7 December 2010
Around half of investors in BNP Paribas’ Clean Energy Fund – which closed this week at €427 million ($568 million) – are making their first investments in renewables, according to the head of the French bank’s clean energy investing arm.
“Investors, particularly in the insurance sector, have been looking at [renewables] more closely over the last 12 months,” Joost Bergsma, CEO of BNP Paribas Clean Energy Partners told Environmental Finance. “It’s good news for people working in environmental finance that there’s still appetite for the sector.”
The fund closed above target – BNP Paribas had been hoping to raise between €300 million and €400 million into the fund – making it one of the largest European renewable energy infrastructure funds.
The renewables sector has been in the doldrums amid poor performance this year by clean energy stocks, uncertainty about support in the US for renewables and concerns that governments in Europe, particularly Spain, were about to retroactively reduce renewable energy tariffs.
However, Bergsma said that investors were attracted by the fund’s high levels of cash yields and relatively low levels of risk, focused as it is on investing in projects using proven technologies in mature and “transparent” markets in Europe.
“Investors increasingly recognise that renewable energy infrastructure is an important part of the economy and therefore it should be part of their portfolios,” he said.
Investors include pension funds, insurance companies and local authorities, with two-thirds from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, UK and Sweden, and the remainder from Japan and elsewhere in Asia. BNP did market the fund to US investors, but Bergsma said a combination of their preference for dollar-denominated investments and concerns about the stability of European renewables regulation proved a deterent.
“Clearly, US investors are a bit more sceptical about something state-supported,” he said. “And they’re further afield – they’re going to be more cautious than, for example, a French investor” about European renewable energy regimes.
Indications earlier this year that Spain was set to reverse its previously attractive solar feed-in tariffs, including for operational projects, “did not help” in marketing the fund. “But the sector is more mature than three or four years ago … Investors recognise that even if one government was to renege on its commitments, it doesn’t hit the whole sector,” he added.
The fund invests in construction and operational clean energy infrastructure assets in onshore wind, solar photovoltaic, biomass and small-scale hydro power, and has made six investments already, in Italian solar power and French and Irish wind farms. It typically invests €20 million-40 million in equity per investment, leveraged with €60 million-80 million in project financing.
The fund has a 10-year life and is expected to return 15% per annum to investors.
Mark Nicholls
Sunday, 12 December 2010
11th hour rescue for renewables cash grant?
9 December 2010
A last-ditch effort to preserve the critical US Treasury grant programme for renewable energy projects may fall short amid Republican opposition, despite the urgent pleas of renewable trade associations, developers and green groups.
Legislation proposed last week by Max Baucus (D-Montana), chairman of the influential Senate tax committee, would have extended the Section 1603 Treasury grant programme created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) until 31 December, 2011. The programme, set to expire at the end of this year, has supported more than $18 billion in project investments and more than 8,600MW of installed capacity.
The bill would have also provided an additional $2.5 billion for the Section 48c advanced manufacturing tax credit, which was established by ARRA to provide a 30% investment tax credit for factories that make advanced energy equipment. That exhausted its $2.3 billion funding appropriation in January.
The Baucus bill failed a procedural vote over the weekend and its provisions are not included in the framework agreement between President Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans to extend the Bush-era tax cuts due to expire at the end of 2010 and unemployment benefits. But the details are still being hammered out and renewable energy advocates hope to attach the cash grant provision to the tax bill, with some legislators indicating the extension is at the top of the list of items to be added.
“We really, really have a lot at risk right now and we’re conveying that as much as possible to both sides,” said Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association.
But the prospects seem murky at best. Some Congressional Republicans have expressed opposition to extending any ARRA provisions and Congress is tentatively scheduled to adjourn for the holidays by the end of next week.
Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said it is imperative “to put partisan politics aside” and ensure that the renewable energy sector continues to grow.
“I don’t want you to think of us as desperate, but some companies are nervous,” he said. “Their livelihood is at stake.”
The extension is seen as critical to prevent a total collapse of the sector amid ongoing difficulties attracting tax equity investment. The industry needs about $7 billion-$8 billion in financing next year, but only $4 billion is projected to be available and developers will have to compete for those dollars, Resch said.
