Ann Danylkiw's Climate Chronicles

Sebastian Foot hadn’t meant to create such a frustrating job for himself.

Last year, he founded a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project finance structuring firm called Frontier Advisors with the “intention to take equity” in the emerging green market space. Instead, he ended up in a constant tussle with an interminably slippery bureaucracy that is the UNFCCC CDM Executive Board.

Foot has watched the debate surrounding its reform, and, in his mind, it doesn’t go far enough.

Reporting from London

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change would be far more effective if it relied more on smaller, representative groups of countries meeting year-round to hammer out the details of a future climate agreement, Britain’s climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, told Parliament.

He also suggested that the leadership of the UNFCCC’s annual Conference of Parties meetings needs an overhaul — instead of career politicians leading the way toward an international agreement, the COP needs diplomatic and climate change experts at the helm.

Talking about a green revolution as a competition between China and the U.S. is like putting two teams on the same field that play different games. Yet, this has been the popular spin on news that China’s spending on smart grid technology will exceed that of the U.S. by $200 million. It has also been the spin on high-speed rail and the so-called "clean tech arms race."

But had this really ought to be understood as a competition? And is a fair comparison being made? The answer, according to some China experts, is no.

Reporting from London

International policy experts discussing the future of climate change policy said they aren’t optimistic about achieving a comprehensive legally binding agreement at the COP16 meeting late this year in Mexico, and they’re not too optimistic about COP17 in South Africa in 2011 either.

The problem seems to be that trust between developed and developing countries was severed at Copenhagen in December during the last big meeting of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“For Mexico to succeed, a few issues have to be addressed. The main one will be the building of trust,” Bruno Sekoli, chief negotiator for Lesotho and the COP15 chair for the least-developed countries group, said at a forum held Thursday by the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD) at London’s Institute for Physics.

“I do feel that Mexico may be too soon for us to reach a legally binding [agreement], we need maybe a little bit more time,” he said. “Damage from 2009 will take sometime to heal.”

Read More

Bookmark/Search this post with:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• Add new comment

Circular 698 caused a momentary pause throughout the business anglo-sino-blogosphere late last year.

China passed a retroactive look-through provision that effectively changed the rules for foreign investment structures in China. The Circular in and of itself is relatively innocuous. It highlights an oft misunderstood Chinese business sensitivity in China’s central economic planning: China for Chinese business only.

As China carries forward its strategy to adapt to and mitigate climate change, foreign owned clean technology businesses need to be aware of China’s position.

Chairman Wang Shi of Vanke Co. Ltd is taking advice from all over the world. He has studied renewable energy technology in Norway and Japan. Last year, he was in Germany and the Netherlands.

His company is on the frontier of green building technology in China, particularly in water. At the moment, Vanke is working on rain water filtration for secondary usages, such as washing clothes, and using water circulation within a building for energy. This technology isn’t anything new; it’s being adapted to China’s needs from similar technology in other areas of the world.

Wang embraced the advice of a green consultancy firm that told him: In China, if you want to realize green building, it is not necessary to use high tech. Low tech, low cost is more suitable for China’s situation.

It’s been weeks since the Copenhagen climate talks ended, and the blame game hasn’t dulled but become more shrill. In all the finger pointing, one thing that has been lacking is consideration that achievement of a binding legal deal on climate change may be better served under the skies of a gritty, dynamic urban center in an emerging market country than a pristine old world capital.

In Mexico City, where the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC meets again in late November with hopes of this time reaching a legally binding climate accord, developed countries will not so easily be able to ignore the pressure climate change will place on a majority of the world’s population — a population that is more cramped for space and has less wealth per capita than the people of major cities in developed countries around the world.

Reporting from Copenhagen

“Takes note of: That is a way of recognizing what is there without going so far as to directly associate yourself with it.”

That's how UN climate chief Yvo de Boer described the fate of the Copenhagen Accord this morning. World leaders had hammered out what they thought was an international climate change agreement, only to watch the Sudanese speaker for the G77, Lumumba Di-Aping, shred it in 20 minutes during a midnight press conference.

With unanimous approval of the accord out of the question, officials came up with this solution: The Conference of Parties "took note" of the Copenhagen Accord but did not formally adopt it.

How the non-binding Copenhagen Accord will function from here, particularly its financial mechanisms, is unclear, legal experts say. While recognized, it exists outside of all previous agreements, and only those countries that explicitly associate with the accord are bound to it in any way.

Reporting from Copenhagen

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton tossed the ball into China’s court during a press conference this morning by quoting a Chinese proverb: “When you are in a common boat, you have to cross the river peacefully together.”

Those who know Chinese proverbs said she did so intentionally to “publicly put China on the spot.” Clinton’s statement concluded by stressing the need to come to an agreement on transparency.

This afternoon, China tossed the ball away, intimating that it would not play the United States’ game.

Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs He Yafei agrees that transparency is necessary and said China would fulfill its emissions targets in a transparent manner consistent with respect for national sovereignty and with the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol and Bali roadmaps — international regimes the U.S. has agreed to.

The key question is whether, left to its own devices and agreeing to continue reporting to the UNFCCC, China can do transparency and if its data can be trusted.

Reporting from Copenhagen

One of the biggest sticking points for China and the U.S. when it comes to a global climate deal is monitoring, reporting, and verifying of greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. wants emerging markets (most notably China) to agree to international regulations. China refuses as a "matter of principle."

In a sparsely attended side-event amid the Copenhagen climate talks this week, a small Chinese NGO described one potential solution: It is piloting a grassroots project for reporting greenhouse gas emissions in China.

Using the model of the California-based Climate Registry, ICET (Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation) is working on a climate and energy registry for businesses and municipalities in Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces in southern China.