The 2-day Hyderabad Summit on Climate Change (HySocc’09) on 20th & 21st June by IYCN was a unique affair: one that created impact, invoked inspiration and involved diverse actors from the society: students, IT professionals, Green analysts, activists and most importantly individuals and organizations which ‘did something about it’. It involved in-depth analysis of issues such as Urban Planning, Water, Waste and Energy & Transportation, from the perspective of the youth. One could sense the energy and the urgency of the messages, as the speakers talked of their experiences. It was a heady mixture: speakers from the AP Forest Dept., Sukuki Exnora, Prayas Pune, WWF-India, MV Foundation and even a farmer!! All of them had well-researched ideas, tried-out plans and personal experiences on the Environment to share.

The opinions of the youth present, made the discussions extremely interactive, and the Group Discussions were a treat in terms of the quality of ideas and suggestions. We ended up drafting a Youth Charter on Climate Change, which not only highlighted personal steps for action, but also our recommendations to the Government and Corporatations. The entire spirit was: there are precious environmental resources which we’re squandering thoughtlessly at present, simply because they are abundant now; but if we continue this way, it’s clear that we’ll start finding ourselves in dangerous territory few years down the line, and it’ll become very difficult to undo the damage. We can make tremendous difference by being conscious of these issues, and by taking simple, but crucial steps.

Written by Ben Block

Advocates of the International Renewable Energy Agency, the first multi-government body to focus exclusively on the global development of renewable energy sources, worry that competition among member countries to host the agency may detract from its core mission.

The agency, known commonly as IRENA, has quickly gained recognition since its launch in January, with the endorsement of more than 100 countries. The United States, United Kingdom, and Australia have yet to officially sign on but are expected to announce their support at a summit next week in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

The meeting will decide where IRENA will be headquartered and who will serve as its first director-general - issues that have already sparked controversy.

Competing host countries are facing accusations of attracting votes with political favors such as military support or investments in non-renewable energy sources. These concerns are prompting clean energy advocates to mobilize their supporters to demand that international politics not interfere with IRENA’s agenda.

“The reason we want IRENA is because the existing organizations are too much involved in the interests of the fossil fuel or nuclear sector…. We need an independent authority,” said Stefan Gsänger, secretary general of the World Wind Energy Association. “If there is a chance from the beginning that IRENA is bound to these interests, [the agency] might be at the end useless or even detrimental.”

IRENA was created to provide advice on renewable energy policy, capacity building, and technology transfer to governments worldwide. Housing the agency would likely boost the selected city’s economy with an increased flow of diplomats and energy leaders. The chosen country would also be able to market itself as an environmentally conscious supporter of renewable energy.

Germany, Austria, Denmark, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have all offered to host the agency. The competition has escalated in recent weeks with an intense lobbying campaign.

The UAE, which nominated to host the headquarters in Abu Dhabi, is running a public relations website and actively requesting political leaders to support its candidacy. The country committed $22 million of annual support for IRENA through 2015. In addition, the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development has offered $50 million in annual loans to finance renewable energy projects in developing countries.

Locating IRENA in Abu Dhabi has gained support from former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who praised the oil-exporting country’s investments in renewable energy. The UAE is developing the world’s first carbon-neutral city, known as Masdar City.

“Locating IRENA in the developing world would send a powerful signal that all nations must participate in the transition to a sustainable future,” Blair said during a recent trip to Abu Dhabi, according to Gulf News.

Some renewable energy advocates, while praising UAE efforts to develop alternative energy sources, oppose locating the headquarters in a country powered nearly entirely by natural gas and oil. Abu Dhabi plans to rely on renewable energy sources for 5-7 percent of its electricity by 2020.

The other leading city, Bonn, has also faced criticism. Those who oppose the former West German capital say that the city wants to host IRENA mainly to fill government buildings that were abandoned when the capital was relocated to Berlin.

But like the other nominated cities - Vienna and Copenhagen - Bonn generates a greater share of its electricity from renewable resources than Abu Dhabi. The contending European countries also support renewable energy through their foreign-aid budgets.

Dörte Fouquet, director of the European Renewable Energy Federation, a lobbying group for independent electricity producers, favors locating the IRENA headquarters in a city that has been a longstanding example of renewable energy.

“[Abu Dhabi's] per capita energy consumption is among the highest in the world,” Fouquet said. “On the other hand, they just started with renewable energy.”

In addition, Fouquet criticized the UAE for its human rights record and its recent partnerships with nuclear-promoting countries.

The UAE reached agreements last month with the United States and France to develop several nuclear reactors to meet the country’s expected 40,000 megawatts of additional electricity demand by 2017. France also opened its first Persian Gulf military base last month in Abu Dhabi.

Eric Martinot, lead author of the REN21 Renewable Energy Global Status Report and a Worldwatch Institute senior fellow, said that if Abu Dhabi is selected as the IRENA headquarters, these deals would create a “nuclear-tainted” IRENA.

“UAE has expressed its intentions to rapidly become a ‘model’ for promoting nuclear power,” Martinot wrote in an open letter to renewable energy supporters. “[Choosing Abu Dhabi] raises the question of whether IRENA will be an effective change agent for renewables (i.e. promoting renewables instead of nuclear power), or will be merely an appendage to a nuclear agenda.”*

The location of IRENA would not necessarily determine the agency’s fate. Hans Jørgen Koch, the Danish nominee to serve as director-general, said that the chosen headquarters would be unlikely to “taint” the agency.

“If IRENA is based in Abu Dhabi, it does not give Abu Dhabi any right to decide whether nuclear is included in IRENA,” said Koch, who formerly directed the International Energy Agency’s renewable energy office.

Debate over where IRENA should be centered is distracting renewable energy advocates from IRENA’s core mission, said Mike Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy.

Instead of choosing one location, Eckhart recommends that IRENA become a “centerless” organization based in 5-10 regional headquarters. The regional hubs would work with colleges and universities to create educational courses based on that region’s renewable energy supplies.