“The equity markets are still very limited,” Bode agreed.
Developers are scrambling to get projects on track before the current deadline, but many will be scrapped if they can’t, Resch said. Solar is poised to have a record year of growth in 2010 with more than 1,000MW installed and more than 2,000MW expected in 2011, but that projection drops to about 800MW without the programme, he added.
Thanks to the cash grant programme, manufacturer SunPower recently booked $100 million of projects and is racing to commence construction before the end-of-year deadline, said Julie Blunden, executive vice-president for public policy and corporate communications. “The Treasury grant programme is a threshold policy to continue to move that forward,” she said.
Gloria Gonzalez
A last-ditch effort to preserve the critical US Treasury grant programme for renewable energy projects may fall short amid Republican opposition, despite the urgent pleas of renewable trade associations, developers and green groups.
Legislation proposed last week by Max Baucus (D-Montana), chairman of the influential Senate tax committee, would have extended the Section 1603 Treasury grant programme created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) until 31 December, 2011. The programme, set to expire at the end of this year, has supported more than $18 billion in project investments and more than 8,600MW of installed capacity.
The bill would have also provided an additional $2.5 billion for the Section 48c advanced manufacturing tax credit, which was established by ARRA to provide a 30% investment tax credit for factories that make advanced energy equipment. That exhausted its $2.3 billion funding appropriation in January.
The Baucus bill failed a procedural vote over the weekend and its provisions are not included in the framework agreement between President Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans to extend the Bush-era tax cuts due to expire at the end of 2010 and unemployment benefits. But the details are still being hammered out and renewable energy advocates hope to attach the cash grant provision to the tax bill, with some legislators indicating the extension is at the top of the list of items to be added.
“We really, really have a lot at risk right now and we’re conveying that as much as possible to both sides,” said Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association.
But the prospects seem murky at best. Some Congressional Republicans have expressed opposition to extending any ARRA provisions and Congress is tentatively scheduled to adjourn for the holidays by the end of next week.
Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said it is imperative “to put partisan politics aside” and ensure that the renewable energy sector continues to grow.
“I don’t want you to think of us as desperate, but some companies are nervous,” he said. “Their livelihood is at stake.”
The extension is seen as critical to prevent a total collapse of the sector amid ongoing difficulties attracting tax equity investment. The industry needs about $7 billion-$8 billion in financing next year, but only $4 billion is projected to be available and developers will have to compete for those dollars, Resch said.
“The equity markets are still very limited,” Bode agreed.
Developers are scrambling to get projects on track before the current deadline, but many will be scrapped if they can’t, Resch said. Solar is poised to have a record year of growth in 2010 with more than 1,000MW installed and more than 2,000MW expected in 2011, but that projection drops to about 800MW without the programme, he added.
Thanks to the cash grant programme, manufacturer SunPower recently booked $100 million of projects and is racing to commence construction before the end-of-year deadline, said Julie Blunden, executive vice-president for public policy and corporate communications. “The Treasury grant programme is a threshold policy to continue to move that forward,” she said.
Gloria Gonzalez
At last, the climate changes
Environment Editor Michael McCarthy witnesses the successful conclusion of the UN talks on global warming – and explains why the deal is good news
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Ministers and officials from nearly 200 countries pulled off one of modern history's major repair jobs yesterday when they revived the global project to counter global warming, which had seemed critically damaged by the failure of the Copenhagen climate conference a year ago.
At a successor conference in Cancun, Mexico, they agreed a package of measures which are not yet enough to save the climate, but are enough to save the 20-year-old international climate change negotiating process from collapse – a real danger if the talks had ended in deadlock once again, as many observers expected.
After a fortnight's negotiations in the Mexican "super-resort" on the Caribbean coast, in which prospects of success often seemed bleak, the 15,000 delegates bridged their differences in the early hours of yesterday with a comprehensive deal, which was announced to thunderous applause and cheering.
They signed off a new framework in which all countries – and not just the rich nations, as previously – now have official, UN-recognised goals to cut their emissions of the greenhouse gases that are causing the atmosphere to warm (with this year likely to prove the warmest in the 150-year-old instrumental record).
