“Climate Change and the Most Vulnerable Countries - the Imperative to Act”

Informal Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly  - 8 July 2008,   UN Headquarters, Trusteeship Council Chamber.

10.00 – 10.30 Opening session
- Statement by the President of the General Assembly
- Statement by the Deputy-Secretary-General
- Keynote address by Ogunlade Davidson, Co-chair of the     Working Group III, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

10.30 – 12.30 Panel Discussion
Moderator: Eugene Linden, author and journalist
Reid Basher, Senior Coordinator, Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
Ian Noble, World Bank, Senior Climate Change Specialist

12.30 – 12.45 Closing remarks by Cheik Sidi Diarra, United Nations, High Representative
for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and  Small Island Developing States.

UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO CONSIDER PLIGHT OF COUNTRIES
IMMEDIATELY THREATENED BY CLIMATE CHANGE AT 8 JULY, 2008  SESSION.

From the small island States that face inundation as a result of rising sea level to the countries that find themselves exposed to fiercer storms, desertification and droughts, the General Assembly will consider, at a special debate on 8 July, how the States most vulnerable to climate change can cope and adapt to an increasingly changing landscape.

“Climate change is anything but abstract,” says United Nations General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim.  “It is about people who are suffering increased floods and droughts, it is about people who have to face re-emerging diseases linked with climate change, and it is about  people, often the most vulnerable, who may have to leave their villages or their countries when it becomes unbearable to live with the damage climate change brings.”

He added:  “We need to reconcile the economic aspirations of people in developing countries, in particular the poor and most vulnerable ones, with the necessity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  The challenge is to find policies, instruments and technologies that can create low-carbon economies which promote sustainable economic growth and provide incentives for individuals to change behaviour.  This meeting is intended to help us meet this challenge.”

The countries most vulnerable to climate change include a wide range of developing countries.  Many small island developing States are already experiencing considerable erosion due to storm surges and sea level rise.  They are, as well, suffering from increasing contamination of soil and drinking water due to the intrusion of salt water.  Many countries are likely to experience a decrease in water runoff by 10-30 per cent over some dry regions, dry tropics and some semi-arid areas, due to decreases in rainfall and higher rates of evapotranspiration, including parts of Africa, Latin America, North America and Europe.  It is projected that by 2020, between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa alone will be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change.

This will be the third debate that President Kerim has convened on climate change, which he has called the “flagship” issue of the sixty-second session of the General Assembly.  The one-day panel discussion is not only designed to raise awareness of the peril facing the most vulnerable States, but also to provide real proposals that feed into the negotiations that are under way to forge a global agreement to address climate change.  That agreement, which is to be completed in Copenhagen next year, will need to take into account the perspective of the most vulnerable States.

The negotiations, called for at last year’s Bali Climate Conference, are taking place under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and are seeking to reach a new global climate change deal to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change and assist efforts to adapt to climate change.  A new agreement is also intended to facilitate the transfer of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries, increase investment for climate change, and reduce emissions from deforestation.

For more information, please visit www.un.org

or www.un.org

For interviews, please contact

Janos Tisovszky, Spokesperson for the General Assembly President,                                                                   tel.:  917 367 2068, e-mail:   tisovszky at un.org;

or Dan Shepard, UN Department of Public Information, tel.:  212 963 9495, e-mail:   shepard at un.org.

Our reporting is based on Matthew Lee’s Inner City Press. He stayed throught the ECOSOC Hullabaloo.

July 3, when the closing session of the “High Level Segment” of the Economic and Social Council dragged past five then six then seven o’clock, with the U.S. threatening to “block consensus” on a bland ministerial statement,  the President of ECOSOC, Leo Merores, The Ambassador from Haiti,  joined the diplomats and staff and a few remaining reporters for drinks in the Delegates’ Lounge on the ECOSOC floor.  Sitting with him was ECOSOC staffer Nikhil Seth who, ever polite, had told Inner City Press to pay particular attention to the nation-specific portion of the Segment, acknowledging that the more global presentations are of less interest and value.

   Inner City Press having been told that “they are negotiating in the Trusteeship Council chamber, this could go all night,” ambled through the ECOSOC to the Trusteeship chamber. Security officers shrugged apologetically. “What in God’s name are they talking about?” one asked.

There was dark talk about biofuels.  But ultimately the only change adopted was to move a mere segment of sentence, referring to the Kyoto protocol and therefore to climate change, from the body of the text to a footnote.

