Coverage of Selected Side Events at the
Lima Climate Change Conference - December 2014

This session was the first of two GCF events at COP20 that aim to provide more information on the Fund’s operating procedures regarding country readiness, accreditation, implementing entities and building project pipelines. It was moderated by Clifford Polycarp, GCF Secretariat.

Tao Wang, Director of Mitigation and Adaptation, GCF, highlighted six criteria for GCF investment: impact potential, paradigm shift potential, sustainable development potential, needs of the recipient; country ownership; and efficiency and effectiveness. He noted that at least 50% of mitigation and adaptation funds will be reserved for Small Island Development States (SIDS), Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Africa. With regard to country readiness, he explained that the GCF will organize its support through a range of partners, including National Designated Authorities (NDAs) or focal points, and national, sub-national, and regional implementing entities and intermediaries.

Ousseynou Nakoulima, Director of Country Programming, GCF, explained how the GCF’s private sector facility (PSF) will work, noting that possible added value for project developers includes: providing equity to unlock scarcity of early financing; financing public infrastructure through concessional loans; providing long term funding and liquidity; and covering off-take risk through relevant guarantees. He said that applicants will need to meet the GCF’s fiduciary standards and environmental and social safeguard requirements in order to qualify. Nakoulima noted that the GCF has received 69 NDA nominations so far, and that 20 of the 27 readiness requests submitted are from Africa and SIDS.

Presenting country perspectives, Ruleta Camacho, Ministry of Environment, Antigua and Barbuda, noted that in 20 years, the country has only secured one “full size project” of more than US$10 million. She said they aimed to use GCF funds to cluster “win-win solutions” by investing in renewable energy and green technology projects and using the returns to fund programmatic mitigation and adaptation activities.

Edith Kateme-Kassaja, National Planning Authority, Uganda, said the country has identified its national implementing entity and believes the GCF is “on the right track” because of its focus on sustainable livelihoods. She said priorities for her country include investing in irrigation and capacity development for national coordinating agencies to effectively mainstream sustainability in sector programmes.

This side event, moderated by Liz Chirinos Cuadros, explored collaboration initiatives between JICA and the Peruvian government, highlighting the necessity of mainstreaming disaster risk management (DRM) into all sectors of Peru’s planning processes.

Kunio Okamura, Senior Special Advisor, JICA, shared experiences from Peru on DRM as “management by results,” and emphasized the importance of this approach as a pillar in the Peruvian government’s strategies to counter climate change impacts.

Alberto Bisbal, DRM Secretary, PCM, presented on Peru’s recent evolution towards including systems’ planning processes against disasters and risks, outlining as main components public policies, integrated planning and creating financial mechanisms to guarantee adequate resources. He defined DRM as a social process with the goal of preventing, reducing, and continually monitoring disaster risk factors in society, as well as developing adequate preparedness and response to disasters. He identified proactive management processes in use, including: risk estimation and prevention; corrective management through risk reduction, reconstruction, and preparation; and risk management through response and rehabilitation processes. As priorities, Bisbal emphasized: institutionalizing DRM throughout the national system; and strengthening the culture of prevention while increasing resilience.

Toshitaka Takeuchi, Director of the South American Division, JICA, identified DRM as one of the top three priorities for the Peruvian government following a marked increase in natural disasters in the region. He reported on JICA’s involvement in Peru’s DRM, urging continuity of DRM implementation. Takeuchi highlighted the importance of prior investment to minimize the impacts of disasters; and cross-sectoral collaboration in the areas of health, urban planning, transport, governance, and energy. 

Kazuto Suzuki, CTI Engineering International, presented on the necessary institutional systems, policies and projects for mainstreaming DRM in Peru, and outlined research elements, highlighting approaches to research on the trends and characteristics of disasters in Peru. On gaps and challenges he identified: lack of detailed plans to mitigate or prevent damages; capacity of local staff; lack of guidelines and policies for disaster management actions; and lack of detailed risk assessments in several sectors.

