This side event, moderated by Amr AlMadani, Mishkat Interactive Center for Atomic and Renewable Energy (K.A.CARE), Saudi Arabia, addressed the ways GCC countries manage their carbon emissions. A variety of projects currently in place were demonstrated and a number of techniques were discussed.

Ahmed Al-Eidan, Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia, presented Saudi Aramco’s carbon management technology roadmap and its focus areas, namely: capture of fixed sources; capture of mobile sources; industrial applications; sequestration; and CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR).

Saeed Alloush, Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia, presented the company’s flare mitigation programme, identifying challenges including inaccurate measurement of flaring losses. He concluded, stressing that after its recent success Saudi Aramco is recognized as a leader in flare mitigation at both the regional and global level.

Sultan Al Shamisi, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), United Arab Emirates, provided an overview of ADNOC, which is a group of 15 companies, accounting for more than 2.6 million barrels of oil and 7.8 billion cubic feet of gas per day. He focused on the company’s initiatives regarding flaring management and gas recovery.

Hebah Al-Qabandi, Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC), presented KNPC’s carbon management efforts focusing, inter alia, on: flaring reduction strategies; relief gas management system; projects under Clean Development Mechanism (CDM); and Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR) initiatives.

Saleh Mulhim, Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia, focused on the evolution of gas development. He noted that their gas plants capacity has increased from 3.5 to 14 billion standard cubic feet per day (BSCFD) in less than 20 years enabling them to efficiently meet the demand for clean energy.

Hussain Bishri, Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu (RCJY), Saudi Arabia, focused on the environmental benefits of reusing claimed water in Jubail Industrial City (JIC), Saudi Arabia. He concluded that water has precious values and each drop must be accounted for, and that the Royal Commission’s recycling and landscape program gave a new look to JIC, saving energy and reducing GHG emissions at the same time.

Ahmad Hasanain, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), Saudi Arabia, addressed the carbon capture and utilization (CCU) project of Jubail United Petrochemical Co. (UNITED). He focused on the path forward concluding that technology and processes to recover and purify CO2 are now well developed.

This side event, moderated by Adriana Valenzuela Jiménez, UN Alliance on Climate Change Education, Training and Public Awareness, highlighted the importance of education and training, and the key role young people are playing in advancing knowledge on mitigating and adapting to climate change.

Ahmed Alhendawi, UN Envoy on Youth, emphasized the need to have an education system that aims to change the lifestyles of people, and said informal education and training is often the best tool to accomplish this.

Cecilia Wesslén, Youth and UN Global Alliance, presented on developing education systems that promote low-emission and sustainable lifestyles, and highlighted the need to empower, support, raise awareness and enable the youth to become active agents of change.

Stephanie Hodge, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), presented on mainstreaming climate change and disaster risk reduction (DRR) in education, emphasizing the role of negotiators and implementers of climate change projects in developing countries. She said the increasing impacts on children put pressure on the UN to adopt education system changes as a focus.

Fanina Kodre-Alexander, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), urged awareness raising and encouraging attitude or behaviour change. She highlighted providing DDR strategies through graduate level teaching modules and training courses, and described different youth initiatives, including YouthXChange, Tunza, the UNEP Young Environmental Journalist Awards, and GEO for Youth.

Simona Zeroska, Tunza Youth Advisor for UNEP, spoke about her personal Tunza experience in Sweden as a child, and said her role in UNEP is to provide the youth with sustainable perspectives. She presented on GEO for Youth, which provides a summary of the latest scientific data defining the state of the world.

Julia Viehöfer, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), spoke about addressing climate change through the Global Action Programme on education for sustainable development and emphasized strengthening the capacities of education planners and educators.

Kartikeya Sarabhai, Centre for Environment Education (CEE), highlighted the role of research in mainstreaming education, and said the role of transport and urbanization in sustainable development is key to addressing the human impact on climate change. Sarabhai said education and communication ultimately strengthens all drivers of change.

Verona Collantes, UN Women, presented on empowering elected women representatives through awareness raising and training in the Maharashtra Government in India. She described their approach of informal training at the village-level through storytelling, songs, and games, and said the programme has been adopted on a countrywide scale due to its success.