That’s it — that’s what the U.S. was holding out for.  High Level Segment, indeed.  

{We are not surprised - the word Kyoto is poison to this US Administration and to many others in this Washington.}

ECOSOC session and President.

   Sam Adam’s Summer Ale stopped flowing so freely from the tap of the Delegates Lounge.

After the UN bar’s last call, the diplomats reassembled in the ECOSOC chamber. 

The U.S. representative spoke  after Bolivia and before Cuba - begrudgingly “joined consensus.”

The President of ECOSOC, back in from the bar, bragged that unlike previous years, under his watch, this High Level Segment was adopting its Ministerial Statement the day the Segment ended and not after.  

When Inner City Press asked Leo Merores directly about this, at the actual end of the session, he said he was referring only to the previous two years. “It’s a new ECOSOC,” Inner City Press nevertheless was told. Here’s hoping.

When we get the resolution we will post it here as an addition. we will have it by Monday, as the G8 starts on 7/7 and this quite useless paper, that was supposed to summarize an event called because of climate change, managed only to push its main topic to a foot-note, will travel to Hokkaido Toyako.

We were not present that Thursday night July 3rd at the ECOSOC , we did not go even to earlier friendly side events that day, and the day before that - as we did not want to upset the UN Department of Public Information that think the UN will be a safer place to produce no results if we are not present with our own questions. And mind you - the head of the UN DPI is an appointment from Japan.

Now let us see what will be the Japanese G8 verdict on global actions needed on climate change?

We received an e-mail showing how little costs to buy gasoline (in German called Benzin) and diesel fuel if you live in a so called developing oil-exporting country or in the USA

Date: July 4, 2008

1 Liter = 0.264174 gal (US Liq)
US$ 1 = Euro 1.5682 as of 7/4/2008

The Austrian e-mail evokes the following list. We went then and looked up other countries and found that Austria is actually a bargain when compared to other developed economies.

The Austrian 1.32 Euro/liter is 2.16 times what the complaining American sissies are paying, but only 78.7% of what Norwegians are paying or 80.7% of what the Dutch are paying.

On the other hand Japan at 0.99 Euro/liter is another chaeap-shot so is Canada at 0.88 Euro/liter.

And you know already what we think? Those that pay more for their gasoline have also decreased their dependence on oil by efficiency methods and conservation - they also developed alternatives to oil and have started building the economy of the future. So, it is actually the US that is falling behind while it transfers its funds to the Gulf States hoping that the increased National Debt will devalue the US$ to the point that it remains valueless paper in their hand.The problem is that they do not sit on the money anymore. They actually buy assets with that money - among that buying spree they also buy up chunks of America. So what then? Will they agree to American taxation without representation - or the US will eventually find out that Bush made a Faustian Deal with the US oil companies and with his Arab friends.

Our advice to our Austrian readers is thus - DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT THE TAX ON FUEL - BUT MAKE SURE THE MONEY IS USED SO THAT EVENTUALLY YOU WILL HAVE TO BUY LESS OF IT.

The following is what we got in the mail - then look at what we added for the sake of analysis. if our other readers want to get the actual numbers in US dollars, please use the above conversion factors.

BENZINPREISE INTERNATIONAL

Benzin that is Gasoline - but much of the posting is about Diesel - this because in Europe the motor-fuel of choice is high quality Diesel.

Afghanistan Normalbenzin € 0,43

Algerien Diesel € 0,11

Aserbaidschan Diesel € 0,31

Ägypten Diesel € 0,14

Ãthiopien Super € 0,24

Bahamas Diesel € 0,25

Bolivien Super € 0,25

Brasilien Diesel € 0,54

China Normal € 0,45

Ecuador Normal € 0,24

Ghana Normal € 0,09 !!!!!!!

Grönland Super € 0,50

Guyana Normal € 0,67

Hong Kong Diesel € 0,84

Indien Diesel € 0,62

Indonesien Diesel € 0,32

Irak Super € 0,60

Kasachstan Diesel € 0,44

Katar Super € 0,15

Kuwait Super € 0,18

Kuba Normal € 0,62

Libyen Diesel € 0,08 !!!!!!!

Malaysia Super € 0,55

Mexico Diesel € 0,41

Moldau Normal € 0,25

Oman Super plus € 0,20

Peru Diesel € 0,22

Philippinen Diesel € 0,69

Russland Super € 0,64

Saudi Arabien Diesel € 0,07 !!!!!!