“Unlike oil, which has a world oil market and a single International Energy Agency, the nature of renewable energy is that there are no global answers, only regional and local answers,” Eckhart said.

But a decentralized structure may be too complicated to manage, said Arthuros Zervos, the Greek nominee to serve as IRENA’s director general. For IRENA to develop into a global energy authority such as the IEA or International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the agency should begin with a central headquarters, he said.

“When [IRENA] is running for several years, starting regional offices, or whatever you want to call it, yes, I could see it would be helpful,” said Zervos, who chairs the Global Wind Energy Council. “[But] starting as a decentralized structure, I do not agree at all.”

Eckhart has also proposed that the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting not vote on a headquarters at all. A vote should take place when more countries officially join IRENA, he said.

“We’re going to have additional members joining who will have no choice in director-general or its location. That’s extremely inappropriate to me,” Eckhart said.

The IRENA founding treaty had been signed by 108 countries as of Tuesday. The treaty becomes effective when 25 countries ratify the agreement.

The United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Malta have announced their intent to sign the treaty, according to a German delegation report submitted to the Council of the European Union earlier this month.

* Eric Martinot’s comments do not reflect the views of the Worldwatch Institute, nor any organization with which he is affiliated.

To read interviews with the director general nominees, please visit;
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6172
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6173
and http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6175

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

Now, given that transport contributes 26% to climate change globally and is the fastest growing source I think it’s important to give this a climate change test.

The first thing to wonder is how all the additional road space is going to help.  The number of vehicles in Delhi has now grown to over 6 million and the expenditure might help to relieve pinch points in the system, for a while at least.  But it doesn’t take much effort to realize that the more road you build the ‘cheaper’ and more convenient it becomes to use your car or motorcycle and the more people who, given a choice, will therefore use it. Congestion and pollution return, only an order of magnitude greater this time round.

In climate change terms this strategy contradicts with Delhi’s effort to augment the bus fleet with another 2,500 high quality vehicles.  The main reason is that public transport is nearly always less convenient than using a car, motorcycle, or even a bicycle over short to medium distances.  You have to walk to the bus stop, wait for an uncertain period, catch at least one bus, but maybe more, walk at the other end and so on.   Making private vehicle use even easier isn’t going to help get us on the bus or Metro.

Now you can tackle that in a number of ways.  You can improve the quality of public transport (which the budget promises) and lower the price to make it more customer friendly, but that often involves buying more expensive kit like A/Cs, etc, feeder services that will have fewer passengers than trunk route buses, and a more frequent service with fewer people riding in each bus.

In London ‘better quality’ means buses consume energy per passenger kilometre at nearly half the rate of an average car.  In Taipei, taking account of door to door emissions, the Metro actually consumes more energy than a car in terms of average per passenger km throughout the day.  The economist Dasgupta showed that if people have the choice to use private or public transport, even if you made public transport free, only 6% more would switch from private modes.

More effective than just increasing the supply and quality of public transport are complementary measures to deter car use like making parking and driving more expensive, fuel taxes, or limiting parking supply.  In places like London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and New York people use public transport because it would be foolish for them not to, and often they have no choice.

Even then it is important to be realistic as the city with some of the highest charges for private car use in the world, London shows.  Public transit occupancy levels dip outside peak times, leading to higher energy consumption on average, and a high drain on the public purse. That’s may not be a reason to cut services, but it could be an opportunity to be inventive. The provision of cycle rickshaws or safer cycle feeder routes could be more cost effective, particularly in terms of climate change. In Delhi it is likely that there is significant un-met demand for public transport and improved services are therefore likely to be less energy consuming than in Western cities, although many may be switching from less energy intensive cycles and feet to board it.

There is the need for a central role to be accorded to walking and cycling investments combined with land use planning controls that restrict urban sprawl, limit private vehicle parking space, and ensure that most of your daily requirements can be met within close proximity to your home.  Removing the need to travel in the first place must be the most cost-effective means of tackling climate change.

A focus on land use planning to locate everyday needs within easy reach would bring bicycles and legs into the reckoning because, over short to medium distances, they are faster than public transport.  They are also non-polluting.  There’s great potential in Delhi.  Despite being ignored in the budget, walking and cycling account for over half of all trips in the capital.  Whilst many of upper middle classes commute long distances, most Delhi citizens still live, work and shop in their local neighborhood.  The secret to tackling climate change involves providing high quality local urban services (parks, shops, schools, playspace, etc) that match people’s rising aspirations.

Presently people don’t ride, or use cycle taxis because motorized vehicles make them less safe. They also need an ‘image makeover’. And planners continue to ignore rider comforts like tree cover and vendor zones in hot countries, or reducing air pollution all over.  Cheap interventions like prioritising access for cycles and pedestrians across high speed vehicle canyons should be a priority. These interventions save lives, make cycling and walking practical, and come in cheap - kilometre for kilometre a cycle track in London would cost less than 1/400th the amount of the Jubilee Line extension.

This should not be construed as an argument AGAINST public transport, particularly buses. The more of us that use them the better, there will always be a need for those who cannot cycle or walk. We all want to explore our city or reach services outside our locality now and again. It IS an argument though for Delhi to re-discover leg-power, put greater emphasis on deterring motorized vehicle use, and controlling urban sprawl. If the world is to face its greatest challenge, that of averting catastrophic climate change, we have no choice.

“The bicycle is the perfect transducer to match man’s metabolic energy to the impedance of locomotion. Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well. “

-Ivan Illich, Energy and Equity, 1974

We the African youth, under the auspices of the Africa Youth Initiative on Climate Change, present this statement to the 3rd Special Session of AMCEN on Climate Change.

