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Second commitment on climate change by January 2013

Which countries will stick to commitments and which will not? The biggest climate change conference in the world brOUGHT negotiators to Doha to decide on issues that will rewrite the future of our children, while observers note the irony of holding COP18 in Qatar, the worlds biggest per-capita carbon emitter. On the other hand Qatars strong determination to create a sustainable future is also brought into focus through the UNFCCC COP18 meetings.

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atar is more confident than before and on its way to reduce emissions substantially, concluded HE Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, President of the 18th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP18) and the 8th Congress of the Parties (CMP8) to the Kyoto Protocol, at the opening session. I am more confident than before that Qatar is on the right track to reduce its emissions because we have started the process a long time ago, and ensuring car-

bon footprint reduction is on top of our agenda in the oil and gas sector presently, Al-Attiyah noted while speaking at a press conference held on the side-lines of the Qatar Sustainability Expo, which was launched at the Doha Exhibition Center on November 16. Qatar is a small country and we cant compare our emissions with other small countries such as Singapore, for instance, and say we have the biggest per capita carbon emission. I believe the figures are

Paper-Smart COP18
In a pioneering initiative, COP18/CMP8 Doha IS the first COP conference to be Paper-Smart. While the negotiations and meetings that take place during these annual conferences are critical to developing climate change policy, an unfortunate side-effect is the QUANTITY of documents that often need to be printed and circulated among delegates. To make COP18/CMP8 Doha as green as possible, a Paper-Smart initiative IS INTRODUCED. The scheme, which is already being used in the New York headquarters of the UN, has until now never been transported to a COP meeting. It is part of a directive by Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary-General, to make the UN a paperless organisation by 2015. By making COP18/CMP8 paper smart rather than paper less, delegates can manage their own use of paper resources by printing only the documents that they need.

Green buses
A fleet of green buses will be running throughout COP18/CMP8 to ensure that the event minimises the impact on the environment. To cut down on traffic pollution, a fleet of buses will take delegates and other participants from hotels to the Qatar National Convention Centre, where the conference IS HELD, the Doha Exhibition Centre, VENUE FOR the Sustainability Expo, and some of the citys top tourist attractions. A total of 100 buses will run on gasto-liquids (GTL) fuel, a cleaner form of fuel. COP18/CMP8, head of Accommodation, Transport and Volunteers, Alanoud Al-Meghaisib said: This is diesel made from natural gas and is an ordinary diesel, so these buses will emit fewer pollutants into the atmosphere, which will have significant benefits FOR local air quality.

QU reveals work on biofuel

Qatar University (QU) revealed a groundbreaking LINE OF research into the development of sustainable biofuels to the President of the Council of the International Civil Aviation OrganiSation(ICAO) Roberto Gonzalez. The state-backed QR45.5 million biofuel project is the only one of its kind in the region. The team publicly detailed its latest progress for the first time, on the eve of the UN Climate Change conference. QUs project, in collaboration with Qatar Airways and Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) is now into its third year. The aim of the project is to find a way of producing affordable, sustainable biofuels which do not rely on the use of valuable arable land and which can be produced efficiently in the punishing climate of Qatar. These fuels should provide an alternative source of energy, specifically for use by the airline industry.

misleading, he maintained. However, the official admitted that the countrys emission rate was still high and noted the country had already initiated efforts to reduce its carbon footprint. We realise the huge impact carbon emissions have on the climate and our environment and we know that there are going to be serious problems if we dont do anything, but I am confident that the country is now committed more than before, he stated adding that the country only needed to implement its energy policy for quicker results. Reacting to questions on whether the worlds big emitters such as the US and China will ratify the second commitment of the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres, said: The governments of the world have already decided that there will be a second commitment by January 2013. Right now, it is clear that some countries such as the US (which did not ratify the first commitment), Russia, Canada and Japan have said they will not be taking part in the

