Climate change compensation emerges as major issue at Doha talks

US and Europe oppose idea that rich countries should pay for loss and damage caused in vulnerable areas
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John Vidal in Doha

guardian.co.uk, Monday 3 December 2012 11.30 GMT

A flooded village in Kenya’s Tana River district in 2006. Rich countries reject claims that they should pay compensation for such events. Photograph: Tony Karumba/AP

Kilafasru Kilafasru, from the island of Kosrae in Micronesia, helped build his island’s first defensive sea wall in 1971. Fifteen years later he worked on a new, larger one because the water kept rising. And in 2004, a third wall had to be erected.

But the sea level continues to rise, and now it comes right up to the houses, which are flooded every year. So Kilafasru has just spent $500 on a new cement wall to protect his family.

Whether rich countries should compensate vulnerable communities like those on Kosrae, in the central Pacific, for the “loss and damage” caused by events linked to climate change has emerged as a major new issue for developing countries in the UN talks that have just entered their second week in Doha.

The concept is new for both science and policy, say observers. In the past, the debate was about how poorer countries could adapt their economies to climate change and reduce, or mitigate, their emissions with assistance from rich countries.

But in a little-noticed paragraph in the agreement that came out of the Cancún, Mexico, talks in 2010, the need “to reduce loss and damage associated with climate change” was recognised by all countries. In legal terms, that potentially opens the door to compensation – or, as the negotiators in Doha say, “rehabilitation”.

Now, as ministers from 194 countries fly in to take over the political negotiations, “loss and damage” has become a “red line” for more than 100 developing countries, led by the Alliance of Small Island States, the Least Developed Countries block and the African Group of Nations.

But the US and Europe are resisting strongly the idea that they should compensate for losses, fearing that it would lead to potentially endless financial claims.

“Developing countries are saying it needs a new [negotiating] track, which means action, not just further discussions. But the developed countries do not want to open that door,” said Saleemul Huq, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London. “It is an important new concept. It could decide whether there is a Doha agreement.”

New research by the UN University backed by the Overseas Development Institute’s climate and development knowledge network suggests that developing countries have a strong case for compensation.

Researchers visited five countries to assess how communities were coping with escalating climate change. They talked to farmers along the north bank of the river Gambia who are experiencing more and more droughts, Bangladeshi and Kenyan coastal communities struggling with continual floods, Bhutanese smallholders experiencing more unreliable rains, and Kenyan pastoralists plagued by erratic rainfall.

People, they found, had few options to resist climate change events beyond their normal coping strategies. But these broke down if the crisis was repeated. “If the crisis is severe, for example where an area is hit by drought in subsequent years, [their] coping strategies will soon be exhausted and people will have to take more drastic action,” said the report (pdf).

The researchers concluded that measures being employed by households to counter the effects of climate change were often insufficient, costly, and in many cases had negative effects.

“We need technical assistance and we need to think about financial assistance. We are negotiating and it is give and take. This is part of the negotiating process. We hope it will be part of the Doha outcome,” said Adao Soares, an East Timor diplomat.

He was backed by a new report from CARE, ActionAid and WWF, which argues that the developed countries must start to take full responsibility for the consequences of climate change. The report proposed setting up a climate change insurance fund to pay poor nations according to the damage sustained.

“We have transcended the era of mitigation and adaptation – this is now the new era of loss and damage. To rectify and redress the situation, developed countries have an urgent legal and moral obligation to undertake urgent and dramatic mitigation action,” it says.

Carbon credits row could derail UN climate talks, says Brazil

Head of Brazilian delegation says countries should not be allowed to carry over credits into second round of Kyoto protocol
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Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 2 December 2012 18.23 GMT

The climate change talks are taking place in Doha, Qatar. Photograph: Osama Faisal/AP

Brazil has said a row over carbon credits could derail the United Nations climate change negotiations taking place in Qatar this week.

The row concerns whether countries entering the second round of the Kyoto protocol should be allowed to carry over emissions credits from the first phase. Some countries, including Poland, Ukraine and Russia, have large surpluses of credits, generated because their carbon output collapsed alongside their industrial base after the fall of communism.

