Jim Stephenson comments on the first day REDD+ discussions at the Bangkok Climate Change Conference.
The additional sessions of the Ad-Hoc Working Groups began yesterday in Bangkok, with REDD+ finance taking up two conference halls’-worth of attention through the snappily titled ‘Workshop on financing options for the full implementation of results-based actions relating to REDD-plus, including modalities and procedures for financing these result-based actions’.
An area where progress is urgently needed in the run-up to COP 18 in Doha is how ‘results-based’ REDD+ will be financed. The good news is that there has clearly been much work put into debating and analyzing the options, backed up with formal party and observer submissions in March, work-shopping and a UNFCCC technical paper published in July.
During the final session, the Chair was moved to remark that each Party was beginning their statement with ‘as has already been said’ or ‘we are in full agreement with’. Typical workshop idiom – but in UNFCCC discussions, Parties have a duty to defend their interests. Perhaps the consensus on these issues, at least at this stage, is building.
The areas of consensus are fairly non-contentious issues – such as the need for diverse sources of both market and non-market based finance for REDD+, including the need to determine the role of the Green Climate Fund in REDD+ financing in time for Doha. Though not contentious, this is very important. The $4.5 billion in public funding promised as part of the 2010-12 ‘fast start finance’ for REDD+ readiness has under-delivered, and achieving progress towards results based finance clearly requires a diversified financing base to reach the scale needed. Coordinating the diversification process would be the real challenge – Parties point out that managing and reporting so many different finance flows could add another burden onto the governments receiving these funds. To address this potential issue, the need for a well organized and transparent UNFCCC REDD+ mechanism was highlighted, in order to unify these funding streams and simplify the finance disbursal process.
Another area highlighted by the Parties was the need to recognize the diversity of what REDD+ ‘results’ are, which has large implications for the scaling up of REDD+ finance in lieu of a compliance carbon market. Some feel that the ‘co-benefits’ of REDD+ should attract their own funding regardless of the carbon market, such as watershed services, biodiversity conservation, poverty alleviation and sustainable commodities. The norm is now to put the ‘co’ in co-benefits in quotes, recognizing that these benefits should gain equal footing to the carbon emission reductions in REDD+. If this happens these benefits could be mainstreamed in the ‘payment for results’ framework, hence expanding the potential funding pools for REDD+.
Better still would be the recognition of improved governance in the forest sector, including advances made in community forestry law and implementation, as ‘results’ to be rewarded. This would also reinforce the incentives for Parties to properly implement or even exceed social and environmental safeguard standards, something very much welcomed by RECOFTC.
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Gender Mainstreaming in COP 18 Gets a Boost
A landmark decision on women’s participation in climate change negotiations at COP 18 in Doha is critical for ensuring gender equity in this and other development goals, says Dr. Chandra Silori, RECOFTC’s Coordinator for the Grassroots Capacity Building for REDD+ Project.
UNFCCC’s side event “Gender and Climate: Moving beyond the Rhetoric” at COP 18 in Doha.
Day two (November 27, 2012) in Doha was ‘Gender Day’, with two back to back side events, the first on Gender and Climate Innovation: Breakthrough Changes for Gender Equality, and the other on Gender and Climate: Moving beyond the Rhetoric, organized by the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The second event was attended by distinguished women, including Her Highness Sheikha Al Mayassa Bint Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Chairperson of the Board of Trustees – Qatar Museums Authority; Ms. Mary Robinson, Former President of Ireland and President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice; Ms. Elena Manaenkova, Assistant Secretary General of the World Meteorology Organization; Ms. Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN Director General; Ms. Nawal Al-Hosany, Director of Sustainability at Masdar, Abu Dhabi; and Ms. Julia Duncan–Cassell, Liberia’s Minister of Gender and Development.
New Challenges and the Role of Women
While highlighting the significant contribution of women in influencing sustainable consumption and production at the community level, safeguarding the natural environment and biodiversity, preserving traditional knowledge and judiciously allocating adequate and sustainable resources within the households and community, the panel reminded the audiences about some of the extraordinary challenges that we are facing today. By 2030, the world’s population will need 50% more food, 55% more energy, and 30% more water. Besides the growing challenges of food security, Ms. Mary Robinson reminded everybody that of the 7 billion people in the world today, 2.7 billion people in the rural areas still depend on wood fuel and livestock dung cakes, which have serious health impacts.
There is no denying the fact that women are central to fulfilling these growing household needs. Strong suggestions were made to adopt a gender smart approach by supporting decision making institutional structures at the local level that can be accessed equally by both men and women. These kinds of discussions highlight the need for climate change talks to be given a human face, as we are talking about half of the world’s population who will need to be actively involved for these initiatives to have any chance of success. We must recognize that the intellect, energy, and ingenuity of local communities can be used to find equitable solutions to the global problem of climate change. Without engaging such a large proportion of the world’s population, climate change solutions will fail to deliver on ground.
Improving Women’s Participation in Climate Negotiations
While reminding everyone that empowering women does not mean disempowering men, all the speakers emphasized that COP 18 provides an important opportunity to make women’s voices heard in climate change negotiations. Doha needs to build on the strong foundation provided by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the ground work done in Durban at COP 17, and more recently at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). All of these have recognized women’s leadership and their vital role in achieving sustainable development, and particularly the Rio+20 outcome document has emphasized the impact of setting specific targets and implementing temporary measures when appropriate for sustainably increasing the number of women in leadership positions, with the aim of achieving gender parity.
While reminding audiences about the recent progress in advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment in international climate change policy, as well as some aspects of women’s representation in the UNFCCC bodies, these events pointed out that much remains to be done. In Doha, therefore, a draft resolution has been proposed for a new decision to promote gender equality through improving the participation of women in UNFCCC negotiations and in the representation of Parties in bodies established by the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol. Further, on December 5th, the President of COP 18 will have a ministerial level meeting with all parties to push this agenda further.
These are certainly positive and significant steps forward to further strengthening gender mainstreaming in climate change negotiations, and they send a strong political signal. Furthermore, these significant developments will ensure that women and men elected to UNFCCC bodies and involved in the negotiations will continue to fully address the gender dimension of climate change at future conventions. More importantly, at this crucial juncture of discussions on sustainable development goals and the post-2015 development framework, a landmark decision on women’s participation in climate change negotiations at COP 18 in Doha will be an important foundation for renewed commitment to the critical development goals of advancing gender quality and women’s empowerment.
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Posted by RECOFTC on November 30, 2012
https://recoftc.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/gender-mainstreaming-in-cop-18-gets-a-boost/