Nadzri Yahaya, Malaysia’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, said there is no common position among ASEAN countries on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), indicating that the side event aims to clarify the positions of various member countries.

Mark van Wees, Capacity for Sustainable Development, identified the potential to increase the ASEAN region’s share in the global CDM market. Focusing on capacity building, he said there is limited regional exchange of experience, and said the ASEAN could play a role in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of capacity building.

Liana Bratasida, Ministry of Environment of Indonesia, said the ASEAN region has a rich CDM potential, and noted that the CDM supports ASEAN’s objectives to increase renewable energy and adopt clean technologies.

Axel Michaelowa, Hamburg Institute of International Economics, said in light of methodologies approved by the CDM Executive Board (EB) a large

Serge Lepeltier, Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Development of France, provided an overview of France’s climate-related policies within the EU framework, highlighting the 2004 Climate Plan, which includes action areas on information and awareness raising, research on clean technologies, transportation, buildings, industry, energy and waste, and sustainable agriculture and forests. Minister Lepeltier noted that France has already stabilized its GHG emissions below those of 1990.

Christian Brodhag, Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development, outlined France’s measures to implement its climate-related commitments, including the establishment of a GHG inventory, technical and financial cooperation to develop Joint Implementation (JI) and CDM projects, the inclusion of an Environment Charter in the Constitution, and work on synergies within the national strategy on sustainable development.

Philippe Meunier, Interministerial Mission on the Greenhouse Effect, stressed that France has decoupled economic growth from energy consumption, but noted the need for an integrated strategy looking

beyond 2050. He highlighted France’s activities to reduce GHG emissions, including the provision of financial and technical support to JI/CDM projects and participation in emissions trading systems.

Mustapha Kleiche, French Agency for Development (AFD), said AFD’s work in the field of climate change relies on both financial and technical tools. He noted that assistance tends to focus on transport, waste and energy consumption, and be concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean. He explained that assistance approaches differ between overseas territories and foreign countries, and provided examples of assistance to projects related to energy consumption, among others.

Marc-Antoine Martin, French Global Environment Facility (FFEM), said criteria for FFEM’s assistance include innovation, sustainability and social acceptability, and noted that the FFEM uses investments funds and carbon funds, and prioritizes projects in Africa and the Mediterranean. He stressed the need to, inter alia, strengthen governance, integrate projects in national strategies, internalize costs, and develop partnerships and networks.

Franck Jesus, Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry, presented his ministry’s support tools in the field of climate change. He reviewed institutional and financial support to JI/CDM projects, including capacity building for the development of Project Design Documents. He said to date assistance has focused on waste and methane recovery.

Martin Weiß, Germany’s Federal Environment Agency, considered options for the post-2012 period, advocating a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches and grounding policy on the concept of technological feasibility. He said preventing a global temperature rise of 2˚C requires maintaining GHG concentrations below 450 parts per million (ppm) and leaves very narrow margins for delaying emissions cuts or exempting countries from participation. He recommended introducing flexible participation rules, setting “positive binding targets” without non-compliance penalties for non-Annex I countries, and extending the scope and scale of the CDM.

Niklas Höhne, ECOFYS, outlined three approaches to designing international policy for the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. He said a “common but differentiated convergence” approach would involve only countries with high levels of GHG emissions, seek convergence of all countries’ emissions toward the same level, grant a deferral for developing countries, and make developing countries’ participation contingent on compliance by developed countries. Höhne also outlined a Triptych approach that relies on sharing sectoral emissions

allowances between countries. He said reaching the 450 ppm target using this approach would allow emissions growth above 1990 levels in most developing countries, require 20-40% reductions in developed countries, and involve reducing global emissions by 60% in the electricity sector, 70% in agriculture, and 90% in fossil fuel production.