Moderated by Leo Hickman, Met Office Hadley Centre, this event explored the challenges of making climate projections and linking damages from extreme weather events to changing emissions; risk management in the face of uncertainty; and the ethics of loss and damage. 

Peter Stott, Met Office Hadley Centre, explained that attribution science that takes into account human activity can be used by decision makers in national planning processes. He described the science, highlighting that scenarios from the “real world” are compared to scenarios from a climate not influenced by human activity.

Elizabeth Kendon, Met Office Hadley Centre, described high resolution spatially-detailed models which help to illustrate climate change events, noting that these will better predict change over time. She said the results of the models are currently being used in the UK to help provide better information to decision makers on potential future risks.

Petra Tschakert, PSU, noted that the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) considers multidimensional vulnerability, explaining that this is linked to social frameworks where the more vulnerable have less capacity and fewer opportunities to adapt. She highlighted new qualitative modelling based on quantitative data, as well as value judgements, to demonstrate scenarios where adaptation is possible.

Nancy Tuana, PSU, explained that as different countries set standards on dealing with climate risk, they should consider that there are value judgments embedded in both the science and the politics of climate change. She underscored gathering information on what the wider community values, and then engaging with the decision makers to model various scenarios that should be considered when creating strategies to manage risk.

Allen Thompson, Oregon State University, spoke on ethics, loss and damage, and event attribution, calling for loss and damage to be considered as separate from adaptation as, among others, residual loss and damages occur beyond the limits of adaptation. Speaking on climate justice, he noted that event attribution raises the “specter of liability,” further noting that claims for compensation often rest on “distributional justice.” He said that building institutions will require unprecedented levels of international repair, and that moral repair involves victim identification and making amends.

Claudia Murray, University of Reading, gave examples from Latin America of mitigation measures in natural resources and urban planning and development. She described rural indigenous communities forced to migrate to urban areas where governments provide them with sub-standard housing and living conditions. She attributed the mushrooming of these unsustainable housing blocks to “bad politics” and the construction industry lobby, and called for better land policies as well as more effective tools to distribute the value of natural and urban resources.

In the discussion, participants considered the measurement of large-scale changes in relation to local changes in climate; value judgements as part of target-setting; the place for geo-engineering in risk discussions; shifting the discussion from adaptation to survival; the importance of user-friendly science for communities; and the need to understand the political situation in order to present the most influential science to decision makers.

This side event, moderated by Renate Christ, Secretary of the IPCC, presented aspects of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), and involved representatives of stakeholder groups, including policymakers, business and civil society, to discuss how the report is put into practice and ways make it more user-friendly.
                               
Renate Christ addressed the Synthesis Report (SYR) of the AR5 that synthesizes the main findings, based on contributions from the working groups and on two additional IPCC reports, on renewable energy and on managing risks of extreme events and disasters.

Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Deputy Director-General, IIASA, provided a view from a science and engineering stakeholder, noting that IPCC assessments are salient, credible, legitimate and policy relevant. He focused on the energy sector assessment by IIASA, as well as on the Austrian panel on climate change assessment, highlighting key energy challenges and goals. He also provided different CO2 emission scenarios from AR1 to AR5.

David Hone, Chief Climate Change Adviser, Shell Research Ltd, delivered an industry perspective. Underscoring that existing and near-term infrastructure creates a lock-in situation, he focused on the technology of CCS to address future challenges. He noted that under CCS: carbon is returned to the geosphere where it came from; there is no geographical or temporal shift effect; and even limited local action has a global benefit.

Enrique Maurtua Konstantinidis, Coordinator, Climate Action Network (CAN) Latin America, addressed civil society activities regarding the AR5. He stressed that phasing out all fossil fuels, and replacing them with renewable energy, is the way to achieve sustainable development. He spoke of the role of CAN to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels, and focused on international, national and regional actions to enhance public understanding of climate change and bring the scientific message of AR5 to a wider audience.

