The last hours of the Durban COP 17 climate talks were tense and confusing, and the outcome was not known until many of the people attending were on their way home. But now that the dust has settled a bit, we can compare the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action as the agreement is known, with what were the main asks from many of the groups present.

• A second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, and extending it was one of the most contentious issues at Durban. Those supporting an extension argued that it is the only binding international greenhouse gas emissions treaty and should be preserved until a more effective treaty replaces it (see below); those arguing against an extension (including Australia) pointed out that it now only covers perhaps 15% of global emissions, and therefore extending it would not have much impact. At Durban it was agreed to extend the Kyoto Protocol to either 2017 or 2020 (the exact date will be determined next year) while a replacement deal is hammered out.
• A FAB – fair ambitious and legally binding – agreement. Even supporters of an extension of the Kyoto Protocol realized that the main game was a new agreement that was ambitious in its greenhouse gas reduction targets. Any Kyoto replacement would have to take into account that the responsibilities of developed and developing countries need to be ‘common but differentiated’ reflecting the fact that developed countries are largely responsible for the emissions currently in the atmosphere, that some developing countries are now emitting more than the big developed country emitters, and that the capacity of countries to reduce emissions varies considerably. What came out of the negotiations was a process to negotiate a new deal by no later than 2015, with reductions beginning by 2020. The reductions would aim to keep temperature rise below ‘1.5 or 2 degrees C’ above pre-industrial levels. 
• Making the Green Climate Fund operational. There was some progress here, with agreement that the fund will be under the control of the COP and be made up of 24 members split equally between developed and developing countries.

So was Durban a success? Well, it depends where you are coming from. On the positive side, the talks didn’t collapse, the inadequacy of current emission reduction commitments was explicitly acknowledged, and there are processes in place to negotiate a more ambitious, binding agreement. A lot of detail still needs to be hammered out, including in the areas of ‘mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology development and transfer, transparency of action, and support and capacity-building’.

Work plans for these will be developed in the first half of 2012. While progress was made on the structure of the Green Climate Fund, there still is the problem of a lack of funding. A personal favourite – a levy on shipping bunker fuel – did not get up. And all the while, the science keeps finding that the time available for reasonably low cost action to avoid dangerous climate change is less than was previously thought. In short, a move in the right direction, but still much too slow.

 

In the final days of the COP, the mood has changed quite dramatically. Ministers and heads of state have arrived to provide political guidance and try and resolve issues that lower-level negotiators have been unable to reach agreement on. Increasingly, meetings are closed to NGO observers. The main players bunker down, and we are left sniffing at snippets of information, trying to piece together what is happening in the hundreds of meeting rooms here at the International Convention Centre in Durban.

Today, I took some time to catch up with a colleague from World Vision South Africa, Stanley. He intended to come to the COP days ago, but was prevented from doing so by a storm that hit the state of KwaZulu Natal (where Durban is) the Sunday evening before the COP opened.

I remember my experience of the storm. I was sitting in a small café watching drenching rains pour down, and strategically waited for the worst of the storm to pass before making my way back to our accommodation. But for people in the rural area of Umzoti – not so far from Durban – where World Vision is working, the storm brought greater havoc than a just a thorough soaking.

Stanley is the Humanitarian Emergency Advisor for World Vision South Africa, and he was called out to assess the damage in Umzoti in the wake of the storm. The list is pretty staggering. Just from our data (not including damage that was done in neighbouring areas), there were 5 people struck by lightning and 84 injured. 2 of those people died. 763 buildings were completely destroyed, and a further 874 were partially damaged.

The damaged buildings were not just people’s homes (that would have been bad enough). They included 4 schools, a creche, 2 health clinics, and 2 community halls – structures that enable the provision of essential services in poor rural communities.

At the COP and in climate change narratives more broadly, we often hear references to ‘vulnerable communities.’ It struck me while Stanley was describing the damage done in Umzoti that there really is an important difference in the way people experience extreme weather events. My evening was inconveniently interrupted by an intense downpour of rain. But people in Umzoti lost their lives, and saw much of the precious infrastructure their community relies on damaged or destroyed.

