pathway that can achieve that, global emissions need to come back to 1990 levels by 2020.

All countries must contribute to preventing dangerous climate change. As a group, they should commit to an emissions pathway that includes targets for industrial GHG emissions of at least 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 and at least 95% below 1990 levels for 2050. This would mean overall carbon emissions of no more than 11.7 Gt CO2e in 2020 and no more than 1.0 Gt CO2e in 2050.

The new Copenhagen Climate Facility (CCF) would be an enhanced finance & technology mechanism learning from the experience of already existing institutions. It should reflect a democratic decision-making structure with an equitable and balanced regional representation, ensuring significant representation from developing countries, as well as formal representation from relevant stakeholders.

Defining a Technology Development Objective will help to guide, transfer and drive Technology Action Programmes and should include: increasing financing for mitigation and adaptation related research, development and demonstration to at least double current levels by 2012 and four times current levels by 2020, with a key focus on bilateral and

multilateral cooperative initiatives; obtaining a global average of at least two thirds of the world’s primary energy demand from renewable energy sources by 2050, with the mid term goal of achieving at least 20 percent by 2020; improving average energy intensity of the global economy by 2.5% per year until 2050; and securing access to modern energy services for all people by 2025, without locking them into a high GHG intensity development path.

The vast majority of the 160 billion US$ per year should be deposited in the Copenhagen Climate Facility and apportioned by the four Boards as follows: 56 billion US$ per year for adaptation activities; plus 7 billion US$ per year for a multilateral insurance mechanism; 42 billion US$ per year for REDD; and 55 billion US$ for mitigation and technology diffusion per year.

As forest destruction is responsible for close to 20% of global emissions. This must be done in a manner that promotes the protection of biodiversity and fully respects the rights of local and indigenous peoples. Countries should commit to reducing emissions from deforestation to 1 Gt CO2e or less by 2020 or at least 75% below estimated 1990 emissions, with a view to eliminating nearly all human induced forest emissions by 2030.

Governments must agree to a shared vision that maps out the international effort required to fight climate change and summarizes what is required for enhanced action on each of the building blocks of the Bali Action Plan.

The Copenhagen Protocol and Kyoto Protocol as amended should be viewed as a package encompassing the international community’s response to avoiding dangerous climate change. Countries should ratify the amendment of the Kyoto Protocol (with the exception of the Annex 1 non-KP ratifiers) and the Copenhagen Protocol simultaneously.

A five year commitment period is necessary for two important reasons: firstly, because five years falls within the period of governments’ planning horizons and it is a length of time where they can be held accountable; secondly, because the knowledge about climate science and the experience with implementation of the UNFCCC increases rapidly, five year steps are a good period to update the international framework. 2013-2017, 2018-2022…

All countries, based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, must reduce or limit emissions of greenhouse gases if a rapid reduction of global emissions is to be achieved.

The annual global carbon budget in 2020 from all sources of greenhouse gases (not counting those controlled by the Montréal Protocol) would be no higher than 36.1 Gt CO2e, roughly equal to 1990 levels, and would need to be reduced to 7.2 Gt CO2e in 2050, in other words by 80 % below 1990 levels.

As part of the shared vision to avoid dangerous climate change, industrialized countries,7 as a group, should commit to an emissions pathway that includes targets for industrial GHG emissions of at least 40% below 1990 levels8 by 2020 and at least 95% below 1990 levels for 2050. This would mean capping their aggregate emissions to no more than 11.7 Gt CO2e in 2020 and no more than 1.0 Gt CO2e in 2050. An indication of their 2030 and 2040 carbon budgets should also be provided (namely, 7.8 Gt CO2e and 3.9 Gt CO2e respectively).

Industrialized countries must massively scale up financial, technological and capacity support to developing countries for their mitigation and adaptation efforts. In the next commitment period, at least 160 billion US$12 per year should be raised by industrialized countries, primarily through the auctioning of emissions allowances to cover developing countries’ incremental costs.

Each industrialized country, including every NIC, should develop a Zero Carbon Action Plan (ZCAP) for meeting its dual obligations. This forward looking plan should identify the transformation strategies, and policies and measures a country plans to implement to meet its QERC or QERLC and stay within its carbon budget through 2020, 2030, 2040, and 2050.This Plan should be in addition to national communications but build on and link to the national communication process and guidelines already in existence, where appropriate.

These countries, as a group, should, through their Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) and supported and enabled by industrialized countries, aim to limit their industrial GHG emissions to less than 25 Gt CO2e annually during the 2013- 2017 period and should aim to keep their emissions to 23.5 Gt CO2e by 2020. This translates as a non binding aim for developing countries as a group to limit their emissions to 84% above 1990 levels by 2020, in order to stay within the 2020 carbon budget. By 2050, developing countries, as a group, should aim to keep their emissions to 6.3 Gt CO2e. This would mean aiming for reducing emission by 51% by 2050 compared to 1990 levels.

For interacting with the Climate Facility each country would establish or designate one or several In-country Coordinating Mechanisms (ICM), which would be a nationally appropriate, country-driven process representing all relevant stakeholders.

Adaptation Board would: receive at least 63 US$ billion annually over the 2013-2017 period, provided in particular by industrialized country Parties to fulfill their commitments to support developing country parties to adapt to climate change; primarily disburse financial support, in the form of grants not loans, to developing countries for planning and implementing adaptation, particularly LDCs, SIDS and African countries prone to droughts, floods and desertification and other extremely poor and vulnerable countries; support capacity building, urgent priority actions as well as longer-term national adaptation action strategies; earmark [10%] of the resources to support actions under the Adaptation.