Presenting on outreach events in South Africa following the publication of the AR5 and the SYR, Rabelani Tshikalanke, Deputy Director, Department of Environmental Affairs, South Africa, stressed that Africa will be seriously affected by climate change because of its vulnerability and the economic status quo. He underlined capacity building to enhance participation of developing countries in the IPCC and stressed numerous challenges including, inter alia: poor communication between IPCC focal points and scientists on the ground; lack of local expertise; financial support; and availability of data for research purposes.

During discussions, participants addressed, inter alia: potential problems associated with CCS and whether the technology addresses symptoms rather than causes; and ways to close the gap between scientists, engineers and policy makers.

This session, moderated by Doris Capistrano, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Swiss Partnership on Social Forestry and Climate Change, provided an opportunity for panelists to share experiences on strengthening equity in forest governance and consider how lessons learned can contribute to safeguard development in REDD+.

Regan Suzuki Pairojmahakij, RECOFTC, noted that community forestry contributes to safeguard information systems by, inter alia: being a rights-based approach to safeguard design; building on the principle of subsidiarity, thus enhancing decentralised decision making; and providing opportunities for more cost-effective and efficient local-level monitoring.

Chandra Shekhar Silori, RECOFTC, shared experiences in creating capacity for REDD+ safeguards at the grassroots level, describing a RECOFTC project across five countries of South East Asia. He noted that for safeguards to be effective, they need to take into account: free prior and informed consent; vulnerable groups; tenure and resource rights; benefit-sharing mechanisms; and preferences on resettlement. He highlighted challenges of ensuring safeguards at the grassroots level, including: persistent uncertainties due to prolonged climate change negotiations on REDD+; tenure and resource rights insecurity; and capacity development.

Nur Masripatin, REDD+ Agency, Indonesia, noted that there are governance elements that are key to the implementation of a safeguard system, including compliance with national and regional regulations and policies, and the effectiveness of the decision-making processes and institutional arrangements. She highlighted her country’s early implementation of the Criteria and Indicators for REDD+ Safeguards, as well as the agreement on the One Map Initiative, which standardizes the data used for REDD+ implementation across multiple sectors.

Edna Maguigad, Non-Timber Forest Products Exchange Programme for South and Southeast Asia, shared insights from the Philippines, noting two areas where equity and safeguards are being implemented: ancestral domains and areas committed to community-based forest management agreements. Comparing the two, she noted that in ancestral domains notions of equity vary and the benefit-sharing basis is not clear as indigenous peoples mostly negotiate for short-term benefits.

Sigyel Delma, Department of Forests and Park Services, Bhutan, spoke on the development and implementation of REDD+ safeguards in her country, noting it is still in the initial phase of REDD+ readiness. She noted lessons learned include the need to reduce timber allocations to households to curb deforestation; the risk of fraud in managing the income of community forestry; and the poor state of gender representation in executive positions.

Drawing attention to the linkages between population growth and safeguards, Marisa Camargo, IIED, underscored engaging the private sector in addressing the main drivers of deforestation, namely agriculture and animal husbandry. She urged focusing on equity issues within the supply chain in order to promote greater sustainability.

During the discussion, participants considered, inter alia, the difference in governance between ancestral domains and community based forest management agreements; and the need to clearly define equity and other terminology for use at the grassroots level.

This side event, co-moderated by Alejandro Argumedo, Director, ANDES, and Claudia Ringler, Deputy Division Director, Environment and Production Technology, IFPRI, explored issues regarding inclusive and gender-sensitive pathways for climate change adaptation and adoption of climate-smart technologies, utilizing both top-down and bottom-up approaches.

Ringler posed questions to be addressed during the side event, namely: the way to develop more inclusive adaptation programmes; the required investments to mobilize the adoption pathways of climate-smart technologies; and why gender is important for the climate change negotiations.
                               
Argumedo highlighted the role of indigenous peoples and smallholder farmers as critical actors to address food and nutrition in the context of climate change. He underlined, inter alia: natural and environmental indicators to predict weather; weather forecasting and cropping patterns; crop diversity management as an adaptation strategy; and the role of stored seeds for food security.