These credits are derided as “hot air” by critics because they represent greenhouse gases already reduced many years ago, rather than new efforts. André Corrêa do Lago, head of the Brazilian delegation, told the Guardian: “The second phase has to have environmental integrity, and you will not have that if countries are allowed to carry over [the credits]. The second period will be completely compromised. This is not a way to have effective reductions.”

Brazil occupies an important position at the talks: it is one of the rapidly developing Basic countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China), but has acted as a moderating force between this group and the developed nations, which often have major differences.

Russia and the Ukraine are thought to have billions of emissions credits unsold, but the focus has been on Poland because as a member of the EU it has committed to the second phase of Kyoto. Its refusal to give up its credits has riven a deep split in the EU, which likes to be seen as one of the engines of progress in the talks.

“They are debating this inside the European bloc and we really hope that they will solve it in a way that gives environmental integrity. This is a loophole that means they won’t reduce emissions [as much as promised], so it’s a very strange logic,” said Corrêa do Lago.

Russia has refused to join the second commitment period, likely to run from 2012 to 2020, and Ukraine’s position is unclear.

Developing countries are already unhappy that so few rich nations have agreed to join a second phase of Kyoto. The non-joiners have argued that the focus should shift from the 1997 Kyoto protocol to forging a new global agreement covering developed and developing countries, that would be drafted by 2015 and come into force in 2020. New Zealand’s climate minister, Tim Groser, told the Associated Press in Doha: “This excessive focus on Kyoto, Kyoto, Kyoto, Kyoto, was fine in the 1990s. But given that it covers only 15% of emissions, I’m sorry, this is not the main game.”

Corrêa do Lago said the second phase was needed to give all sides the confidence to proceed: “It is clear from the number of ship-jumpers that if we do not have a Kyoto protocol, things will go rapidly downhill.” He said the number of countries taking on pledges under the continued protocol meant it would not be enough to cut emissions in line with scientific advice, but said it might be “enough politically” to bring developing and developed countries together in a new global agreement to succeed the protocol after 2020.

The row in Doha came as a paper in the journal Nature Climate Change suggested emissions rose again this year, by about 2.6%, to a record high of 35.6bn tonnes. This means global emissions from burning fossil fuels are now 58% above 1990 levels, which was used as the base year for calculating emissions cuts under the Kyoto protocol, according to the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia.

The research follows stark warnings from other authorities in recent weeks, including the World Bank and International Energy Agency, that the world is headed for catastrophic levels of warming, of as much as 4-6C. Scientists say emissions must peak by 2020 to have a chance of holding warming to no more than 2C.

“The prospect of catastrophic climate change needs to change the mindsets of political leaders,” said Martin Kaiser, climate campaigner at Greenpeace. “Coal-rich Poland is so far dictating the European Union position on hot air. Ministers coming to Doha must make a choice now about whether they have the courage to defend people from the impacts of climate change, or whether they will pander to Brussels politics. If Europe makes the wrong call here, it will lose the trust of the rest of the world.”

Under the Kyoto protocol, Poland was obliged to cut its emissions by 6% by 2012 compared with 1988 levels. Poland’s emissions are currently about 30% below the baseline, but the country is a big producer and consumer of coal for power generation, and the country has frequently tried to block EU moves to strengthen environmental regulation.

Poland had an estimated 500m tonnes of carbon credits, known as assigned amount units, or AAUs, but has sold an unknown number to Spain, Japan and Ireland, to help those countries meet their emissions targets, for an estimated €190m so far. The credits are not worth much at present – similar credits can be picked up for as little as €1 – but Poland argues they are a “national right”.

In a move that some applauded as a diplomatic coup and others called a joke, the UN has agreed that next year’s climate talks will take place in Warsaw. Following on from this year’s choice of Qatar, which has the world’s highest per-capita emissions and derives most of its wealth from oil and gas, the choice may prove to be either inspired or disastrous.

Head of Brazilian delegation says countries should not be allowed to carry over credits into second round of Kyoto protocol
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Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 2 December 2012 18.23 GMT

The climate change talks are taking place in Doha, Qatar. Photograph: Osama Faisal/AP

Brazil has said a row over carbon credits could derail the United Nations climate change negotiations taking place in Qatar this week.