We are, of course, responding to the situation. World Vision has partnered with the local government to ensure that affected families receive blankets, tents and plastic sheets as well as food parcels, and has committed funds to repair the roofs and windows of damaged schools. While this work is urgent and essential so that local children’s education is not disrupted for a prolonged period, it’s important to recognise that the diversion of funding for relief work compromises how much long-term development work we are able to do.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the world’s authority on climate science – released a report in November stating that: ‘A changing climate leads to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration, and timing of extreme weather and climate events.’ In other words, while we’ve all experienced storms before, climate change is generally likely to exacerbate the extreme conditions we see as a result of natural climate variability.

For an organisation like World Vision, the upshot of this will mean more of our funding will be spent helping people recover. There are some ways around this. For example, the United Nations has estimated that every dollar spent on reducing disaster risk today can save up to seven dollars tomorrow in relief and rehabilitation costs. But there is still an element of guesswork in this – we can’t predict exactly when disaster will strike, and with what specific consequences. So we don’t know precisely what to invest in and where as a priority.

Ultimately, the only way out of this situation is for the international community to adopt ambitious emissions reductions targets, limiting climate change to less than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. If politics paralyses this process here in Durban, the focus will have to shift to helping people adapt to unavoidable climate change, and organisations like World Vision can expect more short-term assignments to assess the damage done and commit resources in response.

Perhaps the ministers need a splash of cold water themselves.

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Guest post by Abbey Ramirez-Shillingford from the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC). 

I sit here thinking about the right words to use in order to express to you how climate change affects me, my community and all Indigenous Australians. Over the last day or so after trying so hard to explain it in some fancy scientific way, I thought ‘what would the mob at home describe climate change as?”

So put simply climate change to me is something that further adds to the difficulties and the struggle that Indigenous communities already face. In fact, climate change poses fear and danger to the survival of Indigenous communities around the globe. So after thinking about what I thought would best summarise climate change, I wanted to highlight the significance that young people have within our communities. 




It is these words spoken by Ban Ki-Moon that reminded me of the teachings of culture that our elders pass onto us and it is then us, the youth - the next generation - that have the responsibility to ensure that our culture is protected and stays strong.

And this is where my journey begins…

I am proud and privileged to be able to say that I am in Durban, South Africa at the United Nations Conference of Parties 17 with my ‘brother boy’ and ‘sister girl’ to be the face of Australian Indigenous youth. Sheena Watt (Yorta Yorta woman), Braden Hill (Nyoongar/Yamatji man) and I, Abbey Ramirez-Shillingford (Ngarluma woman), reunite to meet with other Indigenous people from all over the world. We are here to work collectively to help strengthen the voice about how climate change affects Indigenous peoples. We come here as a youth - a voice still small and still growing - in order to watch, learn and be mentored from inspirational global Indigenous leaders so that we too can be part of the greater voice to combat the climate crisis.

We are all aware that climate change is rapidly affecting Indigenous peoples and we all know that our voices and our traditional knowledge is a way that we combat climate change. Then again, that is if our voice was considered.

We as Indigenous people know that we have the smallest ecological footprints and should not have to carry the heavy burden of adjusting to climate change. However, despite Indigenous people’s strong connection to the land and waters we have little opportunity to engage with the formulation of a climate change solution. We need our Government to show ambition and leadership here in Durban, and help inject momentum into the negotiations. We say to our leaders: “Don’t talk about us, talk with us”.

As part of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and with the help and support of World Vision Australia Sheena, Braden and I have been engaging with Indigenous people from all over the globe where we have been sharing stories, engaging in daily caucus meetings, protesting throughout the streets of Durban and capturing stories and video messages to take home with us to share with our people.

