Budget cuts are painful, no doubt about it. In times of empty coffers and growing deficits some really hard choices have to be made.  Too bad that one of the first cuts in Germany’s ongoing budget negotiations under the conservative-liberal coalition government has been to the credibility of Germany as a leading nation in international climate policy. Read more »

The biggest renaissance we are experiencing in terms of nuclear power is the political debate about it. Conservatives in Germany such as Norbert Röttgen, Federal Minister of Environment and Nuclear Safety, view nuclear power as a dead-end technology and even newspapers as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), historically right-leaning, report on the disastrous finance of the construction of new power plants.

Unfortunately, the debate in the US is not quite as frank, but instead characterized by ideological half-truths, political tactics and a poorly informed public. Even Barack Obama, until now the main savior of the climate in the US, argues for the construction of new nuclear power plants in the US (e.g. in his State of the Union address). Consequently, the budget proposal of the White House contains more than $50 billion in loan guarantees for new plants in 2011. Do we face a renaissance of nuclear power in the US?

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In the past, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has often been accussed of “mission grab” –its attempt to gain legitimacy, relevance and more international power by assuming tasks it is not well suited for. Well, it seems to have done it again… this time with a daring proposal on climate financing.

This at least is one way to explain the announcement that IMF Managing Director Domique Strauss-Kahn made during the World Economic Forum in Davos just a few days ago that IMF staff is working on a proposal for a “Green Fund” worth billions of dollars, which should help a world shaken up by the global financial crisis to pursue a low-carbon growth strategy going forward.

The idea of a “Green Fund” with up to US$ 100 billion in just a few years sounds vaguely familiar.  In fact, didn’t the Copenhagen Accord, the political declaration which kind of saved the COP15  from total failure, talk about a “Copenhagen Green Climate Fund” in just about the same amount? Indeed,seen in this light, the proposal by Mr. Strauss-Kahn almost sounds like a sales pitch: Why, if the world is so bound and intent on creating a Green (Climate) Fund, aren’t you looking at an well-established institution with a stellar reputation such as the IWF to work out the details of such a fund or administer its resources?  Especially, since the head of the IMF has an idea how the US$100 billion needed can be raised, at least in part.  By the way: this is a sticky point in the Copenhagen Accord: it does not address where the money could or should come from, except in a rather oblique reference to a  “wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance.” Read more »

Istock, photo by pidjoe

The outcome of the Copenhagen climate conference will be discussed for years to come. There are much smarter people than I that can outlinethe implications for climate change and a new world order that has emerged in Copenhagen (one of them for sure being Malini Mehra from India-based Centre for Social Markets who published this extremely worthwhile piece).

What becomes obvious for a European working on climate change in Washington DC is the completely different perception of the Copenhagen outcome on both sides of the Atlantic. While European governments are frustrated and disappointed, most climate advocates in the United States define Copenhagen as a success and an important step forward towards tackling global climate change. Why is it Swing time in the US and Europe plays the climate Blues?

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It is ironic, really. 

The question about financial transfers from the industrialized to the developing countries – one of the most contentious issues throughout the two weeks’ negotiations in  the Bella Center – might be one issue area, where a final Copenhagen declaration could show a clear way forward — albeit in an otherwise weak and watered down political statement by Head of States, a sad remnant of  the earlier, grander vision of a comprehensive “Copenhagen Deal”.   

Finally, concrete numbers  — the most to be expected for a future “Copenhagen Climate Fund” — are on the table. And while they are not as grandios as hoped for, they will, if collected and tranferred speedily, go a long way to improve the lives and livelihoods of men and women in the devleoping world as well as the world’s climate.  Over the next three years,   industrialized countries commit to transfer some $30 billion in short-term financing to developing countries.  Most of these funds over the next three years would probably be delivered through existing (climate) financing mechanisms, including at the multilateral development banks and the GEF. (A reminder:  It took seven years from COP decision to the start of operations of the new  Adapation Fund).  By 2020, a “Copenhagen Climate Fund” under the direct authority of the UNFCCC would then collect  some $100 billion per year by 2020.  

This at least, is what a three-page outline document for a political declaration, the result of a “green room”-type meeting of 30 countries came up with after a long night of negotiations early Friday morning.  But it seems also the outline of what is politically possible as a financing framework, with its baselines seemingly holding throughout the high-level segment of the negotiations and the statements by Obama, Merkel, Lula & Co. Read more »

They have prepared, saved and strategized for months.  They have neglected friends and family, sleep and their own health in order to finish the brief, the publication or exhibition, prepare the side-event, fundraise the money to bring partners or plan their communication strategy for Copenhagen — only to find themselves locked out of the Bella Center during the last two days — crunch-time!!! — of the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen. 

You guys from global civil society are nice, but essentially superfluous; colorful, but not important; a security risk, really.  This is the message that the host government and the UNFCCC Secretariat are sending. And the world’s civil society, which had made the treck to the Danish capital in the tens of thousands, is angry…. and worse: frustrated and questioning increasingly its involvement with and the legitimacy of the climate negotiations process. Read more »

It reminded those passing by of the reading of names at memorials to fallen heroes or victims of terrorism…. And in a way, the action felt like the early public mourning for an ambitious climate outcome at the COP 15, which will probably never see the light of day.  

Thursday in the afternoon, the babylonic noise levels in the Bella Center reached a new crescendo, when some 50 young folks, committed members of the tcktcktck campaign started reading out aloud the names of people from all over the world.  Sitting and standing in the main walkways of the conference center, the activits implored the moral support of some 11 million men, women and children  from around the world who had signed on to the campaign worldwide demanding a “fair, ambitious and legally binding” agreement in Copenhagen.  Read more »