Deeply concerned by the havoc wrecked by climate change and variability on African Societies with the consequent exacerbation of poverty, food insecurity, deterioration of health and a general decline of the continent’s welfare, African youth of unprecedented numbers are and have vowed to continually work on adapting to it, mitigating its effects and seeking a fair, just, equitable and sustainable solution. Across Africa, youth are organized and networked across their political, socio-cultural and geographical borders to concertedly work towards making a positive change. They are also clamouring for substantive involvement and engagement in policy and decision making processes at the national, regional and international fronts.

Riding on our success and in the spirit of intergenerational equity we call upon our African Governments to acknowledge the space of the African Youth in the Climate Change discourse at all levels

Conscious of the importance of the ‘Seal the Deal’ COP 15 as a hallmark towards Post Kyoto era, we now, more than ever, implore our Governments, as a duty to their sons and daughters, to heed our call, we the custodians of your posterity, and take decisive steps at the international negotiations to salvage our continent and historians will judge you rightly, as men and women, who rose to the occasion and redeemed our common aboard from the precipice of climatic destruction.

Reiterating the agreements in the AMCEN 12th session that Africa must
speak with one voice in advancing the continent’s interest in
negotiations for the climate regime beyond 2012;

We African Youth therefore:

Express our gratitude for being involved in this process during this conference. However, we decry the poor youth representation at the international level. To illustrate this, we cite COP 14 in
Poznan which had, commendably, over 500 youth participants. Sadly, only 5 of this youth were from Africa despite the continent’s high stakes in the Climate Change Debate. Consequently, our voice was barely heard. We, therefore, urge our Governments to support a youth delegation to Copenhagen to enable us present our regional message more resoundingly, thus complementing your efforts. In the same breath, we wish to encourage with enthusiasm the inclusion of the youth in the official African Governments’ delegations. As a gesture of your sincerity to the youth of Africa, may it be found fit to appoint youth representatives in your national delegations

Applaud the formation of the African High Level Expert Panel on Climate Change, the Regional Network for Adaptation in Africa and CLIMEDEV-Africa. While at it, we take this early opportunity to unequivocally state the need and hope for youth representation in these initiatives drawn from the existing pool of highly skilled, competent and motivated youth

Salute you all for your efforts in combating Climate Change and fronting the African Climate Agenda. However, we wish to acknowledge the looming expertise gap in the not so distant future. Our active engagement will thus avert such a crisis by affording us an opportunity for grooming, knowledge and experience acquisition as well as ensuring continuity and improvement of Climate Change Programmes in Africa. It will also promote the uptake of appropriate development technologies by the youth, enhance technology transfer and cement initiated North-South linkages among the youth that will be carried into the future.

Acknowledge the great potential of Climate Change Programmes in creating employment and call upon African Governments, CLIMEDEV-Africa and other Iniatiatives to tap into and support our innovativeness, creativity, vigour and enthusiasm to initiate youth oriented and youth driven Climate Change Projects

Strongly urge our respective Governments to adopt sustainable lifestyles at individual levels, formulate and enforce national Climate Change policies and promote both formal and non-formal climate change education for all

Young people are important stakeholder in environmental and sustainable development decision making processes. We are consumers, producers, victims and beneficiaries. We are sisters, brothers, daughters and sons. We are the ones who will live in a world shaped by your decisions. Let us now work together for our common future.

Please join us.

Thank you

One of the problems that India’s new government will find itself confronting - a problem that is rapidly moving up the global geopolitical agenda - is the issue of climate change. This issue is extremely pertinent to India for a number of reasons. First, climate change is likely to hit India hard in the coming decades. Predicted impacts include water scarcity, decreased crop yields, increased risk of disease, and flooding of coastal areas. These problems will be most detrimental to India’s poorest citizens.

Secondly, the short-term global efforts to negotiate reduced emissions of greenhouse gases could have a substantial impact on the Indian economy. Most argue that global negotiations pose a threat as industrialized countries may try to force India to take on emission reduction obligations. Other see opportunity mixed with threat: global climate change offers an opportunity that Indian businesses must be quick to embrace. Either way, between the impacts of climate change and efforts to reduce emissions, climate change will not leave India untouched.

The next few years will be critical in shaping the global regime. In December 2009, nations will meet in Copenhagen to decide on an updated version of an international global climate regime. Copenhagen will only be a staging point however, as it will take another two to three years to work out the details. The current government has laid some important policy planks on which the next government can - and should - build. But at the same time, it increasingly appears that the Indian approach is inadequate to the scale of the challenge. Consequently, the next government’s stance on climate change is particularly significant.

At the domestic level, the 2008 National Action Plan on Climate Change calls for promoting development actions that also yield climate “co-benefits.” This is an important concept as it will help ensure that development efforts are placed at the center of climate actions. Some concrete measures are also promising and worth initiatives, such as a proposed “solar mission” and concrete energy efficiency measures.

At the same time, the plan and its follow-up measures fall well short of a promised “qualitative change in direction” toward ecological sustainability. Instead, much of the plan is a re-packaging of existing policies under a climate banner. For example, existing schemes on agriculture and forests are packaged as climate adaptation measures, with no complementary effort to scrutinize and re-think existing schemes that may add to climate vulnerability.

Climate change is too far-reaching and serious for such a marketing approach to adaptation or a band-aid approach to mitigation. While the current government got the approach and concept generally right - a visioning exercise organized around development and climate co-benefits - the implementation leaves much to be desired.

A new government could complete the job and take seriously the promise of a “qualitative change” in development. A renewed climate plan also needs to be far more inclusive and tap the energy and ideas of civil society, business, and bureaucrats who are in the front lines of implementation. Creative ideas for climate adaptation and mitigation are more likely to bubble up from these actors than from centralized ministries. Finally, a climate plan needs to take seriously the inequities in emission levels within India. A visionary perspective on India’s developmental future - one that takes the threat of climate change seriously - is an essential starting point. Without it, India can neither be clear on what its stakes are in international negotiations, nor can it engage in the international debate from a position of credibility.