Since arriving in Durban I have had yarns with some aspirational Indigenous youth who are all committed and proactive climate campaigners. Meeting other young people and sharing stories and experiences has been an eye opener and all our stories are proof that we, as young people, are the future for change. Keep an eye out for our video.

It is time our voices were heard.

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The Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) is entirely youth-run and represents more than 30 of Australia's largest youth organisations and over 70,000 individual members. Visit their website at http://aycc.org.au

 

If you are still wondering why 20,000 government leaders, officials, reps of civil society organisations, green (and not so green) energy company employees and others are massing in Durban for two weeks at COP17, then see if this helps. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development a.k.a. the OECD or the rich countries’ club has produced a report called OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050. I got a pre-release copy of the chapter on climate change. It’s pretty grim reading. Despite the economic crisis hitting many OECD countries, which means that economic growth is weak, so factories are producing less stuff and hence less emissions, ‘Global greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions continue to increase, and in 2010 global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reached an all-time high of 30.6 gigatonnes’. So despite a weak world economy, the emissions produced generating electricity and other energy was enough to push global emissions higher.

But, I hear you say, er, aren’t many countries adopting policies to cut their emissions? Yes, but the OECD says these are nowhere near enough: without more ambitious policies than the ones currently in place, the OECD estimates that GHG in the atmosphere will reach almost 685 parts per million by 2050. What does that mean? It means temperatures between 3 degrees and 6 degrees higher than pre-industrial levels. We are seeing increasing evidence that the actual rise of 0.8 degrees we have seen so far is resulting in more extreme weather. The goal of limiting the rise in temperature to 2 degrees does not mean we can avoid more dangerous climate change. And an outcome of 3 degrees to 6 degrees is catastrophic, basically for everyone on the planet.

Some more evidence? OK, the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in the UK Met Office recently did a study of 24 countries’ observed climate trends since 1960 and projections of future conditions. They presented some of the results at an event here on Monday. Let’s focus on what has actually happened. They found clear evidence of widespread temperature change across the globe, higher sea temperatures, and higher humidity in the atmosphere (because a hotter atmosphere holds more moisture). One particularly interesting finding was that nights are getting hotter. Scientists used not to be interested in night temperatures, and just concentrated on the hottest daytime reading. But we now realise that hot night temperatures are an important reason for heat stress in people (which can kill). We can better handle hot days if it cools down at night. For Australia they found that in each successive decade from 1960, we had four more extremely warm nights. Doesn’t sound like much until you do the arithmetic – the decade to 2010 had 16 more extremely hot nights than the decade of the 1960s.

So we’ve got the evidence, we just need much more global action.

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I’ve been reading a bit about the impacts climate change might have on cities. Sub-Saharan Africa is the least urbanized region in the world at present, but the urban population is projected to more than double – to 760 million – by 2030. What kind of impacts will climate change and accelerating rates of urbanisation have on city dwellers in Africa? Visiting Johannesburg on a side trip from COP17 in Durban, I set out for Soweto to find out.

The famous township, once home to Nelson Mandela, is now home to 4 million people – about the same number as my home city of Melbourne. I knew that the area was once a hotbed of political activity as people in this country struggled against the apartheid government, but I was looking forward to chatting to local people about what their lives are like now. Townships like Soweto, which is on the fringes of one of Africa’s biggest economic hubs, are growing fast, with large numbers of people from rural areas and neighbouring countries coming in to take advantage of opportunities in the city.

As I learnt, growth and diversity have both positive and negative implications in Soweto. One the one hand, as Gugu from the Congo told me, ‘there’s an overflow of people in one place. Sewers burst, because they’re not made for so many people.’

This remark actually taps into one of the biggest concerns climate change poses for Africa. Across the continent, urbanisation is linked to poverty. And climate change typically makes poverty more severe. Many of the poorest urban areas lack basic services like sanitation and have substandard housing, making the living environment unhealthy. If drainage is insufficient, heavy rains or floods can cause overstretched drains and sewers to overflow, triggering outbreaks of water-borne diseases like cholera.