DR YOUSEF AL HORR OF GORD EXPLAINING GREEN INITIATIVES TO HH AL ATTIYAH, HE AL SADA AND FIGUERES, AT THE QATAR SUSTAINABLE EXPO

protocol this time. She also said that just recently New Zealand had said it would not take part in the second commitment but would apply its mechanisms once it goes into force. However, she said that countries like Australia, the European Union and Switzerland have all agreed to adopt the new Kyoto Protocol. The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted on December 11, 1997 in Japan, and entered into force on February 16, 2005, ends on December 31

this year. Al Attiyah, who is also the President of COP18/CMP8, inaugurated the Qatar Sustainability Expo with a ribbon cutting ceremony. Christiana Figueres, was also present and took a tour through the exhibition together with other authorities and VIP guests. With this expo the Qatari government aims to let the world know about the range of sustainable initiatives undertaken, both by various public departments and by local and international organisations. Coinciding with the grand opening of the expo, the Minister of Energy and Industry and Chairman and Managing Director of Qatar Petroleum, HE Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, presented an official copy of the Energy and Industry Sustainability Report to the President of COP18. The Minister of Energy talked about Qatars sustainable development programmes, referring also to the countrys approach to climate change. In a short amount of time, many companies are working on sustainability and promoting sustainable programmes, Dr Al Sada said.

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Whos polluting

Who?

Yvo De Boer, a Climate Change Expert tells Sindhu Nair that it is time we reinterpretED the definition of the term polluting country.

hat picture does the country project to the many negotiators who have come in to this oil-and gas-producing country (the polluter) for the climate change conference COP18? The first impression of the country doesnt look very sustainable, agrees Yvo de Boer, KPMGs Special Global Advisor, Climate Change and Sustainability, who was here ahead of the COP18 conference. But on a positive note, says de Boer, there is a general consensus among leaders that change needs to happen and the country needs to move towards a different model of

economic development. De Boer says it is a challenge for Qatar to be sustainable, in the sense that the economy is highly dependent on an intrinsic part of climate change. It is also the most challenging part of the world to build a modern country, given its dry and hot climate conditions, he says. De Boer has an interesting angle to counter Qatars increasing carbon footprint, which is due to its oil-and gas-exporting status. Consider this situation: If you are a food producer and I am a food consumer and I

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eat too much food and get fat, then are you as the food producer responsible for my condition? Well, Qatars condition is much the same. If Qatar, in order to shrink its climate change effect, stops its oil and gas production tomorrow, the oil and gas would still come from somewhere else. So I think the responsibility is largely on the sides of countries that have economies that are very reliant on fossil fuels. Europe outsourced its industrial activities to Asia because of lower costs and is now importing what is actually made in Asia, while complaining of higher emissions in Asia, says de Boer. When you look at this side of the argument, it seems unfair that Qatar and other oil-producing countries are always on the receiving end from the climate change pundits. I do not think the solution is to keep the oil and gas under the ground, from an economic and political point of view nor that there should be a dramatic change in the pricing model. I do think the solution lies in diversification and enhanced efficiency of the economy. But these actions take time. Just as it is not realistic to ask a fishing nation to stop fishing, so is it impractical to ask an oil-producing country to stop producing oil, says de Boer. Climate change scare is for real Rising food prices, shrinking ice bodies, a spate of floods and droughts the effects of climate change are quite vivid, but which of these threats is the most crucial? It is difficult to pick any one, says de Boer as he sees an intimate relationship between climate change, energy, food and water against the backdrop of population growth. The global population is going to touch 10 billion people by the end of the century. These people will be living in urban centres; they will be wealthier than they are today and creating greater demand. To feed those people we will need to produce 70% more food on agricultural land that we dont have using water that we dont have. Both land and water will be severely constrained due to climate change. So for me it is a nexus of issues that is driving the planet in a very unsustainable direction. In terms of the impacts of all of this, de Boer feels that there will be two very severe ones. If we fail to get climate change under control, one of the two severe impacts would be sea level rise, since a very significant portion of the global population lives in urban centres on coast lines threatened by rising sea levels. The next big threat would be to

food and water, he says. Developing countries and emissions De Boer was a member of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development and the Bureau of the Environment Policy Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and he is aware of the steps taken by the developing countries in reducing emissions. People have the impression that developing countries have no commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. That is not true. They might not have emission reduction

targets, but they do have obligations to take actions to limit their emissions. There is real awareness in countries like China and India that climate change has an impact and that they need to act to safeguard an economic and social future. In a number of countries like China they have the recognition that the current economic model is unsustainable, he says. China is the largest investor in wind, solar and battery technology. This diversification helps widen the energy mix and it helps China to become less dependent on fossil fuels as it acts on climate change. It also helps in

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One ISSUE is that there is a general ONUS on the industrialised countries to show greater ambitions in reducing their emissions. The second is that there are demands from developing countries for significant financial assistance to limit their emissions, and thirdly THERE is the future of THE Kyoto Protocol which more and more countries are turning their backS on.

