Tuesday's update in Bali

With the start of the crucial High-Level segment of the Climate Change Conference in Bali only a day away, agreement has been reached on several important issues under discussion. Of special note was a decision which heralds the launch of the Kyoto Protocol’s Adaptation Fund, set up to finance concrete adaptation projects in developing country Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. Parties agreed on the Global Environment Facility (GEF) as the secretariat and the World Bank as trustee of the Fund, which will become operational with the start of the Protocol’s first commitment period in 2008.

Meanwhile, continuing speculation on the issue of emission reduction targets prompted a detailed clarification from UNFCCC Secretary Yvo de Boer. “25%-40% by 2020 is an emission reduction range, it’s not a target, and it’s something that governments said earlier this year they should be guided by in the context of the negotiations,” he said, adding that “contrary to some reports, these figures do not prejudge the outcome of the negotiations.”

Mr. de Boer continued, ”this range does not represent concrete emmission reduction targets for industrialized countries and this conference will not produce an agreement on specific targets per country,” pointing out that this was not what it had set out to do. What it did aim to achieve, he explained, was to set the wheels in motion in terms of launching a process going into the future.

Competing with Yoko Ono and John Carey at Bali

Caption: A young boy from the Tanjung Benoa village, planting mangroves last Sunday in Bali.

Yesterday afternoon I was invited to be on a panel for the Tsunami in Indonesia and joined Mar’ie Mohammed, Chairman PMI and Kuntoro, head of BRR in the Indonesian Pavilion. The turnout was poor, around 20 journalists. We discovered that at the same time, Yoko Ono and former President hopeful, John Carey were billed together at the same time at a nearby venue.They drew a capacity crowd.

In the main conference, progress is slow, painfully slow. The next few days will reveal more clearly where the negotiations are heading.

Today, the start of the second week of negotiations at the Climate Change Conference in Bali, the various contact groups were intensifying efforts to maximize progress before the arrival of Ministers for the High-Level segment beginning on Wednesday.

Talks on a future agreement continued today, and among the topics under debate was the need for quantified national emission objectives for industrialized countries - guided by the range of 25-40% reductions by 2020 – and the need for emissions to peak in the next 10-15 years. Parties also acknowledged the need to strengthen existing commitments and enhance their implementation, especially with regard to developing countries.

Further discussions focused on technology cooperation to support emission reduction efforts. UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said that "technology must be at the heart of the future response to climate change.” Environmentally sound technologies and sustainable development approaches, he said, could "help developing countries leapfrog the carbon intensive stage of economic development.”

The inclusion of performance indicators for monitoring and evaluating techology transfer activities was also debated today, as well as a proposal for a technology leveraging facility under the auspices of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Its aim would be to turn assessments already carried out on the technology needs of developing countries into concrete project proposals. In this context, Mr. de Boer stated that technology cooperation between developed and developing countries - and increasingly between developing countries themselves - was neeeded “on an unprecedented scale.”

According to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA), fossil fuels will remain dominant in decades to come, accounting for between 72% and 81% of global primary energy in 2030. Mr. de Boer stressed, however, that “we cannot afford to let the industralized countries’ climate-unfriendly growth become the global norm.” With investments and the wide deployment of appropriate technologies such as carbon capture and storage, he said, “the fight against climate change need not be a fight against oil, but rather a fight against emissions.”

He went on to explain that significant emission reductions can be achieved with existing technologies or those that are closing to becoming commercially available, but that more incentives were needed “to push technologies out of the laboratories and into the market." He added that the carbon market was a key tool in achieving this.

Since the private sector will account for 86% of projected investments in 2030, businesses, he said, were “the key to a low-carbon future,” underlining that appropriate government policies were neeeded to create the right conditions for private investors. These could include binding targets, tax incentives and policies to promote the shift to less carbon-intensive energy sources.

