Editorial by UN Under-Secretary-General
and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner
The last two years have been a roller coaster
ride in respect to securing a new global
treaty to combat climate change. Some even
despair that the window for action is closing
fast.
But giving up is not
an option. The latest round of climate negotiations,
held last month in Cancún, Mexico,
put the world's efforts on climate change
back on track - albeit at a pace and on
a scale that will undoubtedly leave many
onlookers frustrated.
President Felipe Calderón's
government in Mexico and the Executive Secretary
of the United Nations Framework Convention
deserve credit for gains in a range of important
areas, including forestry, a new Green Fund
to assist developing nations, and the anchoring
of the emission-reduction pledges made at
the December 2009 climate-change conference
in Copenhagen.
But, as the UN Environment
Program and climate modelers made clear
in the run-up to the Cancún meeting,
a significant emissions gap exists between
what is being promised by countries and
what is needed to keep the rise in global
temperature below two degrees Celsius, let
alone move towards the 1.5-degree threshold
needed to protect low-lying island states.
Despite some gains,
that gap - which, under the most optimistic
scenario, amounts to the combined emissions
of all the world's cars, buses, and trucks
- remains firmly in place post-Cancún.
Indeed, no one should underestimate the
magnitude of the challenge now facing South
Africa, the host of next year's talks, in
terms of midwifing a new legally binding
agreement to bridge this gap and securing
the finance needed to bring the Green Fund
into operation.
Yet, while the official
summit in Cancún struggled to a conclusion,
an unofficial one being held a few minutes
away also concluded. This parallel summit
brought together progressive heads of state,
regional and local government, business,
and civil society, and underscored just
how far and how fast some sectors of society
will make the transition to a low-carbon
future and build the green and clean-tech
economies of the twenty-first century.
Calderón's policies
echo this momentum: by some estimates, he
is transforming his country into the world's
fastest-growing wind-power market. Moreover,
Mexico will also phase out old, inefficient
light bulbs by 2014. And it has just retired
850,000 inefficient household refrigerators
in favor of modern, energy-efficient models,
with millions more earmarked over the coming
years. Mexican homeowners who install energy-saving
systems such as solar water heaters are
becoming eligible for lower-rate "green
mortgages."
Mexico is not alone
in adopting a national strategy for the
transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient
green economy. Uruguay, for example, announced
a strategy to generate half its electricity
from renewable sources by 2015.
Sixty regional and local
governments, responsible for 15% of global
greenhouse-gas emissions, are also taking
action. Québec and São Paolo,
to cite just two examples, are aiming for
cuts of 20% below 11000 levels by 2020.
Big companies, from
banks to airlines, are contributing as well.
The US retailer Wal-Mart, for example, plans
to cut emissions equivalent to 3.8 million
cars, in part by implementing energy-efficiency
measures at its Chinese stores.
Indeed, the world is
witnessing an extraordinary mobilization
of national-level projects and policies
that are shifting economies onto a low-carbon
path. In Kenya, a new feed-in tariff is
triggering an expansion of wind and geothermal
power. Indonesia is not only addressing
deforestation, but will begin phasing out
fossil-fuel subsidies for private cars next
month. Many countries and companies are
forging ahead, signaling a determination
not to be held hostage by the slowest at
the official negotiating table.
All this may lead some
to wonder why time-consuming international
negotiations and UN climate summits are
needed at all. But the fact is that this
groundswell has in large part been catalyzed
by the existing targets, timetables, and
innovative mechanisms of the UN climate
treaties, and not least by the momentum
generated around the often-criticized 2009
Copenhagen summit.
This momentum would
continue to grow with a new global treaty
that not only brings certainty to carbon
markets and triggers accelerated investments
in clean-tech industries, but that also
ensures that more vulnerable countries are
not marginalized. The challenge today is
to unite these goals in a mutually reinforcing
way.
Only then will the world
have a fighting chance to keep the global
temperature rise in this century under two
degrees, build resilience against a changed
climate, and truly transform the energy
structures of the past - and thus the development
prospects for six billion people in the
future.