The row concerns whether countries entering the second round of the Kyoto protocol should be allowed to carry over emissions credits from the first phase. Some countries, including Poland, Ukraine and Russia, have large surpluses of credits, generated because their carbon output collapsed alongside their industrial base after the fall of communism.

These credits are derided as “hot air” by critics because they represent greenhouse gases already reduced many years ago, rather than new efforts. André Corrêa do Lago, head of the Brazilian delegation, told the Guardian: “The second phase has to have environmental integrity, and you will not have that if countries are allowed to carry over [the credits]. The second period will be completely compromised. This is not a way to have effective reductions.”

Brazil occupies an important position at the talks: it is one of the rapidly developing Basic countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China), but has acted as a moderating force between this group and the developed nations, which often have major differences.

Russia and the Ukraine are thought to have billions of emissions credits unsold, but the focus has been on Poland because as a member of the EU it has committed to the second phase of Kyoto. Its refusal to give up its credits has riven a deep split in the EU, which likes to be seen as one of the engines of progress in the talks.

“They are debating this inside the European bloc and we really hope that they will solve it in a way that gives environmental integrity. This is a loophole that means they won’t reduce emissions [as much as promised], so it’s a very strange logic,” said Corrêa do Lago.

Russia has refused to join the second commitment period, likely to run from 2012 to 2020, and Ukraine’s position is unclear.

Developing countries are already unhappy that so few rich nations have agreed to join a second phase of Kyoto. The non-joiners have argued that the focus should shift from the 1997 Kyoto protocol to forging a new global agreement covering developed and developing countries, that would be drafted by 2015 and come into force in 2020. New Zealand’s climate minister, Tim Groser, told the Associated Press in Doha: “This excessive focus on Kyoto, Kyoto, Kyoto, Kyoto, was fine in the 1990s. But given that it covers only 15% of emissions, I’m sorry, this is not the main game.”

Corrêa do Lago said the second phase was needed to give all sides the confidence to proceed: “It is clear from the number of ship-jumpers that if we do not have a Kyoto protocol, things will go rapidly downhill.” He said the number of countries taking on pledges under the continued protocol meant it would not be enough to cut emissions in line with scientific advice, but said it might be “enough politically” to bring developing and developed countries together in a new global agreement to succeed the protocol after 2020.

The row in Doha came as a paper in the journal Nature Climate Change suggested emissions rose again this year, by about 2.6%, to a record high of 35.6bn tonnes. This means global emissions from burning fossil fuels are now 58% above 1990 levels, which was used as the base year for calculating emissions cuts under the Kyoto protocol, according to the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia.

The research follows stark warnings from other authorities in recent weeks, including the World Bank and International Energy Agency, that the world is headed for catastrophic levels of warming, of as much as 4-6C. Scientists say emissions must peak by 2020 to have a chance of holding warming to no more than 2C.

“The prospect of catastrophic climate change needs to change the mindsets of political leaders,” said Martin Kaiser, climate campaigner at Greenpeace. “Coal-rich Poland is so far dictating the European Union position on hot air. Ministers coming to Doha must make a choice now about whether they have the courage to defend people from the impacts of climate change, or whether they will pander to Brussels politics. If Europe makes the wrong call here, it will lose the trust of the rest of the world.”

Under the Kyoto protocol, Poland was obliged to cut its emissions by 6% by 2012 compared with 1988 levels. Poland’s emissions are currently about 30% below the baseline, but the country is a big producer and consumer of coal for power generation, and the country has frequently tried to block EU moves to strengthen environmental regulation.

Poland had an estimated 500m tonnes of carbon credits, known as assigned amount units, or AAUs, but has sold an unknown number to Spain, Japan and Ireland, to help those countries meet their emissions targets, for an estimated €190m so far. The credits are not worth much at present – similar credits can be picked up for as little as €1 – but Poland argues they are a “national right”.

In a move that some applauded as a diplomatic coup and others called a joke, the UN has agreed that next year’s climate talks will take place in Warsaw. Following on from this year’s choice of Qatar, which has the world’s highest per-capita emissions and derives most of its wealth from oil and gas, the choice may prove to be either inspired or disastrous.