According to the Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change, markets for low-carbon energy products are likely to be worth at least 500 billion USD per year by 2050. Mr. de Boer pointed out that the transition to a low-carbon economy could become a platform to new economic growth, new jobs, new manufacturing and service industries and new markets. Responding to climate change, he said, was creating windows of opportunity, and that “instead of closing the shutters, the opportunity must be seized.”

Sitting in the Plenary of the UNCCC - Bali

Caption: Planting mangrove trees at Tanjung Benoa villagers, Bali Indonesia.

It's Monday morning 10 December in Bali. I am sitting in the Plenary II meeting where we are discussing the Kyoto Protocol pusuant to its article 9 scope and contents. Important and crucial issue to discuss en route to all parties coming up with the Bali road map that will be finalise in the coming week. I am sitting next to my former boss, Simon Missiri who is the deputy head of our delegation to the conference.

It is a huge event here in Bali with the main focus on the main conference, a raft of side meetings and parallel events for local authorities, UN, International organisations and NGO’s display, advocate, educated and lobby.

Yesterday, the atmosphere during the climate change conference in Nusa Dua Bali changed, at least during the afternoon. Instead of being trapped in hectic, complex discussions and lobbying in conference rooms on how climate change affect people in the earth, a fresh and inspired action was undertaken by Red Cross and Red Crescent along with Tanjung Benoa villagers, Bali Indonesia.

Led by Indonesia Red Cross Society (PMI) leader Mr. Mar’ie Muhammad, 50 representatives of Red Cross Red Crescent societies from all around the world enthusiastically joined with hundreds of villagers, youth and adult, dug the muddy sands, carefully placed the tree in its hole and fill it with the mud. Happiness blossomed among the crowded in that afternoon when they finally completed the planting of 1,000 mangrove trees. The community, with PMI help, plans to have not less than 10,000 mangrove trees along the exposed beach.

Will update you as further information comes to hand

TREE PLANTING IN BALI

MEDIA ADVISORY

Event: Red Cross Red Crescent to plant one mangrove for each of the 10,000 participants at Bali climate change conference

Representatives from Red Cross and Red Crescent societies from all over the world, along with local community members, will be planting mangroves on behalf of the participants of the UN Climate Change conference this Sunday.
The Red Cross Red Crescent is urging participants in Bali to ensure that adaptation to climate change – an effort that would reduce the impacts of climate change on the most vulnerable people – is on equal footing with measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Red Cross Red Crescent is working with communities in more than 40 countries to develop and implement measures that will reduce the impact of climate related disasters that are expected to continue to increase in frequency and intensity. Mangroves can add important protection against storms and tidal surges, reducing the impact that such events have on lives and livelihoods.

Details:
Date: 9 December 2007
Time: 15:30 Central Indonesia Time
Location: Village Tanjung Benoa, less than 10 minutes from the UNFCCC, (pleas find attached map)
Transport: A bus will be available from Westin Hotel starting at 15:00
For further information, or to RSVP, please contact Zach Abraham in Bali on +62 (0) 812 699 2680

END

Climate summit opens in Bali

Today, the UN Climate Change Conference started in Bali. On Friday I will be participating in the conference as a member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies delegation.

On 30 November 2007 the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, comprising 194 governments and 186 national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, adopted a declaration concerning the main humanitarian challenges facing the world today. These include environmental degradation and climate change and the declaration sets a path ahead concentrating on the role of National Societies in support of adaptation and other national policies aimed at the achievement of global and national goals.

The IFRC, alarmed by the increasing number of extreme weather events and their contribution to the global burden of disease, is deeply concerned about the observed and projected impacts of climate change on the most vulnerable people: the elderly, the sick and disabled and, in particular, the poorest of the poor. Climate change not only threatens the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals but also strikes at the heart of our humanitarian work

The IFRC has been confronted with a steep increase in weather-related disasters over the last 10 years, increasing from around 200 per year at the beginning of the 1990s to over 300 a year in every single year since 2000. The number is still growing and is expected to be over 400 in 2007.