On the international front, India has long been guided by a principle of equity in its global negotiation position. On principle, Indians have argued for equal per capita entitlements to the global atmospheric resource. In practice, equity is partially enshrined in the convention through the notion of “common but differentiated responsibilities” and differing capacities of industrialized and developing countries. In other words, since the industrialized North substantially caused the problem, it should be in the forefront of solving the problem. However, the North has neither adequately decreased greenhouse gas emissions at home, nor has it provided technological and financial support to the South. For principled and pragmatic reasons, therefore, a new Indian government should continue to be a forceful voice for equity in the international negotiations.

A renewed Indian position on climate change will, however, have to grapple with an uncomfortable reality: the global climate regime is increasingly coming down to an unfair choice between global equity and climate effectiveness. Developing countries, including India, justifiably call for industrialized countries to move first. Despite their historic responsibility for the problem, rich countries unjustifiably insist that some developing countries, including India, are now “major emitters” and must also act. The result is a vicious cycle of ever more heated rhetoric and ever more climate-ineffective measures.

This outcome is not in India’s interest. The difficult reality is that India is likely to be among the countries hit hardest by climate change. Despite this problem, India should not buckle to international pressure and give up on the principle of equity. The current stance, therefore, appears to be to prioritize equity, and implicitly - if not explicitly - accept that the cost may well be an ineffective climate regime. However, since climate impacts will vastly complicate the task of poverty reduction in India, this is also surely not an acceptable response.

If India is to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, a renewed Indian climate strategy must more proactively and creatively explore opportunities for a climate agreement that is both effective and equitable. Given the fraught global context, this will not be easy and will require finding ways to reverse the current vicious cycle and construct a virtuous one. Instead of under-cutting each other, countries will need to challenge each other to match ever more ambitious commitments. Despite the intransigence of the North, the question remains: can India play a leadership role in accomplishing this reversal without compromising its immediate interests? The answer is not clear, but it is clear that the question has not been adequately explored.

A path forward may rest, as suggested earlier, in a careful and creative domestic policy response. Could climate change become further motivation for Indian cities to re-think moving in the direction of greater liveability? Could climate change accelerate a shift to cleaner energy forms that reduce local air pollution and dependence on foreign fuel sources? Could the threat of climate impacts become the driver of a far more efficient and equitable water economy? Could Indian businesses develop new forms of outsourcing that will yield a profit in a carbon-constrained world? Most critically, can a new government realistically build an international strategy for climate effectiveness and equity on the foundation of creative domestic policies, without compromising the country’s interests?

Skeptics may argue that the toxic nature of the global climate regime is beyond redemption, and it may well be. But given the likely toll of climate change on India - particularly on its poorest citizens - it cannot afford to give up on seeking both equity and effectiveness in a global climate regime.

Navroz K. Dubash is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Study of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India.

Protecting Our Future:

Chinese, Indian, and United States Youth United for a Strong Climate Agreement

We stand at a historic moment in our response to climate change. World leaders will meet in Copenhagen this year to reach an agreement on a global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Our countries’ economies represent past, present, or future significant source of the emissions threatening our planet. While there is potential for strong partnerships between our nations, our leaders are constrained by vested interests in their desire to protect their people, blaming each other’s lack of commitment as a reason not to contribute to a global solution that could benefit us all. Youth recognize that we each have a common but differentiated responsibility to contribute to solutions to the climate crisis. We are united in our belief that global emissions reductions must begin. There is no time to lose.

As youth, we will be alive in 2050 to experience the success or failure of our leaders’ effort. We are direct stakeholders to this process. We have come together to state our vision for the opportunities that our countries must take advantage of to help mitigate and adapt to climate change, as well as the support that each ought to receive to effectively participate in a shared solution to the climate crisis. We are the inheriting generation of today’s decisions about climate change, and our future is in the hands of our governments’ negotiators. At the same time, we recognize that our future is also our own responsibility. We are ready to make the long-term commitments we outline here, not just ask others to do it for us. We are speaking up for our future. As youth, we are united in our belief that joint action to reduce climate change is a singular opportunity to enable sustainable development in communities throughout the world. We recognize this historic opportunity as a unique chance to celebrate our interdependence and realize mutual benefit by effectively and collaboratively responding to climate change.

Although separated by distance and language, and without the money, power, or time that our leaders possess, we have succeeded in agreeing on a vision for cooperation amongst our countries. If youth can share a vision for a secure future and a healthy planet, we hope that our governments can cross the same barriers that we have crossed, and work together on a mutually beneficial agreement for the protection of our climate, our nations, our generation, and generations to come. Divided, we will surely all suffer. United to prevent the inequities of the future, our nations can succeed and prosper.