They recognised that industrialised nations need to do more to cut emissions, officially adopted the target of keeping warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels, agreed that world emissions must soon peak, and agreed to a new international regime of monitoring of every country's emission-cutting efforts, which was previously anathema to China – now the world's biggest CO2 emitter.
Furthermore, in two radical new initiatives, they set up a huge, multi-billion-dollar Green Fund to help developing countries fight climate change, which will start operating in a year's time, and outlined a new world-wide agreement to halt deforestation, which alone is responsible for 20 per cent of the CO2 emissions total.
Some environmentalists criticised the deal because, in the emissions cuts it prescribes, it does not yet go far enough to keep warming to a two-degree rise. Yet there was widespread recognition that Cancun's restoration of momentum to the negotiation process, in the wake of the Copenhagen "car crash", was an achievement of great significance.
"The UN climate talks are off the life-support machine," said Tim Gore of Oxfam. "The agreement falls short of the emissions cuts that are needed, but it lays out a path to move towards them – crucially moving the world closer to the global deal that eluded the Copenhagen summit."
Wendel Trio of Greenpeace said that some people had called the process dead. "But governments have shown that they can co-operate and move forward to achieve a global deal," he said.
Britain's Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne, who headed the UK delegation, said the agreement marked "a really important moment".
"This is a turning point in the long-running saga of international climate change negotiations," he said. "We've got a deal here which, if I had to mark it, I would have said 8 out of 10. It's way beyond what we were expecting only a few weeks ago, and, indeed, way beyond what we expecting at the beginning of the week."
Mr Huhne, who had warned that failure at Cancun would have turned future climate talks into "a zombie process" in which nothing of significance could be agreed, played a major role in the meeting's successful outcome, chairing a special group of ministers dealing with its most difficult problem.
This was a seemingly intractable argument between some rich and poor countries over renewing the Kyoto protocol, which runs out at the end of 2012, and which commits rich industrialised countries to make legally binding cuts to their emissions, while committing the poorer developing nations to do nothing. The row pitched Japan and Russia, on the one hand – refusing point-blank to countenance a renewed protocol – against developing countries led by Bolivia and Venezuela, who insisted on renewal as the price of a deal.
Mr Huhne and his group drafted text of such Byzantine subtlety that it allowed both sides to hold their positions while putting off a decision on Kyoto 2, probably to the next UN climate conference which will take place next year in Durban, South Africa.
The resolution of the Kyoto argument made possible all the rest of the package, of which the carbon-cutting measures are probably the most important, but the Green Fund and the draft of a deforestation treaty are the most eye-catching,
The fund will be used to disburse large sums in annual aid for climate defence in developing nations. Rich countries promised the fund should reach $100bn by 2020 in the Copenhagen Accord, the ad hoc agreement cobbled together by heads of state as a face-saver at the end of the failed meeting in Denmark.
The forest agreement, which is known as REDD+ – the acronym stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (plus a few other things such as replanting) – foresees the eventual "monetisation" of the great rainforests of countries such as Brazil, Congo and Indonesia, with the host nations receiving funding for not cutting them down and so releasing CO2 (perhaps eventually in the form of carbon "credits" that can be traded in emissions trading schemes).
Mr Huhne, a Liberal Democrat, was clearly elated by the success of the meeting, as were all the British team, including his Tory deputy, Greg Barker; they were particularly pleased that Britain had achieved its main objective, which was to "anchor" inside the UN climate process the informal emissions pledges made by many nations under the Copenhagen Accord, a document which, however, has no official status.
Speaking of the deal in the round, Mr Huhne said: "I think this shows that there is still a real consensus internationally – and I would say a growing consensus in places such as China and India, where you would not, a year ago, have expected it – that we do have to go down this path to a low-carbon economy, and that, actually, it is the road to prosperity."
What has been agreed?
Shared Vision:
This means the big overall picture.
The Aim An official aim, accepted by all, of halting global warming at a rise of less than 2C above pre-industrial levels (it presently stands at about 0.8C above those levels). Recognition that industrialised countries must do more. Setting a date for a global peak in carbon emissions.