stabilising prices for the investment-heavy technology he says. I see similar things happening in India, says de Boer, like Suzlon in India focusing on wind technology and others even on battery technology. COP18 challenges De Boer has been involved in climate change policies since 1994. He helped to prepare the position of the European Union in the lead-up to the negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol, assisted in the design of the internal burden-sharing of the European Union and has since led delegations to the UNFCCC negotiations. The main agenda of the COP18, according to de Boer, is to have a common understanding of what it is that we are working towards. At the moment we know that we are working towards an approach that is agreeable by all countries, which is good. We do know that different countries need to take different responsibilities according to their economic status, but we do not know of an agreement that will capture this responsibility. If COP18 can help to create more clarity on what it is that we are working towards and also formulate that in legal terms it can perhaps lay the foundation for a decision that can be taken next year, he says. Three main issues on the agenda according to de Boer, will be vital at this conference. One is that there is a general onus on the industrialised countries to show greater ambitions in reducing their emissions. The second is that there are demands from developing countries for significant financial assistance to limit their emissions, and thirdly there is the future of Kyoto Protocol. which more and more countries are turning their backs on, he says. If you look at the number of countries that are committed, then it is not enough

Inspiring initiatives
Producing gas from waste innovations in waste is a truly significant advancement. Recentralised renewable energy, especially in areas with no access TO energy.

industrialised basket of countries to make all the commitments. So whats the point? asks de Boer, which more or less indicates the futility of climate change conferences. Carbon market De Boer is also the Board Member of the Carbon Markets International Association and an expert on carbon markets as well. The idea is that atmosphere basically doesnt care where you reduce the emissions from. So if the atmosphere doesnt care, you may as well reduce emissions at the lowest possible cost in places where it is cheaper to do so. So you can use the capital from industrialised countries to invest in reducing emissions in developing countries, and those industrialised countries get carbon credits for reducing emissions, he says. This is not a sustainable direction going forward, agrees de Boer, but it is one of the easier paths to follow. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change) has been telling us for 15 years that we can reduce the global emissions by somewhere between 20 and 30% by actions that will pay themselves back in two to three years. These cheap actions would be the easier way to reduce the emissions, he says. And by cheap options he means energy efficiency, new sources of energy and new technologies. Individual initiatives do matter, says de Boer, but in the end it is governments and the policies to push the right incentives that make sustainability work. De Boer feels that in the end we have a very flawed concept of a polluter. A polluter is not someone who produces the most emissions. It is the consumer who consumes most of the cause of the pollution who is the actual polluter, he says. This is one definition that all the oil majors extracting oil and gas from the North Field in Qatar will nod their heads to.

Green Countries
Bhutan has a concept THAT is laughed at by others, THAT WAS called Gross Domestic Happiness which focuses on well-being RATHER than on wealth. You gET a good quality of life, not opulence, A different concept of well-being but a highly sustainable one, with zero emissions due to less industrialiSation. Scandinavian countRies have set themselves THE target of beCOMING carbonneutral countrIES. China is also trying numerous new technologies that make use of renewable energy sources.

to keep climate change under control, and global tempertures will rise more than the two degrees estimated by the UN. That action needs to come from industrialised countries, which have more economic and moral responsibility, says de Boer categorically. But that again is a difficult situation because the euro crisis makes it difficult for industrialised countries to make the commitment. De Boer says that the industrialised countries also expect the developing countries to make some sort of commitments on climate change. Japan, Russia, Canada and lastly New Zealand (during the COP18) have not agreed to sign the Kyoto Protocol for the second term. The US (the second-largest polluter after China) has never signed it so that just leaves the EU and Australia in the

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Four degrees to deprivation

Wael Hmaidan, Director OF Climate Action Network International and former Executive Director OF IndyACT gives Sindhu Nair a Middle East perspective on climate change.

hat the World Bank report by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics was released just weeks before COP18 could be either a coincidence or a wakeup call. Either way, it does not reduce the shockwave. The report spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by four degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are almost unanimously predicting by the end of the century, if there are no serious policy changes. The four degree scenarios are devastating: the inundation of coastal cities; increasing risks for food production, potentially leading to higher malnutrition rates; many dry regions becoming dryer and wet regions wetter; unprecedented heat waves in many regions; substantially exacerbated water scarcity in many regions; increased frequency of high-intensity tropical cyclones; and irreversible loss of biodiversity, including coral reef systems. And most importantly, a four degrees hotter world is so different from the current one that it comes with high uncertainty and new risks that threaten our ability to anticipate and plan for future adaptation needs. According to Dr Jim Yong Kim, the