Franz Perrez, Ambassador for the Environment, Switzerland, and Anton Hilber, Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, welcomed participants and introduced the report “South-Originating Green Finance: Exploring the Potential,” highlighting that it is a result of the Geneva Dialogue on Climate Finance and associated processes.

Panel moderator Simon Zadek, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), outlined the main outcomes of the report. He said these include: developing-country sourced green finance for renewable energy is on the rise; private financiers from developing countries perceive political and country risk differently; and policy levers specific to developing country-sourced finance are non-existent.

Monique Barbut, Executive Secretary, UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), identified that out of the US$182 billion invested in climate finance in 2011, US$131 billion came from internal sources. She said this money is generated through domestic policy, such as approaches that leverage private sector investment.

Nick Beglinger, Chief Executive, Swiss Cleantech, said it does not matter so much where the finance comes from, stressing that pension funds are ideal long-term investors and that the right framework conditions are required in order to ensure investment.

Nick Robins, HSBC Climate Change Centre, emphasized that south-south flows are very interesting, highlighting an investment by the Brazilian Development Bank in Johannesburg, South Africa, in bus rapid transit.

Zaheer Fakir, Department of Environmental Affairs, South Africa, said the money flows demonstrate that people in the south are more keen to act on climate change and put their money where their mouth is. Stressing leadership entails translating vision into actions, he said it should be about motivating people to change.

Hilber noted the establishment of the private sector facility under the Green Climate Fund (GCF). He said the report stems from the desire to further learn about how the private sector can function in the green investment space, underscoring the desire to “crowd-in” private investors.

During discussions, participants addressed how to “unlock” institutional investors, the issue of investment risk, investment on the basis of future benefit, improvement of relationships between the international financial system and governments, and how to address the “squeamishness” the public sector feels for subsidizing private sector investment in climate finance.

Beglinger said that in the end the discussion has to move from niche to mainstream, noting it is not an issue of subsidization but of changing the fundamentals, such as shifting framework conditions in order to reduce risk.

Hilber called for private sector actors to join the GCF private sector facility advisory group, noting that the GCF aims to operate at-scale in a more programmatic rather than a project-based approach.

Hironori Hamanaka, Chair, Board of Directors, IGES, moderated the event, highlighting it will present important new research on country contributions to climate change mitigation.

Kelly Levin, WRI, discussed a paper on the comparability and measurability of nationally-determined commitments, including the extent to which these can be measured, reported and verified (“MRVed”). She concluded with recommendations, inter alia, to: use economy-wide goals to maximize measurable emissions reductions; target the highest-emitting sector if sectoral goals are set; frame goals from a base-year or a fixed level since these are more measurable; and use intensity goals, when countries are deciding between baseline and intensity goals, and consider setting a peak and decline pathway.

Yamide Dagnet, WRI, outlined a matrix of options on international guidance for submissions of offers by parties, including: basic reporting guidance; additional reporting on factors such as equity, emissions projections and costs; detailed reporting on assumptions methodologies and criteria; and reporting obligations plus prescriptions on how parties carry out various aspects of target design.

Kentaro Tamura, IGES, proposed the establishment of a consortium of research institutes to assess and review the targets of UNFCCC parties that are members of the G20 on the basis of a common template. He outlined advantages including that it: builds on existing initiatives; can be integrated into existing institutional arrangements through additional COP decisions; and contributes to mainstreaming existing mitigation science into target setting processes.

Bert Metz, European Climate Foundation, emphasized the importance of keeping the architecture of such a system simple, possibly with a differentiation between mandatory, recommended and suggested information to be submitted. He noted that the outcomes would have to be fed back into national decision-making process in order to be effective.

Niklas Höhne, Ecofys, highlighted the ClimateActionTracker. Reflecting on that experience, he said that: a common template could be useful; once offers are on the table they hardly change; global goals can influence pledges; and pledges are likely to be insufficient. He identified ways to increase ambition, such as: early pledges and a strong review process; accept offers as a floor of ambition and ratchet up afterwards; agree on an equity reference framework; and agree on a very strong global goal to a phase out of GHG emissions by 2050 and national offers combined with a technical review.

Neha Pahuja, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), said the suggestion of a common framework is very good, but she fears that the post-Copenhagen dynamics in the negotiations will continue, stressing the importance of agreement on an equity framework to prevent this.