The Deal The 2C target was agreed and the need for stronger action by developed countries was recognised, The idea that the world's CO2 emissions should peak was recognised – for "as soon as possible" – but no date was set.
What are we waiting for? A date for this emissions peak – 2020 was what Chris Huhne wanted – and perhaps an even tougher target than 2 degrees, such as 1.5. (Small island states threatened with sea level rise want this). A scientific review will look at this in 2013.
Legal Form:
This means what future agreements are going to look like.
The Aim Developing countries wanted a pledge to renew the Kyoto protocol, with its commitments only on rich countries to cut their emissions. Rich countries want a universal emissions treaty binding on everyone.
The Deal A compromise in which both of these potentially irreconcilable positions were held in abeyance without wrecking the talks through clever language drafted by Chris Huhne and his team.
What are we waiting for? A second commitment period of Kyoto, with perhaps a parallel treaty legally binding everyone (which Britain would accept). A target for next year's climate conference in Durban.
Emissions Pledges:
This refers to the cuts in carbon emissions that countries say they will carry out
The Aim The bringing into the official UN climate change negotiating process of the pledges that many developing countries, such as China, have made over the past year under the Copenhagen Accord. This was an ad-hoc document drafted by heads of state as a face-saver at the meeting last year that has no official status.
The Deal The pledges have been brought into the UN process and documentation, or in the jargon, "anchored".
What are we waiting for? Industrialised countries, including Britain, would like to make these developing country pledges legally binding; that's some way off yet.
MRV:
This refers to Monitoring, Reporting and Verification
The Aim A system by which the world community as a whole could be guaranteed that countries which claimed they were cutting their carbon emissions were actually doing so.
The Deal A softened version of the original MRV proposals that the Chinese angrily rejected as too intrusive at Copenhagen. It was drawn up by the charismatic Indian minister for the environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh.
What are we waiting for? Widespread application of monitoring.
Forests Agreement:
An outline treaty to prevent deforestation because of the carbon emissions released.
The Aim Financial sticks and carrots to halt deforestation. Many countries wanted the full-scale "monetisation" of protected forests so rainforest countries could generate carbon credits and there would be a new market commodity, forest carbon.
The Deal A large-scale agreement to halt deforestation in developing countries in return for rich-world funding, but reference to market mechanisms was left out at the insistence of Bolivia. Various safeguards, including rules to protect forest peoples and wildlife.
What are we waiting for? The emissions-credits-from-forests idea is the big attraction for many investors, private and public. It will doubtless creep back in.
Green Fund:
A new institution to channel some of the vast new flows of climate finance to the developing countries – likely to be $100bn (£63bn) annually by 2020.
The Aim To bring the fund into existence now. Developing countries wanted a big say in how it will be run.
The Deal It was brought into existence yesterday at Cancun, with the World Bank as its trustee. It has got a board, a design committee, terms of reference and a one-year deadline for it to be up and running. Developing countries are well represented.
What are we waiting for? For the fund to start lending money for climate change projects. This will probably happen after the next UN climate meeting in Durban next year.
What they said: 'It's saved the process, but not yet the climate'
"The Cancun agreement is a very significant step forward in renewing the determination of the international community to tackle climate change through multilateral action."
David Cameron
British Prime Minister
"Cancun marks a step forward for the international community on climate change, building on key provisions of Copenhagen."
Ed Miliband
Labour leader
"This has been a victory for you all, delegates. This has been a success for humanity and reason."
Felipe Calderon
President of Mexico
"Responsibly, we cannot go along with a situation that my President has termed 'ecocide and genocide'."
Pablo Solon
Bolivian ambassador to the UN
"The emissions cuts on the table could still lead to a global temperature increase of up to five degrees which would be catastrophic for hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people."
Asad Rehman
Friends of the Earth
"Despite some last-minute hiccups, countries leave here with a renewed sense of goodwill and some sense of purpose."
Keith Allott
Head of climate change, WWF-UK
"Cancun may have saved the process but it has not yet saved the climate."
Wendel Trio
Greenpeace
"Developing countries can now see new money on the table which they can draw on to adapt to the impacts they're already facing and reduce emissions."