Agreed Principles

• Emissions Reductions
  • As the largest historical emitter and one of the top two emitters today, youth agree that the United States must take the lead in reducing its emissions below levels that will give us more than a 50% chance of stabilizing carbon dioxide equivalents below 350 parts per million, the safe upper limit in our atmosphere according to the latest science. This means more than 40% reductions from 1990 levels by 2020, and more than 80% reductions by 2050.
  • As the world’s largest emitter, and with quickly growing emissions, youth support a commitment from China for more than 50% reductions of carbon intensity and 60% reductions in energy intensity from 2005 levels by 2020, and establishing appropriate mitigation policies that would begin reducing its emissions, and increase the scale of its emissions reductions, as its share of world emissions continues to increase.
  • Although not one of the largest contributors to emissions today, India’s growing emissions will soon make it a large contributor to future climate change. Youth understand the issues of equity inherent in India making commitments to emissions reductions when developed countries fail to do so. However, in a scenario where developed countries at least maintain their previous emissions reduction commitments, and take on progressive new and long-term emissions reduction targets based on 1990 levels, youth believe that India also has a strong role to play without constraining its development path. Youth support a commitment from India to stop the growth in its emissions as soon as possible, with other developing countries reducing their emissions from “business-as-usual” levels.
• Technology Transfer
  • The wealthiest nation on the planet, youth agree that developed countries like the United States must help enable emissions reductions in poorer, less well equipped nations. The United States should seize the opportunity to invest in the future of its own youth by helping to reduce emissions around the world. The U.S. should be prepared to invest jointly in research and development projects that will ultimately prevent countries’ lock-in to a high carbon development pathway. This will benefit the U.S. by avoiding expensive and damaging climate impacts. Nations partnering in technology transfer must work to provide institutions, infrastructure, intellectual property sharing, and human capacity that will allow them to put these technologies into action.
  • As a large receiver of technical and financial support for mitigation, China should be ready to spend increasing shares of its own growing wealth on emissions reductions. As it begins to succeed in reducing its emissions, China must closely collaborate with the United States on joint mitigation projects, and both nations should begin to pass on their results to less developed countries.
  • As India is one of the largest partners in technology transfer in our vision, we see it implementing large scale technological solutions to decarbonize its economy. We envision that technology transfer will not happen through technology created in one country and simply shipped to another. We envision intellectual property sharing by all countries, removing trade barriers on clean technology to allow easy and cost-effective technology transfer. We see the U.S. playing an active role in capacity building in India through funding R&D, education, and training of people to produce and deploy clean technology. We see India participating in joint ventures with China and the U.S. to create the clean technology required for low carbon development.

• Adaptation
  • The United States must also contribute, as part of its funding toward the climate change agreement, to supporting some of the adaptation needs of other nations to the climate change damages that the United States’ own emissions have partially caused. Adaptation funding is necessary to ensure a commitment by other nations to reduce their emissions, and this global agreement will ultimately benefit the U.S. by reducing the climate damages that the U.S. already experiences, and will increasingly experience if no agreement is reached.
  • China and other emerging economies should also take up appropriate responsibility to help less developed nations with adaptation.
  • Adaptation is a primary reason for India to take leadership domestically, regardless of what happens internationally, because India has already been, and will continue to be, severely impacted by climate change. Although India should be a recipient of adaptation support, it should also take appropriate action to mitigate and minimize its emissions - emissions that will increase its own need for adaptation efforts.

In 2050, I’ll be 77, and given the pace of the climate talks in Bonn these two weeks, I’ll likely spend most of my retirement either under water or on fire.

If finalized in the next climate agreement, the weak targets offered so far by developed countries virtually ensures that greenhouse gas concentrations (and sea levels) will rise to levels well beyond what science says are safe limits to ensure the survival of peoples and nations. Over 100 youth from 6 continents (the Antarctic youth called in sick) participated in the Bonn negotiations, watching our leaders draft an increasingly costly and damaging climate for us to live through.

Daily at the negotiations, youth have shown our governments how vulnerable our generation will be to the warming and climate change they are creating with their short-sighted proposals. We literally brought two camels and tons of sand to the negotiation entrance to highlight the drought and desertification many of our countries increasingly experience. We rapped and rhymed about the threatened survival of nations and developed countries’ weak financing proposals. Youth tracked key negotiators to remind them the next generation is watching, and blogged to their peers in multiple languages.

We supported indigenous rights and opposed deforestation and forest degradation. Global North and Global South youth played an UNfair (sic) game of football (the Americans insisted on playing soccer) to highlight the unequal negotiating position of developing countries. They also worked to raise money for their developing country members to participate with them in the Copenhagen talks. Fifty Chinese, Indian, and United States youth wrote the 1st collaborative statement (in two languages so far) by youth from these three countries on a shared vision for our nations’ roles and opportunities in cooperating on an agreement.

In the end, it is clear that negotiators have largely ignored the perilous position they have put their children in, and ignored the science as well. Japan’s 8% reduction from 1990 levels in 2020, and Russia’s, Switzerland’s, and New Zealand’s lack of any specific targets raises the chance youth will grow up suffering through climate tipping points and accelerated warming. These “commitments” put an incredible burden on our countries’ future leaders to create post-2020 cuts necessary to reach 2050 reductions.

Despite continued leadership by President Obama, and skilled diplomacy by lead Bonn negotiator Dr. Jonathan Pershing, industry lobbyists have ensured that weak domestic legislation will prevent the U.S. from honestly offering strong international commitments in Copenhagen. At best, the American Clean Energy and Security Act as written would let the U.S. achieve a 3% reduction in 2020 and create only a fraction of the clean energy jobs Americans desperately need. At worst, 1% is likely given offsets and other loopholes.

[JR:  The 3% reduction is compared to 1990 levels, as the link makes clear.  I assumed, given how this paragraph is written, that Kyle also meant 1% reductions compared to 1990 levels.  If not, I'll let him clarify.   I can't see a plausible scenario where ACES as currently written, coupled with Obama's other clean energy and GHG-reduction investments and mandates, doesn't take us to 1990 levels or below by 2020 (see here).]

While Bonn failed to deliver the protections to peoples, species, and generations youth know are needed, they renewed our commitment to redefining what is pragmatic and possible. Delegates should expect to hear from us again soon.

“Be the change you want to see in the world” - Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

What?

Badlav 2009: Be the Change! is a week-long climate camp to be held in the nation’s capital, Delhi. We aim to have hundreds of young people come from across the country to:
Be trained on skills of organizing, running projects, lobbying, direct action, presentations, and facilitation.
Participate in eye opening discussions of equity, theories of change, water, energy, agriculture etc.
To enjoy concerts, cultural performances, film festivals, Green Jobs fair and many other opportunities to have fun and learn!

When?

July 18th to July 24th

Who?

Being organised by Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) for you and hundreds of youth from across India.

Where?

Lodhi Institutional Area, Delhi

Why?