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It is a decision we have to make. But this should not be seen as a threat but as an opportunity, as we can then prolong the life of fossil fuels, and we can benefit from the rich resources that the country also enjoys in terms of alternative energy like the solar energy and wind energy,

President of the World Bank in his foreword to the report: It is a stark reminder that climate change affects everything. The solutions dont lie only in climate finance or climate projects. The solutions lie in effective risk management and ensuring all our work, all our thinking, is designed with the threat of a four degrees hotter world in mind. The World Bank Group will step up to the challenge. It was this same report that Wael Hmaidan, who was here well before the COP18 proceedings, touched on as he spoke about the importance of climate change for the Middle East region specifically. In a world rapidly warming toward four degrees higher temperatures, the most adverse impacts on water availability are likely to occur in association with growing water demand as the world population increases. Some estimates indicate that a four degree warming would significantly exacerbate existing water scarcity in many regions, particularly northern and eastern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, while additional countries in Africa would be newly confronted with water scarcity on a national scale due to population growth. The situation is scary. Climate change could lead to the collapse of human civilization. Unfortunately, the action by governments is not enough and we need to increase our commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions to help see any change in the climate change scenario. This is especially challenging for the Middle East as economies are dependent on fossil fuels, he says adding that there is no choice in this matter if we want to ensure the survival of our children and have them enjoy the resources we enjoy. It is a decision we have to make. But this should not be seen as a threat but as an opportunity, as we can then prolong the life of fossil fuels and benefit from the rich resources that the country also enjoys in terms of alternative energy like the solar energy and wind energy. Building an alternative economy based on renewable resources is very important, he says. The Middle East is the most heavily-im-

Hmaidans Green list

Denmark has already reached 50% of its commitment to being carbon neutral by 2050. Maldive islands have committed to being carbon-neutral in ten years. this is very ambitious but attainable.

Why countries in the Middle East are not making commitments on climate change
Lack of awareness They do not take climate change seriously A cultural awakening is needed to make people come forward and push for change the need to Rebuild the economy on renewable energy the need for a legislation to tackle climate change

pacted region globally by climate change as we are heavily reliant on food imports. Food security will be heavily threatened. Sea level rise is another factor which directly affects Qatar as it is a low-lying land and most of the development is along its coastline, according to Hmaidan. The countries of the region, specially Qatar, needs to show leadership on climate change in international committees by pledging a numerical target to reduce green gas emissions, says Hmaidan. Sadly, there is no political agenda that says the developing countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia should make a pledge because they have the economic clout to make it happen, he says. As the host of COP18, Qatar should have made a voluntary pledge. That should have been the first step. This should have been done by now and sadly, notes Hmaidan, nothing has been done yet. Qatar is very ambitious and can play a very political role by making a commitment, he says. But isnt the country already committed to extracting solar energy? To pledge, the country has to submit a meaningful target. A meaningful target is something that is adequate to the capability of Qatar. Qatar is a rich country with a lot

of emissions. There is a lot of capacity for change, he says. If the country does come up with a pledge, it will help its image and also remove the title of a polluter that it now carries. We have delivered the message and we know that the authorities are mulling over it. But it is difficult to come up with a figure that is ambitious enough while keeping to a figure that can be attained, he says. Going back to De Boers comment on oil producing countries taking the blame for greenhouse emissions, Hmaidan counters that no one is asking them to stop producing oil or gas, but to make commitments to reduce, and also not to obstruct others from reducing emissions. Saudi Arabia is considered a menace by countries who want to see change on climate change, as it blocks consensus on reducing emissions, he says. This has to change, as the region as a whole is known for its attitude of disinterest on climate change. The UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia are countries with the resources to come forward and pledge changes. Even Lebanon and Egypt could do their bit like India and make international pledges and keep to them, feels Hmaidan. Globally too there is a political will which is increasing, there are a smattering of change, he says, but not enough to make an impact or alter the course of catastrophic climate change. Hmaidan, who has attended five COP meetings to date, feels that countries should not only do what they promise but they should do more. The European Union countries and Norway, he says, are countries that have kept to their promises. There are also cases of countries that have done more they have promised. Germany, UK and even developing countries like China, India, South Africa and South Korea, that are not obliged to have commitments, have still delivered, says Hmaidan. The US is the elephant in the room. Civil societies criticise the US for this lack of responsible action as it throws water on the efforts made by the rest of the world.

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