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‘In 2009 in Orlando West, there were floods. The drainage system here is bad – even with rain, every time it rains the streets are flooded.’

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At the other end of the spectrum, droughts – which are predicted to increase water scarcity for both urban and rural populations in Africa over the next century – can be a major trigger for in-migration to urban areas. Falling agricultural activity in the region could place increased strain on local food markets, making food less affordable in cities for the poorest people.

On the upside, however, foreigners and migrants are also bringing positive things to Soweto. A group of Congolese women who had lived in Soweto for seven years discussed this with Nhlanhla, a World Vision volunteer:

We learn a lot from foreigners… Most of them are well-travelled. When you go out of the country it opens your eyes. They [foreigners] have entrepreneurial skills – it’s survival of the fittest. Unlike us in South Africa, their entrepreneurial skills come out.

We need foreigners to change [our] mentality.

 World Vision is working in Soweto with community groups who promote social cohesion and cross-cultural learning, teaching local people about the situations in other countries and rural areas. Greater awareness of the problems that drive people into cities in increasing numbers – conflict, dysfunctional government, poor economic prospects, declining agricultural yields – can foster understanding and help people from different parts of the world live together in peace.

Reflecting on these issues at the end of the day, it was hard not to be concerned. The work World Vision is doing in Soweto is important, and urban programs are becoming a bigger part of World Vision's work. But it is hard not to feel overwhelmed by the sheer scale of development needed in urban areas – development that may need to be accelerated as the impacts of climate change manifest themselves. We have to hope that urban communities will continue to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances, and support them in lobbying their local governments for access to services and sustainable growth strategies in their local areas.

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An update from Josh, our Canadian colleague, here in Durban to help the world see the wood for the trees...

On Sunday I attended the fifth Forest Day – they have followed the COP around the world over the last few years. This year represented the culmination of five years’ of collective work to both ensure that forest are recognised as some of the best ‘carbon sinks’ on the planet (absorbing carbon dioxide), and to acknowledge that deforestation is also a major source of global emissions.

My role was to present some of World Vision Australia’s work in Humbo, Ethiopia. The project, which we’ve talked about a lot at different forums, involves organising local community groups to conserve, protect and reforest their land in exchange for revenue generated through carbon markets. Although there were more than 25 stalls at Forest Day, I was in high demand – which speaks volumes about the reputation World Vision has built in this area.

Once I had worn my voice out telling people about our work, I went to a presentation addressing adaptation in African drylands.  The keynote address was from Andrew Steer, the World Bank’s Special Envoy on Climate Change. I was proud to hear him reference World Vision’s work in his speech, as well as the incredible success of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration in Niger.

For more information about our Humbo Project, check out our Mid Term Evaluation Report.

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Spent Saturday at the Agriculture and Rural Development Day (that’s OK – I don’t mind giving up my  Saturday for a good cause). The line-up of speakers was impressive, including UK Chief Scientist Sir John Beddington, former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, and World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development Rachel Kyte.

The point was made very clearly from lots of different directions that agriculture has a big role to play in climate change mitigation and adaptation, and poverty reduction . Growth in the agriculture sector is estimated to be three times more effective in raising incomes than growth in any other sector.

The term to remember for agriculture is climate smart agriculture. (Please don’t call it CSA – if acronyms were greenhouse gases, the world would already be at 60 degrees and rising fast.) Climate smart agriculture is a mix of using the best of existing technologies plus the latest technology from many areas including seed and crop types, weather forecasting techniques and more. Various speakers though, made it clear that climate smart agriculture is not a one size fits all approach. Successful programs for smallholders will require ‘thousands of approaches’ tailored to the context of individual communities.
 