This requires a change in the way the whole humanitarian community addresses climate-related disasters. Principally, we recognize that climate change affects poor and vulnerable communities through increases in the scale and scope of the weather that they face on a year on year basis. With our focus on building the capacities of our National Societies to support communities to reduce the risks from weather related disasters and their implication on health, and prepare for them more effectively, the IFRC is uniquely positioned to take the lead in bringing the goals of the UNFCCC and the priorities of the Hyogo Framework of Action together.

The IFRC will increasingly focus its efforts on ensuring, in those countries where weather-related disasters and poor health indicators are increasingly affecting vulnerable populations, that it supports its National Societies’ actions to promote climate change adaptation through the application of sound health promotion and disaster risk reduction at community level and through advocacy for strong national policies and strategies at national and global levels.

Inevitably, the human and financial resources of the IFRC and other humanitarian agencies that address climate-related humanitarian consequences such as disasters and ill-health are stretched and new resources will be needed even for the immediate future, let alone the long term. Actions are urgently needed to help build the capacities of organizations helping vulnerable people to cope with the impacts of climate change and to reduce their vulnerabilities, particularly at the community level.

Our hopes are directed to Bali and the will of the global community to address the humanitarian impact of climate change. We propose that the following issues are addressed in the Bali Roadmap:

1. Take a decision in Bali to prioritize climate risk management at the community level, concentrating on the most vulnerable countries.

The poorest people in the poorest countries are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, today and more so in the decades to come.

These are the people who have contributed the least to climate change and have the least resources to protect themselves against climate change related risks and impacts. This is confirmed by the IPCC, but not reflected in the balance of current adaptation investments in the developed countries on the one hand, and in developing countries on the other. In many Annex I countries substantial investments are now being planned on domestic strategies and programs for adaptation. The scale of funding for adaptation in the most vulnerable countries does not even come close.

Although all countries will need to adapt to the impacts of climate change, it should be a leading principle for all parties to the UNFCCC that there should be a fair balance between resources spent on adaptation in developed and in developing countries. Priority should be given to the most vulnerable countries and people.

In addition, countries and international organizations and agencies should work to promote the harmonization of the agenda of the adaptation components of the UNFCCC and the priorities of the Hyogo Framework for Action on disaster risk reduction. This recognizes the importance of disaster risk reduction in achieving the reduction of risks to vulnerable communities from the future impact of climate related disaster.

Based on the overwhelming evidence that health and access to health services are being affected by the global climate and degraded environment, governments supported by relevant organisations should continue addressing the main health priorities in the community, providing preventative, curative and rehabilitative services accordingly as so committed to the promotion of primary health care in Alma-Ata in 1978 (Article VII.2).


2. Agree that a target for adequate adaptation funding be included in the post 2012 Agreement, along with mechanisms to mobilize new and additional resources and effective implementation mechanisms that foster mainstreaming of adaptation into development and involvement of all relevant stakeholders.

Climate change impacts are new risks and new, additional and adequate funding is urgently needed to adapt to these risks and to recover from the impacts that can no longer be avoided. The UNFCCC articles 4.3 and 4.4 already outlined 15 years ago, in 1992, what developed countries committed themselves to:
- provide new and additional financial resources for adaptation, and to take into account the need for adequacy and predictability in the flow of funds (art. 4.3)
- assist developing countries particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting the costs of adaptation (art.4.4.)

A major impediment is the limited insight into the costs and benefits of adaptation in developing counties. Initial calculations of global costs of adaptation by the World Bank , the UNFCCC, OXFAM and recently UNDP put the order of magnitude of the costs in the range of 10-80 billion $US dollars annually for developing countries. More detailed studies are necessary, but there can be no dispute about the essential requirement for substantial new resources.

Hence, in the coming two years leading up to Copenhagen, parties should mobilize adequate resources for adaptation, and the development of effective and efficient implementation mechanisms that ensure mainstreaming with a holistic approach into regular development planning and involvement of all relevant stakeholders. The financial mechanism should ensure that funding is targeted at reducing the climate risks facing the most vulnerable people.

