Optimistic on the Eve of “Green Friday, ”COP15 Update. Friday, December 17, 2009

Optimistic on the Eve of “Green Friday, ”COP15 Update. Friday, December 17, 2009

Here are other major areas of progress Clinton and counterparts will have to achieve before they can be confident of a deal this week:

* Will developing countries accept U.S. demands that there be tight monitoring and reporting requirements on the carbon emission-curbing commitments they promise? With one hand, Clinton offered up the $100 billion fund, but with the other she threatened to take it away if tough oversight was not included in a deal.

* What will be the overall level of carbon pollution reduction by 2050 and will countries agree on a peak year for emissions?

It's unlikely Clinton or President Barack Obama can improve on the U.S. part of that equation, a 17 percent reduction by 2020 from 2005 levels. Many other countries say that offer, which works out as a 4 percent cut below 1990 levels by 2020, is inadequate.

* Will Obama, as expected, arrive here on Friday with a few billion dollars in his pocket -- the U.S. share of a short-term financial aid deal for developing countries? There's talk of a $10 billion a year fund for three years. The European Union and Japan have made their offers known. It's time for Washington to fill in that blank.

* Can developing countries prevail on their desire to extend the Kyoto Protocol agreement and sign off on a separate series of long-term promises that covers the United States?

If the answer to these questions is yes, Friday should see Obama and over 100 other leaders seal a political pact.

Any deal reached at climate change talks in Copenhagen must include a mechanism to ensure transparency and that all parties are fulfilling their obligations, the White House said on Thursday. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the United States believed there was still a chance of deal, but China needed to give ground on the U.S. demand for transparency. He said if reports were true that China was balking at a climate deal, the United States hoped it would reconsider.

China's climate change ambassador said on Thursday he had not given up hope of a strong climate deal at Copenhagen talks, and rejected as malicious rumours a suggestion from other delegates that China had. Yu Qingtai said Beijing wants a deal that would capture all progress achieved over two years of UN-led negotiations and leave room for swift progress on unresolved areas next year, given that time at the Dec 7-18 summit is rapidly running out. "I do not know where this rumour came from but I can assure you that the Chinese delegation came to Copenhagen with hope and have not given it up," Yu Qingtai told Reuters on the sidelines of the summit, now in its penultimate day. "Copenhagen is too important to fail," he said, adding that the presence of Premier Wen Jiabao, who arrived in Copenhagen on Wednesday evening, was testament to China's commitment.

Tuvalu, which fears being wiped off the map by global warming, appealed on Thursday for a legally binding outcome at U.N. climate talks in Denmark and demanded a tough cap on temperature rises. Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia said he would not sign an agreement at the end of the Dec 7-18 talks in Copenhagen that supported a 2 degree Celsius cap on a global average temperature rise, saying this would doom his country. "We are talking about the survival of our nation," Ielemia told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting, meant to try to agree the outlines of a tougher pact to fight climate change. The current draft U.N. negotiating texts have options to cap warming at 2 degrees, 1.5 and 1, but industrialized countries and major emerging nations have supported the 2 degree target. Ielemia said any deal must enshrine limiting warming to 1.5 degrees because that was in line with what climate scientists said was the limit to avoid dangerous climate change.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton improved the atmosphere at climate talks on Thursday by announcing the United States will help support a $100 billion a year fund for poor countries to fight global warming. The pledge to boost funds for poor nations breathed life into talks that had been sagging before a Dec. 18 deadline for a deal. But before celebrations can start, a few other big pieces must fall into place. But plenty of non-governmental groups were wondering just where the money would come from and how it would be structured. "Support for poor countries cannot be left to the whims of the markets. It is absolutely crucial that this money comes from public sources and is additional to current aid commitments," said Oxfam International spokesman David Waskow.

While world leaders slug it out over a new U.N. climate deal in Copenhagen, companies involved in smart grid technologies are attracting attention for their potential to cut emissions and costs. Smart grids, which help to manage electricity use more efficiently, have drawn investor interest as utilities step up spending on projects that reduce energy costs. Copenhagen will be positive for energy efficiency companies like Comverge and EnerNOC and for makers of advanced power meters, such as Itron Inc , said industry experts, who pointed out the technology is critical to the fight against global warming.

Japan will raise its aid to help developing nations combat global warming to about $15 billion until 2012, assuming a strong U.N. climate deal is reached in Copenhagen, the government said on Wednesday. "The initiative is intended to contribute to the success" of the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen, where 110 world leaders will meet on Thursday and Friday, a statement said. Public finance would make up about $11 billion of the total and private sources about $4 billion, it said. "This scaled up public finance aims at enabling a quicker implementation of assistance to developing countries," it said. The aid was up from about $9 billion previously planned.

The United States has pledged $1 billion as part of a $3.5 billion scheme as initial financing towards slowing deforestation, a major contributor to climate change, a U.S. government statement said on Wednesday. Australia, France, Japan, Norway and Britain are also part of the forest protection plan announced at U.N. climate talks in Denmark where world leaders are trying to seal the outlines of a pact to avoid dangerous global warming. The U.S. government said the money would be contingent on an ambitious political agreement on fighting climate change coming out of the Copenhagen talks. The money is meant to help fund immediate steps from 2010 to 2012 to develop a U.N.-backed scheme meant to reward developing nations for saving carbon-rich tropical forests.

The scheme, called reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), has had wide support from rich and poor countries in the talks in the Danish capital and kick-start funding has been a key demand from developing nations.

"Protecting the world's forests is not a luxury. It's a necessity," U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in the statement from Copenhagen. "This substantial commitment is reflective of our recognition that international public finance must play a role in developing countries' efforts to slow, halt and reverse deforestation," he said.

Deforestation is responsible for nearly a fifth of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions and curbing forest loss is regarded as a key way to brake the pace of global warming. Forests such as the vast Amazon jungle or the peat forests of Borneo island in Southeast Asia soak up and lock away large amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide, acting like lungs of the atmosphere.

REDD is aimed at putting a price on the carbon those forests lock away or are released if cut down, providing a financial incentive to keep them standing. "This is a very positive and encouraging step," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told Reuters. "This can help the atmosphere for negotiators in Copenhagen," he said.

The talks have stumbled on emissions targets by rich nations, financing for poor nations and arguments over the final shape of any new legal agreement to fight climate change. "If we manage to stop deforestation, we'll have averted a third of all emissions we need to cut by 2020," Stoltenberg said.

Norway says it has given more cash to projects for slowing deforestation than any other developed nation. "This is what's needed to break the logjam of the REDD negotiations here in Copenhagen and spark the additional funding needed to address the global challenge of deforestation," said Andrew Deutz, Director of International Climate Policy for The Nature Conservancy. "This $1 billion pledge from the United States should be an appetizer and the U.S. should also serve up the main course for further mitigation and adaptation funding." source: http://communities.thomsonreuters.com/Carbon/483790