Höhne outlined a compromise proposal without short-term policy commitments, but including moderate near-term emissions targets, long-term absolute emissions reductions using the Triptych approach, long-term technology development, and the complete elimination of deforestation. He said such an approach takes into account national circumstances but is complex, requires prolonged decision making at the international level, and entails the risk of delaying achieving the stabilization targets. Regarding appropriate negotiation strategies, he stressed that the EU’s continued leadership is crucial, and recommended extending the EU Emissions Trading Scheme to US States, intensifying dialogue with developing countries, building coalitions on renewable energy, and building scientific consensus on future climate policy.

Peter Roderick, Climate Justice Programme, outlined ten climate change-related legal actions: five public law cases in the US, Australia and Germany; a civil law case in the US; a petition by the Inuit people to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; and three public international law petitions by developing countries to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization concerning climate impacts on World Heritage sites.

Myles Allen, University of Oxford, said establishing causality is a prerequisite for legally ascertaining damages. Discussing quantification of scientific uncertainty, he indicated that past anthropogenic GHG emissions caused at least 50% of the 2003 heat wave in Europe.

Ken Alex, State of California Department of Justice, discussed a civil lawsuit filed by eight States and New York City in the US Federal Court against the five largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the US. He said the

claimants seek injunctive remedies, namely reductions in the defendants’ emissions and a declaration that carbon dioxide causes global warming and is a public nuisance.

Donald Goldberg, Center for International Environmental Law, said the Inuit people are planning to file a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights against the US, arguing that global warming violates their rights to life, residence, the inviolability of their homes, health and well-being, culture and property. He emphasized that the Commission has already recognized that environmental issues fall within the ambit of human rights.

Discussion: The panelists highlighted the difference between legal and scientific uncertainty, and expressed their confidence that climate-related science is sufficiently unambiguous for legal purposes. Panel Chair Farhana Yamin, University of Sussex, noted the absence of the precautionary principle from current discussions, reminding participants that it had played an important role in early negotiations.

Marina Silva, Brazil’s Environment Minister, underscored the need to train and educate workers. She said Brazil has adopted sustainability criteria to ensure that CDM projects contribute to the broader objectives of sustainable development, and emphasized that CDM projects must: promote local sustainability issues; improve working conditions and lead to net gains in employment; contribute to an equitable distribution of wealth; and promote technical capacity building.

Iván González, Regional Inter-American Organization of Workers, and Aurelio Savino, Argentina’s Environment Secretary, presented their views on the world of work in climate implementation and adaptation. Note: These statements cannot be reported on due to lack of translation.

Bradnee Chambers, UNU, said exploiting interlinkages between multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) requires the effective use of synergies between environmental issues, and listed benefits, including increased robustness, improved compliance, strengthened implementation, maximized cost-effectiveness, and relief of procedural and managerial burdens. He highlighted the lack of scientific data on how interlinkages work in practice.

Halldor Thorgeirsson, UNFCCC, explained that the UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice participates in a Joint Liaison Group with the Executive Secretaries and Chairs of the subsidiary bodies of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention to Combat Desertification. He stressed the importance of informal links for information sharing between secretariats. He identified the need to enhance coordination and cooperation at the national level among ministries responsible for implementation.

Paulo Teixeira, Pantanal Regional Environmental Program, noted that the Pantanal, one of the world’s largest wetlands, is threatened by alterations to the hydrological cycle from climate change. He identified synergies and coordination as key elements of interlinkages, and indicated that several MEAs are relevant to the Pantanal. He outlined the results of a workshop on activities for the Pantanal’s sustainable and integrated management, identifying the need for community-level actions, education and training, information sharing, stakeholder capacity building, and the identification of sustainable development indicators.

Victoria Lichtschein, Ramsar Convention, highlighted the need to update the memoranda of understanding concluded in 1995 between various MEAs. She highlighted the value of technical cooperation between MEAs’ secretariats and strengthened cooperation between implementing bodies at the national level.

Discussion: Participants stressed the need for public education regarding the goals of different conventions in order to engage local peoples in the development of synergies between MEAs.