Shiyang Li, Director of Rare China, recently attended the Clinton Global Initiative Asia Meeting with Nigel Sizer, Vice President of Asia Pacific, and Lindsay Hower Jordern, Director of Individual Giving Programs.

Bill Clinton at the meeting
 

The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Asia meeting was held in Hong Kong Dec. 2-3, and it was one very special meeting — specifically because this is both the first and the last CGI meeting to be held outside the U.S. This is due to Hilary Clinton’s appointment as U.S. Secretary of State. Interestingly enough, President –elect Barack Obama named Hilary Clinton Secretary of State the same day CGI opening. Thus, 400 media representatives rushed to the conference; along with Rare staff Nigel Sizer, Vice President for Asia Pacific; Lindsay Hower Jordan, Director of Individual Giving Programs; and me, Shiyang Li, Direct of Rare China. We were among 400 other people working for the preparation of the conference.

Shiyang works hard for the facilitation team for the Climate Change Group!

The meeting is a collection of celebrities and political elites, – the biggest catches include: Bill Clinton (of course); Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo; Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi; and Former Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew.

For us, the biggest catch was definitely Nigel Sizer, who is a theme leader on climate change – meaning he helped to run this session. Climate change has drawn much more attention over the other two themes at the conference — education and health. Nigel identified three crucial issues to be discussed at the three working sessions. These included: “Green Buildings, Green Cities,” “Valuing Resources, Changing Mindsets,” and “Developing Green Technology and Renewable Energy.”

The working sessions were particularly innovative as all key points from each table discussion were instantly recorded by table facilitators and sent to the theme team, which I was a part of. At the end of each 90 minute working session, Nigel had only 2 minutes to read the discussion record collected from 14 tables, with the help from Lindsay — the deputy theme leader — and made a great presentation summarizing the discussion outcome to all the audiences.

Nigel reviews the table discussions summary from 14 tables on climate change theme and prepare for the presentation

We were pleasantly surprised to find out that forest degradation in Asia and the community engagement have draw so much attention from many participants. This resulted in action oriented financial commitments on alternative energy projects and campaigning in the local communities. Despite the financial climate, we are convinced that Pride and our methodology will address the needs in Asia and draw more attention in the Asian philanthropy landscape.  

Global Warming. Climate Change. Greenhouse Gasses. These are phrases which have seeped into our everyday language. But, what are the effects? Who does is it concern globally? And what are ways to help those at the local level? Rare Pride Program Manager Hari Kushardanto of Indonesia just got back from a training in Bali focusing on climate change. He examines these questions in his recent blog.

In human history I believe this is the first time ever that environmental issues have gathered immense attention from across the globe. This is a time when conservation topics are discussed by everybody from taxi drivers to politicians. And, although it sounds different depending on what language it’s spoken in, global warming is the one phrase that everyone understands.

Global warming may be a hot topic in daily conversation today, and the complexity of the issue has raisin to a greater extent then when the issue first was brought up at the 1992 Earth Summit. Rapid forest degradation in the tropics is believed to contribute a significant amount of CO2 emissions. The impoverished in developing countries, whose livelihoods include agriculture or fisheries, will be the first groups that will suffer due to global climate change and the rise of the sea’s surface temperature. Yet, economic growth was used as development jargon until now. Developed countries are showing greater commitment to developing countries and help lessen greenhouse gasses.

Unfortunately, although greenhouse gas is a phrase which has made it into everyday language all over the world, not everybody knows what greenhouse gasses are and why negative effect occurs. Not everybody understands that peat swamp, or tropical moist forests, contribute to greenhouse gas emission three to four times more than other types of forests. Not everybody realizes that there are two mechanisms, one government regulated and the other a grassroots effort, which have been formed as an incentive for developing countries to reduce CO2 emissions without compromising the right of those in poverty to a sustainable habitat.