Claire Parker
International Union for Conservation of Nature
"We have seen some progress on all key elements of an eventual agreement ... because there has been a much more positive atmosphere, with less hype and more realistic expectations."
Lord stern
Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change
"A year after the Copenhagen Accord little has changed, and 300,000 more people have died from climate change-related impacts. Another year will pass where more lives will be ruined by climate change."
kate blagojevic
World Development Movement
"It's a very weak deal – enough to keep the ongoing negotiation process alive, but not enough to save the climate."
Caroline lucas MP
Green Party leader
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Ministers and officials from nearly 200 countries pulled off one of modern history's major repair jobs yesterday when they revived the global project to counter global warming, which had seemed critically damaged by the failure of the Copenhagen climate conference a year ago.
At a successor conference in Cancun, Mexico, they agreed a package of measures which are not yet enough to save the climate, but are enough to save the 20-year-old international climate change negotiating process from collapse – a real danger if the talks had ended in deadlock once again, as many observers expected.
After a fortnight's negotiations in the Mexican "super-resort" on the Caribbean coast, in which prospects of success often seemed bleak, the 15,000 delegates bridged their differences in the early hours of yesterday with a comprehensive deal, which was announced to thunderous applause and cheering.
They signed off a new framework in which all countries – and not just the rich nations, as previously – now have official, UN-recognised goals to cut their emissions of the greenhouse gases that are causing the atmosphere to warm (with this year likely to prove the warmest in the 150-year-old instrumental record).
They recognised that industrialised nations need to do more to cut emissions, officially adopted the target of keeping warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels, agreed that world emissions must soon peak, and agreed to a new international regime of monitoring of every country's emission-cutting efforts, which was previously anathema to China – now the world's biggest CO2 emitter.
Furthermore, in two radical new initiatives, they set up a huge, multi-billion-dollar Green Fund to help developing countries fight climate change, which will start operating in a year's time, and outlined a new world-wide agreement to halt deforestation, which alone is responsible for 20 per cent of the CO2 emissions total.
Some environmentalists criticised the deal because, in the emissions cuts it prescribes, it does not yet go far enough to keep warming to a two-degree rise. Yet there was widespread recognition that Cancun's restoration of momentum to the negotiation process, in the wake of the Copenhagen "car crash", was an achievement of great significance.
"The UN climate talks are off the life-support machine," said Tim Gore of Oxfam. "The agreement falls short of the emissions cuts that are needed, but it lays out a path to move towards them – crucially moving the world closer to the global deal that eluded the Copenhagen summit."
Wendel Trio of Greenpeace said that some people had called the process dead. "But governments have shown that they can co-operate and move forward to achieve a global deal," he said.
Britain's Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne, who headed the UK delegation, said the agreement marked "a really important moment".
"This is a turning point in the long-running saga of international climate change negotiations," he said. "We've got a deal here which, if I had to mark it, I would have said 8 out of 10. It's way beyond what we were expecting only a few weeks ago, and, indeed, way beyond what we expecting at the beginning of the week."
Mr Huhne, who had warned that failure at Cancun would have turned future climate talks into "a zombie process" in which nothing of significance could be agreed, played a major role in the meeting's successful outcome, chairing a special group of ministers dealing with its most difficult problem.
This was a seemingly intractable argument between some rich and poor countries over renewing the Kyoto protocol, which runs out at the end of 2012, and which commits rich industrialised countries to make legally binding cuts to their emissions, while committing the poorer developing nations to do nothing. The row pitched Japan and Russia, on the one hand – refusing point-blank to countenance a renewed protocol – against developing countries led by Bolivia and Venezuela, who insisted on renewal as the price of a deal.
Mr Huhne and his group drafted text of such Byzantine subtlety that it allowed both sides to hold their positions while putting off a decision on Kyoto 2, probably to the next UN climate conference which will take place next year in Durban, South Africa.
The resolution of the Kyoto argument made possible all the rest of the package, of which the carbon-cutting measures are probably the most important, but the Green Fund and the draft of a deforestation treaty are the most eye-catching,
The fund will be used to disburse large sums in annual aid for climate defence in developing nations. Rich countries promised the fund should reach $100bn by 2020 in the Copenhagen Accord, the ad hoc agreement cobbled together by heads of state as a face-saver at the end of the failed meeting in Denmark.
