COP22 UPDATE - COP22 MISE À JOUR

NOTE:

       Dear friends,

You must excuse this interrumption amidst the COP22 negotiations, but we have had trouble accessing our own blog. Most of you are bound to be following the procedures. However, I find it worth reading the following comments by ICTSD's Bridges. First, it covers the anxiety the US presidential election has caused among those attending the Conference. Then it concentrates on the question of Developing the Paris rulebook, now with the Paris Agreement already in force. Climate financing is also an issue being addressed.

Warm regards,

Estimados amigos,

Les pido disculpen esta interrupción de nuestro contacto justo en medio de las negociaciones de la COP22; ocurre que tuvimos serias dificultades para acceder a nuestro propio blog, ahora solucionadas.
Les recomiendo mucho tanto el comentario de Bridges de ICTSD desde Marrakesh, así como la postura del representante de los Estados Unidos, según Le Monde de hoy.

Un muy cordial saludo,

Mauricio López Dardaine

SOURCE: ICTSD Bridges

"Negotiators gathering in Marrakech, Morocco, for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) annual conference have made steady progress during their first week of talks, as they prepare for the arrival of government leaders and ministers for various high-level meetings in the coming days.
However, the news of Donald Trump’s election win in the United States has cast a shadow of uncertainty over the larger prospects for tackling the global challenge of a warming planet, while also prompting many nations and US-based non-state and sub-national actors to affirm that they will press on with climate action regardless of what may happen in Washington.

Since the talks began on Monday 7 November, the number of parties who have ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change has now risen to 109, covering 77 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and including major emitters such as Australia and Japan.

Answering reporters’ questions over whether his country would follow Trump’s lead should the latter go through on his campaign pledge to exit the Paris accord, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull countered that leaving the UN deal would take four years for any country, and stressed Australia’s dedication to the accord.
“When Australia makes a commitment to a global agreement, we follow through and that is exactly what we are doing,” he said.
Trump previously promised on the campaign trail to “cancel” the US’ involvement in the Paris accord. His transition website does not currently refer to this pledge, though he has reportedly asked Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to lead the transition efforts for the US Environmental Protection Agency. Ebell is a long-standing and prominent sceptic of the seriousness of global warming and critic of President Barack Obama’s climate action work.
Trump’s transition website reaffirms many campaign pledges to unravel Obama’s domestic climate actions, including the Clean Power Plan, claiming these will massively increase electricity costs “without any measurable effect on Earth’s climate.” However, the site says that Trump does support renewable energy, along with sources such as fossil fuels, in a bid to make the US fully energy independent.
The website leaves several questions unanswered, such as how he will address the Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA), a planned tariff-cutting deal being negotiated by 17 WTO members, including the US. A ministerial meeting aimed at concluding the EGA is planned for 3-4 December, before Trump takes office. In related news, EU trade ministers meeting in Brussels just days after the US election affirmed that they still anticipate developments on the EGA by year’s end. A considerable political effort however remains to be done to address the concerns of certain members.
Officials in Marrakech have rebuffed the suggestion that the incoming Trump Administration would put the ongoing COP negotiations at risk. Sources confirm that while the US election results may have affected negotiators’ mood, it has not hindered progress.
“The Trump election is not a threat for the success of COP22,” said Salaheddine Mezouar at Saturday’s press conference. The Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation is the president of this year’s climate gathering. “We have to have trust in the American people, who are strongly committed and strongly determined in the fight against global warming.”
The years 2011-2015 were the warmest on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization, which circulated a related report at the COP. The agency also reviewed cases where human-induced climate change was a factor in extreme weather events, causing thousands of deaths and economic losses worth billions of dollars, in places as disparate as Southeast Asia and the United States.

Developing the Paris rulebook

With the Paris Agreement now in force, negotiators under the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA) held regular, constructive discussions this week to help prepare for the upcoming meeting of the accord’s governing body, the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the parties to the Agreement (CMA).
Issues covered included further guidance on countries’ individual climate action plans; adaptation communication; the transparency framework for action and support; the future global stocktakes on collective progress; and the committee to facilitate implementation and promote compliance. The question of whether the existing Adaptation Fund for supporting developing countries should also serve the Paris Agreement was reportedly taken up.
The APA co-chairs noted the advances and successful technical work so far. The APA is meant to hold its closing plenary on Monday, though some have expressed interest in continuing talks informally. No consensus had emerged on this option by press time.

Climate finance: greater investments needed

Climate finance flows from public and private actors have shown some promising advances, though are still well below necessary levels, according to a biennial report by the UNFCCC’s Standing Committee on Finance.
“Without the needed financial flows, both the Paris Agreement and the [Sustainable Development Goals] will largely remain a promise rather a transformative reality,” said UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa upon the report’s release this past week.
The report found that global climate finance flows averaged per year at US$714 billion in 2013-2014. Despite this improvement, it said that these are just a fraction of investment overall – and that much more financing is being dedicated to “high-carbon” energy. The report also noted the difficulties in obtaining and analysing the relevant data, given the range of funding sources; the varying definitions of “climate finance;” and other related limitations for reporting and tracking.
Furthermore, mitigation-related funding is vastly outpacing support aimed at adapting to climate-inflicted damage, according to the committee document. The report is slated to feature in the high-level ministerial dialogue on climate finance – including on adaptation-related aid – being held during the second week. Negotiators have also held workshops and informal meetings this week aiming to help clarify ways to improve climate finance-related accounting, as well as how to make data gathering more predictable and usable..."

SOURCE: Le Monde

Climat : le négociateur en chef des Etats-Unis défend l’accord de Paris

Jonathan Pershing a promis que l’action climatique se poursuivrait jusqu’au terme du mandat d’Obama. La journée des chefs d’Etat de la COP22 se tient mardi à Marrakech.

Deux options se présentaient à l’équipe de négociations américaine face au séisme que constitue pour elle l’élection à la Maison Blanche d’un président ouvertement climatosceptique. Se faire discrète dans les allées de la 22e conférence des Nations unies pour le climat (COP22) à Marrakech, au Maroc, ou au contraire réaffirmer son attachement à la mise en œuvre de l’accord de Paris pour lequel Washington a joué, jusqu’ici, un rôle décisif. Lundi 14 novembre, elle a opté pour la deuxième solution lors de la conférence de presse sans doute la plus suivie de ce début de deuxième semaine de COP22.

L’envoyé spécial des Etats-Unis pour le changement climatique, Jonathan Pershing, seul à la tribune, a réaffirmé que la lutte contre le réchauffement de la planète reste une « top priorité » du président Barack Obama et que « le contexte créé à Paris [avec la signature d’un accord universel, le 12 décembre 2015, en toute fin de COP21] reflète la demande mondiale pour l’action en faveur du climat ».« La question n’est pas de savoir s’il faut renforcer l’action mais quand et comment » le faire, a insisté le diplomate.

Nommé en avril à la tête des négociateurs américains en remplacement de Todd Stern, ce géologue de formation – qui a été l’un des auteurs du rapport du Groupe d’experts intergouvernemental sur l’évolution du climat, le GIEC, en 2007 – n’a pas l’intention de quitterle navire. S’il ne connaît pas les membres de la future équipe de Donald Trump dans ce dossier, avec lesquels il devra mener à bien la transition, il a rappelé aussi que ses fonctions ne prendraient fin qu’en janvier 2020.