Many initiatives for climate change mitigation projects have been developed by scientific communities as well as by governments and the business sector. Yet again, there is little concrete guidance on how to develop an acceptable and sound project. Rare realizes that to change behavior of local people living in or adjacent to rich biodiversity, education alone will not suffice. Rare believes that removing obstacles that hinder climate change will help change behavior. With this, a climate mitigation project can offer local people an incentive for preserving their forest area which can be an important habitat for many imperiled species.

All participants of Rare’s training on Climate Change in Bali on August 26, 2008

Rare works with a variety of partners and at an array of sites around the globe and many of these sites focus on deforestation issues, helping to mitigate global warming. Rare’s Vice president of Asia and the Pacific, Nigel Sizer, has initiated a series of talks and discussions with people and organizations working on climate change issues and plans to introduce a climate change-community-biodiversity project to Rare’s partners. For our partners, and also for Rare’s staff around the world, global warming is an issue well known and to understand their stance and how climate change effects various community through in global, is crucial.

To bring local perspectives together, on August 26 in Bali, Indonesia at green resort surrounded by organic paddy fields, 20 participants attended a training on climate change and forest issues. Some of these participants lead Rare Pride conservation campaigns; others included Rare partners, and Rare staff. I think all participants received the training positively.

Following the training, a separate talk on the Coral Triangle Initiative was given to Rare filed staff in Asia who attended the training. Dewa Gede R Wiadnya, Director for Training, TNC Indonesia gave the talk. It has been a new experience for some to hear about over-fishing and destructive fishing practices, the global initiative to protect the significant coral reef and marine ecosystems on earth, and TNC’s role in this process.  Through working with our partners, and campaign leaders this training was a means to strengthen local conservation actions that is a true catalyst to global impact.          
       

Photographer Jason Houston recently went to the opening of “Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet,” a program co-sponsored by Rare along with the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and Berkeley Art Museum in Berkeley, Calif. The opening was held in San Diego on Aug. 17, and gathered a wide range of contemporary artists and conservationists all pondering: Can contemporary art inspire conservation? Read Jason’s insights on the event and the Human/Nature project (formally titled “Rare Art”). 

view more photos from the exhibit!

I was first introduced to Rare in 2004 when Brett Jenks, Rare President & CEO, called , the magazine where I work as picture editor, to talk about a new program: “Rare Art”. He had big ideas of sending a group of contemporary artists around the world to experience some of the most interesting, biologically important, and critically threatened environments. They would be inspired by the people and places they visit and they would make art. This art would become a traveling exhibition hosted at prestigious contemporary arts museums across the country, bringing the emotional, visceral impact of art to conversations about conservation, and bringing the issue of conservation to new and different audiences.

Rare President and CEO Brett Jenks speaks to contemporary artist Dario Robleto at the project’s opening in San Diego.

He sounded crazy. Not only was the scope and scale of such a project huge for a non-arts organization, but this sort of proactive, collaborative residency program and its related practical agendas is an unusual arrangement in the art world at odds with the independent spirits and conceptually inquisitive approaches of most contemporary artists.

But here we are now, four years after it’s inception, at the opening of “Rare Art,” which has become “Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet.” Eight of today’s leading contemporary artists visited eight UNESCO world heritage sites, bringing back inspiration and creating work born of their individual experiences. This group show opened Sunday August 17th, 2008 at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

The artists (and places) featured in this show are Mark Dion (Komodo National Park, Indonesia), Ann Hamilton (Galápagos National Park, Ecuador), Iñigo Mnglano-Ovalle (El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve, Mexico), Marcos Ramirez ERRE (Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, China), Rigo 23 (Atlantic Forest Southeast Reserves, Brazil), Dario Robleto (Glacier/Waterton International Peace Park, United States and Canada), Diana Thater (iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South Africa), and Xu Bing (Mount Kenya National Park, Kenya). The art ranges from performance and installation to sculpture, drawing, and video.