To stimulate this process it is of vital importance that developed countries express in Bali their political will to include quantifiable, predictable and adequate financial resources and mechanisms for adaptation in the post 2012 Agreement.


3. Make a commitment in Bali on an immediate increased investment for 2008-2012 to strengthen capacity for climate risk management in developing countries

Additional resources are needed today and in the coming five years, before the post 2012 Agreement comes into force, to meet the needs of humanitarian and development agencies and organizations to address the immediate consequences of climate change and to strengthen the capacities of sectors and institutions to understand and integrate climate change related risks in their planning and programs.

Although initial initiatives are being undertaken to develop capacity for climate risk assessments and adaptation measures, the scale of actions is still very limited compared to the challenge of scaling up to reach all vulnerable countries, sectors, and communities.

A substantial increase of the committed US$ 450 million annually will be needed in the transition phase to scale up the capacity for climate risk management before new funding and implementation mechanisms under the Copenhagen protocol enter into force.

The most efficient way to implement the scaling up of climate risk management is to integrate the additional efforts into existing national, sectoral and local government strategies and programs, and plans and practices of other stakeholders serving the most vulnerable people.

Over the past five years, such an integrated approach has been initiated in more than 35 national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, with assistance by the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre. These experiences are documented in the Red Cross /Red Crescent Climate Guide, available at: www.climatecentre.org.

The IFRC commits to supporting Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies worldwide in their actions for the most vulnerable, specifically through capacity-building so they can play a full part in the development of national and local adaptation policies. IFRC will bring the lessons learned from such actions to the regional and international levels, and through this integrate community-based policy approaches into planning for Copenhagen 2009 and beyond.

So what is the Bali conference about ?

World governments are meeting for a key UN climate summit that will attempt to reach a deal on what should replace the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012.
Talks will centre on whether binding targets are needed to cut emissions.

It is the first such meeting since the IPCC, a panel of leading scientists, concluded that climate change was "very likely" caused by human activity.

The two-week gathering in Bali, Indonesia, will also debate how to help poor nations cope in a warming world.

The annual high-level meeting, organised by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is under pressure to deliver a global agreement on how to cut rising greenhouse gas emissions.


The IPCC says more heatwaves are very likely in the future


IPPC's climate verdict

UNFCCC Executive Director Yvo de Boer urged the international community to use the summit to take "concrete steps" towards curbing climate change.

"We urgently need to take increased action, given climate change predictions and the corresponding global adaptation needs," he said in his welcome message to delegates.

"In the context of climate change, projections of economic growth and increases in energy demand over the next 20 years, especially in developing countries, point to the urgent need to green these trends."



Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its Fourth Assessment Report (A4R), in which it projected that the world would warm by 1.8-4.0C (3.2-7.2F) over the next century.

Mr de Boer added that the IPCC's conclusion that climate change was "very likely" the result of human activity ended any doubt over the need to act.

Climate for consensus?

At the top of the conference's agenda is the need to reach a consensus on how to curb emissions beyond 2012.


This marks the end of the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol, which commits industrialised nations to cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by at least 5% from 1990 levels.

Critics of the existing framework say binding targets do not work, and favour technological advances instead.

Recently, the UNFCCC itself announced that greenhouse gas emissions from 40 of the world's richest nations rose to a near all-time high in 2005.

Kayaking the Tasman Sea.

Caption: Justin Jones and James Castrission leaving Australia on their attempt to kayak across the Tasman Sea a few weeks back.

With co-paddlers, Paul Caffyn has twice attempted to kayak across the Tasman Sea from Tasmania to New Zealand but has been thwarted on both occasions by the Tasmanian authorities and bad weather. (Cackle TV website)

In 1988 I joined Paul Caffyn in an attempt to be the first kayakers to paddle the Tasman Sea. After two hours into the trip, we had to return to shore for adjustments to the front cockpit I was sitting in. The rudder cables were cutting into my knees.