The forest agreement, which is known as REDD+ – the acronym stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (plus a few other things such as replanting) – foresees the eventual "monetisation" of the great rainforests of countries such as Brazil, Congo and Indonesia, with the host nations receiving funding for not cutting them down and so releasing CO2 (perhaps eventually in the form of carbon "credits" that can be traded in emissions trading schemes).
Mr Huhne, a Liberal Democrat, was clearly elated by the success of the meeting, as were all the British team, including his Tory deputy, Greg Barker; they were particularly pleased that Britain had achieved its main objective, which was to "anchor" inside the UN climate process the informal emissions pledges made by many nations under the Copenhagen Accord, a document which, however, has no official status.
Speaking of the deal in the round, Mr Huhne said: "I think this shows that there is still a real consensus internationally – and I would say a growing consensus in places such as China and India, where you would not, a year ago, have expected it – that we do have to go down this path to a low-carbon economy, and that, actually, it is the road to prosperity."
What has been agreed?
Shared Vision:
This means the big overall picture.
The Aim An official aim, accepted by all, of halting global warming at a rise of less than 2C above pre-industrial levels (it presently stands at about 0.8C above those levels). Recognition that industrialised countries must do more. Setting a date for a global peak in carbon emissions.
The Deal The 2C target was agreed and the need for stronger action by developed countries was recognised, The idea that the world's CO2 emissions should peak was recognised – for "as soon as possible" – but no date was set.
What are we waiting for? A date for this emissions peak – 2020 was what Chris Huhne wanted – and perhaps an even tougher target than 2 degrees, such as 1.5. (Small island states threatened with sea level rise want this). A scientific review will look at this in 2013.
Legal Form:
This means what future agreements are going to look like.
The Aim Developing countries wanted a pledge to renew the Kyoto protocol, with its commitments only on rich countries to cut their emissions. Rich countries want a universal emissions treaty binding on everyone.
The Deal A compromise in which both of these potentially irreconcilable positions were held in abeyance without wrecking the talks through clever language drafted by Chris Huhne and his team.
What are we waiting for? A second commitment period of Kyoto, with perhaps a parallel treaty legally binding everyone (which Britain would accept). A target for next year's climate conference in Durban.
Emissions Pledges:
This refers to the cuts in carbon emissions that countries say they will carry out
The Aim The bringing into the official UN climate change negotiating process of the pledges that many developing countries, such as China, have made over the past year under the Copenhagen Accord. This was an ad-hoc document drafted by heads of state as a face-saver at the meeting last year that has no official status.
The Deal The pledges have been brought into the UN process and documentation, or in the jargon, "anchored".
What are we waiting for? Industrialised countries, including Britain, would like to make these developing country pledges legally binding; that's some way off yet.
MRV:
This refers to Monitoring, Reporting and Verification
The Aim A system by which the world community as a whole could be guaranteed that countries which claimed they were cutting their carbon emissions were actually doing so.
The Deal A softened version of the original MRV proposals that the Chinese angrily rejected as too intrusive at Copenhagen. It was drawn up by the charismatic Indian minister for the environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh.
What are we waiting for? Widespread application of monitoring.
Forests Agreement:
An outline treaty to prevent deforestation because of the carbon emissions released.
The Aim Financial sticks and carrots to halt deforestation. Many countries wanted the full-scale "monetisation" of protected forests so rainforest countries could generate carbon credits and there would be a new market commodity, forest carbon.
The Deal A large-scale agreement to halt deforestation in developing countries in return for rich-world funding, but reference to market mechanisms was left out at the insistence of Bolivia. Various safeguards, including rules to protect forest peoples and wildlife.
What are we waiting for? The emissions-credits-from-forests idea is the big attraction for many investors, private and public. It will doubtless creep back in.
Green Fund:
A new institution to channel some of the vast new flows of climate finance to the developing countries – likely to be $100bn (£63bn) annually by 2020.
The Aim To bring the fund into existence now. Developing countries wanted a big say in how it will be run.
The Deal It was brought into existence yesterday at Cancun, with the World Bank as its trustee. It has got a board, a design committee, terms of reference and a one-year deadline for it to be up and running. Developing countries are well represented.
