As the first week comes to a close there was no good news out of the UN sponsored COP 19 process taking place in Warsaw. No progress on carbon mitigation and no progress on finance. Japan announced it was going to increase its emissions and wealthy countries ignored the issue of climate finance and assistance for countries affected by climate change. There was no movement on efforts to put markets to work and the only small consolation was in the area of technology transfer, although there were no agreements. Here is a succinct review of COP 19 as of the end of Week one
Due to Japan’s decision to put an end to nuclear power following the Fukushima disaster, the country’s emissions cuts have been substantially reduced. Japan’s new 2020 target represent an increase of 3 percent in emissions vs. 1990, (however they were positioned as a decrease of 3.8% vs. 2005 emissions). In real terms this means the nation’s CO2 emissions reduction target has been reduced from 25 percent to 3.8 percent.
No progress on climate finance and the developed world all but ignored their $100 billion Copenhagen pledge. Even in light of the dire need so tragically articulated by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines there was no progress on Loss and Damage.
Nor did we see movement on The Framework for Various Approaches (FVA) and The New Market Mechanism (NMM). FVA includes opportunities for using markets, to enhance the cost-effectiveness of, and to promote, mitigation actions. NMM is supposed to explore ways of enhancing mitigation actions focusing on cost-effectiveness
One tiny bright spot is in the area of technology transfer where there has been a renewed call from some nations for the opening up of patents on a variety of “climate friendly” technologies.
© 2013, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.
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