Ricardo Pacco, Potato Park Leader, Peru, presented experiences from the Park, stressing existing challenges associated with climate change. He underscored the role of traditional knowledge (TK), noting that the voices of indigenous peoples need to be heard for an inclusive approach to environmental justice.

Addressing the Vietnamese experience, Mai van Trinh, Institute for Agricultural Environment, Viet Nam, focused on climate change adaptation and mitigation activities. He stressed that impacts of climate change are not identical among different sites, noting that many adaptation measures are costly.

Corinne Valdivia, University of Missouri, presented results of a project concerning climate variability for potato cultivation in the Andes. She said that adaptation takes place locally, noting that two-way participatory communication and research can enhance trust in new knowledge, and focused on the utilization of gender, cultural and socio-economic lenses during policy making.

Carlos Amat y León, ANDES Board of Directors, said that local governments can play an important role in providing a bridge between TK and scientific knowledge, and stressed the problem of young people migrating from rural areas to cities.

Drawing from national experiences, Mercedita Sombilla, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, the Philippines, addressed gender issues in climate change and agriculture. She noted, among others, the gender division of agricultural labor and differential wage rates for men and women.

Leocadio Sebastian, CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, Regional Leader, South-East Asia, presented on a meeting of 10 partner countries in South-East Asia. He underscored, inter alia: the need for better access to methodologies to address climate change; that policies often exist but funding for their implementation is limited; and the need to focus on the most vulnerable parts of the population, including ethnic groups and women.

Cecilia Turin, International Potato Center, stressed that women are often still not visible and lack negotiating capacity. She underscored the need to include TK and the gender component in decision making, calling for institutional adaptation to include these considerations.

Elizabeth Jiménez, Universidad Mayor de San Andres, Bolivia, underlined the importance of gender issues, and noted that neighboring communities may have different ways to manage risk, which raise major challenges in terms of policy making. She stressed the need to strengthen the capacity of agencies at the community level to better address challenges in the long run.

The objective of this session, which was moderated by Kristine Håland, European Commission, was to present the state of play following the recent adoption of the European Council Conclusions on 2030 Climate and Energy Policy Framework, including 2030 targets for greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Elina Bardram, Head of the EU delegation, noted the announcement of the 2030 targets has helped to revitalize the multilateral climate negotiations and inspired other major economies to announce headline targets. She summarized the main targets as reducing greenhouse gas emissions to at least 40% below 1990 levels, and increasing both renewable energy and energy savings by at least 27% by 2030. She noted key features of the policy framework include a strengthened carbon market, and more effective allocation of public resources to mobilize and accelerate private resources. On next steps, she highlighted: implementation of the European Energy Security Strategy; implementation of new provisions for EU Emissions Trading System (ETS); supporting new EU entrants to transition to a low carbon economy; and setting member state targets in the non-ETS sectors, notably with regard to policy on how to include Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry.

Responding, Niklas Höhne, Founding Partner, NewClimate Institute, characterized the EU announcement as a comprehensive policy package that offers an important signal to other COP20 parties. He identified the level of energy efficiency and the implementation of the stability reserve as the most important variables that can drive further reductions in future. Noting that despite their scope, the targets fall short of the actual emissions reduction potential, he cautioned against “locking in” the current levels of ambition.

Jennifer Morgan, Global Director of the Climate Program, World Resources Institute, noted that one cannot understate the importance of EU leadership on the low-carbon economy. She expressed hope that the transparent stakeholder process would be emulated by other countries and regions.  Noting that the cost of renewables is going down rapidly, she said a 2025 target with a long term phase-out goal by 2050 would be preferable. In this regard, she noted Germany’s announcement of a domestic target for 2020, and emphasized the need to bring forward the target dates to ensure the ETS remains relevant.

During discussions, participants highlighted, inter alia: specifying how CCS will contribute to the 2030 targets; encouraging heavy fossil fuel producers to phase out coal mines; and communicating a “strong narrative” on green growth and jobs to ensure buy-in by skeptical business and political actors.