Südafrika Diesel € 0,66

Swasiland Super € 0,10 !!!!!!

Syrien Diesel € 0,10 !!!!!

Trinidad Super € 0,33

Thailand Super € 0,65

Tunesien Diesel € 0,49

USA Diesel € 0,61

Venezuela Diesel € 0,07 !!!!!

Vereinigte Arabische Emirate Diesel € 0,18

Vietnam Diesel € 0,55

Weißrussland Diesel € 0,51

EU und dem Finanzminister sei dank ist der Österreicher bzw. Europäer dumm
genug sich abzocken zu lassen (Mineralölsteuer und Mehrwertsteuer auf
Benzin).

Bitte dieses E-Mail weiter zu schicken damit wenigstens einige Leute
erkennen wie stark Österreich geneppt wird.

Benzinpreise auf der eigenen Webseite

And looking at international prices for July 4, 2008 at - http://benzinpreis.de/international.phtm…

Land Normalbenzin in € Superbenzin in € SuperPlus in € Diesel in €

Österreich 1,26 1,29 * 1,28 1,32 *

UK 1,40 1,46 1,50 1,58

Finnland 1,47 1,50 1,50 1,36

Frankreich 1,39 1,34 * 1,44 1,37 *

Irland 1,26 1,26 1,15 1,43

Island 1,35 1,40 1,47 1,50

Israel - 1,05 - -

Italien 1,36 1,46 1,34 1,45

Japan 0,99 1,08 - 0,79

Kanada 0,88 0.87 0.82 0.90

Neuseeland 1,03 0,97 - 1,46

Niederlande 1,56 1,61 1,69 1,31 **

Norwegen 1,60 1,61 1,46 1,56

Schweden 1,37 1,39 1,36 1,47

Schweiz 1,24 1,21 * 1,23 1,37 *

Ungarn 1,29 1,26 1,20 1,31

If Africa Will Agree To Stop Shooting at Itself, and if the Donor Countries Can Agree To Do Something Positive in the Follo-up To A World-Agreement on a new Climate Change agreement, Africa Should be Indeed a Major Part of a Carbon Trading Mechanism.

In Anticipation of the Above, Some Tough Minded People Want To Try To Have Propsals On The Table For Real Plans Of Action. We Wish Them, And Ourselves - the Best of Luck.

Subject: Solicitation of African Carbon Offset Projects & Travel Sponsorship Opportunity
Reply-To: “Lars Rosendahl Appelquist” <lars.rosendahl@risoe.dk>

July 2, 2008

At COP‐13 in Bali, the UNFCCC Secretariat announced its intent to convene the first Africa Carbon Forum, in partnership with the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) and the multilateral agencies supporting the Nairobi Framework, including UNEP, UNDP, UNIDO, UNECA, and the World Bank. The Nairobi Framework aims to assist developing countries, especially those in sub‐Saharan Africa, to enhance their participation in the CDM. This groundbreaking high‐profile event will combine a carbon investment trade fair, a policy forum for African DNAs and climate change officials, as well as targeted capacity building for the CDM.

The Forum will take place from 3 ‐ 5 September 2008 at Le Meridien Hotel, Pointe Des Almadies, in Dakar, Senegal.

Further details and a draft agenda can be downloaded from the IETA website: http://www.ieta.org/ieta/www/pages/index…

Despite the fast growth of the global carbon market and the urgent need to boost energy and infrastructure investment in Africa, local actors are only just beginning to tap into this market. The Africa Carbon Forum will strengthen links between CDM project developers and the region’s investment community, and facilitate knowledge sharing and transactions between project sponsors and global carbon offset credit buyers. Specifically, matchmaking and deal facilitation sessions will enable potential CDM project participants and developers to showcase their projects to interested parties, including investors and carbon buyers.

The organizers therefore invite all interested parties to attend and to submit their carbon offset project concepts for consideration.

As co‐organizers of the Forum, UNEP and UNDP have pledged to provide travel sponsorships for CDM project champions from across the African continent to attend the event, based on a competitive selection.

