Economics of Environment

Economics of the Environment

If you have a shoe that is nearly getting torn would you rather wait to have it torn so that you can mend it or you would rather repair it before it gets worn out? You can choose to wait and have it torn and therefore end up using more money to mend it or you can mend it at the early stage and you are safe. This is the same as addressing effects of climate change.

Stopping global warming and protecting the earth’s climate has and is still a daunting nightmare. This has to be addressed with a lot f speed and urgency to enable us change ways in which we create and use energy and much more relating to our development and lifestyle pathways. This change is not free. We have already experienced resistance to paying for the first crucial steps along the road. The perception is that reaching for more ambitious mitigation targets and quicker reduction in emissions would translate to economic disaster.

The critical question we need to ask ourselves is whether the “go slow” recommendations are unjustified or justified. A number of economic analyses informed by recent scientific suggest that more ambitious targets and quicker reduction of emissions makes good economic sense. Despite the adverse effects of climate change, it has not as a consequence become impossible inexpensive to save the planet. We can still afford a sustainable future. The sad news about climate change relates to the cost of reluctance and inaction. As greenhouse gas emissions grow, it’s the cost of doing nothing that becomes unbearable, and not the cost of acting.

We cannot afford a little Climate Policy, half measures that would leave us all vulnerable to the immense risks of an increasingly destructive climate. We need a big initiative, a comprehensive global deal on protecting the earth’s climate by rapidly reducing emissions of green house gases.

This series will be trying to analyze the costs of inaction to climate change effects.

By Alphaxard Gitau Ndungu

Fixing Climate Finance

By: Jamie Peters

In the lead up to COP19 in Poland, Parties and Observers will be setting
their objectives and their game plans to strategize on what they can take
from the talks in their own best case scenarios.  Fair and adequate climate
finance must be central to those plans.

The developing world, who are now being thrown into a global climate deal,
will have to not only adapt to the dire consequences of climate change but
also have increased mitigation efforts under the a 2015 treaty. To do this,
as has been made clear already in UNFCCC, they need increased climate
finance to facilitate adaptation and mitigation efforts.

The Fast Track Finance (FFS) period, to facilitate a flow of climate
finance from North to South, ended in 2012. The next agreement on finance
focuses on $100bn each year by 2020 through the Green Climate Fund. That
leaves a huge gap where finance is needed more than ever. The developed
world cannot hide behind this agreement to further delay their promises of
climate finance.

This is why there are calls to make COP19 a ‘finance COP’. Increased
engagement from finance decision makers and finance Ministers looks likely
but it is not clear if this will translate into the needed pledges.

On top of climate finance being pledged there must also be a close eye kept
on the form of the money. If the climate finance is simply moved from other
aid budgets then this is unacceptable and the same goes for the use of
loans as part of any pledges. Finance must be new, additional from other
aid and adequate in order for it to make the difference that it needs to.

Significant finance from public sources is the key to fair funding for the
developing world to combat climate change.

Jamie Peters | COP18 International Policy Trainer| UK Youth Climate
Coalition (UKYCC)

Focal Point to the UNFCCC Secretariat
YOUNGOs | Youth Constituency at the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change | www.youthclimate.org

Demistification.....

Towards a 2015 Agreement: Elements of the Durban Platform

By: Kennedy Mbeva

The current focus of the international climate change negotiations is on delivering a new climate agreement by 2015. This is due to the exacerbating effects of climate change, while efforts to tackle them are often deemed not sufficient.

However, with the flurry of discussions, workshops, conferences and studies going on, it is easy to lose track of the process. It is in this light that we will have a series of articles breaking down the nitty gritties of the negotiations towards a global climate agreement.

Setting the stage

The stage for working towards a global climate agreement was set at COP17 , in a package of decisions known as the Durban Platform. In essence, this package outlined four key areas that would form the roadmap for a global climate agreement by 2015, with the overarching term being ‘ambition’.  These are:

1. Global Review of the global temperature goal

There has been a raging debate as to whether the target of keeping global atmospheric temperatures, of 2 degrees, is appropriate. Thus a global review was proposed with the aim of using data and science so as to establish the appropriate temperature rise ceiling.

2. Launch of a new track of negotiations

At COP17, it was deemed that a new subsidiary body was needed in order to iron out the details of the new global climate agreement by 2015. This subsidiary body is called the Ad-hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action , in short, ADP.

ADP has an overarching mandate of delivering a global climate agreement in any of the three possible forms:

i. A legal instrument 

ii. A Protocol 

iii. An agreed outcome with legal force

3. Conclusion of some existing stream of negotiations

The Durban Platform called for the conclusion, in 2012, of the very broad Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (LCA) The LCA was established at COP13 in the Bali Action Plan.

4. Renewal of the Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol  was to run out at the end of 2012, thus, the Durban Platform  called for the adoption of a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

Conclusion

Thus, the Durban Platform laid the ground for the 2015 climate agreement. The next post will look at ADP in detail.

Kennedy Mbeva is the founder of GreenBits Initiative