Have you ever looked at the dirty dying rivers, floods, breathed in the pollution, see people on the streets living with diseases and in poverty, and just wondered - how can we change this? Do we wish to witness incidences like Cyclone Aila in West Bangal more frequently? Are we ready to handle the increased number of climate refugees? Our basic requirement like food and shelter is at risk. Have you ever thought that our politicians are corrupt, our businesses are corrupt, our system is corrupt and that it is too hard to make a change? Have you ever thought why doesn’t anyone care about our country, our planet, our future?
Think again.

Yes there is corruption. Yes there is pollution, poverty and disease. Yes it may seem like the people around us don’t care - but what about you? Have you tried stopping the corruption, pollution, poverty and disease? Have you stood up and told the world that you care about your country, planet and future? Even if no one around you seems to be doing the right thing - remember you can. In the words of Gandhiji “Be the Change you want to see in the world”. Every action counts and your contribution can certainly make a difference.
At the end of this year in Copenhagen an international treaty will be signed, committing the world to trying to stop dangerous climate change at the UN climate negotiations. However a lot of the world holds little hope that it will be a good treaty that will protect our future. The interest of the Indian people and majority of the developing world are not being listened to.

What do we do? Do we sit back and let the countries of the world sign away our future stability?

No. We don’t. We take action.

Anu Radha Verma
Campaigns Coordinator
Indian Youth Climate Network
anuradha@iycn.in
+91 989 108 4960

Anurag Maloo
Outreaching & Mobilising Coordinator
Badlaav 2009 Indian Youth Summit on Climate Change
anu.maloo.it@gmail.com
+91 971 806 6013

Tejeswar Parida
Outreaching & Mobilising Coordinator
Badlaav 2009 Indian Youth Summit on Climate Change
tejeswarparida@gmail.com
+91 999 997 4473

Snigdha Kar
Outreaching & Mobilising Coordinator
Badlaav 2009 Indian Youth Summit on Climate Change
karsnigdha25@gmail.com
+91 981 874 5466

Badlaav 2009 Indian Youth Summit on Climate Change
http://www.badlaav.co.cc

I went as a volunteer from the IYCN, with Saahas (a Bangalore based NGO, that deals with waste management and reduction), for the Sunfeast World 10k Run, held in Bangalore, on the 31st of May, 2009. No, we didn’t go to run the race. We went instead, with the common aim of ensuring that the event was a zero-waste event.

The event was highly publicized, with The Times of India being the print media partner and Kingfisher being the ‘good times partner’. Procam was the organizer of the event. The event was held to raise money for some 60 odd NGOs in India. There were 23,000 registered participants, apart from a stifling crowd of onlookers who had come to pass their Sunday afternoon.

While everybody in Bangalore is celebrating the success of the event, allow me to enlighten you on the excuse for a waste disposal system, that the event had.

There were about four hired young boys as cleaners for the entire stadium. I was able to find only about five dustbins, after much searching.

Kingfisher water was flowing through the Kanteerva Stadium- the water, packed in handy little pocket sized bottles, was free and uninhibited. If my mother was at the event, I know she would have stuffed as many bottles as would fit in my pockets, so that she can carry the cute things in her handbag when she goes shopping. There were several people like my mother at the event, hoarding up as many of the Pet bottles as possible. If they weren’t hoarding, they were taking a sip of water or pouring it on themselves to beat the heat… and then tossing the bottles all over the place.

The volunteers from Saahas, IYCN and the MS Ramaiah Institute here, were the only ones responsible for trying to keep the event clean, and having waste recycled. The twenty of us brought about thirty of our own bins. We ensured that waste was segregated and all the Kingfisher water bottles were sent for recycling. Our collection of Pet bottles amounted to around 800 kgs (80,000 bottles). Other waste contributed 400 kgs.

With all its social motivations, a clean Bangalore, was just not on the agenda of the event’s namma Bengaluru plan. I’ve been told that the situation was even worse last year. We were the last to leave the stadium that day, and if not for us volunteers who cleaned up the place, the organizers of the next event to be held at the stadium, would have probably had to do so.

One may think this is a municipal issue, or an issue of the organizers of the event. One may even argue that we deprived the rag pickers who would definitely have come scavenging for waste, once the stadium had quietened down. Yes, the stadium would have been cleaned up, some how, before the next event. We didn’t need to leave our homes at 5am, to be there by 6am and finally leave the stadium only by 12pm.

But we did it, in the hopes of being able to educate this highly developed Bangalore, on the value of reducing and recycling our waste. I can promise you one thing- climate change will be a priority of the Sunfeast World 10k Run organizers (and Kingfisher, if you want to pick a bone), next year.

The model green village, Poonaithangal, lies 15 km from Kanchipuram and the villagers have spent their own money and worked hard for the afforestation project.

Two people, a retired teacher, Chandrasekar (60) and a panchayat councillor Kannan (34) began the initiative and told the other villagers about the harm caused by global warming and how it could be prevented by growing trees. Since, most of the afforestation projects supported by the government in the district did not meet with the desired results and beginning a scheme with government support involved time-consuming formalities, the villagers decided to carry out an afforestation project on their own.

The village panchayat identified and allocated ten acres of land for the purpose and the villagers contributed money for tree saplings, borewell facility, fencing and other expenses. Saplings of mango, tamarind and teak were bought and planted on the allotted land.

The villagers, including school boys and girls, spent their time and worked hard to water the saplings, protect them from animals and maintain them. The afforestation programme was a success with the co-operation and hard work of all the villagers.

Kannan who was involved in the project from the beginning said “I came to know about global warming and understood that deforestation is one of the major reasons for it. Hence, I decided to start an afforestation programme in my own village, which can be a model to others”.

About 1700 tree saplings had been planted in ten acres of land, he said and appreciated the role of his teacher, who guided him in the initiative. The villagers had spent about Rs 2.75 lakh for the project and they had planned to start another afforestation programme in another five acres of land, Kannan said.

The trees would provide income for the village, he said and added that the money would be spent for the welfare of the village.

Abstract from The Tribune

You take one step forward and one step back, and although you feel that there is a lot of movement you haven’t really gone anywhere.