Once on shore we were served a summons by the Tasmanian Police and forbidden to make another attempt on the Tasman Sea.

So I am following with great interest the current attempt by two kayakers to cross the Tasman Sea. In today's paper I read the following:

Equipment failures and the "gnawing" elements have hampered a trans-Tasman paddle with fears two Australians face certain danger as they get closer to New Zealand.


Justin Jones, 24, and James Castrission, 25, have been forced to dump overboard the bilge pump from the cabin of their custom-designed double kayak after it stopped working.

Their electric desalination pump also broke, requiring them to use a manual version to produce up to 10 litres of filtered drinking water a day.

The effort takes two hours from their paddling regimen, which can last up to 15 hours each day.

The pair departed 18 days ago on their 2,200km adventure and hope to be the first Australians to complete a tran-Tasman paddle by reaching New Zealand by Christmas.

The pair have just reached the halfway point of their journey and posted their most recent audio message on their website.

I have been thinking a lot about the guts and commitment it takes just to prepare, train and get on the water. For our attempt in 1988 I remember doing a double crossing of the Cook Strait, a another 70 km crossing of the same strait from Paraparaumu, paddling past Kapiti, Brothers Islands, and Cape Kaomaru to reach the South Island at Cape Jackson. I also did a lot of night paddling to get accustomed to reading the sea in the dark. Paul and I did a few trips together but little preparation in the kayak we started out in, as it was stored in Tasmania after his unsuccessful the previous year. Paul was worried that if we were seen practicing in Tasmania the Police would become supiscious and arrest us, which finally happened.

I have a sad photograh in my current dairy under an entry on February 14 this year of Vicky McAuley, the wife of Andrew McAuley, kneeling and weeping by her husband's kayak that was found about 80 km off Milford Sound, without him. His body was never found.

This is a reminder of the seriousness of such a journey and my thoughts and prayers are with Justine and James out on the Tasman, Hang in there guys, you can do it.

Alone, sick and happy

I sit on my bed in Jakarta on the 19th floor and watch clouds building up. Jakarta sprawls beneath me. I have been sick the last three days but last night was so weak, that I have taken a day off work. I usually feel guilty doing that but today I don’t. I am reading Jon Krakauer’s book, Into the Wild.

It was given to me on Sunday by Bernard, who works as a forester with GTZ. Ann, his pretty Vietnamese wife bubbles with enthusiasm. They are a delightful couple, so natural. Bernard is close to nature. His books exude an intensity of trees, plants, insects and ecosystems, as well as raunchy adventure stories that feed our sense of being the gladiator or the spectator at the Coliseum.

It seems I was destined to be sick as I needed to read this book. Having been to the South and North poles, scaled the heights of the Andes, Tienshans and the Himalayas, I have been living in a comfort zone. It is three years since I spent quality time alone in the wilderness. Between 19 and 22, I spent virtually all my time in the wilderness including 13 months with 3 other people alone in a remote part of Antarctica. One week in every four I would be on fire watch alone from 9 pm to 7a.m. This was the best time in my life. For after ten months, I found a friend. First I had to get to know my biggest enemy, myself, and then befriend and appreciate him. I also realised that a man without a woman, is a man without vanity. I read Thoreau. Walt Whitman, William McGonagal and books of the great polar explorers.

I remember doing winter and spring journeys in -50 oC with Gary Lewis and shudder at the risks we took in Antarctica.. Twenty one and not a care in the world. I planned an expedition to Greenland that winter and charted my life ahead of me. I can identify with Chris McCandless who gives his savings to charity, abandons his car and hitchhikes to Alaska and walks into the wilderness to be alone and figure out the meaning of existence. Four months later his decomposed body is found by a hunter……

On July 2, 1992 McCandlas finished reading Tolstoy’s “Family Happiness,” having marked several passages that moved him.
"I have lived through much and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet, secluded life in the country with the possibility of being useful to people..." to who it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; and then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbour – such is my idea of happiness.. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps - what more can the heart of a man desire ?