The Kyoto Adaptation Fund should do what it is designed to do also in the post-2012 world. The provisions of the Kyoto Adaptation Fund may be more suitable for some national circumstances, including providing funding for stand-alone activities.

The CRM should have the objective to adequately deal with loss and damage from adverse impacts of climate change that cannot be avoided through pro-active adaptation and cannot be covered by the Climate Risk Insurance Mechanism but require extreme responses for affected communities, such as resettlement and migration.

The aims of these plans are three-fold – first, to provide a visionary long-term aim for a low carbon trajectory based on a global carbon budget; second, to identify and achieve the required timely investments for the economy-wide transformation needed to achieve low carbon sustainable development and third, in the case of developing countries, to assess, in an objective manner, what a country needs, in terms of finance, technology and capacity building, to meet the long term aim.

Industrialized countries must significantly transform their economies, shifting rapidly from a high carbon economic growth model to a zero carbon sustainable development model, in order to avoid dangerous climate change in line with the reductions needed in order to stay as far below as 2oC as necessary. Zero Carbon Action Plan (ZCAP) The guidelines for ZCAP preparation should be decided at COP 15. The ZCAP should include a summary of the key provisions of national laws and policies that would demonstrate the planned measures to reduce emissions and provide support for adaptation and mitigation externally.

If a country is found to be out of compliance with its QERC or support obligations at the end of a commitment period, financial penalties should be levied by the Enforcement Branch. All financial penalties should be paid into the Copenhagen Climate Facility and support adaptation activities.

The LCAPs should aim to address the top emitting sectors in the country and outline the set of NAMAs that will contribute to the overall achievement of the low carbontrajectory for the country.

NAMAs may take various forms, including SD-PAMS, sectoral no-lose targets, REDD activities, and others. As a general rule countries should provide the following information: details on the exact nature and status of NAMAs; expected emissions reductions from unilateral NAMAs and when those reductions are expected to be achieved (e.g., 2015, 2020, etc.); barriers (need for capacity building, etc.) to achieving the expected emissions reductions from unilateral NAMAs; opportunities to go further than unilateral NAMAs, including detailed financial, technology and capacity building needs linked to each NAMA; proposed indicators to measure the success of the NAMAs; proposed mechanisms for receiving support for the supported NAMAs (e.g., grants, joint R&D, guarantees, loans etc.); and identification of the role foreseen for crediting mechanisms.

National Communications, together with updates on GHG inventories, should be reviewed by an expert review team using a separate set of guidelines from those used for industrialized countries. The expert review team should then prepare a review report to the CMCP, assessing implementation of each Party’s NAMAs and identifying any potential problems in, and factors influencing, their fulfillment.

Support for technology cooperation, transfer and diffusion needs to be rapidly expanded in order to meet the mitigation and adaptation challenges posed by climate change, as developing the next generation of low-carbon technologies will be crucial to meeting the shared vision and staying within the carbon budget.

The primary source of revenue should be through the auctioning of roughly [10%21]22 of the emissions value of the industrialized countries’ targets,23 with additional financing from international bunkers levies and other means, e.g. national auctioning that meets MRV criteria. If auctioning does not enable an industrialized country to meet its assessed amount.

A REDD mechanism should be established, governed by a REDD Board. Developing countries should develop National Action Plans on REDD, in line with their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans and integrated into their LCAPs. Governments must ensure that any REDD mechanism is consistent with international human rights agreements and declarations, with particular attention to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and ILO Convention 169. Mandatory standards to protect the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities and biological diversity should be developed.

Emissions from international aviation and shipping should be brought within industrialised countries’ national emissions limits by an amendment to Annex A of the Kyoto Protocol, on the basis of on fuels sold within the Annex-I countries. This is necessary to ensure comprehensive accounting of emissions from industrialised countries.

For advanced developing countries the Copenhagen agreement should provide new carbon market mechanisms (credited mitigation actions, CMAs) that incentivize longterm low carbon development planning on a sectoral or economy-wide level and build on lessons learned with CDM.

The state of climate science is evolving rapidly. The Copenhagen Agreement should include a regular review provision, with the first review beginning in 2014 and based on the AR5. The agreement should also include an ‘emergency review clause’ which could be triggered by a double majority of industrialized and developing countries based on emerging science that demonstrates the need for even stricter targets. The final Copenhagen agreement must balance the need for ambition with equity, the need for short-term action with medium and long-term certainty and vision on all aspects of the Bali Action Plan and the need for a legally binding form within current process constraints.

The new agreement must also build trust through transparency and rigorous data collection and verification in a manner that reflects the different capabilities of countries. Creating such a system will allow Parties to be more ambitious, trusting that others are also reaching to the outer limits of what is possible. The compliance system must therefore also be strengthened as suggested.

Click On Links:
Obama Failed Climate Change; Lied to Europeans
Barack Obama First Year Presidential Actions
Obama’s Approval Rating
The World’s Most Powerful People
Impeach Obama
Obama Promises One Year Later
Obama/House Passes Climate Change Bill
Obama Cooling Air To Fight Global Warming

[tweetmeme source=”emtsut”]

2009

11/18

CATEGORY

Documents

TAGS

Afghanistan
Australia
Barack Obama
Black People
Brazil
Canada
Carbon Emissions
China
Climate Change
Copenhagen
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Government Take Over
India
Iran
Iraq
Japan
Kyoto Treaty
Mexico
National Issues
Politics
Russia
Sweden
White People

Write comment