COP17 Durban Climate Conference Nov 7-11

I've taken a closer look at those shocking figures on 2010 emissions released by the US Department of Energy last week. Just to remind you, global carbon dioxide emissions jumped by 6% over 2009, prompting gloomy media reflections that we are already ahead of worst-case IPCC projection scenarios. 

As the conference in Durban draws closer, a number of commentators are asking whether the UN Talks are the best way to solve the climate crisis. Is it time we gave up on the process and looked for another solution? Here is my take on the question.

One of the big issues to be negotiated in Durban is the future of the Kyoto Protocol – a pact agreed in 1997, which commits 37 richer countries to legally binding targets for their emissions cuts. The ‘first commitment period’ of targets ends this year and was due to be followed by a second series of tougher emissions commitments. The difficulty comes because some countries are refusing to agree fresh targets, unless new major polluters like China and India, as well as the US (which never ratified the pact), also join them. The following statements give a sense of the different positions on the Protocol - and show why it will be the subject of some tough negotiations:

Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General:


Alf Wills, chief negotiator for South Africa: 


Todd Stern, US Special Envoy for Climate Change:


Peter Kent, Canadian Environment Minister: 


Joint statement from Brazil, South Africa, India and China:


Kelly Rigg, Executive Director of tcktcktck, a coalition of more than 200 civil society groups:


All of this begs the question, with countries apparently at loggerheads over the the Kyoto Protocol, how can the negotiations move forward? Tim Gore, international climate change policy advisor at Oxfam, shines a light on the compromise that might emerge:

Let's talk about energy intensity and why we might hear more about it in Durban than in previous UNFCCC conferences.

Last week Ban Ki-moon appointed members of his High-level Group on Sustainable Energy for All. They have to come up with a plan to achieve three energy goals that global leaders will be asked to approve at the Rio+20 summit.

One of the goals is to speed up the rate of improvement in global use of energy to 2.5% per annum, double the rate in recent history. This is all about decoupling economic growth from emissions.

I'm curious how this initiative relates to the UNFCCC process. Is Mr.Ban's intensity target a helpful prop for Durban or a sign that he's looking to new pastures to fight climate change?

Then there's doubts about the adequacy of his target. A gloomy PwC report published on Monday said that we need to reduce energy intensity by 4.8% per annum, almost double the UN ambition.

The World Energy Outlook 2011 published this morning reaches a similar conclusion. In assessing the impact of doubling the historic improvement in energy efficiency, it warns: "we need to achieve an even higher pace of change," if we are to keep the CO2e atmospheric concentration down to 450.

This is the punishment for inaction on global warming - the solutions rapidly enter the crazy zone

Following the release of a Harry Potter-themed campaigning poster last week, activists have again sought to capture the drama of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations. It's Saving Private Ryan that gets the photoshop treatment this time around, as the pressure builds on Europe to sign a second commitment period - thereby keeping the treaty alive.

There's extensive media coverage of the World Energy Outlook 2011 that was published yesterday. Most of the articles seized on the statement that we are almost in the frame for global warming of 3.5°C, an intolerable prospect.

Few of the reports mentioned the section on "Energy for All" which gets to grips with the issue of 1.3 billion people who have no electricity and 2.6 billion whose cooking stoves are damaging their health as well as the planet.

This injustice may get a better airing in Durban than is customary. This is after all the first UNFCCC "conference of the parties" to be held in sub-Saharan Africa, where energy poverty is most acute.

How do you set about providing electricity for so many people at the same time as challenging the rest of the world to cut back its energy consumption? Is energy poverty a problem for mitigation or adaptation?

I've made a first attempt at answering these questions in this article. And we were fortunate to have access to an early release of the Energy for All chapter in preparing our new Energy Poverty Guide.

In a speech delivered in Brussels yesterday, Christiana Figueres outlined how the talks might overcome the impasse on the future of the Kyoto Protocol. To keep all sides happy, she said, Durban needs to deliver promises of further emissions cuts from developed countries under the Protocol, while also working on a new broader agreement that includes targets for major emerging polluters like India and China. 

This new broader agreement "is in fact evolving" but needs more time before it can be operational. Figueres is pinning her hopes on the EU to act as a "political bridge" by signing up to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, thereby keeping the treaty alive while a broader agreement is finalised. "This political balance will be at the very core of the Durban discussions."

You can watch the relevant part of her speech below - though it might be worth familiarising yourself with some UN climate jargon first.

On Wednesday the UN climate team released a paper for discussion in Durban on the important subject of loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in vulnerable developing countries.

Under the terms of the 2010 Cancun Agreements, the UN working group was allowed two years to come up with recommendations for the 2012 talks.

Which is just as well because this discussion paper doesn't get far beyond earnest references to workshops, technical papers and "modalities". This is a shame because lots of good work has been done recently on disaster risk management, led by ideas on climate insurance.

There are signs of understandable impatience amongst the countries most at risk. The draft Dhaka Declaration to be discussed at the Climate Vulnerable Forum starting on Sunday includes a demand that  funds should be available to compensate for severe weather events.

The richer countries should wake up to this concern because we're only a small step away from the alternative of legal action for reparations for climate damages.

Legal principles are being explored in an interesting series of grassroots Gender and Climate Justice Tribunals organised in 15 countries by the Feminist Task Force and the Global Call to Action against Poverty in memory of Wangari Maathai. IPS News is covering many of them, including yesterday's report on the tribunal in Bangladesh.

A caravan of young African faith group activists is rumbling its way across Africa collecting signatures for a climate change petition to the Durban conference.

Having started in Kenya, they've just announced that nearly 15,000 signatures were added in Tanzania. They are due to arrive in Malawi today.

It all ends up with an big interfaith rally in Durban on 27th November. Christiana Figueres and Bishop Desmond Tutu should be there, along with hosts of musicians.

The petition has an excellent text and you can sign up online here. I guess this photo is from Tanzania: