by Raul Cazan

When we are climbing a mountain, it may witness our behavior with a somewhat remote or mild benevolence. The mountain never fights against us, and it will hold back avalanches as long as it can, but sometimes human stupidity and hubris and a lack of intimate feeling for the environment result in human catastrophes – that is, catastrophes for mothers, fathers, wives, children and friends. There is a sense of both greatness and fragility that escapes us while reflecting upon the mountains.

Breithorn, 4165 m, Switzerland

Purely local mountain cultures are incompatible with cosmopolitan and urban ones. The intrusion of new values and lifestyles rapidly undermines mountain culture. Even though in Europe worship of the mountains has faded in dark ages of history, Arne Naess, the great philosopher, reminds us of some cult of mountains remaining. Tseringma (Gauri Sankar) is still worshiped. “When we suggested to the Sherpas of Beding, beneath Tseringma, that they might have their fabulous peaks protected from “conquests” and big expeditions, they responded with enthusiasm. A special meeting was announced, and the families voted unanimously to ask the central authorities in Kathmandu to refuse permission for climbing expeditions to Tseringma” (The Ecology of Wisdom. Writings by Arne Naess, edited by Allan Drengson and Bill Devall, Counterpoint, Berkeley, USA, 2008, page 65). Goenden, the leader of Beding walk all the way to the Nepalese capital to contact the administration. Alpine clubs and the government largely ignored this initiative even if Sherpas would not mind losing the money they could earn from expeditions. “Enlightened” Sherpas would tolerate organizers of expeditions going anywhere whilst high mountains need no “protection” as they are just great stone heaps and large glaciers.

Probably all parties were right. However, what Naess gets out of it is a certain idea of modesty in human relations with mountains and mountain people. “As I see it, says the philosopher, modesty is of little value if it is not a natural consequence of much deeper feelings and, even more important in our special context, a consequence of a way of understanding ourselves as part of nature in a wide sense of the term. This way is such that the smaller we come to feel ourselves compared with the mountain, the nearer we come to participating in its greatness. I do not know why this is so.”

FROM SACRED TO TOURISM

Mount Olympus and Mount Ida for the ancient Greeks, even Hephaestus’ workshop at the heart of Etna, or the mysterious Kogayon, the holy mountain of the Dacians somewhere in the Carpathians, through the Alpine peaks of Celtic gods, up to Akkha, the mystic Sami mountain in the Scandinavian North, they all are subdued to an assimilated divine greatness of the Mountains of Europe and of the mountainous peoples of Europe.

Dacian sanctuaries at Sarmizegetusa Regia in the Transylvanian Alps, Carpathians, Romania

Simulacra of biblical mountains, most peaks of Europe have been baptized with saints’ names in centuries of Christianity.

A syncretic combination of various elements also characterized the “sacred mountains” that were erected all over France in the squares and churches of the new Republic at the height of the Revolution in 1793 and 1794. These were constructed from piles of earth and other suitable materials. During the philosophical discussions of previous decades of the 18^th century, nature had interestingly gained an almost mystical character, as the essence of perfection. Society had to reconcile with it. And it was the embodiment of freedom, equality, and brotherhood from the flags of the French Revolution. The artificial mountains were used for the cultic representation of nature. Here, a Supreme Being revealed to man the laws of Nature and Reason, just as the biblical God had once given Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, or the gods of Greek antiquity had lived on Mount Olympus. During celebrations of the Revolution, the artificial mountains were often climbed by a woman dressed in white. Standing at the summit, she was hailed as the new goddess of freedom and reason. (Jon Mathieu, The Sacralization of Mountains in Europe during the Modern Age.

The Sacri Monti (artificially constructed holy mountains) at the southern foothills of the Alps are also clearly related to topography. They developed in some regions near the border with Protestant countries during the decades around 1600. The idea of bringing “Jerusalem” to Europe and imitating it architecturally had already appeared before 1500 and gained greater significance after the Council of Trent (1545–1563). The thematic center of the Sacri Monti is formed by the life and the Passion of Christ on the mountain of Golgotha, or by remarkable scenes from the life of Mary, or the life of a saint. Here, as in other regions, it was often conspicuous but seldom very high mountains that received pilgrimage churches (Luigi Zanzi, Sacri Monti, 2002).

From these sacralizations of the mountain, nowadays we descend to a certain commodification.

ASCENSIO AD INFERNOS

Some years ago, in a mountain chalet on Monte Rite in the Italian Dolomites, Pavia University based mountain history professor Luigi Zanzi was screaming out a lecture about the crisis of mountain culture, the greatest provider of ecosystem services – since we are in need of contemporary environmental terms. This is the fragility of mountain communities.

Monte Rite, Dolomites, Italy

People of the mountain communities were free until less than a century ago; the areas that these people were occupying had been escaping any fiscal policies of the state, they were literal tax-free zones. Probably last examples of such relative liberty were the shepherd communities in the Transylvanian Alps scattered on the hills around Sibiu/Hermannstadt in Romania or the ones in the Balkan Mountains during the iron fist ruling of the communists.

For inhabitants of the alpine communities there should be no income taxes, says Zanzi, as capitalist economy cannot function over 2000 m altitude. Whereas agriculture, production and services in the lowlands of Europe enter the global economic competition, the economic life in the mountain is essentially local and based on a “integral ecology”.

Mountain economy keeps anywhere in Europe a sense of production and consumption that is always self-sufficient and difficultly defendable against invasion of the big capital usually interested in grand tourism projects. Local production in the mountains inherently presupposes local consumption; in case of extra production, people’s work should not be “exported” or distributed at long distance, says Zanzi, for the simple reason that they cannot afford competing with the bigger businesses in the lower lands.

Mountain economy is subsistence, however there is nothing demeaning in it. This traditional and ecological economy keeps a whole environment on which all subjects of the state depend. It surrounds glaciers, fights climate change and maintains a biodiversity that was lost elsewhere. These provided services cannot be taxed as simple as function of income in money because they are much more complex; they should be not taxed at all, concludes Zanzi.

RISK AND BLACK SNOW

Fragility of the mountain translates though into the fragility of our global climate.

The risks of the mountain must be studied more closely since climate change became obvious. The risks have always existed. They are partly cyclical, said Federica Cortese, Deputy Mayor of Courmayeur in charge of risk and the environment, President of the Fondazione MONTAGNA SICURA.

Mont Blanc, Crevasse on Glacier du Geant, France

But the risks are increased by the natural changes, by urbanization and by the practices of mountain recreation. But the glacier Jorasses (part of the Mont Blanc and Mer de Glace complex), among other causes threats by sliding on a slope driven by gravity. It leads to a steep face of the mountain where periodic blocks of ice break off. The ice can break off at any time, under the effect of buoyancy. Falls are unpredictable.
So the risks are real for practitioners of mountain recreation (climbing, skiing, shelter clients and residences located below). But the risks are real and big for houses in the valley of Val Ferret from under the glacier. Falling ice in winter could trigger destructive avalanches. The glacier des Grandes Jorasses is subject to multiple monitoring: monitoring of the ice mass with surveillance cameras.
More generally, scientists study the evolution of permafrost, the layer of soil, permanently frozen so far, which would tend to warm as a result of climate change. Sensors are placed in diferent locations to measure the temperature of the rock and soil in real time. The information is transmitted from the sensors to laboratories or researchers follow the phenomena and try to create models that predict the behavior of the mountain.
Permafrost in fact depends on phenomena such as the holding of massive rocks often partially stuck by frost. Rising temperatures could cause the collapse of massive rock walls.

Global warming may handicap some parts of agriculture. Melting glaciers may temporarily provide water for crops that warming can be traced back at higher altitude. Valley of Adige around Bolzano in South Tyrol, is covered with yards of apple that provide 10% of the European market. Growing apple trees has developed thirty years ago, enjoying a huge success. The sector is thriving, to the point that cultures extend aloft to enjoy the warming that reduces the risk of frost. But less the cold, less apples get their rosie glow!

In the glacier of Morteratsch in Switzerland, probably the place where glacier melting can be seen with naked eye, climate change works its way towards vaporizing ice and permafrost. High areas such as this “enjoy” quite a warming; increase in average temperatures has long over-passed any thresholds optimistically set by any United Nations branch.

Glacier Morteratsch in Switzerland

Uberto Piloni, consultant and mountain guide, shared the rapid melting and cracking of the Morteratsch; “warm water infiltrates under the big blocks of ice and form literal streams under the calotte making it break and slide downstream. Often times one can be amazed by impressive waterfalls that lie as a visual proof of  a melting at a speed of 1 cubic meter per second. Every here and there, crevasses create actual lakes, in fact some pits in which deep waters last for days. A pit like this is called a “swallower”,” concludes Piloni.

Climate change “has extreme effects on the Alps; the average increase in temperature in all the Alps is higher than the average increase in other areas of the Northern Hemisphere, we had 2 centigrade increase in the Alps (within the last two decades, n.n.), the effects are very visible and, most of all, very expensive. One of the most visible effects is the retreat of glaciers,” Marco Onida, General Secretary of the Alpine Convention told 2C.

Within an annual program consisting of sustainable crossing of the Alps and a lot of knowledge sharing – named SuperAlp! – The Alpine Convention let participants, all journalists, discover the conditions of alpine glaciers, one of the most evident indicators of the effects of climate change. It also intended to make this crossing an occasion to communicate the Alpine Convention and its Protocols as tools for the sustainable development of the Alpine region, easily transferable also to other mountain regions of the world. “We chose 5 glaciers in the Alps and we crossed them all in order to see with our eyes what the situation is and to talk to knowledgeable people, glaciologists, experts that have been living here for the last 50-60 years and that are able to explain what is the situation’s evolution, what is the speed of the retreat, what are the problems associated to this retreat and so on,” added Onida.

Marco Onida, Secretary General of the Alpine Convention

The glacier of Gran Paradiso (Grand Paradise) proves an infernal effect. The water that glaciers provide to the lowlands – and here we are talking about long flow rivers of Europe such as the Po or the Danube, carriers of immense biodiversity and culture – has been halved in the last decade, warns Eduardo Cremonese with the Environmental Agency of the Italian region of Val d’Aosta (Vallee d’Aoste). “People started to see that there is less water for them, less hydropower production. This low amount of snow and precipitations in general as well as the increase in average temperature in the spring is the danger for the valleys and also for the alpine areas.”

The research that the Agency in Aosta is carrying out is quite simple. Named “mass balance”, researchers are measuring the amount of snow and ice at the winter peak and then they repeat measurements in late spring. Subtracting, you get the amount of snow and ice melted. Comparative studies carried out each year in the last decade show that the glacier is continuously losing mass. “Just to give you an idea, we measured the ablation of the terminal part of the glacier and in less than 8 years we had to change 2 ten-meter long poles, that is Gran Paradiso lost a 20 meters thick layer of ice.”

At its turn, Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland, the longest in the Alps, has broken in 5 “tongues” along huge crevasses. Uberto Piloni says that there is an undeniable truth of constant melting and it is written in stone with nature’s means; in the last 60-70 years, the super-industrial times, there has been a constant melting as lichens that grow on rock show.

Global warming will cause problems especially in the drier parts of the Alps, in the valleys without glaciers with precipitation already low. This is underlined by Marc Zebisch, climate change expert at the European Academy (Eurac), a research center in the region of Trentino South Tyrol, Italy. Glacier retreat is one of the most overt indicators of climate change, however they do not have the biggest impact, says Zebisch. Snow gives the highest degree of fragility; alpine snow is “the water tower of Europe”, vegetation in the lower lands depends on the additional water that comes from the snow melting, that is all river streams and ecosystems consume the water that flows from the alpine snow, therefore less snow will impoverish biodiversity. A 4 degrees Celsius increase in average temperature in the Alps – very possible by 2050 – will cause more water in winter and much less during spring and summertime. This all means water shortages all over continental Europe similar to the drought of 2003 and less vigorous ecosystems.

Old ice and permafrost, due to low amounts of snowfalls, tend to get a darker color, a phenomenon named “black snow”. Naturally, the melting speed increases as this ice attracts the sun’s rays. Paradoxically, however, in the coming years we will have larger amounts of water in the continent due to massive melting of the alpine glaciers. Nonetheless, Carpathians or Apennine mountains lose their snow already in spring, as Eurac satellite photos show, and water shortages are to be expected in the near future.

Longest glacier in Europe, Aletsch in Switzerland

Businesses and developers, on the other hand, think in terms of credit and on shorter periods of time; they keep doing good business with useless ski slopes in the Alps or enjoy the large amounts of water for hydropower. We are living times of egotistic narrow approaches on development, times in which nuclear energy imported from France is used to uplift water basins in the Alps for artificial waterfalls that create hydro energy. These are times when energy and subsequent business are mere speculations, whereas glaciers on the alpine peaks are complexly connected with the fantastic biodiversity of the Danube Delta.

We gathered scientific information for the sake of a good article, but what we need is the modesty that Arne Naess was writing about. “…the smaller we come to feel ourselves compared with the mountain, the nearer we come to participating in its greatness.” Sustainability means humility and it brings long term thinking as today’s development seems to be upside down: alpine communities are disentangled, but ski slopes prevail; ecosystem services are denied, while big energy projects carve merciless into the body of the mountain; unemployment in alpine areas is frightening, but open cast cyanide mining or mountain top removals are seen as job providers; bad and genetically modified food is creating poverty, inequality and massive land-use change; alternative power sources are presented as panacea while water shortages are looming for downstream communities.

These are times of the “black snow”.

* https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:CeivszWI4-YJ:www.unilu.ch/files/The-Sacralization-of-Mountains.pdf+&hl=ro&gl=ro&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShZjiWVOrJtpWvtZiOx70smSWzQQ7Lm6xnqhdZpwI8AvR8bQPb3CQYIovCPCjD89gFixzlXRxT6GFRWdFIkT5CfG2nXb7VQULACgmTQ-DdTV9rhwMBvlfqhsmoCc6p–DNDaBtP&sig=AHIEtbQAkosDfG7CBN-xUsnAiRnRO4Y5gg

Sergio Zelaya, Coordinator of the Policy Advocacy and Global Issues Unit (PAGI) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Secretariat, answers Karsten Schulz’s questions on the role of social sciences in UNCCD processes, revitalization of the UN body, land management or local governance.

Sergio Zelaya

KS: How do you perceive the role of the social sciences in the UNCCD process? Especially in regard to the view that the natural sciences predominate in programmatic and information sharing processes?

SZ: I think that, from a theoretical point of view, social sciences should play a larger role in the programmatic process of UNCCD implementation. The nature of the text of the convention that was negotiated by Parties twenty years ago reflected the need to include the priority issues on the social and economic fronts that the countries had. And I think, even though the scenario has changed a lot since then, the priorities for the developing countries are still economic development: poverty reduction and economic growth. In addition, one of the objectives of the developed countries in the international community is to provide cooperation for the alleviation of poverty and for sustaining economic growth. So there is a coincidence among the developed and developing countries in regard to the long-term objective of human well-being. In the convention, this is also included theoretically. In practice, it hasn’t been like that. Now, the role of social science in these programmatic processes has been very weak in comparison to the natural sciences. Both of them have been weak. But the weakest is still the role of the social sciences.

KS: My second question regards the dynamics between developed and developing countries, especially at COP meetings. From your point of view as a negotiator, do you think that there is a divide in the interests of those two country groups, or do you think that interest groups are rather related to issues than geographical location? Or is there a combination of both?

SZ: A combination, yes. I think that the UNCCD as well as the other Rio conventions are a manifestation, a spillover of the United Nations system as a whole. There is a dialogue between developed and developing countries. And the structure of the United Nations, with the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and the cooperation partners etc. reflects this idea. And, as I said, the UNCCD is also a reflection of this. This is one point. It is supported by the Articles 5 and 6 of the convention that indicate the obligations of    affected country Parties and developed country Parties. So different responsibilities are given to different groupings of countries. The same can be said for the issue of climate change for example. There are the Articles 2 and 3 of the UNFCCC, where it is said that reduction of greenhouse gas emission concentrations should take place without causing damage to social and economic growth and the countries that have caused these emissions should be responsible. For them, this is the same principle. So, that is one side, the side of the United Nations. But there is another side, the side of the local, the national governments. In developing countries, and even in affected developing countries, DLDD is not a priority. This set of issues is yet to be a priority. For them, as said, the priority is economic growth and poverty reduction. Only if combating DLDD is perceived as helping to achieve poverty reduction and economic growth, it will be part of the package that they can submit to their own governments and to the cooperation partners. The same can be said about the developed country Parties. They don’t have DLDD as a priority issue. There are other priority issues in their frameworks of cooperation and one can see very easily in an empirical study that on a country by country basis desertification is included at a very low priority level. So, none of these two groups have DLDD as a priority.

KS: Ok, thank you. This directly leads to my third question. The question concerns the paper “Revitalizing the UNCCD”. In this paper it is said that the interest in DLDD issues has been relatively low among climate negotiators.

SZ: I agree completely. But can I ask you one question before? What do you think about this paper?

KS: Well, I think that some of the judgments that are made in this paper are relatively harsh, because there are different political dimensions that have to be taken into account. For instance the position of the Parties. One cannot simply say that UNCCD negotiation capacities or policies alone are responsible for this lack of interest. It must be clearly said that even the best negotiators can not shift a country’s priority just like that. Many developed countries also do not like to see themselves just in a donor role. They expect to get something back for their engagement. So I think this paper is …

SZ: Biased?

KS: In a way.

SZ: Well, I agree with your assessment. But let me add one thing on the issue of politicization. The instrument of the convention was politicized since the beginning. So many developed and developing Parties saw this instrument on a different level vis-à-vis climate change and biodiversity, because the UNFCCC and CBD were negotiated based on sound scientific studies. This convention, however, was more of a political manifestation or declaration. Even though there were highly technical preliminaries.

For instance in 1974 there was an international meeting on desertification and another one in the 1980s. In the 1990s, when the convention came to life, twenty years of research needed to be integrated. But it wasn’t like that. So since the beginning, the convention has been seen as politicized. There is evidence for this, institutionally and on the negotiation side. Institutionally, in developing countries the convention is either negotiated by ministers of the environment, or by those of agriculture or foreign affairs. In the developed world, it is very easy to see that many countries have allocated the responsibility for this convention to their ministries of foreign affairs. The ministries of foreign affairs by their own nature are political instruments.

KS: Of course, and not environmental.

SZ: Not environmental, and not agricultural or energy-related like the ministries responsible for the other conventions. In Germany, for example, the ministry for the environment is responsible for the Convention on Biodiversity. The UNCCD is associated with the ministry for economic and development cooperation. Of course, these are different ministries by nature. This is the institutional side. On the negotiation side, since I was a negotiator in the 1990s, I reckon that the environmental community, in the developed as well as in the developing countries, came with their hands full to the conventions on biodiversity and on climate change. They didn’t care much about if this convention was going under the ministries of foreign affairs, because they already had a vision for these huge issues to be dealt with in the biodiversity and climate change conventions. But now, the issue of DLDD has been gaining interest and gaining profile.

KS: I have another question in this context. Was it also difficult for the UNCCD to initiate institutional cooperation because there is a focus on ecological issues on the one hand and on sustainable development on the other hand? Was that hard to combine?

SZ: Yes, it was hard to combine and I think there was not enough clarity from the side of the Parties and the Secretariat that services the Parties. From the Secretariat and other bodies, like the Global Mechanism. Is this a sustainable development convention or an environmental convention? If you say sustainable development convention, you have to have the guidelines for sustainability that guide and influence the decisions and must emanate from them. But COP after COP, the issues of sustainable development and the environment are still mixed together and not very clear. So more guidance and vision is needed.

KS: I see.

SZ: So we need a more strategic vision. And the Executive Secretaries that we have had so far had their own vision. But regarding sustainable development and the environment, a vision has yet to be provided to the Parties.

KS: A vision for combining both?

SZ: Either combining, or going this way or the other way. But some sort of vision.

KS: But by definition, one could say that the UNCCD is an environmental convention in regard to the Rio process as a whole. Do you think that has been prioritized or neither of it?

SZ: Exactly, neither of it. So how can we articulate this issue in a way that can help the affected countries, mostly developing, to address their priority issues? As I said, those priorities are poverty and economic growth. So how can we say: we assist you in your strategic vision, policies or guidelines regarding poverty-reduction and economic growth, including sustainable development in dryland ecosystems, and in view of the livelihoods of the affected communities? This governance is something that is still needed. Raising the awareness for the need to have an institutional focus in developed and developing countries has to be continuously addressed and clearly addressed by the Executive Secretary, the Secretariat, and the bodies of the convention.

KS: Thank you for these interesting insights. Now, there are some issues that have been identified in order to combine climate change and land issues. For instance sustainable land management and land rehabilitation. Do you think that these issues will be included more clearly in future climate agreements? Because right now, they are more or less incorporated in the issue of deforestation.

SZ: Well, sustainable land management is included expressively in the decision 3 of COP 8 of the UNCCD, where is says “DLDD/sustainable land management”. So what the Parties did on the one hand, in my interpretation, is that they identified the negative side, desertification, land degradation and drought, and the positive side, the forward-looking approach. On the other hand, the Bali meeting agreed upon the Bali Action Plan. This plan has building blocks and one of the building blocks is land and agriculture. So land is a building block of climate change adaptation and it is already included in the Bali Action Plan as part of long-term cooperation, action and shared vision.

KS: And why do you think it has not been addressed that much recently?

SZ: Well, in the last 20 years, since the convention on climate change appeared, for negotiators – and I was one, so I know exactly – the idea was to focus on greenhouse gas emissions. Of course there are other issues, like ecosystem resilience for instance. The terrestrial ecosystem, the marine ecosystem, the economic services provided by these ecosystems and social issues like gender, migration and so on. Now these issues were not specifically included, because the idea was to negotiate an instrument to address the ultimate goal of the UNFCCC: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So at that time it was a milestone to say: we have the climate convention and we have instruments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto-Protocol. Then, in Bali, the inclusion of the building blocks was the second milestone. So, from Bali until today, it is only two and a half years. In these two and a half years, much has been done to include the terrestrial and other ecosystems into the negotiations.

The problem is that in Copenhagen, the final document to be negotiated was actually not negotiated and something else came up. Now, during the last two years and for financial purposes the UNCCD has been focusing much more on its linkages with mitigation and the carbon contained in soils, in order to bring resources to the affected developing countries. But this has yet to be seen and under the UNFCCC the negotiations on mitigation will go on. But also on adaptation there are policies and measures that are taken, so that we can be included into the negotiation process. I would like to mention that the last document that is on the website, about a shared vision on adaptation and forests, talks about sustainable land management. And this is because of the advocated approaches of this convention. Actually, I have been participating in many meetings throughout 2008 and 2009 in order to include in the negotiations at least sustainable development or rural development, agriculture, water and land etc. Of course the UNCCD cannot claim the whole success, because other relevant actors, such as many country negotiators, the FAO, lots of NGOs, and institutions like IFAD are joining forces to achieve this. But we are a part of this and have been raising awareness among the focal points. Now, there are two more things I would like to mention on sustainable land management: on the conceptual side, for the functioning of an ecosystem, sustainable land management is a prerequisite. For instance, there is land degradation, a solution to land degradation is sustainable land management and these will address climate change. And in this way it should be advocated by the UNCCD. The second aspect is the population, the livelihoods, the human well-being. Whatever we do has to take into consideration the nature and the livelihoods of the people. That is what has been called human well-being. It is included in the rights that all humans have, today, and for future generations. These two long-term objectives can be achieved by concrete action on sustainable land management. Now, what is the prerequisite of sustainable land management? It is governance, empowerment, awareness, information at the local level. So we have to tackle those issues.

KS: How do you think the UNCCD can strengthen the role of local governance?

SZ: As an example, what we have been doing on this issue is choosing a rights-based approach, for instance regarding food security for the populations. In addition, we have the security approach. There is a natural expectation on what the land provides for you. And the government, the communities and the political as well as institutional environment have to enable people to produce on their land, give them the security, assurances and guarantees that they can use the land. Taking decisions from the bottom to the top is also important, as the text of this convention mentions. This is governance, the bottom-to-top approach. And I think this kind of governance is the obvious solution to DLDD.

KS: So while the UNCCD is naturally an instrument of global governance, one could say that through this approach and by its own definition it is also an instrument of local governance?

SZ: Yes, exactly. If we have global solutions on the one side and local solutions on the other, the convention has to advocate globally while being based on a solid local base and actions. Local solutions can help to achieve global solutions. It is an interaction. You used the word dynamics before. This is a dynamic system, and the nature of research in the social sciences is dynamics. I see different dimensions: first, create global awareness. This means training, retraining and all the derivatives like information, technology transfer, manuals, documents, materials etc. The second: act on the legal framework. How can this convention help to develop certain legal frameworks, for instance regarding anti-desertification and pro-sustainable land management? Not only at the national level. Large countries like Brazil and China must also act locally. Even an island needs action at the local level. The third one is the improvement of technology. This is different from education and training. It is learning by doing. How can we help people to achieve their goals on their own and with new technologies? Science is only the input. Science per se has no value. You can produce the best scientific result and put it in a closet. That helps no one. So we need scientific research as an input through which people can improve their own technologies. This is something that can be done and it would mean that research has not only to be done in the developed world, but also at the local level, with the local communities in developing countries. We need to provide the tools and improve the capabilities. Physical tools and also enabling tools, for instance infrastructure like roads and information services like radio or computers.

KS: So as a whole, this approach is about policy, capacity building and physical tools?

SZ: Yes, capacity building, instruments like policy, governance, infrastructure like roads to gain market access, and financial resources. This has to be considered initially. Just take the Marshall Plan for example. There was a lot of money initially. For the earthquake in Haiti, there are a lot of financial pledges initially. You cannot expect affected countries to come all the way from the distant position in which they are now in comparison with other countries regarding human-well being, and come up with all of this by themselves. There are many constraints that they have. So financial resources are important, mostly at the beginning. And this convention has to ensure that some of these resources are allocated for desertification and sustainable land management.

KS: And how do you think this could be achieved?

SZ: Well, my belief is that if what is said about money follows a good idea is true, then this has to be put in practice. But you have to have credibility and you have to have a vision. If you have good idea and you don’t have a long-term vision and your vision is not deducted from the demands of the local populations, it is just another idea put in a closet. So the idea has to be effective and it has to be borne by the people. You need empowerment. You cannot say: “I have an idea and I am going to implant this idea for you!” The idea has to be their idea. This is ownership and for sure it has high transaction costs. The UNCCD has to be aware of these costs. For two decades the UNFCCC has been raising awareness and been investing money in climate change awareness. And I think that is what we need to do. Passing from knowledge to action.

KS: Mr. Zelaya, I thank you very much for this interview.

SZ: You are very welcome.

This interview has been originally published in:

Schulz, Karsten: Linking Land and Soil to Climate Change. The UNCCD in the Context of Global Environmental Governance. Tectum: Marburg 2011, p. 162-171.

The paper is available for sale at Amazon UK as well as Amazon Germany.

“Until now, little was known about banks’ role and responsibility for global warming. While most large commercial banks provide figures on their annual investments into renewable energy, they neither track nor publish their annual investments into fossil fuel projects. Many banks have made far-reaching statements on climate, but are they putting their money where their mouth is?” This is the research question on which a German non-profit group built a study that analyzes direct relations between finance and coal fired carbon intensive power plants. The research conclusions were released at the COP17 in Durban, South Africa.

The study presents new research on the portfolios of 93 of the world’s leading banks. It examines their lending for the coal industry, the prime source of global CO2 emissions. It provides the first comprehensive climate ranking for financial institutions and identifies the top “climate killers” in the banking world.

“By naming and shaming these banks, we hope to set the stage for a race to the top, where banks compete with each other to clean up their portfolios and stop financing investments which are pushing our climate over the brink. We want banks to act and we want them to act now,” authors say.

This study was produced by the environment organization Urgewald from Germany, the social and environmental justice organizations groundWork and Earthlife Africa from South Africa, and the international NGO network BankTrack.

Role and Power of the Finance Sector

Coal-fired power plants are not cheap to build. Typically, a 600 Megawatt plant will cost around US$ 2 billion.4 Power producers therefore rely heavily on banks to provide and mobilize the necessary capital for such ventures. As  much of this financing is indirect – delivered through corporate loans and bonds – banks have for the most part been successful in keeping these investments hidden from public scrutiny.

In order to lift this veil of secrecy and to be able to rank banks according to their negative climate impacts, we commissioned the research institute Profundo to investigate the contributions of 93 large international banks towards financing the coal industry since 2005.

Methodology

For a “climate killer ranking” of the banks, we did not differentiate between banks’ financing of coal mining and coal-fired electricity production, but instead computed a total based on their financial engagement in both areas. As banks often also hold assets of these companies, the study also included the most recent data (2011) on banks’ asset holdings in these companies.

Profundo reviewed the annual reports of coal mining companies and coal-based energy generation companies, their stock exchange filings and other publications, such as archives of trade magazines and the financial press as well as specialized financial databases such as Thomson ONE and Bloomberg to trace financial transactions between these  companies and commercial banks.

For each financing relationship, an assessment was made which portion of the finance was used for the coal activities of a company (the coal percentage).

In total, the research identified 1405 transactions involving 93 different banks. The total value of coal financing provided by these banks since 2005 (the year the Kyoto Protocol came into force) amounts to 232 billion Euro!

Smokey Findings

How financing for the coal industry has evolved since the Kyoto Protocol came into force? The following graph shows the development of coal finance provided by commercial banks between 2005 and 2010.

Although financing goes up and down from one year to the next, the overall trend shown by the graph is that bank’s investments into the coal sector are on the rise. Even during the financial crisis in 2008, the annual total is still higher than the baseline in 2005. In 2010, financing for the coal industry was almost twice as high as in 2005.

Top Twenty Climate Killer Banks

Together, the top twenty banks in the study’s ranking provided over 171 billion Euros to the coal industry since 2005.

This is 74 percent of the total financing the authors identified. For a full list of finance provided to the coal industry by all 93 banks included in the research, see the online annex at the end of the briefing. The top twenty climate killers include banks from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Switzerland, China, Italy and Japan.

Top 20 of Climate Killer Banks

This ranking is in sharp contrast to the everyday rhetoric of these banks. Almost all of the top twenty banks have made far-reaching statements regarding their commitment to combating climate change. Here are short excerpts compiled from the banks’ individual websites, their environment statements and their Corporate Social Responsibility Reports. They show the complete “disconnect” between banks’ portfolios and their words when it comes to financing coal, the major contributor to climate change.

Cash for Greenwash. Banks’ Climate Commitments

JPMorgan Chase: “Helping the world transition to a low-carbon economy”
Citi: “Most innovative bank in climate change”
Bank of America: “The most formidable challenge we face is global climate change”
Morgan Stanley: “(…)make your life greener and help tackle climate change.”
Barclays: “Managing the climate change risks of our operations and those of our clients”
Deutsche Bank: “Climate change is the dominant environmental issue of our time and one where we can make a significant contribution.”
Royal Bank of Scotland: “As a financial services group our direct impact on the environment in terms of climate change (…) is limited”
BNP Paribas: “A strong commitment to combating climate change”
Credit Suisse: “Credit Suisse cares for climate”
UBS: “Addressing climate change on a global scale will require an unprecedented mobilization of private sector investments”
Goldman Sachs: “Goldman Sachs is very concerned by the threat to our natural environment, to humans and to the economy presented by climate change”
Bank of China: “As a responsible corporate citizen with a global presence, we are committed to responding to the challenge of climate change”
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China: “As an advocate and executor of “green banking”, the Bank is actively advocating a low-carbon way of living”
Credit Agricole: “Combating climate change is central to our strategy”
UniCredit: “The group reiterates its commitment to the achievement of the goals of the Kyoto Protocol in all countries where it has a presence”
Mitsubishi Financial Group: “We will channel our full capabilities into working toward the benefit of the environment and future generations”
Societe Generale: “As a community of 135,000 employees, we are aiming to control and reduce our own carbon footprint”
HSBC: “HSBC adopts a cautious approach to activities which contribute significantly to climate change”

The entire process from mining through combustion to waste disposal has a dire impact on the environment, human health and the social fabric of communities living near mines, power plants and waste areas. It severely disrupts ecosystems and contaminates water supplies. It emits other greenhouse gases like nitrogen oxide and methane as well as toxic chemicals such as mercury and arsenic. It displaces communities and destroys livelihoods. Of course, none of these costs are reflected in the price of coal. All these costs are paid by society – and the heaviest price is often paid by the poor.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC. Photo: The Lisbon Council

Only weeks before the Conference of the Parties 17 in Durban, South Africa is set to begin, Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, was in Brussels for the Robert Schuman lecture, organized by the Lisbon Council. Ms. Figueres outlined the priorities for the CoP 17 and urged civil society, business, and nations to do their part in fighting climate change.

To believers that climate change policy can be made in a day, Ms. Figueres pointed out that Robert Schuman himself took a step-by-step approach to realize his dream of a lasting peace in Europe. This policy-grafting approach may be slow, too slow in fact, to address the urgent need to transform our economy to a low-carbon one. All the same, the approach is viewed as successful. However, building peace from the rubble of World War II is where the parallel ends. Preventive action is required in the case of the environment, and not resuscitation after the damage has been done.

One of the major set-backs in at the CoP 16 in Cancun was the effort to agree on a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Without such an agreement, the efforts to continue with a broad mitigation framework are severely hampered and the ongoing negotiations do not show a light at the end of the tunnel. In addition to this, the European Union has been attempting to ‘blackmail’ the other Parties to agree on the issue by stating that if they accept a new commitment period (provisionally named “Kyoto II”), the EU will raise its greenhouse-gas emissions target to 30% (from the current 20%). In Ms. Figueres’ viewpoint, this is a lackluster attitude which has received a similarly lackluster response from the Convention. In similar fashion, if industrialized countries take a serious, ambitious, and vigorous approach to an agreement on mitigation and the Kyoto Protocol, they will receive a similar answer from the rest of the Parties.

Furthermore, after the fiasco at CoP 15 in Copenhagen, business leaders had become pessimistic at best about the Cancun negotiations. The fact that an agreement was produced shocked the business world into believing in the process once more. “The Cancun agreements comprised the most comprehensive package to help developing nations”, Ms. Figueres stated. There is little need to point out that infrastructure building and technology transfer, as agreed by the Parties, opens up enormous markets for business in developing countries.

“The business success of tomorrow is born on the low-carbon opportunities of today.”

Even so, it is a widespread belief that business needs a strong signal from policy-makers in order to act on environmental issues. Adoption of the step-by-step approach means that this ingredient is weak and slow. At the same time, businesses are instrumental in the interpretation of the supply and demand structures of the modern market, and can therefore potentially send strong signals to governments. Ms. Figueres labeled this the “vicious circle” of climate change mentality. However, this can be reversed into a virtuous circle if businesses manage to introduce a change in consumer and supplier behavior and send a strong message to governments that the people are not satisfied with business as usual. More specifically, when it comes to changes in industry and energy, national leaders require input from the market.

Entrepreneurship, as a strong component of capitalism, is the key to the puzzle. Ms. Figueres received input from Harry Verhaar, senior director for energy and climate change at Philips, and Harry van Dorenmalen, chairman of IBM Europe. Both emphasized that there is no “quick-fix” for climate change, but that technology is the most important component. They stressed the position that people are not fully aware of the role technology can already play in contributing to a low-carbon economy.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Mr. Verhaar pointed out that, in addition to technology, we need a policy framework, financing, and communication to tackle climate change. Due to the step-by-step approach at the UNFCCC, the first aspect is slow in its development. In the context of the economic and debt crises, financing has become a taboo subject. However, for businesses, financial systems also mean discovering a new way of budget-building and implementation – one that focuses on an optimization of cost-benefit ratios and emphasizes efficiency. As for communication, he stressed that there are many eco-innovators and they need to disseminate their ideas, improve interaction with citizens, and work together.

In agreement, Mr. van Dorenmalen introduced the need for another component – leadership. So far, policy-makers have not provided the required level of strong leadership to drive the policy process forward. If business was to step in, it would also be observed that a company requires strong leadership to implement the changes paramount to the transfer to a low-carbon economy. Tapping into talent internationally means the use of modern social media and the grouping of ideas. To set the wheels in motion, CEOs and business leaders have to assume a strong leadership position.

In answer to these views, Ms. Figueres presented an open question to all eco-innovators: “Are you collectively being vocal enough to at least balance, if not drown out, the corporate voices of those who see no benefit in action?” This also applies to consumers and civil society organizations – there has to be an informed balance between climate change skeptics and extreme environmentalists.

As individuals, it may be hard to change the world by replacing a single light-bulb, but even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Global climate negotiations are a step-by-step journey, and we can only hope they are heading in the right direction.

Marco Onida, Secretary General of the Alpine Convention, interviewed for 2Celsius Network by Raul Cazan

The Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention organized from 4th to 12th July 2011 the fifth edition of SuperAlp!, the sustainable crossing of the Alps.

For the fifth year SuperAlp! linked different territories, issues and cultures aiming at improving the knowledge of the Alpine Convention, that recognizes the Alps as a whole and unique territory.

A group of journalists belonging to world’s top publications (and 2Celsius Network was among them) crossed the Alpine arc for 10 days using sustainable means of transport and trying out the various links that make up the chain of alternative mobility to private cars. The group traveled from France to Italy across Switzerland and Austria by train, bicycle and on foot.

The 2011 edition let participants discover the conditions of alpine glaciers, one of the most evident indicators of the effects of climate change. It also intends to make this crossing an occasion to communicate the Alpine Convention and its Protocols as tools for the sustainable development of the Alpine region, easily transferable also to other mountain regions of the world.

What is SuperAlp and why did you organize it?

SuperAlp is a project of the Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention that has two main aims. The first aim is to bring the Alpine Convention to the territory. The Alpine Convention is a treaty, which entangles alpine territory, but the territory not always knows this. The second aim is through this long journey of journalists we talk about the Alps, we determine journalists to write about the Alps and we raise awareness on critical topics such as sustainability in the Alps. SuperAlp is made with public and sustainable means of transport and fueled with local food, as to show that it is possible to travel like that.

What was the theme this year, 2011?

This year we have chosen glaciers as a theme. We are particularly interested in climate change. It has extreme effects on the Alps; the average increase in temperature in the Alps is higher than the average increase in other areas of the Northern Hemisphere, we had 2 centigrade increase in the Alps (within the last two decades, n.n.), the effects are very visible and, most of all, very expensive. One of the most visible effects is the retreat of glaciers. We chose 5 glaciers in the Alps and we crossed them all in order to see with our eyes what the situation is and to talk to knowledgeable people, glaciologists, experts that have been living here for the last 50-60 years and that are able to explain what is the situation’s evolution, what is the speed of the retreat, what are the problems associated to this retreat and so on.

Journalists on Breithorn (4165m)

On what criteria did you choose the journalists?

We published an open call for interest on the internet to which some journalists replied and some were contacted directly. We have actually been quite selective this time because we wanted journalists whom were not only to hike on mountains with ice axe and crampons, but that are very motivated because in days like today we were walking seven hours and it is not the only day we were hiking that long.

Do you see any similarities between the Alpine Convention and the Carpathian Convention?

The principles are pretty much the same, which means cooperation to solve common problems and to better exploit the common opportunities. The reality, however, is quite different. The Carpathian area is much bigger than the Alps, it is much wilder than the Alps, nature is still to a certain extent unspoiled, it is not that much tourist friendly as the Alps, problems are different. The Carpathian Convention was signed in 2003 that is it is still much younger. It is difficult to compare the two, I would say, from the point of view of the philosophies they are pretty much the same although there are objective differences due to the physical differences of the countries which are associated to the Carpathian Convention. There are not always easy relations with Ukraine, which is member of the Carpathian Convention. I mean political relations are good, but cooperation on the territory requires long-standing trans-border cooperation, which is not part of every day life between Romania, Poland and Ukraine. So the idea is pretty much the same, yes.

It is pretty much the same even when considering the whole geographic area because they belong to the very same orogeny, Carpathians, Alps, Pyrenees…

Yes, exactly. They are the mountains of Europe, basically and they are pretty much neglected from the political perspective, neglected by the European policies, the interests of people in the mountains are not being always considered and this is why it is very important to have these conventions because they can also jointly do lobbying in Brussels to have better consideration of mountain dimension. We often do this with the Carpathian people.

Three years ago I had the great joy to join you in SuperAlp 2. The theme of that project was mountain communities and mountain agriculture. What happened after? Any follow up?

Well, changes in the Alps take ages like everywhere in society. So I would say that we are experiencing pretty much the same situation, we see the same problems with public transport not being enough developed. What we see as a weakness is a little less awareness related to the existence of the Alpine Convention because in the last three years we were working intensively, but in the Alps the situation is quite unchanged. To a certain extent it is actually worsened. And that is on two dimensions. Climate change and tourism. We are going towards a quite dangerous direction with mass tourism in the mountains and not realizing that this is not going to be sustainable.

Why not?

First of all, there is too much focus on winter tourism, on skiing. Ski resorts are investing to get more slopes and ski lifts, but there is less snow and less people mainly due to a greater competition. Today people also want to have quieter holidays even off-season, so there should be a diversification of tourism offers that take place only in some resorts, alpinism villages that we visited in Austria. This is an interesting development, but there are still places where mass winter tourism is considered to be a must and this is harming the environment. But I should say that this is also harming the economy because it makes no sense to have for two months people coming from all over Europe, locals to work there and then, for he rest of the year – mere unemployment.

So do you think that initiatives such as SuperAlp can be applicable to the Carpathians – a SuperCarpatica?

Well, that would be a dream. Distances in the Carpathians are much bigger, probably the development of public transport in mountain areas of the Carpathians is still at an early stage. And also, I would say, probably the political consideration of mountains in areas of the Carpathian countries is not yet the same as here. In the Alps we have a stronger environmental pressure, mass tourism, massive transport transit, loss of mountain agriculture. In the Carpathians, after the political changes in Europe and the accession of many Carpathian countries to the European Union, problems are rather… quite others. But it is very good to have this cooperation because we want to anticipate problems. So the Carpathians can find themselves in the very situation in which the Alps were 20 years ago; so we can anticipate and better deal with these problems. Soon, the Tatras can be in the very same situation in which the Alps are today. We should take care of that.

Can we go back to mountain communities? I know last year you had as theme in SuperAlp food and gastronomy. The funny thing is that in Romania most of the traditional food – or what we generally call slow food nowadays – is coming from the mountain areas. That means there is a lot of added value to food comes from the mountains. How did you tackle that?

This is very important, yes. Last year we had Slow Food as a partner of SuperAlp, we visited the headquarters of Slow Food and its university of gastronomic sciences in Polenzo (Piedmont, Italy), and across our journeys we stopped in places where we almost always had local products. It is quite clear that there is a strong demand for that. Particularly in times of globalization and health problems associated to urbanization or hysteria such the latest e-Coli, if one eats mountain food nothing happens to him or her. Now having this food in mountain areas is good, it creates new opportunities and money. But it requires also a lot of investment in order for the products to reach the cities, which is not always easy – also because of the low quantities in which food is produced. But I think this a very important development and that is why we concentrated SuperAlp on that and it should be a focus of the Carpathian countries as well.

Laszlo Keki reporting.

For two days (24-26 March 2011.) as and inspiring and significant part of the Hungarian Presidency’s programme, Gödöllő Royal Palace was hosting an informal meeting of EU Environment Ministers.

Together with Fotis (from Greece) and Raul (from Romania) we visited the Presidency Headquarters in Gödöllö and keeping you posted about all interesting and important happenings.

(The Gödöllö Hungary EU Presidency venue is a really nice blend of Hungary’s brilliant historical and art heritages and the inspiring modernism and high tech of todays. Everything is convenient well arranged and efficient. So congratulations and thanks for the organizers especially for the protocol staff of Foreign Affairs who were very kind and helpful during our visit.)

“We need an integrated approach, for the future of water resources in Europe, the various Union policies must be coordinated for the protection of water. The Hungarian Presidency aims to facilitate the adoption of a closing document (conclusions), on the sustainable utilisation of water, by the Environment Council, which is due to take place in June.”

Friday morning the environmental ministers took a short bicycle tour to Academy of Sciences from the hotels.

After it they were transferred by bus to the Riding Arena of the Royal Palace of Gödöllő where they had a working lunch.

The topics of the first day were: The place and role of water in EU policy and Future of European water stocks.

“Preparations by the Commission to issue in accordance with the Water Framework Directive a comprehensive policy report under the title “Blueprint to Safeguard Europe’s Water Resources”, in 2012 lent currency to the debate of the Ministers.”

“The Ministers concluded that extreme weather situations trigger extreme hydrologic phenomena (such as floods, inland water and droughts) more frequently. We must be ready for these situations, with green solutions, as opposed to investments in infrastructure. We need a paradigm shift: We must understand, that floods constitute part of nature’s way, it is not protection against them that we need, rather co-existence with floods, the ministers stressed.”

After the quite long afternoon working session there was a signing ceremony of a five sides Declaration for estabilishment of the Mura-Drava-Duna Biosphere Reserve.

“The Environment Council, the Ministers of five countries, signed a Memorandum of Understanding, on the establishment of a cross-border biosphere reserve, in the presence of members of the Council, who remained in the meeting room. The reserve will be established on the banks of the Mura, Drava and Danube rivers, in the territory of five countries. Three of the participating countries are EU Member States (Austria, Slovenia, and Hungary). One is a candidate for membership (Croatia), and one is a non-EU country (Serbia). In Hungary, there are five, the biosphere reserves, but this will be the first protected area that crosses state borders. According to the declaration, the five countries will set up a coordination body of fifteen members (with three representatives for each country), in order to define the steps necessary for the establishment of the biosphere reserve.”

In the evening a Presidency press conference was held also in the Gödöllő Press Centre.

(Commissioner Potocnik‘s empty table. But we understand as we knew he was bit sick and tired.)

“On behalf of the Commission Director General of DG Environment Karl-Friedrich Falkenberg (Director of EU Environment Protection Agency) spoke highly of the exchange of ideas in Gödöllő, as the meeting was the first discussion of the comprehensive policy blueprint drafted by the Commission.”

Karl-Friedrich Falkenberg at Gödöllő from Mr. Laszlo Keki on Vimeo.

Second day topics were: Climate Change in international context and Roadmap to a low-carbon economy in Europe by 2050.

Commissioner Connie and Minister Fellegi

“The meeting has been the first opportunity for an exchange of ideas, and lends currency to the issue that the commitment period prescribed by the Kyoto Protocol on climate protection, expires on 31 December 2012.

In Gödöllő, the 27 Member States all considered it important, that the EU be able to speak with a single voice in the international climate change conference, which will take place in Durban, South Africa at the end of 2011, stated Tamás Fellegi, Minister for National Development, the meeting chair. EU Commissioner for Climate Action, Connie Hedegaard, highlighted at the press conference that it had been difficult with Kyoto, but would be even more difficult without it; therefore, its commitment must be preserved, because several years of negotiations went into its acceptance.

There have been intensive negotiations for years, on how to proceed, but no agreements have been reached. In the exchange of ideas, the 27 Member States agreed that a legally binding agreement for all major carbon dioxide emitters is necessary; however, an international treaty to be concluded by the end of 2012, is not a realistic option. Therefore, even if some kind of post-Kyoto Protocol agreement is developed, there will still be a period of a few years between its obligations and any future ones.

In a working lunch, ministers discussed the Roadmap for moving to a competitive low-carbon economy in 2050; adopted by the Commission on 8 March 2011. The document presents cost-efficient methods for the EU, to reduce its carbon emission by 80-95 percent in 2050, compared to 1990 levels. On the way towards the long-term objective, the Roadmap prescribes a reduction of 40 percent by 2030 and 60 percent by 2040, compared to 1990.”

www.eu2011.hu

DG CLIMA's Metzger and Singer with WWF

Each country should perform a thorough control on nuclear for its citizens, merely because it is in its “courtyard”, EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik stated at the European Journalism Centre’s seminar Climate Action in Budapest. “You want to be safe in your country, go through the EIA, respect the norms of monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and ensure maximum transparency”.

When a company Member State decides to build nuclear installations, it has to go through the Environmental Impact Assessment. Naturally, the state has to check if the installation is complying.

Every country decides on its own energy mix, commissioner Potocnik said. “Our common concern is safety”, he underlined just before the EU Environmental Council in Godollo, Hungary.

Absolute vagueness would characterize Commission’s approach on nukes. Furthermore, the strong pre-assumption is that governments are responsible and their territories are actually their “courtyards”. Corruption in the nuke field and weakness of EIAs as well as of control especially in Eastern Europe show a rather shy Commission that ignores the massive anti-nuke populace. The “courtyard”, many suggest, should be the whole EU.

Artur Runge-Metzger, Director for climate strategy and international negotiations,
DG CLIMA, European Commission: “there is something in Europe, which is a holy Grail, and it’s called the energy mix. So it is not the Commission to say you must do this or that, we can do analyses and give you the numbers on how nuclear was treated. We respect the national decisions that were taken.”

Reactions in Europe were very strong against nuclear following Fukushima. However, Metzger added, one could not change a whole Roadmap after a couple of days (a.n.: the Roadmap 2050 was published a few days before the earthquake in Japan). “Currently there is a continuous opposition such as the moratorium in Germany, but the question is if this is going to lead to change of policy in terms of the phase-out. The model for 2050 in Germany, for instance, has no nuclear. All governments decided it was a transitional technology that will be gradually phased-out, therefore in 2050 in Germany there will be no nuclear in the energy mix.”

In other countries is different. In Poland, for instance, there were taken decisions to build nuclear capacity so that will be reflected in the model of 2050. Italy also wants to go in the direction of nuclear. There is no assumption that France will phase-out nuclear, it is a well established policy.

“The Commission is not prescriptive on that, it is a decision taken nationally, if there will be a decision against it it will be respected,” closed Metzger.

On July 22nd, the EU will come forth with a new directive on nuclear energy, Potocnik announced. The new directive will focus on safety measures for workers and locals. Energy Commissioner’s Oettinger suggestion to run the stress tests for all nuclear plants in Europe will also be part of the new norm.

Even though nuclear energy is part of the mix for many Member States, there is no provision related to the “cleanliness” of nuke. It is still considered “Carbon zero”, while the carbon footprint for uranium or plutonium mining is disregarded. Nuclear waste disposal and mining sterile, land-use change an no-go areas can also be converted in GHG emissions, but the Roadmap is rather silent about.

Stephan Singer, Director of Global Energy Policy, WWF International, concludes in a more radical manner, stating that the costly prices for nukes, hidden or overt, as well as its literal unusefulness, are to be summarized in an old German revolutionary slogan from the 70s – rather long, rhymed and… in German. Nonetheless, it contains the words “teuer” and “Scheisse”.

Interview by Raul Cazan.

Three years ago I was obsessed with cutting carbon and carbon markets. The smartest and most inspirational people I was meeting at the time were blowing whistles at “pressure on ecosystems”. If in those times companies were getting shallowly into green business and coming forth with loads of disgusting greenwash, I was there wishing to pump out CO2. Nowadays, “pressure on ecosystems” with its corroborators, industrial agriculture, indirect land use change, the grave biofuel flop and other are the hype, hence not for large businesses or eco-chic puppets, in a full blown economic crisis. Jeremy Rifkin held a killer conference on his Third Industrial Revolution in Bucharest just before the European Climate Change Citizens’ Agora a couple of years ago. I had a nice conversation with him, me and my buddy, Mihai Stoica, about ’68, even got an autograph on my 68 Magnum Photoalbum.

Famous photoshot of Marc Riboud

Rifkin was leading at the time the March on the Pentagon and recognized Marc Riboud’s famous shot of a hippie ‘planting’ flowers on the National Guard soldiers’ rifles (see photo on the right). It was the cornerstone image of the peace movement at its peak in the hippie era of the 60s. But that was a private talk, let us stick to environmental issues. There are dimmer lights in which environmentalism is molding on development and Rifkin says it right.

Raul: Let’s talk about European reality and surpass a little the European Dream. I just came back from Brussels, there was the Green Week conference series and listened to a presentation held by Anders Wijkman. He is also approaching your holistic way of thinking, and, more importantly, he was also supported by Dimas. He mentioned the pressure on ecosystems and this would be more important than emissions and emissions trading. On the other hand Dimas (European Commissioner on Environment at the time) talked about sustainable consumption and production, which Europe kind of lacks now. It’s not such a rosy situation…

Jeremy Rifkin: It’s not, dreams is what you’d like to be, it’s what you want to be, but the good news is that at least if you begin thinking what you want to be, than you got to do it. It’s a gap between dreaming and making it happen.

R: What about the terms, how can we get there?

Jeremy Rifkin, director of the Institute for Economic Trends in Washington, D.C. Photo by Mihai Stoica

JR: I think that that’s why I was that tough about nuclear and coal because I think you got huge potential here, you got to move quickly with your renewables you got enough hydro here to do a lot, you got sun, wind, you got biomass and forestry waste, you got everything you need.
What Romania has to do is to get together the civil society and the business sector, the younger generation has to embrace the Third Revolution.
Romania has got 21 milion people, it’s a big elephant. Start moving the damn country.

R: Carbon trading, ETS. Linking ETS with the American trading scheme…

JR: let me say this about the carbon trading fact. I think that the carbon trading plan is part of the sollution, but if anyone thinks it’s the solution is kidding himself. It’s buying us time, it sets some standards. You know what the real value of carbon trading is? It’s a learning credit, what it actually allows people to do is understand that everytime I do something I affect the rainforest or other locations. I realise that what I do affects someone else. It’s actually a learning thing. People actually start to integrate into their mind that everything I do has an impact on everyone else. That’s actually the biggest benefit it has, to show that we are responsible for everyone else. In terms of the actual carbon trading it’s a small part of what we need to to, what we really need to do, we’ve got to get a tax on carbon, on feed grain, on meat production- The second major cause on global warming. No one talks about it, No 1 is buildings, No 3 is transportation, and No 2 is meat production. No one mentions that, no government leader.
39% of the grains in the world is feed grain for animals, a third of the land space and that’s a killer. We should talk about tax on feed grain, on meat production. So we are taxing cars and petrol, now we oughtta be taxing meat.

R: Green Hydrogen Initiative?

JR: It was set out when Romano Prodi was president, I set down with him and I said you have to make a hydrogen programme to store renewables. He put together two billion dollar programme wich is now moving to a joined technology initiative to the market, it will be 500 million Bruxelles and 7 billion private this year. The programme has a 26 technology platform of R&D engines for industry. I brought in business leaders in December to meet with president Barosso, and after that meeting I was encouraged by the commission to star having a conversation with the other platforms. What we did, we located 13 platforms of the 26 technology platforms that would lay the basis for a Third Industrial revolution, like road, rail, sustainable chemistry, computing, hydrogen, construction, etc. and we asked their chair persons would they join the technology working platform group and they all did. We had two long meetings and we are now creating a NASA airbus model with all these industry platforms that are now interfacing to create a world map. It’s very exciting.

R: GMO and biofuels?

JR: Big mistake. The opposition on GM food started in my office in 1982, we brought the first lawsuit that stopped the first release of a GMO in the environment. We’ve been fighting Monsanto for years. The GMO makes no sense. But there is a new generation of weed search called marker assisted selection, which I m in favour of. It’s a cutting edge of genomic revolution. What you don’t know is that the majority of companies like Monsanto do most of their research now on marker assisted selection. Why? Because GMO doesn’t work. It doesn’t give you much. Moreover, MAS shall not be patented, it’s gonna be like file sharing on the internet or local virtual networks.

Success and failure in Cancun! With the end of the CoP 16 working-group negotiations, a draft document was released, and to be discussed and endorsed by the plenary. The mixture of agreement and disagreement becomes evident from the first sentences of the document: “Seeking to secure progress in a balanced manner, in the understanding that, through this decision, not all aspects of the work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention are concluded…”. [N.B. Please note that this is a draft document and has not been agreed upon! Yet, it is close to the final version to be accepted by the CoP]

Yet, there are several highlights in the document, which stand out. The issue of adaptation has been recognized to be just as important as mitigation, requiring the appropriate institutional arrangements to enhance adaptation action and support. In this respect, the Cancun Adaptation Framework is established, with the objective of enhancing action on adaptation. The main institution to take care of this being the Adaptation Committee, which would provide technical support, information, and promote synergy, remains to be created, with a clear step-by-step process laid out.Furthermore, a Green Climate Fund will be established to manage funding for developing countries. Its immediate establishment, and the high-level of agreement between the parties, can be found in the detailed institutional set-up described in the document. Also, the World Bank is invited to act as an interim trustee (or administrator of assets) for the first three years, pending review – a much expected outcome, nevertheless disliked by some civil society organizations.

Also, a registry will be set up to record national mitigation efforts. This will effectively standardize the recording, modelling and reporting of the parties to the convention. The introduction of these standards to the Convention was a much-needed step towards a balanced record-keeping.

The final decision is on transfer of technology, which was much expected. It also entails the creation of a Technology Executive Committee and Climate Technology Center and Network – two bodies which will administer the Technology Mechanism under the CoP.

As a separate part, the countries participating in the Kyoto Protocol have come out with a document mired in disagreement. No second commitment period has been agreed upon, but the hope remains that it could be, since it is mentioned several times. The statement that the CoP “agrees that further work is needed to convert emission reduction targets to quantified economy wide limitation or reduction commitments” portrays the lack of change to the status quo.

It was expected that, under the UN’s proposal, the base-year for measuring greenhouse-gas emissions would be changed from 1990 to 2005. Yet, this has not taken place. The document specifies that, in the event of a second commitment period, the base-year will remain the same. This is of no significant impact, since the existence of a Kyoto II remains a nearly-impossible possibility.

On the whole, the working document produced by the CoP 16 in Cancun is comprehensive and balanced, without major surprises. The issues agreed upon coincide with the UN Secretary-General’s expectations, as stated on Dec 7th in his opening speech to the high-level part of the conference. Now this text is up for negotiation in the plenary.

Joke Schauvliege (left) and Connie Hedegaard (right) at CoP 16 Press Conference, 10 Dec 2010, Cancun

It is a crucial day for the UNFCCC process, but it is also a crucial day for climate change. As the final negotiations at the CoP 16 in Cancun began, EU Commissioner Connie Hedegaard stressed the urgent need for the Parties to agree on a “balanced package”. While this is supposed to include all tracks being negotiated, there are some issues where progress has been slow.

So far, the parties have been negotiating in small working groups on the different topics such as funding, mitigation, adaptation, market mechanisms, accountability rules and transparency. On this final day, all these texts have to come together and be agreed upon by the Parties, which is where the sought-after balance has to be found.

“Everybody is still on speaking terms,” stated Commissioner Hedegaard. “We have to get some good balances,” she emphasized, and added that the pledges made by the Parties in the Copenhagen Accord are only the beginning of the story. Everyone has to find a way to improve what they have already pledged. Also, the EU has recognized that even if the measures listed in the Copenhagen Accord are introduced into the UN process, this will not be enough to avoid the dangers of climate change.

“We want this conference and the text to come out of it to state the obvious: what has been pledged already is not enough to keep us below 2 degrees Celsius”.

At the moment, negotiations are slightly stalled. The working groups are evading commitments on the individual topics until they have seen the overall text. Patricia Espinoza, President of the UNFCCC CoP 16, stated:

“Parties requested the guidance of the Mexican Presidency so that they had a better understanding of the overall and complete package of decisions that we are all constructing together. This is a necessary step for taking difficult decisions that ensure balance within each track… Parties have just received these drafts. We have very limited time to make a last push to improve them. The issues under consideration are complex and informal consultations have been running virtually without stop for many hours”.

The EU Commissioner further underlined this pressing sense of obligation: “We stated clearly that everyone who has ambitions for the future must also realize that if we do not get things done here in Cancun, it is difficult to see how we can come from A to B.” In a sense, the whole process is at stake, and the future of the planet together with it.

The EU’s role in the process continues to be that of a deal-broker. Joke Schauvliege, the Belgian Minister for Environment, Nature and Culture and representative of the current Presidency of the Council of the EU, stated that “We [the EU] build bridges between extreme positions”. With the negotiations entering their final phase, she urged everyone to “always keep in mind that [the EU] are here to save the process, but also climate”.