Environmental activists are in despair at global leaders’ lack of action over climate change. Others say the Durban Platform is a step in the right direction, however small

A global deal was in the offing, but in the end all we got at the UN-sponsored climate conference was – once again – a discouraging roadmap to nowhere.

But there was not a single extra tonne of carbon cuts pledged or delivered in Durban. And without any cash on the table, civil society groups were nearly unanimous in characterising the compromise agreement a weak, temporary solution that effectively establishes a voluntary deal putting off for a decade urgently needed emissions cuts.

By all accounts, voluntary pledges thus far by developed nations have led to an increase – not a decrease – in greenhouse gas emissions. Climate agencies at the UN say emissions have to peak and begin to decline by 2015 if unrestrained warming and its consequences are to be avoided.

“This could take us over the two degree threshold where we pass from danger to potential catastrophe,” warns Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo.

Currently the promised emission reductions by industrialised countries and those of China, Brazil, South Africa, India and others under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord guarantee a world that is at least 3.5C warmer on average than in pre-industrial times, according to climate science. The scientific community widely agrees that temperature increases above 2C would lead to irreversible effects of climate change.

“Catastrophe is a strong word but it is not strong enough for a future with four degrees of warming,” says Samantha Smith, leader of WWF’s global climate and energy initiative.

Supporters of the Durban Platform say it ushers in a new global politics of compromise, now that a process is in place for replacing Kyoto with a broader, legally binding pact to include all big polluters. “It is a small step but potentially it is a game-changer for the dynamics in these talks,” says Stig Schjølset, head of EU carbon analysis at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon.

Common platform

Schjølse says the Durban Platform does away with the differentiation between developed and developing countries, long a roadblock at the annual UN-sponsored climate conferences – known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP.

Again this year China and India resisted a change to Kyoto’s two-track apportionment of responsibility, but ultimately relented in the final hours after intense negotiations that extended more than a day past the conference’s scheduled end.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon hailed the agreement, saying it would “increase certainty for the carbon market and provide additional incentives for new investments in technology and the infrastructure necessary to fight climate change”.

Ban applauded the launch of the Green Climate Fund and said he was gratified that a number of countries signalled their intent to contribute to it. The fund was created to help developing nations protect themselves from  climate impacts and build their own sustainable futures, but had hitherto not been launched.

“This means that urgent support for the developing world, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable, to adapt to climate change will also be launched on time,” says Christian Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, is encouraged by the agreements but said the real-world impact on the planet’s climate is still uncertain.

“The big question many will ask is how this will translate into actual emission reductions and by when,” Steiner says. “Whatever answer will emerge in the coming months, Durban has kept the door open for the world to respond to climate change based on science and common sense rather than political expediency.”

Bric nations and bilateral deals

The back story at Durban involved a new leadership role by high-emitting developing countries – the so-called Basic grouping of Brazil, South Africa, India and China. But in exchange for conceding over differentiated responsibilities, these countries expected more than just a renewal of the Kyoto protocol. They wanted new targets for rich nations in addition to finance guarantees – both of which they did not get.

Kyoto will be gutted, some predicted, given the amorphous promise only to “take note” of science-based emission commitments. The key phrase “legally binding agreement”, which nearly every country wanted, was cut from the text, on the insistence of the US.

“There are major battles to come,” Schjølse says, who also predicted a shift towards an evolving bottom-up, bilateral process residing outside the UN system and driven largely by policies and measures in emerging markets.

Examples include India’s energy efficiency trading system, South Africa’s subsidy scheme for renewable energy and China’s seven pilot emissions trading programmes.

As much as 60% of global emissions reductions by 2020 may come from developing countries, according to a report prepared by the Stockholm Environment Institute. Countries such as Brazil and Indonesia have made significant progress in decreasing deforestation rates, thanks in part to bilateral programmes instituted by Norway, while China has a massive plantation programme under way.

But if the world puts too much emphasis on the bottom-up approach there is a risk that we end up with a “Wild West carbon accounting mechanism”, says Keith Allot, head of climate change at WWF UK.