Particularly good news for the work of World Vision Australia and World Vision generally is the emphasis of speaker after speaker put on the importance of trees and agroforestry. Around 1.5 million people are dependent on degraded land. Agroforestry can increase ground cover and increase soil moisture and fertility. Increased soil fertility increases the resilience of agriculture in a hotter, drier and more volatile world, expands the range of livelihoods available to rural communities, and helps make feeding the expected extra 1billion people by 2025 more achievable. World Vision’s work in farmer managed natural regeneration, notably in Humbo, Ethiopia, is exactly what good agroforestry is about.

Waste got a mention. Large amounts of food is lost or wasted after it has been harvested. The problems are well known – rodents (rats and mice to you) and poor storage, cause considerable loss, as does food purchased but not eaten. John Beddington put a figure on total waste – I’d sit down if I were you because it’s a big number: 1.3bn tonnes. That’s not million, it’s billion.

Last but not least, various speakers emphasised the need for better information for smallholder farmers in developing countries. Better information on farming techniques, or weather, or prices in other cities or markets can make a big difference in the income of smallholders. So maybe getting mobile phone access for an ADP agriculture program is the best we can do.   

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Climate Action Tracker, mitigation sleuth of COP17, sheds some light…

In the early days of COP17, much of the talk amongst NGOs has been about developed countries’ willingness to take on their fair share of responsibility for tackling climate change.

Rumours have been circulating that Canada will formally announce its refusal to take part in a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. While this is not new information (they have been indicating their position on it for months), it has angered lots of stakeholders who want to see progress made at these talks – if you’re not going to play a constructive role, why even bother turning up?

As an Australian, I can hold my head a bit higher than my Canadian colleagues for the moment. Australia is arriving in Durban with a price on carbon legislated – a major step forward.

Yesterday, a team of international experts who have teamed up under the banner of ‘Climate Action Tracker’ launched an investigation into Australia’s mitigation policy – the first of a series of reports looking into different countries’ approaches to cutting carbon emissions.

I was interested in a completely non-partisan overview of how effective our Clean Energy Future package will be – after all the debate in the Australian media this year, it’s very hard to get a clear picture of who’s telling the most accurate story.

And in summary, the story is:

• The passing of the Clean Energy Future package is described as a ‘groundbreaking development… likely to change the trajectory of emissions in a positive direction.’ The new laws ‘establish a framework for significant and long-lasting emissions reductions.’
  
• Prior to establishing this policy, Australia was lagging behind the European Union, Japan, Norway and other industrialised countries in its efforts on mitigation, and was also taking less action than China.

Soberingly, the report also warns that the carbon price won’t be a fix-all for Australia. While it lays strong foundations for robust mitigation policies, it is only a first step towards meeting Australia’s target to reduce emissions by 5% on 2000 levels by 2020.

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Stepping back for a second, let’s put that up against the recent commitment of the Maldives, a small collection of islands in the Indian Ocean, which has pledged to become completely carbon neutral by 2020.

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Such a commitment will require complete transformation of the energy system in that country. It is undoubtedly easier for a small island state than a large island continent to attempt to become carbon neutral in a decade. But it does show how concerned vulnerable countries are about climate change and how willing they are to show leadership in tackling the problem.

So what more can we do, to consolidate our position as a responsible global citizen?
Well, Australia now has a long-term target of cutting its emissions to 80% below 2000 levels by 2050, which is in line with the targets of Britain and Germany. So our 2050 target is good, but our 2020 target remains woefully weak. What we need are sustained efforts on the part of successive governments to keep building on this Clean Energy Future package, making it stronger and more comprehensive. And a more ambitious 2020 target – of at least 25% below 2000 levels – wouldn’t go astray either.

There are various sorts. One is a sand pit for golfers. Another is something you get into when the outside world is unappealing (e.g. you are being bombed). And another is the fuel that ships use. One thing they all have in common is that it can be difficult to get out of them.

One strand of the climate talks in Durban is about getting out of shipping bunkers. There are good reasons to want to encourage ships to use less of the dirty fuel they buy by the ton not the litre. That’s the first reason – shipping bunker fuel is low grade, very polluting and may be responsible for thousands of deaths because of the particles that are emitted into the air from powering marine engines. This problem is recognized pretty widely and the UN International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has recently adopted efficiency standards for new ships. That will help a bit.

