Bonn Climate Change Conference - June 2015

This session was facilitated by Yunus Arikan, ICLEI. In a video message, Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General, called on participants to strengthen cities' networks, promote a successful agreement in Paris, and support a meaningful agenda at the Habitat III conference in 2016.

In his opening remarks, Jürgen Nimptsch, Mayor, Bonn, highlighted 10 proposals to raise ambition in Paris including, among others, involving local governments in climate change planning; enhancing local cooperation and financial support; creating a work programme for local and regional actions; taking into account the multiple synergies that cut across climate change, sustainable development goals and financing for development; and inviting cities to join the Compact of Mayors.

Arikan then gave an overview of the work of ICLEI towards COP 21, and highlighted proposed language on cities and local and sub-regional governments for inclusion in the Paris agreement. He noted that with or without progress at COP 21, the momentum of local and regional governments would still continue to grow under the banner of the Transformative Actions Programme (TAP). He described TAP as a tool to mobilize actors and educate them on relevant climate actions in order to promote ambitious, creative and inclusive projects in the lead up to and after 2020.

Carlos Castillo, Basque Country and member of the Network for Regional Governments for Sustainable Development (nrg4SD), presented on the Basque Country Climate change strategy 2050, noting efforts at the local level to promote climate action through the implementation of both adaptation and mitigation measures.

Dorah Nteo, Chief Sustainability Officer, Tshwane, South Africa, highlighted the scaling up of climate efforts in her local government, and commended various cities' networks for sharing best practices to enhance action in other cities. She stressed that for sustainability to take root, there is a need for private sector engagement.

Antoine Faye, Chief Resiliency Officer, Dakar, Senegal, underlined that discussions on resilience cannot be had without including adaptation. He highlighted energy efficiency practices in his city, and drew attention to territorial energy and climate plans for every sector that promote energy efficiency and reductions in energy costs.

Gino Van Begin, Secretary-General, ICLEI, underscored the need to mobilize cities to ensure the world maintains global temperatures below the predicted 2ºC in temperature rise. He highlighted ICLEI's Local Government Climate Roadmap, which: outlines progress in the climate regime and other negotiations pertaining to cities and local governments; suggests ways to close the ambition gap; and recommends 10 proposals to raise ambition in Paris.

During the discussion, participants considered: methods to vertically integrate local actions with global ones; means to monitor and track progress in meeting commitments; and the implications of diversity across cities.

Moderated by Oscar Reyes, Institute for Policy Studies, this side event organized by IPS and AIDA discussed the various opportunities and challenges for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to play a transformational role.

Highlighting the mandate of the GCF, Brandon Wu, ActionAid, identified various opportunities for the Fund to achieve transformational change such as direct access, promoting broad-based change, and gender sensitivity. He also identified risks that may undermine the transformational potential of the GCF, including: most of the money passing through traditional channels as opposed to direct access procedures; non-mandatory guidelines on stakeholder participation and engagement; and hesitation to devolve decision-making authority on how funds are used to national and local levels.

Drawing attention to the untested waters that the Fund would have to operate in, Rutger de Witt Wijnen, GCF Secretariat, said the Fund would need to constantly learn from its projects. He stressed the need to improve cohesion across the numerous climate funds and emphasized the importance of funding high quality projects to ensure that all parties concerned can trust the fund as an effective institution.

Noting that the GCF would be disbursing funds in the near future, Andrea Rodriguez Osuna, AIDA, stressed the importance of stakeholder participation. She underlined, inter alia: country coordination and multistakeholder engagement as critical for effective preparation of funding proposals; and active, free and meaningful participation by individuals in decisions that affect their rights. She identified, among others: enhanced country ownership; promoting environment, social, economic and development co-benefits; taking a gender-sensitive approach; and respecting human rights as critical for promoting the interests of stakeholders.

Stressing the importance of direct access in building country-level capacity, Zaheer Fakir, GCF Board member, highlighted the spillover benefits of direct access. He also emphasized the need for quality over quantity of projects for the Fund. Providing adaptation projects as an example, Fakir also noted many procedural details that are yet to be worked out such as the precise nature of funding instruments for there to be enough clarity and certainty in GCF procedures to inspire better projects and programmes.

During discussions, participants discussed, inter alia: safeguards and standards applied by the GCF; issues regarding the types of technologies that can be financed by the Fund; gender balance on the board of the Fund; and the importance of clarity and certainty in GCF procedures for better programming.

This event, chaired by Oonagh Fitzgerald, CIGI, discussed ways in which public participation can play a role in strengthening the Paris agreement, in relation to Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) and measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) in particular.

Introducing the session, Katherine Lofts, CISDL, noted that public participation can play a useful role in measuring unquantifiable criteria such as cultural values, and highlighted the integral role of such participation in upholding procedural and environmental rights, making reference to several examples within existing multilateral agreements, including: the Rio/Rio+20 Declarations; the Aarhus Convention; the Almaty Guidelines; and the UNFCCC.

On INDCs, Niklas Höhne, Founding Partner, NewClimate Institute, presented findings from a survey of 120 countries preparing their INDCs, showing that 80% are involving a broad range of stakeholders in the process. He underscored the important role of public participation in engendering support for policies coming from INDCs, and noted country-specific studies showing further benefits of public consultations, such as discovering new ideas and skill sets not previously available to governments.

Andrea Rodgriguez Osuna, Asociación Interamericana para la Defensa del Ambiente, also discussed INDCs, revealing public participation initiatives in Chile and Mexico, including public dialogue, workshops, and online consultations. She observed challenges encountered such as: a limited timescale; narrow inclusion of stakeholders selected by government; and the need to raise awareness of the meaning of INDCs to enable meaningful public participation.

On MRV, Sébastien Duyck, University of Lapland, discussed the role of public participation in MRV processes, stating that civil society input is currently not integrated into the UNFCCC process. He suggested a new approach based on the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council, stating that this would bring further transparency to the process by allowing stakeholders' views to be included in official, compiled reports.

Yamide Dagnet, World Resources Institute (WRI), noted the central role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in MRV, as collectors and users of the data recorded. She noted the importance of MRV in building trust. Among others, she suggested CSOs could play an important role in: the independent technical analysis of mitigation goals; expanding the pool of non-governmental experts; and capacity building.

Discussions followed, considering: how to overcome financial and cultural challenges to greater public participation in developing countries; the role of CSOs in encouraging governments to achieve mitigation goals; and procedural equity.

Concluding the session, Niranjali Amerasinghe, Center for International Environmental Law, said the conversation about public participation was moving in the right direction. She suggested that internationally, there was a need to improve the negotiating text to further incorporate public participation, and that nationally there was a need for education and capacity building so that citizens are aware of the process and their rights within it.

Co-Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance Outi Honkatukia opened the session, highlighting the mandate of the SCF and providing an overview of work undertaken thus far. She discussed the work of the SCF, inter alia: preparation of the arrangements between the Conference of the Parties (COP) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF); preparation of the 2014 biennial assessment and overview of climate finance flows; and organization of two SCF forums on mobilizing finance and investments for climate action now, and mobilizing adaptation finance.

Introducing financing for forests as the theme for this year's SCF Forum that will be taking place in conjunction with the World Agroforestry Congress in South Africa in September, Stefan Agne, SCF, said the Forum would take a broad approach to forest finance and engage with the private sector as well. He noted that a working paper on coherence and coordination for financing for forests was under preparation and that the paper, in part, would consider examples of existing forest financing activities. He said this paper, along with inputs received at the Forum, would serve as SCF's input to COP 21.

Noting that measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of support outside of the biennial assessment was an important part of SCF's work, Roger Dungan, SCF, informed the participants of an upcoming in-session workshop organized jointly with the SBI and SBSTA. He said this workshop would work on identifying options for improvement of current methodologies for reporting financial information, including concrete actions. He also noted that a draft work plan on MRV beyond the biennial assessment by the SCF was under preparation and would be considered by the SCF at its 11th session.

Discussing the work of the SCF regarding the Adaptation Fund, Richard Sherman, SCF, noted ongoing work to analyze: the relations between the Adaptation Fund and other bodies of the Convention such as the Adaptation Committee; formal institutional linkage issues between the Adaptation Fund and the Convention such as the possibility of designating the Fund an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism of the Convention; and future relations of the Adaptation Fund in the post-2020 context.

During the discussions, participants discussed: application of UNFCCC principles in financial reporting by the SCF; legal and institutional issues surrounding the integration of the Adaptation Fund and the GCF; the first biennial assessment; and overview of climate finance flows.

This session, moderated by Stefano Mannacio, COBASE, considered how to use high efficiency electricity to design new settlements, and achieve co-benefits such as the elimination of combustions, the development of a bio-circular economy and the creation of agro-ecological and eco-productive parks, in view of resources scarcity, against climate change and desertification and to protect biodiversity and well-being.

Noting that 70% of the world's population will live in urban areas in the next 30 years, Massimo Pieri, President, COBASE, stressed the need for climate actions to focus on cities. He highlighted the importance of combining traditional knowledge with modern technological knowledge to create sustainable solutions to climate change. Pieri drew attention to the need to model cities on natural systems that are asymmetrical, and thus more energy efficient. He explained that an electrical city's energy production will rely on "hot and cold chains of energy," and will run on low voltage systems. He also explained that these cities will need to construct power plants for local use, and that renewable energy production will only be permissible if the renewables are determined to have a proven net return of over 40%. Commenting on the day-to-day living in the electrical city, he described that: wastes will be recycled to produce biogas, other useable products and compost; all food will be local, organic, short-chain, and healing; no slaughterhouses will be permitted as intensive agriculture and animal husbandry increases greenhouse gas emissions; and vegetarianism will be encouraged.

Mannacio spoke on urban efficiency, biodiversity and traditional knowledge. Listing mitigation methods including green roofing and enhancing forestation in urban areas, he noted that mitigation is not enough and called for urban agriculture in vacant urban areas. He noted that this type of agriculture can preserve bioregional ecologies outside the city from being transformed into croplands and thus increase deforestation; and can be used as a tool to fight hunger and malnutrition in urban areas. Going beyond urban agriculture, he stressed the need to encourage agro-ecology which includes animal rearing, but does not allow for intensive agriculture, reiterating that the production of meat is not sustainable. Stressing that food consumption patterns are important for combating climate change, he noted the need to encourage vegetarianism. Mannacio then compared artificial ecology to natural ecology, describing the Amazon rainforest as the "most artificial environment in the world" as it was created by Indigenous Peoples who artificially fertilized farm fields by composting waste, which enhanced the biodiversity of the land. He stated that the Amazon is like a city, but with more sustainable consumption patterns.

In the discussion, participants raised issues including: how to measure and reduce the entropy of an urban system; how to operationalize such an electrical city; and the use of areas outside the urban area relative to the energy efficient electrical city.