“We have real concerns about different countries setting up their own offsetting mechanism,” Allot says, referring to a Japanese technology-transfer proposal that received preliminary go-ahead at Durban.

“A global deal is there to provide fundamental assurance that … there is a collective direction and that there are clear rules, common rules, for things like carbon accounting to avoid loopholes.”

On that count, civil society and some developing nations say Durban failed miserably. Logging and converting natural forests to plantations, for example, will escape rigorous accounting for their emissions.

“Durban is a big setback for environmentally responsible land use but the fight is not over,” says Donald Lehr, a spokesman for the Ecosystems Climate Alliance, a group of 10 environment and social NGOs from Europe, the US and Australia.

Interestingly, the report issued by the Stockholm Environment Institute shows that already developing countries are collectively doing more for climate change than developed countries – if current pledges are kept. Recognising this, and with a structure for a legally binding framework looming in the near-distant future, the Durban Platform may well force developed countries into finally fulfilling their financial and emissions reduction commitments.

Finance and science

Developed countries have yet to indicate where any of the promised public funds will come from.

Much has been said about mobilising the private sector through existing frameworks such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which aims to get industrialised nations to transfer their know-how in low-carbon technologies to developing countries and thus help them lower their emissions. But the programme often directs money to projects that would have been realised anyway, with least developed countries that do not produce large amounts of CO₂ being passed over entirely.

Consequently, Europe’s emissions trading system has begun a major rethink in order to shore up the CDM’s worst failings. But even if the CDM is streamlined and is able to generate lots of environmentally sound credits, there may not be any buyers.

“The CDM will not die because the set-up of the framework has failed,” Schjølse says. “It will dry up because the ambition that has been pledged for 2020 is not sufficient to enjoy any demand.”

As for dollars pledged to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (Redd+) in developing countries, only $250m has actually been received by projects between 2008 and 2011, according to a report issued by the Overseas Development Institute and the Heinrich Böll Foundation. It remains a government-to-government mechanism, though expectations remain for forest carbon to be turned into a traded commodity at some point in the future.

Against this backdrop of failed commitments, 2010 saw global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning jump by the largest amount on record, according to analysis released by the Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of scientists tracking the numbers.

Figures that suggest headway was made by wealthy countries stabilising their emissions belie a fundamental and inescapable truth: a rapid growth in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases such as methane are warming the earth. The only thing that has changed over the past decade – despite billions of dollars pumped into clean energy investment – is the location in which the emissions are being produced.

“If we leave it to government, we haven’t got any chance of getting below 2C,” says Geoff Lye, executive chairman of SustainAbility, a consultancy working with leading Fortune 500 companies.

“Don’t hide behind regulations. Don’t wait for the UN or even country-by-country regulation,” Lye says, adding that it’s imperative now more than ever for business to take what he terms “unilateral action”.

Bridging the gap

Companies have to focus on where they have leverage, Allot says, making the case for business to move away from offsetting schemes such as those offered by the EU ETS and CDM.

“We need to be clear,” Allot says. “Compliance offsetting doesn’t lead to any net reduction in global emissions. In fact, there’s very compelling evidence that many offset projects are non-additional: they actually lead to an increase in global emissions.”

Allot counsels companies to first manage their own emissions in the near term. Voluntary public finance for quality emissions reduction programmes in developing countries are worthwhile but what really matters is establishing a business model that sets a plan for a low-carbon future.

Those plans should involve a 100% renewable energy target, says Samantha Smith, leader of WWF’s global climate and energy initiative. The ethical motivation is to avoid a four-degrees-warmer world, while the competitive impetus is the advantage in gaining access to secure agriculture, water and energy supplies.

“This is like any other big strategic shift in procurement which companies do,” Smith says. “They shift to places where they’re going to buy their base products or their commodities and they often have – in fact, they always have – a procurement strategy or a strategic resource strategy.”

The same should be true for renewable energy, where prices are continuing to drop significantly, Smith says.