Some of the work is directly responsive to conservation subjects and issues, while other pieces are more broadly conceptual, related to the artists’ impressions and their personally developed sense of the places they visited. The result is a diverse collection of work exploring value and loss; awe and appreciation; concern and collaboration; and, in all cases, personal and creative connections to the forests, salt flats, glaciers, oceans, and their cultures that many of us have come to know in one way or another in much more literal and traditional ways.

A question posed in the statement accompanying the show is, “Can art inspire conservation? Can conservation inspire art?” The answer to the second part is obviously ‘yes’. The first part has yet to be answered. These works are not, as participating artist Dario Robleto put it, the typical public service announcement style of environmental art. They are focused more deeply on the bigger pictures, and related more tangentially as values-based inquiries that explore the quality of the relationships we have with the natural world. None of the works present explicit calls to action—that would defeat the point. But all present a challenge to the viewer to consider themselves and the natural world in which we live, and to reflect on the complex and interdependent nature of that relationship.

Human/Nature is open at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego until February, when it then travels on to the Berkeley Art Museum in Berkeley, Calif. Click here for a slide show of the preparations and opening events.

Nigel Sizer’s 10th and final post from the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, which kicked of Monday, December 3rd. 

Into extra time!

After a second sleepless night and dramatic wrangling all day, by mid-afternoon the United States capitulated and “joined the consensus.” You’ve all read the news reports and seen the pain on the faces of the exhausted government officials. This was surely the most important decision taken by governments on an environmental issue since the Kyoto Protocol itself was finalized in December 1997. It sets the stage for two years of discussions, pilot programs and further science ending in Copenhagen with COP 15 (via Poland next year) and, hopefully, agreement on commitments beyond 2012 (the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol). Those commitments are likely to include far deeper cuts emissions than anything even imagined in 1997.

What hasn’t come over in the international media coverage, and what I have tried to convey through this blog, is that whatever is happening in the intergovernmental discussions, there are thousands upon thousands of local and national, private and public, scientific and political initiatives blooming around the planet as we all figure out what we can do to help address climate change. I left the Bali Convention Center for the last time incredibly energized by what I have learned, the leaders I had met, and by the vision and creativity I saw each day over the past two weeks.

Descending from the global negotiations back to the communities that Rare works to inspire and help, I look forward to the challenge over the coming weeks and months of helping position this organization as a leading contributor to climate change solutions. Rare can help with demonstration projects to engage communities in reducing forest loss, and with others in conserving coral reefs to improve their resilience to climate change.  We can take those experiences with us to Poland and to Denmark and help others to do likewise. We can create a global network of practitioners who can help truly deliver on the Bali promise.

Nigel Sizer’s 9th post from the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, which kicked off Monday, December 3rd. 

(Note: Today was supposed to be last day of the conference, but negotiations stalled and carried over into Saturday)

The Forests COP?

Negotiators agreed today to include reduction of emissions from deforestation and degradation of forests in the formal intergovernmental climate change process. This will generate major new funds (from carbon markets and from expanding development assistance) for forest conservation in developing countries. The tricky part is figuring out how to spend the money well. This is also a concrete commitment from developing countries to contribute to global efforts to combat climate change. For some, this is the most significant outcome of the Bali COP.

Well, as I write I am sitting in the plenary hall, which has just emptied out. It’s nearly 9pm. Despite earlier deadlock, rumors are the major powers are coming to an agreement on language to take this process forward. But there’s no telling how much longer they need to (literally) cross the “t”s and dot the “i”s on the official text…time to head home to be with my family. Meanwhile, we just heard that the UN Secretary General is flying here from East Timor to help rescue the negotiations.

Exhausted delegates in the plenary hall, two weeks of talk takes its toll

As I have a few minutes almost to myself in this huge room I just noticed that some of the countries have white instead of black name flags. I think these are the ones that have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. From where I am sitting, these are the United States, Serbia, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Chad, Zimbabwe, and the Holy Sea. What great company our country keeps!

The United States has a white name flag, one of very few in the plenary hall.