What are we waiting for? For the fund to start lending money for climate change projects. This will probably happen after the next UN climate meeting in Durban next year.
What they said: 'It's saved the process, but not yet the climate'
"The Cancun agreement is a very significant step forward in renewing the determination of the international community to tackle climate change through multilateral action."
David Cameron
British Prime Minister
"Cancun marks a step forward for the international community on climate change, building on key provisions of Copenhagen."
Ed Miliband
Labour leader
"This has been a victory for you all, delegates. This has been a success for humanity and reason."
Felipe Calderon
President of Mexico
"Responsibly, we cannot go along with a situation that my President has termed 'ecocide and genocide'."
Pablo Solon
Bolivian ambassador to the UN
"The emissions cuts on the table could still lead to a global temperature increase of up to five degrees which would be catastrophic for hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people."
Asad Rehman
Friends of the Earth
"Despite some last-minute hiccups, countries leave here with a renewed sense of goodwill and some sense of purpose."
Keith Allott
Head of climate change, WWF-UK
"Cancun may have saved the process but it has not yet saved the climate."
Wendel Trio
Greenpeace
"Developing countries can now see new money on the table which they can draw on to adapt to the impacts they're already facing and reduce emissions."
Claire Parker
International Union for Conservation of Nature
"We have seen some progress on all key elements of an eventual agreement ... because there has been a much more positive atmosphere, with less hype and more realistic expectations."
Lord stern
Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change
"A year after the Copenhagen Accord little has changed, and 300,000 more people have died from climate change-related impacts. Another year will pass where more lives will be ruined by climate change."
kate blagojevic
World Development Movement
"It's a very weak deal – enough to keep the ongoing negotiation process alive, but not enough to save the climate."
Caroline lucas MP
Green Party leader
Nations Approve Cancun Climate Package
By CASSANDRA SWEET
CANCUN, Mexico—The world's nations on Saturday agreed to a package of climate initiatives, including billions of dollars in funding for poor countries, although they failed to adopt a binding climate treaty amid a stalemate among the U.S., China, Japan and other nations.
The agreement calls on rich countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by amounts nations pledged a year ago, although the cuts aren't legally binding. Developing countries are to come up with plans to cut their emissions in a worldwide effort to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The agreement includes plans for a green fund and $100 billion a year that wealthier countries would provide by 2020 to help poor countries finance programs to cut emissions and cope with drought and other effects of global warming.
Felipe Calderon, the president of Mexico, which hosted the conference in Cancun, commended the delegates for forging a new path in the fight against climate change.
"Today, with this conference, we have the opportunity to begin building a new history in which economic growth, the conquest against poverty and living in harmony with the environment is within reach," he said at the conference.
Mr. Calderon added that while the agreement fell short of a treaty that would ensure steep cuts in emissions, the trust and upbeat mood among participants at the Cancun conference would help countries reach a more ambitious agreement.
A stalemate among the U.S., China, Japan, India and other countries has frozen talks on a global climate treaty and thrown into question the future of the existing Kyoto Protocol climate treaty. But diplomats said they hoped the Cancun plan could pave the way for a legally binding climate treaty when governments reconvene at next year's U.N. climate summit in Durban, South Africa.
U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said the U.S. made a lot of progress in talks with China and India on key issues, such as ensuring transparency in the tracking and reporting of emissions reductions and reaching a mutual agreement on such cuts. He pointed out that while the promises made in the Copenhagen Accord were important, that agreement was not adopted, whereas the Cancun agreement has been adopted and has a legal basis.
"It's a positive thing to see a worldwide agreement, one that includes all the major economies," Mr. Stern told reporters after the conference. "The commitment to take action by the Chinese is a pretty significant agreement, and to do so in an international manner."
Japan has said that it wouldn't commit to a second phase of the Kyoto treaty unless the world's largest greenhouse-gas emitters, namely China, the U.S. and India, agreed to cut their emissions under a legally binding treaty. The first phase of the treaty ends in 2012.