“The biggest driver is that some forms of renewable energy in some locations are actually cost competitive with coal and gas – right now.”

In this regard, the key message from Durban – that the wheels are still on the wagon towards an international agreement – should give some encouragement to business.

“It’s all happening too slowly,” Allot says, “and the politics aren’t as clear and as quick as we’d like. But there is a commitment to reach an agreement in 2015.”

Citing a much-discussed UNEP report entitled Bridging the Emissions Gap, Allot says there’s a very clear overall message – one that’s both scary and positive. “We can’t wait for governments,” he concludes. “We need to get on at every level – the company level, the individual level, government, and national level.”

It is possible to close the emissions gap. The question is whether we can act quickly enough.

Technology transfer

Norway’s Energy+ programme is an example of bilateral government action potentially inducing private sector investments in developing countries’ renewable energy supply. Currently in its nascent stage, Energy+ is being closely watched, given the Norwegian government’s success in mobilising funding for forestry programmes now underway in Indonesia, Brazil and Guyana.

Modelled on Redd+ performance-based payments, the programme will be linked to the UN climate framework accounting system, with testing in pilot countries to determine whether financing from international carbon markets can be mobilised.

Countries under discussion include the Maldives with the proposal to replace diesel generators with renewable energy such as photovoltaics; India – renewable energy for rural electrification; and Ethiopia – small hydropower, wind, geothermal energy and more efficient cook stoves.

“Just like Redd+, Energy+ is an international initiative,” says Hans Brattskar, director general of Norway’s environment ministry. “In practice, though, both have to start with a limited number of countries in order to learn and ‘spread the message’ through positive lessons learned and results achieved.”

Bilateral dealings are critical for developing countries such as South Africa, which finds itself dependent on coal for 85% of its energy. The country has big plans for rolling out renewable energy investments, but experts say that without outside support the energy transition could take years.

Sceptics say the Norway model is important but exceptional given the country’s oil wealth, which immunises it from the current recessionary cycle. Nevertheless, supporters say the bilateral lesson is apt for the full array of carbon financing programmes now being considered: government has to lead and it must do so in partnership with private industry.

“Most of the technologies used in renewable energy are actually not patented,” says Samantha Smith, leader of WWF’s global climate and energy initiative. “So what we really are talking about is know-how, production and holding down costs.”

Norway has increased financial support to clean energy from 800m kroner (£87m) in 2010 to 1.6bn kroner (£170m) in 2011, and is now in the process of convening other stakeholders willing to invest additional monies. The aim, the government says, is to focus clean energy support on a smaller number of channels and actors as a means to use resources more efficiently where a high impact potential exists and to improve co-ordination and co-operation.

Investment returned to sender

How quickly business can reap the rewards of going green was exemplified this year in Durban with the unveiling of International Post Corporation’s 2011 sustainability report.

Launched in 2009, IPC’s global postal sustainability programme cut nearly 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide in two years of operation, meaning it is more than halfway to achieving its target of cutting 20% of emissions by 2020. Those reductions saved the postal sector more than $400m, leading IPC chief executive Herbet-Michael Zapf to proclaim the programme a “win-win scenario … on both the environment and the bottom line”.

Zapf has credited postal operators with “embedding within their core businesses ongoing efforts to be sustainable”.

A good many gains came from switching to green electricity, increasing fuel efficiency and vehicle route optimisation. To achieve further reductions, participants are making more significant and longer-term investments in infrastructure developments, for example through the construction of Leed (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) buildings, or increasing the use of alternative-fuel vehicle fleets.

“We are saying this business case for sustainability can be replicated across all industries and in national policies as well,” says the IPC’s George Candon.

Those investments can be significant, he adds, but they can quickly be recouped. “The investment is often mostly in time and effort and not always in capital investment.”

IPC members hail from 24 countries and handle 80% of all global mail. As a whole, the postal sector operates one of the largest commercial transport fleets and employs roughly two million people worldwide.

“Talk is cheap,” Candon says, referring to the message coming out of Durban. “Action is what counts.”