Transcript South Africa`s perspectives on climate action

SOUTH AFRICA’S PERSPECTIVES ON
CLIMATE ACTION
Dialogue on Long-Term Cooperative
Action
15 & 16 May 2006 Bonn Germany
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WHY ARE WE HERE?
• Consensus that climate change is happening.
– The poor, in particular, extremely vulnerable
– Impacts threaten to undermine sustainable development
• In Southern Africa, reaching tipping points
– E.g. combined effects of increased drought and climate
change could remobilize Kalahari dune fields and transform
system to a mobile, wind-blown state
– with serious consequences for local livelihoods
• Required solutions are truly global balancing
– Adaptation
– Mitigation
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CONTEXT – WHERE ARE WE?
• From Montréal: two-track process agreed for broader participation an
environmental effectiveness.
– “Kyoto Process” 2nd Commitment Period (Art 3.9)
– ‘Convention process’ – dialogue on long-term cooperative action
• And other important issues
– Positive incentives for forest conservation
– Article 9 review of Protocol
– Procedure for voluntary Annex B Commitments
• For Annex 1 Countries, No pick + choose”
– Annex 1 Parties should take the lead
– All need to achieve absolute emission reductions
– Meet other obligations, eg. Art 4.3 (finance) and Art 4.5 (Tech transfer)
• For non-Annex I: broader participation
– Taking responsibility
– Scope to explore new ideas such as incentive-based opportunities.
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F0CUS OF THE DIALOGUE
• To explore means of strengthening and fully implementing the Convention.
(All Parties have commitments under FCCC Art 4.1)
• Not through new commitments for developing countries…
• …Through focus on innovative approaches to implement existing Convention
decisions and commitments related to the 4 identified themes - advancing
development goals in a sustainable way; full potential of technology;
Addressing action on adaptation; Realising the full potential of market
mechanisms)
• Currently the Climate Change International Regime is fragmented and lacks
clear priorities and therefore begs the question of:
– How do we better organise and consolidate our existing work programme
– How do we fill the gaps that have been identified.
– How do we develop a clear mandate to take us forward
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ADVANCING SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
• South Africa proposes that Sustainable Development Policies
and Measures (SD PAMS) form a central pillar of the future
Programme of Work under the UNFCCC (Delhi Ministerial
Declaration) with the objective of incentivising climate
friendly sustainable development
• Priority Elements of the Programme of Work to achieve this
should include positive incentives for inter alia:
– R+D for sectoral climate friendly SD PAMS
– Implementation of sectoral climate friendly SD PAMS
– Education, training and public awareness programmes and climate
change capacity building so that climate change issues are integrated into
all development activities.
– South-South and South-North co-operation programmes to assist in
achieving the above.
– Incentives and financing for climate change SD PAMS
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ADVANCING SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT CONT…
• Positive incentives for SD PAMS should focus on facilitating
inter-alia:
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Access to sustainable and climate friendly energy sources
Consumer energy demand management
Energy efficiency programmes
Sustainable climate friendly LULUCF practices (eg in agriculture,
landcare, alien invasives, wetland conservation and wild fire
management);
Carbon sink improvement and conservation (eg forest and geological
programmes)
Sustainable transport systems (including bunker fuels)
Climate friendly clean production systems
Addressing the unintended consequences of climate actions on
developing country economies
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REALISE THE FULL POTENTIAL OF
TECHNOLOGY
• Major challenges are climate friendly technology R+D, tech
transfer and R+D barriers
• A new technology related Programme of Work is required with
the objective of incentivising climate friendly technology
development and transfer.
• Priority element of this Programme of Work should include
incentives for inter alia:
– Developing country R+D capacity building, including South-South and
South-North R+D Cooperation
– Mitigation and adaptation R+D
– Overcoming IPR barriers, including:
• Measures for publicly owned climate change tech transfer
• A multi-lateral technology acquisition and deployment fund for privately
owned tech transfer
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ADDRESS ACTION ON ADAPTATION
• Climate change is happening and although a SBSTA 5
year Programme of Work exists, a SBI Programme of
Work is required now.
• The objective of this would be to facilitate adaptation
implementation
• Priority elements of this Programme of Work should
include positive incentives for inter-alia:
– Establishment of early warning systems where these are
lacking
– Risk management and burden sharing financial mechanisms
– Transfer of sectoral adaptation technologies
– Adaptation capacity building
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REALISE THE FULL POTENTIAL OF
MARKETS
• A major challenge is the price gap between climate friendly and climate
unfriendly activities.
• Experience of Emissions Trading System, Joint Implementation and CDM
demonstrate that markets may address some of the gap, but not completely
and the lack of a true global market is a challenge to be addressed in a
programme of work.
• The objective of this should be to use market mechanism to finance and
incentivise climate action
• Priority elements of the Programme of Work should include positive
incentives for inter-alia:
– Creating a global market
– CDM expanded beyond project level to a programmatic level
– Sectoral crediting mechanism within countries
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SOUTH AFRICA PROPOSES A POSITIVE
INCENTIVE APPROACH TO THE
PROGRAMMES OF WORK
• To enhance the development of mitigation and adaptation
actions under the Convention which also
– Promote local sustainable development
– Is appropriate to national circumstances
– Promotes development to meet basic human needs
• 3 Types of Positive Incentives are proposed:
– Upfront: encouraging a party to take action (eg. Access to funding to
allow for deployment of commercial low carbon technologies)
– Recurring: ensuring continuance of efforts (eg. Continued conservation
of forests)
– After the fact, ex-post-facto: (eg. On meeting a set target)
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NEED PLAN OF ACTION
• All nations accept responsibility to deal with climate
change within an inclusive multilateral regime that
balances adaptation & mitigation
• Consolidate fragmented decisions into a coherent
programme of work.
• Coordinate different strands of work
• Supported by financing and improved investment
environment from both public and private sources
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ORGANISATION OF WORK
• 4 workshops
– Deal with each of the four elements at each
workshop
– Need to explore concrete ideas and specific
proposals on each
– Input by officials, other experts, organisations
• South Africa proposes a special workshop
addressing the positive incentives approach
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Thank you
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