The media are camped outside the room where the small group of ministers is haggling. When I walked past I didn’t quite realize why they were all there and asked one of the journalists who they were waiting for. She replied, “Paris Hilton!” Alas it was a joke. Instead they were stalking the somewhat less attractive chief US climate negotiator, Harlan Watson, waiting for him to have to pee, so they could get a quick update. He appeared and was mobbed, but he seemed to be enjoying every second of it. I guess it’s not everyday that Mr. Watson gets the Paris Hilton treatment.

US chief climate negotiator, Harlan Watson (in the blue tie) trying to get to the bathroom, mobbed by the media pack

Nigel Sizer’s 8th post from the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, which kicked of Monday, December 3rd. 

Rare’s Arlington neighbor, AES Corporation is here in force. Today their CEO announced plans to invest $600 million in energy plants in Indonesia and Thailand that will run on agricultural waste. The first will be built in Bali. Rice husk and straw waste are traditionally burned in the fields here, producing thick haze for a couple of months each year. AES has long been a leader on climate change, offsetting a power plant’s emissions for the first time 20 years ago.

Governor Maggi, of Matto Grosso state in the Brazilian Amazon, Professor Dan Nepstad of Woods Hole Research Center, and the leader of the Amazon’s rubbertappers agreeing on proposals for reducing deforestation.

Dan Nepstad, of Woods Hole Research Center, presented new estimates of the costs of reducing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. By 2030 he estimates 55 percent of the Amazon would be cleared, logged or otherwise damaged if there are not major changes in policy and financing. In a brilliant exercise in modeling and projection, Nepstad and his collaborators have mapped out, across the entire Brazilian Amazon, the opportunity costs of keeping forest standing. He has shown that about 90 percent of the carbon needs to have a price of less than $5 per tonne, and 94 percent is less than $10 per tonne to outbid more destructive activities. Even building in generous payments to forest peoples and local communities that have already been conserving forests, improving local healthcare and other support, over the next 30 years it would cost only $41 billion to bring deforestation down in the Brazilian Amazon down to zero. This works out to be only $1.2 per tonne of avoided emissions of carbon dioxide – a very good deal as Lord Stern said the day before.

So American corporations and scientists are making huge contributions to progress on climate change, as are over 700 US cities, California, New York and countless other local initiatives. 

And former US Vice President, Al Gore, has arguably made the greatest contribution to moving action on climate change forward. The highlight of the past two weeks was attending his hour-long exhortation to delegates last night to move forward despite the enormous obstacle posed by the White House. “My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for impeding progress here in Bali,” he stressed, to thunderous applause. He then asked all those who had applauded that statement to harness their anger and frustration at the United States and channel it into moving forward, leaving a large space for the next US administration to fill following the elections next year. 

Al Gore exhorting action and leadership from delegates in Bali.

“We are seeing the early stages of a global people power movement for the first time,” exhorted Gore to a thrilled and packed auditorium. He ended on a direct and inspiring note, appealing to us, telling us that we should devote all our efforts to moving action forward since, “This relatively small group of people here in Bali can control the destiny of all humankind.”

As you’ve seen in the media, negotiations are not going well. But this shouldn’t be a surprise, governments have rarely been ahead of concerned citizens on environmental issues. Check out Gore’s website to see the dozens of things you can do now to reduce emissions, none of us need to wait for governments to come to consensus here in Bali, it is up to each person, first and foremost Americans, to lead by doing: http://www.climateprotect.org/

Nigel Sizer’s 7th post from the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, which kicked of Monday, December 3rd. 

Ministers step up

UNEP’s head, Achim Steiner, was characteristically eloquent today. “There is the Bali of the brackets and the Bali of action,” he noted, referring to the challenges of reaching formal agreement and the brackets inserted around text that has not yet been adopted, in contrast with the actions that many are simply stepping forward and announcing. The German Minister of Environment also noted that among many countries the discourse has shifted from waiting for the others to act first to, “this is my contribution now what’s yours?”