See attached document for additional details on the sponsorship procedures and requirements.

 http://www.ieta.org/ieta/www/pages/index…

————-

BACKGROUND

At COP13 in Bali, the UNFCCC Secretariat announced its intent to convene the 1st Africa Carbon Forum, in collaboration with the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) and the partner agencies of the Nairobi Framework, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), The World Bank and the African Development Bank. The Nairobi Framework was initiated with the specific target of helping developing countries, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa, to improve their level of participation in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

OBJECTIVE

This event will bring together representatives from designated national authorities (DNA), national focal points (NFP), representatives from several UN agencies, governments and the private sector.

The Africa Carbon Forum is a platform that will strengthen links between CDM project developers and the region’s investment community, provide opportunities for DNA representatives to exchange views and share their experiences relating to the CDM, while facilitating knowledge sharing and transactions between project sponsors and global carbon offset credit buyers.

The Forum will take place from 3-5 September 2008 in Dakar, Senegal, at Le Méridien Hotel, located in the Pointe Des Almadies area.
The event will combine a carbon investment Trade Fair, a Conference and policy forum for African DNAs and climate change officials, as well as targeted capacity building on the CDM. Specifically, matchmaking and deal facilitation sessions will enable potential CDM project participants and developers to showcase their projects to interested parties, including investors and carbon buyers.

The complete schedule of this three-day event will be available shortly.

The Africa Carbon Forum provides a platform for companies to Present, Showcase, Meet and Interact. The exhibitor section will be open to the following types of entities:
• Service providers in the carbon market (Designated Operational Entities, Applicant Entities, methodology developers etc);
• Technology providers for new technologies to reduce GHGs (sector-based, technology based, other);
• Solution providers;
• Individual industrial organizations showcasing their solutions and achievements;
• Project developers;
• Funds that will purchase emissions reductions;
• CDM Host country governments and DNAs;
• Bilateral and multilateral aid agencies and foundations; and NGOs

——————-

Also from Denmark:

Based on the unequal geographical distribution of CDM activities where the Least Developed Countries (LDC) are largely under represented and the increasing microfinance activities in these countries, the Executive Board to the CDM launched the idea to explore the possibilities for combining CDM development with microfinance mechanisms. The COP endorsed the concept and the Government of Denmark decided to finance the project.

The purpose of the project is to identify possible synergies between the CDM, especially CDM Programme of Activities (PoA), and microfinance mechanisms. The objective is to enhance CDM activities in LDCs, in particularly sub-Saharan Africa, by exploring ways to improve the financial feasibility of mitigation projects that are pertinent to LDCs.

DANIDA has appointed the Danish consulting engineering company NIRAS A/S to execute the study for which we have engaged the services of the internationally recognised experts Ms. Christiana Figueres and Mr. Hans Jürgen Stehr to enhance our in house capacity.

We would like to report to the EB on the advance of PoAs worldwide. Thus, if you are developing a PoA we would like to know the country(ies), the sector, and the foreseeable CPAs. We are particularly interested in PoAs in LDCs and Africa, but would be happy to receive information on PoAs in other regions.

We will collate the information received and make it available to users of Climate L, as well as include it in the report to the EB. We recognise the sensitivity of particular information during the project development process due to competition issues and will thus make sure that no confidential information is distributed and that the information will be collected without attribution to who is developing the PoA if requested.

Ms. Hanne Holm-Jørgensen

NIRAS
Sortemosevej 2
DK-3450 Alleroed
Denmark

email:  hhj at niras.dk
phone: +45 4810 4766

ITALY, June 25, 2008, The Interanational Organization for Migration  (IOM) – Memorial to Migrants Perished at Sea - A memorial dedicated to the thousands of migrants who have died at sea trying to reach Italy will be unveiled tomorrow on Lampedusa island.

The project initiated by the Italian NGOs Alternativa Giovani Onlus, Arnoldo Mosca Mondadori and Associazione Amani is supported by IOM, the Italian Ministry of the Interior, the regions of Sicily and Puglia, the municipality of Milan and UNHCR.

Designed by Italian sculptor Mimmo Paladino, the five-meter high monument, built in the shape of a door facing the sea, representing the gateway to Europe, commemorates the men, women and children who lost their lives in search of a better life.

“In the first six months of 2008 more than 7,000 migrants reached Lampedusa – double the number who arrived in 2007. But while the number of migrants who made it safely increased, we believe that the number of deaths also increased,” said IOM Regional Representative for the Western Mediterranean Peter Schatzer.

