COP17 Durban Climate Conference - Nov 12-15

In Bangladesh more than a million households have installed solar panels, representing one of the fastest rates of growth in use of solar technology in the world.

Meanwhile, two of the biggest polluting countries, US and UK, are tying themselves in knots with penny-pinching squabbles over solar subsidies.

This is the message for Durban from the Climate Vulnerable Forum which starts in Bangladesh tomorrow. The countries most affected by the injustice of  global warming are making the biggest relative efforts to cut emissions.

350.org is encouraging us to express support for these countries through messages on Facebook. And they've persuaded the indefatigable Saleemul Huq to give more background in his latest videoblog. Four minutes without autocue (I think) and I struggled to notice more than a couple of hesitations.

We've heard a lot lately about the idea of planetary boundaries, separate tipping points of environmental mayhem, with incalculable feedback loops between them.

We should perhaps think more about social and political boundaries of tolerance, especially within countries threatened by a climate crisis which is not their fault.

How much longer will they be prepared to turn up at UN conferences, squeezed between a domestic existential rock and the hard political intransigence which is the preserve of the most powerful countries?

I'd love to know how each of the vulnerable countries now meeting in Bangladesh really feels about how close they are to these limits of climate injustice:

* the political threshold of despair - the point at which the favourite phrase of UN climate talks - "long term cooperative action" - becomes a joke
* the bureaucratic threshold - when the demands of "measurement, reporting and verification" become even more disproportionate to the non-arrival of promised climate finance
* the public tolerance threshold - are there sufficient outlets for expression of anger as people in vulnerable countries become more aware of the cause of their predicament?
* the limits to adaptation - when no amount of cash can save a local environment and people start moving

These South African Greenpeace activists are having difficulty lining up their banner for the camera but it's nevertheless an impressive warm-up stunt for the Durban conference.

This is the Eskom building site at Kusile, controversially supported by World Bank funding, and set to become one of the dirtiest coal-fired power stations in the world.

As well as the Greenpeace action, recent days have seen two further developments on coal issues for the UN talks. But it's not a suitable subject for a Sunday so I'll try to make sense of them tomorrow.

The Climate Vulnerable Forum 2011 kicked off its agenda today in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Ministers from the countries most affected by climate change will be discussing how to approach the Durban climate talks.

Although China is not a member of the CVF, a representative of the embassy in Dhaka made a statement to the Forum. Having demanded that "developed countries should provide large-scale, new, extra and predictable funds for tackling climate change," he added a slightly curious afterthought:

Working with DARA, my colleagues from OneClimate are busy with video interviews with participants in Dhaka. The Director-General of DARA, Ross Mountain, has encouraged members of the Forum to stick to their guns in insisting that 1.5 degrees should be the limit of  temperature change in determining reductions in carbon emissions.

Here in Bangladesh the second day of the Climate Vulnerable Forum is underway.

More on that statement from China yesterday: Many of the countries in attendance here are members of the "G77 and China" negotiating bloc at the UN Climate Talks. China is keen to position itself alongside vulnerable countries because they have a clear moral basis for demanding that the developed world start making serious emissions cuts. Developed countries meanwhile are keen to differentiate between the most vulnerable countries and major emitters like China, arguing that regardless of historical responsibility, major emitters need to start committing to reducing carbon pollution themselves. 

Not a surprise then that following the Chinese statement yesterday, the UK has released its own statement to the meeting this morning, an extract of which is below:


It seems that the real-politik of the negotiations between China and developed countries is being played out here in Bangladesh.
 
You can find the latest videos and interviews from the Climate Vulnerable Forum on our OneWorldTV youtube channel.

I've read Ban Ki-moon's speech to inaugurate the Climate Vulnerable Forum in Bangladesh earlier today. I know it's Monday morning but it feels like a lead balloon job to me.

Do the world's most vulnerable countries really want to be advised to work hard on their disaster risk management and, by the way, expect a compromise at Durban on the legal obligation of the richer countries to extend the Kyoto Protocol?

This may be rough cut of Mr Ban's statement but he could have been more sensitive to the draft Dhaka Declaration under discussion here:


The presentation by Sheikh Hasina, prime minister of Bangladesh, was completely different in tone, full of constructive additional demands to place before the Durban conference. I'll try to pull them together in a separate post.