Costa Rica, New Zealand and Norway announced this morning their plan to go climate neutral. In other words they will have no net greenhouse gas emissions. The 5 percent reduction targets of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which yesterday celebrated its 10th birthday, start to look insignificant.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, with Celso Amorim, Foreign Minister of Brazil, and Marina Silva, Brazil’s Minister of Environment, discussing Brazil’s leadership on addressing tropical deforestation.

Brazil’s Minister of Environment, Marina Silva, and Foreign Minister, Celso Amorim, launched the Fund for Protection and Conservation of the Brazilian Amazon. Policy reforms in Brazil have lead to a 60 percent fall in deforestation in the Amazon since 2003. But forest loss continues apace and further reductions are harder without significant cash. Brazil has set up a forest monitoring and carbon accounting system, with very conservative assumption, which sells carbon from reduced deforestation, but only after a further fall in deforestation is seen. Gert Leipold, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, took the floor and praised Brazil.

Meanwhile the plenary session saw the UN Secretary general, Indonesia’s President, several other heads of state, and over 100 ministers each making brief speeches.  A few quotes:

“Climate change is upon us, it is time to act…global temperature increase should not exceed two degrees, and this is still within reach” Portugal on behalf of the European Union.

“We cannot willingly accept even a two degree rise in termperatures….no island should be left behind.” Grenada on behalf of the small island states.

“All of us should take bigger and bolder steps to reduce emissions. Brazil is ready to reduce its emissions in a way that is measurable and verifiable and we encourage other developing countries to do the same.” Celso Amorim.

“In my first act as Prime Minister I signed the Kyoto Protocol…climate change is an emerging reality…in Australia our inland rivers are dying, bush fires are becoming more frequent…climate change is the defining challenge of our generation…committed to 60 percent reductions by 2050, with short and medium term targets to be announced soon…there is no plan B, no other planet to escape to.” Kevin Rudd, Australia.

Sigmar Gabriel, Minister of Environment, Germany with Steve Howard, CEO, The Climate Group and Lord Nicolas Stern, reviewing options for major reductions in emissions.

In the evening global climate celebrity and master economist, Lord Nicolas Stern (he was elevated to the House of Lords just last month), leader of the seminal review on the economics of climate change, joined a panel with the German Environment Minister. Lord Stern is very impressive and I have to share his thoughts. He said, “Look, solving this problem is actually quite simple,” and went on to highlight five steps:

1.TARGETS. We need a global target of a 50 percent reduction by 2050, with the rich world reducing emissions by 80 percent, getting us down to about 2-3 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person per year worldwide.  

2.TRADING. Large scale investment in the south is needed via carbon markets under a reformed CDM, if this shows significant benefits to the south then by about 2015 would be reasonable to expect them to start taking on targets as well. Before then would be unfair.

3.FORESTS. $10-15 billion per year would cut deforestation in half, and this would be a very good deal, starting with funding efforts to build and reform the key institutions in each country.

4.TECHNOLOGY. We will see major breakthroughs, and funding should be invested in this area.

5.FOREIGN ASSISTANCE. If rich countries lived up to the commitment they have already made to provide 0.7 percent of GDP for foreign assistance this would generate the increases needed to support adaptation and other efforts.

Easy!
 

Nigel Sizer’s 7th post from the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, which kicked off Monday, December 3rd.

Waking up to tropical deforestation

Ten years ago when I worked at World Resources Institute, we encouraged the world to include efforts to reduce deforestation in the process to address climate change. Many environmental groups were firmly opposed, with some justification, as they felt the focus needed to be on getting the rich world to cut emissions.

A decade has passed and much has changed. The ground-breaking Stern report on the economics of climate change highlighted the relatively low cost of protecting many tropical forests versus the very high costs associated with other means of reducing emissions. The IPCC, co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, mustered global scientific consensus to point out the contribution of tropical deforestation to global emissions, at around 20 percent – too high to be ignored.

Source: IPCC 4th Assessment. Note the significance of emissions from forests.