But the much bigger issue is the amount of carbon pollution from shipping. Ships tend to be (literally) ‘out of sight, out of mind. But they pump out a surprising amount of carbon. On one estimate, shipping contributes about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, about the same as Germany. Making significant inroads into this would be very helpful.

At this stage you’re thinking: we need an economist to help solve this problem. And you’re right. Economics says that if you make something more expensive, people use less of it. And as a useful additional benefit, there is extra revenue from the higher price. So, if bunker fuel was more expensive, ships would use less (because they would have an incentive to become more efficient), and revenue generated could be used for, say, helping developing countries adapt to the negative effects of the climate change already in the system. As well, because of the scale of the shipping industry, a relatively small carbon price could raise significant revenue. Work commissioned by Greenpeace has estimated that a price of $US25 per tonne would raise $US25 bn a year by 2020.

So why is there a debate at Durban about a win/win proposition such as this? Well, not everyone wins. The cost of goods carried by ships will rise, and this will have a bigger impact on low income countries, particularly those that import large amounts of food and basic products such as fuel and raw materials. So there is a good case to use some of the revenue collected to compensate developing countries for these higher costs.  A formula to determine how to compensate these countries would have to be worked out, but that’s not rocket science. On Greenpeace’s research, there would still be 60% of the $US25 bn in 2020 available after compensation was paid.

The momentum for a bunkers levy is increasing, as you would have gathered from reading Bunkerworld. (What, you don’t subscribe?) The International Chamber of Shipping which represents around 80% of the world’s merchant shipping fleet is on board. But some countries are opposing compensation for all developing countries, arguing it should be only for the poorest and small island states. Others are quibbling about aspects of the Energy Efficiency Design Index to make ships more efficient. Saudi Arabia, for some reason, seems to find every opportunity to hold up moves that would reduce the amount of oil used by shipping. And some want a global agreement on both sea and air bunkers, the latter of which is proving much harder, and the story for another day. Still, agreement on maritime bunkers just might be a good news story from COP17.    

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How do extreme weather events like heatwaves affect people across the world? And what’s it got to do with COP17?

Checking in from Durban – you will have seen in my previous post on why World Vision cares about climate change that one of the key reasons we think it’s important is that it will have profound effects on the human health – and children’s health in particular.

Well, as it turns out, we’re not alone.

On Tuesday, the Lancet (one of the world’s major medical journals) published an editorial on COP17, highlighting the increased presence of health professionals and organisations at climate talks and the growing awareness that climate change will have serious effects on human health.

One of the reasons the climate change talks are often perceived to be unproductive is because they are trying to deal with so many issues. We already know that climate change is an environmental and an economic issue – but the health impacts should also not be ignored. A recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms that heat waves and tropical cyclones are likely to get more extreme over the coming century. In the extreme heatwave of 2003 in France, almost 15,000 people died of heat-related causes. Closer to home, the Medical Journal of Australia notes, for example, that during heatwaves in South Australia ambulance transport increases by 4% - in short, there are clearly links between extreme weather and compromised wellbeing.

Talking about the health co-benefits of climate mitigation is also potentially a way to move the talks forward. Many governments are concerned about the cost of climate change mitigation to their economies – and these same governments all, to some degree, fund national health systems from their annual budget. For developed countries like Australia, encouraging more walking and cycling over driving cars can reduce the incidence of health problems including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and depression.

In developing countries – where World Vision works – programs that provide poor households with more efficient cooking stoves can help to avert millions of deaths each year from respiratory infections like pneumonia, which is now a major killer of children under five. For more info on what World Vision is doing on stoves, check out this report. 

So, if countries knew more about what cost savings they might make by investing more in reducing carbon emissions, they might be more likely to raise their targets, for the good of everyone’s health.

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