Wijkman further writes that a whole range of measures can and should be taken at national levels to help reduce GHG emissions, stop climate change and generate an economy that is not threatened by environment and social instability.

Cancun may have saved the UN process, but not the climate

By Anders Wijkman

After the failure in Copenhagen last year, expectations for the climate conference in Cancun were low.  Press reports, both ahead of and during the two weeks of negotiations, were predominately negative. Only hours before the meeting ended, Chris Huhne, the UK energy and climate secretary, talked about Cancun becoming ”a car crash”. 

A combination of skillful tactics by the host country Mexico and the determination by many governments to avoid another failure, led to an agreement that - at least – will keep the process in motion. But, as Stephen Leahy reported for the IPS, ”if success is measured by delaying difficult decisions, the the Cancun meeting was a real success”.

The deal has been hailed as restoring faith in the multilateral UN process. While making limited progress on forest protection and the establishment of a Climate Fund, the agreement postpones many of the most important decisions to future negotiations. With regard to emissions reductions the agreement is extremely disappointing.

But the negotiating process is still alive. All eyes now will be on South Africa, the host of next year´s conference. Some people hope that the meeting in South Africa will bring about the much needed breakthrough on emissions reductions. We must seriously question the realism of that, however.

The US and China are the main barriers to an international agreement. The political situation in the US with regard to climate change is highly unlikely to improve in the coming twelve months. If the US does not sign, China will not sign. Indeed, the question is whether China has any inclination at all to sign a legally binding text in the near future.  Experts on China will tell you that ”the Chinese leadership views carbon emission caps as a threat to China´s development and that China will do everything it can to avoid a binding agreement, at least for now”.

Whichever way one looks at it, a legally binding agreement seems far away. But this does not mean that negotiations should stop. The world badly needs an agreement and efforts must continue. The issues already agreed upon, like forest protection through REDD and the Climate Fund, should be further developed. Parallel to that action on many other fronts must be vigorously pursued, such as:

• Enhancing energy security is the most pressing need and dominates attempts to solve the emissions issue. Access to crude oil will be less secure in the years to come. Many experts predict that supplies will decline by up to 5 % per year from 2012 and onwards. Another oil price shock appears imminent. Two sectors will be hit particularly hard – transport and agriculture.
• Everything possible should be done to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, notably oil. The most obvious strategy would be to accelerate investments in energy efficiency and renewables. That would require stronger incentives, something that each and every government can easily provide.
• A floor price for carbon would be the most appropriate incentive but this has yet to be established. In most parts of the world, carbon emissions have no price at all. In some regions, like the EU, a carbon market exists, but prices are extremely volatile. The establishment of a floor price for carbon would provide security to investors. The EU should take the lead and encourage other regions to adopt the principle of a floor price for carbon.
• Turning farming from a carbon source into a carbon sink, is another effective intervention. Agriculture emits an estimated 4-5 Gigatons of carbon gloablly each year. Through activities like low-tilling and perennial crops the same amount of carbon could instead be stored in the soils.  A co-benefit would be that both soil fertility and water retention capacity would be greatly enhanced.
• Reducing other greenhouse gases (GHG) must not be forgotten in the focus on CO2. Other gases contribute to climate change as well. Black carbon is a special concern as it is generated by hundreds of millions of inefficient stoves in South Asia, Africa and Latin America. By replacing such stoves, emissions of Black carbon as well as CO2 will be lowered. A critical co-benefit would be the significant reduction of in-door air pollution – a major killer in poor communities.       
• More efficient use of natural resources. The throw-away lifestyles of the rich world are being adopted by the growing middle classes in fast developing countries, resulting in the rapid increase in the throughput of energy and materials. This is unsustainable. One of many benefits when using resources more efficiently will be lowered GHG emissions. The introduction of efficiency standards – both for energy and virgin materials – would promote activities like reuse, recycling and reconditioning, thereby greatly reducing material throughput as well as GHG emissions.

For many years, many of us lived under the impression that a legally binding agreement of GHG emissions would be the way forward to stabilise the climate. Only recently did we realise the enormous difficulties to realise such a goal.

But we can´t let the best be the enemy of the good. There are many other actions to be taken and many are already happening . A major one, of course, will be to rethink global governance processes – a topic given high priority by the Tällberg Foundation. But parallel to that, a whole range of measures can and should be taken at national levels to help reduce GHG emissions, stop climate change and generate an economy that is not threatened by environment and social instability. I have suggested some of the most obvious ones and trust they will be pursued by as many governments as possible.