Now the world is looking seriously at cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of half by about 2030, and I predict they’ll soon be talking about 80-90 percent cuts needed by 2050. So, however you look at it, achieving these goals will be very hard if tropical deforestation continues to expand.

So the highlight of today was the launch by the World Bank’s new President, Bob Zoellick, of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. Ten ministers from major donor countries joined him to announce $300 million to work with tropical countries to reduce deforestation. This is projected to grow to over $1 billion per year by 2011 in new funding. 

World Bank President, Bob Zoellick, with (left to right) Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Chair, UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany’s minister for economic cooperation and development, Bert Koenders, Dutch minister for development cooperation, and (ex-rock star) Peter Garrett, Australia’s brand new minister for environment, heritage and the arts.

This is an important initiative and one that Rare will engage with strongly. While Mr. Zoellick talked, in warm calm tones, about the Bank’s plans to assist tropical countries (none of which managed to send ministers to the event, most painfully Indonesia, the host, the only empty seat on the stage), protestors screamed outside. They were very upset about supposed ongoing Bank support for fossil fuel extraction projects.  They also were concerned that the Bank has not consulted indigenous peoples about their plans.

Since indigenous peoples have actually done a much better job than the rest of us at protecting tropical forests it was a bit of an oversight on the part of the Bank not to engage them more effectively. Mr. Zoellick promised that this would be fixed. Denmark’s minister implied that his country’s support for the program would depend upon resolution of this issue.

Protests outside the World Bank forests event calling for an end to Bank fossil fuel projects and greater inclusion of indigenous peoples in the process.

Rare has conducted several Pride campaigns related to forest fires, tropical forest conversion for farming and grazing, and consolidation of forest reserves. We now have the opportunity to draw upon this experience and create entire cohorts of campaigns around this theme. We will build partnerships with those who can help with the various monitoring and measurement challenges, threat reduction and lessons learning. The Bank may have overlooked local peoples as they launch this effort, but we are confident this aspect will become a central theme and Rare will contribute to developing the new approaches needed to engage and inspire communities at scale, thereby reducing forest loss, conserving livelihoods, cultures and biodiversity, and helping get down emissions.

Nigel Sizer’s 6th post from the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, which kicked off Monday, December 3rd. 

As we head into the second week of the Bali climate marathon the roads are becoming clogged with motorcades as 130 ministers and several heads of state, as well as various top politicians and climate change celebrities show up. The latter are, of course, led by Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri who are flying in directly from Oslo after picking up the Nobel Peace Prize. (Don’t miss Gore’s acceptance speech at http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-lecture_en.html )

Big business is also here by the executive jet-load. Today I joined them for Business Day, organized by the International Chamber of Commerce and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. The latter’s members have a total market value of over seven trillion dollars and their products reach half of all humanity each and every day. They will also be responsible for the bulk of the investments needed to shift the world to a low-carbon economy.

Those investments will be massive. The International Energy Agency’s new World Energy Outlook analysis highlights the challenge. If the world is to see a halving of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (needed to keep climate change from having extremely serious impacts), this would require the following:
- No additional emissions from power plants after 2012.
- 30 new nuclear plants operating every year.
- 2 new dams with the generating capacity of Three Gorges opened every year.
- 17,000 new 3 MW wind turbines installed every year.
- A decrease in carbon intensity year-on-year at about double the rate currently seen.

After presenting these findings, Nabuo Tanaka, head of the International Energy Agency, noted that to expect this shift is surely “science fiction.”

Yvo be Boer, head of the Secretariat of the UNFCCC, and Bjorn Stigson, President of WBCSD confer.

So it was all the more remarkable to have Yvo de Boer, energetic head of the UNFCCC Secretariat, coordinating the entire Bali process, join us and say, “If you in the business community think that achieving this change is science fiction then your companies are heading for extinction.” 

The head of Phillips Lighting for Asia pointed out that while lighting consumes a whopping 19 percent of the world’s energy, two thirds of this is using old technology which it makes complete financial sense to replace with new technology, saving the equivalent energy output of 530 average power plants. Major reductions are well within reach.