Sheikh Hasina's speech at the Climate Vulnerable Forum this morning is worth a look as a rare example of a national leader (and/or speech-writer) who really gets it on climate change.

In less than three pages, she connects the spiralling economic cost of global warming with the failure of international leadership since the 1992 Earth Summit. In deploring the injustice meted out to countries like Bangladesh, the PM said:


Watch out for this phrase "major emitters". It invariably indicates a swipe at countries like China and India of which this is a five-star example.

Warming to this theme, Sheikh Hasina proposed an overhaul of criteria for allocation of climate funds which "seem to favor countries that have greater capacity."

She encouraged the vulnerable countries to make more noise on other subjects that the UN talks prefer to avoid - such as a framework for dealing with climate refugees and the unacceptable relabelling of development aid as climate finance.

Let's make a guess at what the prime minister of Bangladesh had mind at the Climate Vulnerable Forum when she grumbled that climate finance and technology programs "seem to favor countries that have greater capacity."

How about coal-fired power stations in neighbouring India? There are no fewer than 32 such applications approved or pending for award of carbon credits by the Clean Development Mechanism. The potential rewards can be measured in billions of dollars.

The watchdog NGO, CDM Watch, together with the Sierra Club in the US, wants the Durban conference to kick coal out of the CDM once and for all.

They argue that the more efficient supercritical technology would be adopted anyway by India (and other countries). Last week they were backed up in a report by the CDM Executive's own technical advisory panel.

The relevant CDM Board meeting takes place through next week.

The UN climate change secretariat has just released the very sad news of the sudden death of Mr. Mama Konaté, the Malian veteran of many rounds of international climate talks.

Mr Konaté was Chair of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), one of the two administrative bodies serving the Kyoto Protocol.

Vital meetings of SBSTA are due to start in Durban in just two weeks.

Just a reminder for those of you planning to attend the UN climate talks that Durban is a fixture on those lists of world cities at risk from rising sea levels.

At you can see from the photo below, the International Conference Centre venue is well and truly surrounded by the sea. Listen out for any severe weather warnings!

The Natal authorities have plans to paint a blue line in the city streets tracing a potential high water mark of the future. You're invited to join a march during the summit to raise local awareness of the threat of climate change.

In this interview with OneClimate yesterday, Ahmed Naseem, Maldives Foreign Minister, offers pragmatic and surprising ideas for injecting momentum to the UN climate process. Less talk about emissions reductions and more about renewable energy sources is his formula.

José María Figueres, former President of Costa Rica, repeats his controversial call for an Occupy Durban movement in this interview with OneClimate.

In forceful mood on the sidelines of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, Mr Figueres explains the parallels between the economic grievance of the Occupy movement and the injustice of climate change.

He may be unaware that an embryonic Occupy Durban does already exist. It's called Occupy COP17 and its website explains:


Well, now it's a concept with a champion.

I can't detect any important alterations to the final Dhaka Declaration from the draft we saw last week. The wording is much tighter, especially on the core demands expressed by the 19 vulnerable countries.

The central message emerging from the Climate Vulnerable Forum is plain:


Wow - moral leadership is not a claim for the faint-hearted. It's fascinating to see how this lateral thinking blends with the familiar phrases which have for so long established the moral position of the original UN Climate Convention - "common but differentiated responsibilities" and "historical contribution".

Is this the beginning of an era of reverse colonialism in which the missionaries travel north to convert the environmental savages of the industrialised world?

Back to the nitty gritty of the Declaration. The demands are familiar but there are a number of references to "priority" for vulnerable countries. This by logic leads to a call for "common criteria for assessing climate vulnerability." That won't be straightforward, given the diverse results of vulnerability indices already in circulation.

In a frank exchange with OneClimate at the Climate Vulnerable Forum, Mohamed Mijarul Quayes, Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh, explains the position adopted by the conference.

The countries most vulnerable to the impact of climate change can no longer wait for global leadership to emerge from the customary sources. Their conclusion is to lead by example themselves, shaming those who should be doing more to promote low carbon solutions.