Climate Change

Poznan Conference: challenges and expectations for the last stage before Copenhagen

This year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference will be held in Poznan from 1 to 12 December. This conference is the 14th of its kind since the Rio Summit and the 4th since the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. It should allow considerable progress to be made in the implementation of the Action Plan and Roadmap adopted 12 months earlier in Bali, setting guidelines for negotiations with a view to reaching a global agreement in Copenhagen in late 2009 for the reform of global climate governance.

Some ten representatives of IDDRI will actively participate in the Conference, either by providing support to facilitate the negotiations themselves on different subjects (sectoral agreements, legal aspects, forests, etc.), or by contributing to the expert debates organised alongside the negotiations.

In particular, IDDRI will organise two international round tables:

- 3 December at 15.30: Round table on industrial transition for decarbonising the European economy. A panel of industry representatives will discuss the results of the economic simulations conducted as part of the “Carbon constraint scenarios” programme launched by IDDRI and the Entreprises pour l'Environnement (EpE) association in 2004, with CIRED, LEPII-EpE and Enerdata economists.

- 8 December at 15.30: Round table on financing measures to halt deforestation, and especially potential links with carbon markets. This round table follows on from the European workshop organised by IDDRI on 27 and 28 October 2008 with academic experts, associations and institutions.

IDDRI has also published several documents in its Synthèses series in order to take stock of the negotiations on the “Climate and Energy” package after the European Summit (15 and 16 October 2008 in Brussels), and the Environment Council meeting on 20 and 21 October in Luxembourg. This series of policy briefs especially presents the main points of negotiation and debate on: using the revenue from auctioning emissions allowances (Policy brief 03/2008)); competitiveness and carbon leakage (Policy brief 04/2008); moving from 20 to 30% emissions reduction (Policy brief 05/2008); carbon capture and sequestration (Policy brief 06/2008); and the link between European carbon sinks and tropical deforestation (Policy brief 07/2008).

>> See also:  the Poznan conference on the UNFCCC

PUBLICATIONS

* How can government promote strategic approaches to payments for environmental services: An exploratory analysis for the case of Viet nam, Hitomi Rankine and Sheila Wertz-Kanounnikoff
This study aims to support governments by elaborating a methodological framework to inform PES development at the national level. The proposed framework is applied to Viet Nam, which has unique experience with forest allocation and PES like programs, and is currently developing a national PES policy – as one of the first countries in Asia.
This study explores how objectives for PES development that reflect the socio-economic and bio-geographic context, as well as national development objectives can be defined by governments, and how these objectives can infl uence the design of PES schemes. It reveals substantial scope for defining such objectives in the context of Viet Nam and for their accommodation in PES design.

>> Download the Analysis 03/2008.

* L’adaptation toile de fond du développement durable, Alexandre Magnan
The climate change issue has led to the emergence of adaptation as a challenge for our modern societies – yet adaptation today remains a vague sphere whose movements and contours we do not fully grasp. This summary aims to provide a conceptual insight into the issue of adaptation. It suggests two avenues for discussion on adaptation in the sustainability process, along with links and synergies between adaptation, climate change and sustainable development.

>> Download the Syntheses 08/2008.

*Linkage between forest-based mitigation and GHG markets, Cyril Loisel
This document aims to provide input for the workshop on Linkage between forest-based mitigation and GHG markets, organized by IDDRI, taking place in Paris on 27 and 28 October 2008.
This background paper intends to provide a rapid initial overview on three aspects of the linkage between forest-based mitigation and emission trading schemes:
- the quantification of funding requirements for REDD+ actions
- fund- raising on taxpayers and consumers in advanced economies
- mechanisms to transfer funds to support REDD+ strategies in participant countries.

>> Download the Ideas 19/2008.

* A note on including climate change adaptation in an international scheme, Stéphane Hallegatte
This note contributes to IDDRI’s support to Michael Zammit Cutajar, Vice-chair of the Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action under the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).
This note supports the view that an international scheme designed to help developing countries adapt is necessary, but that, in the near future, using a too strict definition of adaptation would not allow the funding of the most useful projects. The most efficient projects to reduce climate vulnerability, indeed, have often development-related benefits that are large enough to justify their implementation even in absence of climate change. There are not, therefore, adaptation projects in the strictest sense, but they may be the most able to reduce future impacts of climate change. These projects, in spite of their benefits, are not always implemented because of insufficient funding. An international support to adaptation should make these investments possible, thereby reducing future climate vulnerability.

>> Download the Ideas 18/2008.

Focus on...The World Conservation Congress (Barcelona, 6-9 October 2008).

Bringing together over 8 000 specialists from the conservation sector, governments, NGOs, universities, the private sector and indigenous groups, the IUCN World Conservation Congress met in Barcelona in early October.
The debates particularly highlighted the economic dimension of biodiversity loss, demonstrating that its cost far exceeds the benefits arising from it, and that its long-term effects on human welfare will be partly irreversible. Biofuels were also given special attention, with members of the oldest conservation group asking governments to regulate and manage their production and use in order to limit their potential impact on biodiversity and on populations.
Relations with the private sector, climate change, fisheries management, indigenous peoples’ rights and avoided deforestation and degradation were also extensively discussed.
Representing IDDRI, Lucien Chabason and Laurence Tubiana presented in Barcelona the recent developments in the process to establish the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services), the future “IPCC for biodiversity”. Again for IDDRI, Julien Rochette co-organised a workshop on high seas governance, and Raphaël Billé took part in a workshop on the post-2010 period, alongside the three candidates for the IUCN presidency, with the Indian Ashok Khosla finally being elected several days later.

>> See also : The Congress website

Director of publications = Laurence Tubiana
Editor = Élise Coudane
Translation = Anna Kiff