The BBC presented results of a recent global poll, which found that in all countries surveyed, including the large developing countries, there is a high level of willingness to pay well-designed carbon taxes. The highest level of support is in China. In other words, the politicians can act if they want to – the science is strong and the citizenry is aware and willing to change behavior even in poor countries.

Gro Harlem Brundtland sharing many decades of wisdom.

Gro Harlem Brundtland provided closing remarks in her new role as UN Special Envoy for Climate Change. It’s 20 years since she lead the Brundtland Commission that published the Our Common Future. At that time, she noted, there was doubt in the commission about whether they could say “climate change is plausible.” Only five years later the UNFCCC was negotiated in Rio de Janeiro, and shortly after the Kyoto Protocol was developed. Ending on a much-needed note of optimism she remarked on how quickly we have actually moved to understand and start to address climate change.  

There is indeed a sense of optimism that a turning point is at hand and that, with mutually assured destruction starring them in the face if they fail to act, the world’s political leaders are poised to make groundbreaking commitments here in Bali.
 

Nigel Sizer’s 5th post from the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, which kicked off on Monday, December 3rd.

Can we connect the poor with global carbon markets?

The poor are already suffering from climate change and they are most vulnerable to future changes in rainfall patterns and temperature, and to the resulting impacts on farming, fisheries, water availability and quality, shifting diseases, storm surge, salinization of coastal soils, floods and droughts, and the list goes on.

Adding insult to injury, as many have noted on the sidelines of the UN climate meeting, the poor are excluded from accessing the flows of funds resulting from the UN climate convention and the association Kyoto Protocol. Billions of dollars is flowing, but it is going to large-scale industrial investments such as landfill and coal mine methane capture, cleaning up coal plants in China, and the new hot option, protecting vast swathes of forest in the tropics. Small projects can’t cover the transaction costs involved. But it may be even worse than this. There are probably cases where large-scale efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions actually make the poor even poorer. Perhaps the clearest example is cases where rural people are pushed off their land as developers move in to establish oil palm or other plantations for biofuel production. Local activists claim that this is already happening in Indonesia.

Rare is deeply concerned about the opportunity that is perhaps being lost to help communities conserve forests, use healthy clean energy instead of smoky woodfuel and kerosene, expand productive agroforestry systems, and even to reduce poverty. We are therefore starting a feasibility analysis of a concept we call the “CO2mmunity Carbon Bank.” Our vision is to develop low cost tools and capability to channel carbon financing to small-scale development projects that also enhance biodiversity conservation.

>>Click here to read more about Rare’s “CO2mmunity Carbon Bank” pilot program.

With this in mind, last night I hosted a brainstorming dinner for ten leading thinkers and entrepreneurs from the world of climate change, community development and conservation. Guests included the founder and president of Ecosecurities (one of the leading companies in the sourcing, developing, and trading of emission reduction credits); Pedro Mauro Costa, and his wife Ruth Nussbaum (he leads a top-flight forest and conservation consulting group); Gerhard Dieterle, senior forestry advisor with the World Bank; Jonathan Wootliff, former head of communications for Greenpeace International; Bill Breed, top climate change advisor with the US Agency for International Development; and Adrian Wells, who leads the UK government’s efforts to partner with Indonesia on climate change issues.

Four hours of non-stop debate provided great input. By the end of the evening we agreed that we had a complex jigsaw puzzle of ideas, opportunities, challenges, and issues on the table in front of us, and that if we can assemble those pieces in the right way we would be onto something extremely important. Sonia Media, who supervises all of Ecosecurities’ emissions reduction partnerships globally (over 500 projects), helped us end discussion on a position note. “Now is the time to try to do this,” she said, adding, “There is a rapidly growing demand for carbon offsets that also help the poor and have other benefits.”

Rare will now roll out the feasibility analysis for the CO2mmunity Carbon Bank, and if it’s favorable, we plan to develop the tools and pilot the program in Indonesia starting in 2008.