In the past few days I’ve spoken to many delegates. From Thailand, Swaziland, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Zambia and the list goes on. And as I ask them about how they feel the negotiations are going, they all sigh and shake their head. Frustration is in the air as we hit midway of the second week.

The negotiations aren’t moving forward. People are feeling irritated. And I too am questioning what I am doing here.

Delegates, especially from the developing nations are once again feeling fed up with the continual talking, and insertion of more meetings. The Philippines delegate recently mentioned that despite her being away for a couple of years, the countries were discussing the same things. Every day people rush around, are running late and are stressed out. And as the negotiations “ramp up” more media arrives every day, reporting on the movement and noise as nothing moves forward.

Did you know they’ve inserted yet another two meetings in Bonn and Barcelona before Copenhagen?

I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever get to the deal we need. Most delegates tell me not to expect the “perfect” treaty. Which is the nice way of saying don’t expect it to be strong. However do say that they feel we will strengthen it after the Copenhagen treaty will be signed.

I guess what this is teaching me is at the end of the day, we need to pressure our governments and decision makers on the ground back in our Capitals. We need to push our movements and prove that the public, their constituencies, care about the issue. It is also teaching me not to rely on our governments, and to be ready to accept that they may come out with a crap deal and we’ll have to “stuff” them and create the world that we want to anyway.

We need to be the change and create the change.

The rural domestic economy being so unstable , having an excess of landless agricultural labourers and very limited opportunities to sustain jobs in the non agricultural sector. Its shocking to see the level of sanitation and education and health you might find in these rural areas for which these rural people migrate to urban areas in hope of better facilities. But the ground reality remains that instead of getting more facilities , the city now has to allocate its resources among more people and more often than not these people get manual labour work with minimum wages and form the urban poor sector. The urban poor sector is highly unsustainable and with growing cities and a rapidly growing population it will become increasingly difficult to handle this situation. More than ab economic crisis this could become a social crisis leading to a very unsustainable lifestyle.

Linking this to the negotiations , there is only one clause in the whole AWG LCA text which refers to refugees. We must fight to keep this clause and if possible reform the clause to that of “migrants”. What we also need to do is , intervene in our local government policies specifically in city plans and make them more participatory and integrated planning oriented approaches. Something like rainwater investing and green buildings should be as much if not more of an importance to us. The least we could do is to reform current lifestyles instead of waiting 10 years for annex 1 countries to agree to reduce emissions and help in financing. Mind you,this is the least we could do.

Looking at the political deadlock in the negotiations, I believe that a possible solution, although very ambitious would be to put all the official PARTY members, Non Governmental organizations, youth , Ringos, Igos and all the various stakeholders in the process to a global solution through Peer and Intercultural learning. At the GTZ Summer school we have been through a five step learning process with a culturally and academically diverse group of scholars.

We started with getting to know each other as a part of a process of participants’ experiences. We presented our own profiles and our learning styles- being either Extrovert or Introvert , Sensate or Intuitive, Feeler or thinker, judger or perceiver and we kept in mind the different working styles and incorporated learning by doing processes accordingly.

We assimilated peer and intercultural learning along with constructing our own working code to constitute our learning philosophy .So we all learn mostly by listening to the perspectives of others, by reflecting our points of view, and then coming to a consensus on possible solutions which would be in favour of sustainable lifestyles in our own environment.
The second stage was to analyse our patterns of experiences. We visited various ongoing projects like the eco industrial parks and a field trip to the local RWA in Hyderabad. The next step was to assimilate inputs of new information which came through a panel discussion with experts in Fishbowl strategy.

Here we would construct leading questions to ask the experts in a Fishbowl strategy where one person poses the question to the panel who sit in a fishbowl shape. We then applied our new knowledge by studying ongoing projects in Tirupati where we realised how different ground realities are and the challenges of implementation at root level. We used the action research methodology where we eliminate the gaps between the researcher and the researchee.

The last stage is to transfer back the knowledge which we are in the process of doing and will continue to do so, in our own respective institutions and networks.
So why not remodel this as a workshop fro all stakeholders within the secretariat, where they can get to together and come to a consensus on a framework or treaty that takes everyones’ voice into concern. So all of them put there profiles up, right down as to how many people are in their family, to their most irritating trait.

The working philosophy could entail international protocols of working foreign policy and things like keeping their mobiles silent. The Fishbowl can be done with scientific , economical and political science experts external to the UNFCCC framework who can give timely and precis

e advise on numbers and impacts without having us to refer to 500 different publications. The action reserach copuld be in the AOSIS countries , where all these negotiators ,ust visit and live in the conditions that these people are living in,

to really realize the impact of thier decisions.

And last of all they should be coming together and integrating their new knowledge into constructing an international model/protocol and then transferring this new knowledge an learning process to create their own domestic policies in their own country.

Maybe this could be a way of breaking the deadlock and the monotony of plenary meetings. It could also make the process more participatory approach where everyone has an equal voice. Is this too out of the box or are do we not realize the series of bigger boxes we are in?

backbenchers

Mr. R. K. Sethi, Member Secretary, The National Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Authority, Designated National Authority (DNA), Ministry of Environment and Forests had a meeting with an elite group of NGO officials from EDF to Greenpeace Germany to CAN and carbon services international. There I was sitting as a youth representative who was expected to know nothing about CDM, but I guess all of us present were pleasantly surprised. Just to reiterate my point, Global youth is as much on track if not more than all the other stakeholders in the secretariat.

India’s stance and status of CDM

Since 2003, we have been the most efficient in the world where it takes only 8 weeks for host country approval.Apart from the DNA working for sustainable development in the projects and does not act as a DOE. Unlike other countries we have local bodies like Pollution Control Boards, Jal Boards(Water board) who have to monit

or locally before sending it for host country approval. Its a “no quota” regulation which is as minimum as possible.