The U.S., which signed but never ratified the Kyoto treaty, has long argued that it wouldn't agree to mandated emission cuts unless China and other fast-growing economies also agreed to limit emissions. But at climate negotiations a year ago in Copenhagen, both the U.S. and China made voluntary commitments to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
China has maintained that as a developing country, it doesn't have the resources—or responsibility—to aggressively cut emissions while growing its economy.
India initially had a similar position, although the country softened it this week, saying it would consider agreeing to mandated cuts at some point in the future.
The emissions reduction targets are aimed at a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, while leaving the door open for an alternative agreement based on promises the U.S., China and other countries made at a climate summit last year in Copenhagen.
The U.S. has suggested that it might agree to binding greenhouse-gas emissions cuts if they were part of a deal based on the Copenhagen Accord.
Bolivian climate envoy Pablo Solon criticized the Cancun package for not going far enough to ensure that rich countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions, for being too vague on where the $100 billion a year would come from, and for including too many market-based financing programs.
Write to Cassandra Sweet at cassandra.sweet@dowjones.com
CANCUN, Mexico—The world's nations on Saturday agreed to a package of climate initiatives, including billions of dollars in funding for poor countries, although they failed to adopt a binding climate treaty amid a stalemate among the U.S., China, Japan and other nations.
The agreement calls on rich countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by amounts nations pledged a year ago, although the cuts aren't legally binding. Developing countries are to come up with plans to cut their emissions in a worldwide effort to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The agreement includes plans for a green fund and $100 billion a year that wealthier countries would provide by 2020 to help poor countries finance programs to cut emissions and cope with drought and other effects of global warming.
Felipe Calderon, the president of Mexico, which hosted the conference in Cancun, commended the delegates for forging a new path in the fight against climate change.
"Today, with this conference, we have the opportunity to begin building a new history in which economic growth, the conquest against poverty and living in harmony with the environment is within reach," he said at the conference.
Mr. Calderon added that while the agreement fell short of a treaty that would ensure steep cuts in emissions, the trust and upbeat mood among participants at the Cancun conference would help countries reach a more ambitious agreement.
A stalemate among the U.S., China, Japan, India and other countries has frozen talks on a global climate treaty and thrown into question the future of the existing Kyoto Protocol climate treaty. But diplomats said they hoped the Cancun plan could pave the way for a legally binding climate treaty when governments reconvene at next year's U.N. climate summit in Durban, South Africa.
U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said the U.S. made a lot of progress in talks with China and India on key issues, such as ensuring transparency in the tracking and reporting of emissions reductions and reaching a mutual agreement on such cuts. He pointed out that while the promises made in the Copenhagen Accord were important, that agreement was not adopted, whereas the Cancun agreement has been adopted and has a legal basis.
"It's a positive thing to see a worldwide agreement, one that includes all the major economies," Mr. Stern told reporters after the conference. "The commitment to take action by the Chinese is a pretty significant agreement, and to do so in an international manner."
Japan has said that it wouldn't commit to a second phase of the Kyoto treaty unless the world's largest greenhouse-gas emitters, namely China, the U.S. and India, agreed to cut their emissions under a legally binding treaty. The first phase of the treaty ends in 2012.
The U.S., which signed but never ratified the Kyoto treaty, has long argued that it wouldn't agree to mandated emission cuts unless China and other fast-growing economies also agreed to limit emissions. But at climate negotiations a year ago in Copenhagen, both the U.S. and China made voluntary commitments to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
China has maintained that as a developing country, it doesn't have the resources—or responsibility—to aggressively cut emissions while growing its economy.
India initially had a similar position, although the country softened it this week, saying it would consider agreeing to mandated cuts at some point in the future.
The emissions reduction targets are aimed at a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, while leaving the door open for an alternative agreement based on promises the U.S., China and other countries made at a climate summit last year in Copenhagen.
The U.S. has suggested that it might agree to binding greenhouse-gas emissions cuts if they were part of a deal based on the Copenhagen Accord.
Bolivian climate envoy Pablo Solon criticized the Cancun package for not going far enough to ensure that rich countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions, for being too vague on where the $100 billion a year would come from, and for including too many market-based financing programs.
Write to Cassandra Sweet at cassandra.sweet@dowjones.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