“IOM has provided information and legal advice to more than 30,000 migrants arriving in Lampedusa and Sicily since 2006. We hope that this monument will focus attention on the human suffering taking place in the Mediterranean every day and make us think about why people are prepared to take such risks,” he added.

The memorial has also been welcomed by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, who sent a letter of appreciation to the organizers. A number of leading Italian artists will also attend tomorrow’s unveiling.

For further information, please contact Flavio Di Giacomo at IOM Rome. Tel: +39 06 44 186 207. Email:  fdigiacomo at iom.int

“Mr. Bush, Lead or Leave” says  THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times.
Published: Sunday, June 22, 2008

Two years ago, President Bush declared that America was “addicted to oil,” and, by gosh, he was going to do something about it. Well, now he has. Now we have the new Bush energy plan: “Get more addicted to oil.”

Actually, it’s more sophisticated than that: Get Saudi Arabia, our chief oil pusher, to up our dosage for a little while and bring down the oil price just enough so the renewable energy alternatives can’t totally take off. Then try to strong arm Congress into lifting the ban on drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

It’s as if our addict-in-chief is saying to us: “C’mon guys, you know you want a little more of the good stuff. One more hit, baby. Just one more toke on the ole oil pipe. I promise, next year, we’ll all go straight. I’ll even put a wind turbine on my presidential library. But for now, give me one more pop from that drill, please, baby. Just one more transfusion of that sweet offshore crude.”

It is hard for me to find the words to express what a massive, fraudulent, pathetic excuse for an energy policy this is - says Thomas Friedman.

But it gets better. The president actually had the gall to set a deadline for this drug deal:

“I know the Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past,” Mr. Bush said. “Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I ask them to reconsider their positions. If Congressional leaders leave for the Fourth of July recess without taking action, they will need to explain why $4-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act.”

This from a president who for six years resisted any pressure on Detroit to seriously improve mileage standards on its gas guzzlers; this from a president who’s done nothing to encourage conservation; this from a president who has so neutered the Environmental Protection Agency that the head of the E.P.A. today seems to be in a witness-protection program. I bet there aren’t 12 readers of this newspaper who could tell you his name or identify him in a police lineup.

But, most of all, this deadline is from a president who hasn’t lifted a finger to broker passage of legislation that has been stuck in Congress for a year, which could actually impact America’s energy profile right now — unlike offshore oil that would take years to flow — and create good tech jobs to boot.

That bill is H.R. 6049 — “The Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008,” which extends for another eight years the investment tax credit for installing solar energy and extends for one year the production tax credit for producing wind power and for three years the credits for geothermal, wave energy and other renewables.

These critical tax credits for renewables are set to expire at the end of this fiscal year and, if they do, it will mean thousands of jobs lost and billions of dollars of investments not made. “Already clean energy projects in the U.S. are being put on hold,” said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association.

People forget, wind and solar power are here, they work, they can go on your roof tomorrow. What they need now is a big U.S. market where lots of manufacturers have an incentive to install solar panels and wind turbines — because the more they do, the more these technologies would move down the learning curve, become cheaper and be able to compete directly with coal, oil and nuclear, without subsidies.

That seems to be exactly what the Republican Party is trying to block, since the Senate Republicans — sorry to say, with the help of John McCain — have now managed to defeat the renewal of these tax credits six different times.

Of course, we’re going to need oil for years to come. That being the case, I’d prefer — for geopolitical reasons — that we get as much as possible from domestic wells. But our future is not in oil, and a real president wouldn’t be hectoring Congress about offshore drilling today. He’d be telling the country a much larger truth:

“Oil is poisoning our climate and our geopolitics, and here is how we’re going to break our addiction: We’re going to set a floor price of $4.50 a gallon for gasoline and $100 a barrel for oil. And that floor price is going to trigger massive investments in renewable energy — particularly wind, solar panels and solar thermal. And we’re also going to go on a crash program to dramatically increase energy efficiency, to drive conservation to a whole new level and to build more nuclear power. And I want every Democrat and every Republican to join me in this endeavor.”

That’s what a real president would do. He’d give us a big strategic plan to end our addiction to oil and build a bipartisan coalition to deliver it. He certainly wouldn’t be using his last days in office to threaten Congressional Democrats that if they don’t approve offshore drilling by the Fourth of July recess, they will be blamed for $4-a-gallon gas. That is so lame. That is an energy policy so unworthy of our Independence Day.