India is currently looking to give a big push to POA- program of activities under which it has just approved a big CFL lighting project across many rural villages in India. In relations to the New Zealand proposition of linking the NAMA to CDM , they said it opens all together a new dimension and India will brainstorm on it in the coming future. He also believes that India need to have flexibility built into the system.

One of the most critical positions that came through the meeting was that India is in favour of Nuclear to be integrated into the CDM. The reasoning says that we are using our renewable forms of energy to the maximum like hydro power which is only able to cater to 25 % of power demand but where will all the other energy come from? Since I mega watt of nuclear energy could cover more if not equal amount of 1 mega watt from coal.”India is a very responsible country”  and will use nuclear energy sensibly which it has proved in the past with its nuclear tests.  However India is not competent to comment on the responsibility of other countries in this respect.

Another hurdle is coverage of local costs of participation of CDM projects to which Mr Sethi had the opinion that the Government cannot come into the business of local participation but can help in capacity building and hands on training. Last year in the Poznan Negotiations Dr Prodipto Ghos

h had vouched for Indian specific benchmarks, but he disagreed saying that the other countries would never agree to country specific benchmarks. But the grid coefficient emissions system of electricity in India could be remodelled across the world.

International Level Status

On the international level , Mr Sethi has been the Chairing the CDM EB - executive board and when asked about teh functioning of the EB is being strengthened by capacity building and RITs . Whereas as far as sectoral approaches are concerned it is believed that they should be bottom up approach rather than the top to bottom approach which will face huge resistance since countries would not want to be dominated by any other organization. When asked whether there is any future for MRV support for NAMAs he said that if CDM is linked to NAMAs, it would  be the most rigorous MRV of its kind.  A big concern of CDM is its unpredictability which has to be resolved through increasing flexibility in the system.
In the global perspective , he is not in favour if the co-benefits and exceptions from additionality for stakeholders which might need local cost assistance for participation.

MY TAKE on CDM

In my opinion, India is doing very well in CDM and I hope it continues to do so. I feel we need to resolve the accounting issue of CER revenue and decide whether it is a good or service so that participants are taxed fairly and tax of 33 % doesn’t act as a disincentive. I also think India needs to rethink its position on Nuclear CDM , as Nuclear is an issue by itself. Also, having the government of India as the DNA makes the process highly bureaucratic and has various loopholes and power struggles at every level . Maybe India could have a DOE of its own which will speedup the process of validation and also the clubbing of SMEs with POA projects would benefit the POA methodology and strengthen local participation.

India currently holds 32% of market share of CDM in the world with the largest number of projects in the pipeline.  We can only wish for a speedy validation to see India overtake China as the most approved projects in CDM.

R K Sethi Interview Profile

Member Secretary, The National CDM Authority -Designated National Authority (DNA); Ministry of Environment and Forests; Chairman, CDM Executive Board, UNFCCC Secretariat

The aim of profiling our negotiators is getting to know them at a personal level and hence understanding how they make decisions. Some really interesting insights and dimensions of our negotiators ‘ personalities.

Academic Profile

A bachelors degree in electrical engineering and a Masters in Technology in Energy Studies from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi and then continued to a complete an MBA degree.

Countries visited /liked most

Visited a lot of countries but like Germany the most.

Indian Routes

Have lived in Delhi for most of his life but ancestrally grandparents were on the Lahore side of India before partition

Family Background

Father was in the Indian Army and had a wife and a son

Hobbies/Interests

Philately - as in the study of stamps and also the collection, reading and playing Table Tennis

Traits

Refused to tell us his traits and was very modest saying that we should consult others to get an opinion about the positive and negative traits of his .

Experience in this field

Was involved from 2002 where he was the chief organizer of the COP8  -  Eighth Conference of Parties under UNFCCC in New Delhi.  In charge of Climate Change and CDM setting up in 2001 and then the establishment of the Designated National Authority (DNA) . This took  around 5 to 6 months and a lot of bureaucratic efforts. After which he is member secretary of the DNA now. At the International level  he has been the Vice Chair of the Executive Board of the CDM under UNFCCC where now he is the Chairman.

Passion/what drives him to make a change?/inspiration/special stories

Mr Sethi believes in reforming the sytem and making it more public friendly . He wants to make a DNA website of India and in the course of the next 3-4 months make the DNA office perfectly paperless and have no hard copies existing or to be printed.

Academic Profile

PHD in Economics specialising in Climate Change Modelling from Pittsburgh University USA, Btech – Bachelors of Technology in Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi and a grilling school life in DPS Mathura Road, Delhi. He has been lauded with Alumni Achievement Awards from both IIT Delhi and Pitts burg University.

Countries visited / Country liked

He is very fond of Vietnam and likes the spirit of the people.Even after all that has taken place , the disturbed history hasn’t affected their spirit.

Wherein are you from in India/Ancestral legacy

Born in Calcutta and have lived in Delhi from 50 years.

Family Background

Father was a scientist and he’s married with two boys . His wife is a retired government servant and is the Delhi government Chair of the Public Grievances Committee. His elder son is 33 years old based in Singapore and is in the financial sector whereas the younger son is a freshman in the same university of Pittsburgh where he studied.

Hobbies/Interest

Reading and watching movies with a historical setting. Favourite movie is Indosheen a french movie which he believes is based on the life of former vietnamese prime minister.

He was a fast bowler when in college and represented the Moss0uiri Academy. He is more of a test cricket person and does not enjoy the T20 form of cricket at all.

Traits

Ghosh Sir blatantly admits that he has no positive traits. He finds it very difficult to accept what people are at face value. Disapproves of hypocrisy and feels he is absolutely humorless( which I believe is the darkest form of Humor I have witnessed  latest)

Experience in this field/passion/special story

Academically been involved for a long time. He has been an observer for the Asian Development Bank for 7 years and with TERI as 4 years. And since 2001 hes been a part of the government delegation till date. He is passionate about JUSTICE and highly dislikes any form of injustice.