Friday 9 November
Partnerships and Global Environment Governance Plenary Room - 9.00-11.00
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Two main proposals for global environmental governance emerged from the High Level Panel. The first, addressed by many panellists in different ways, would involve creating a new multilateral agency or strengthening and empowering an existing body that would be responsible for matters related to climate change.
The second, offered by Louis Michel, Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, would be a global loan mechanism to fund initiatives designed to meet the challenges of climate change. Though he admitted that the details of the scheme have yet to be hashed out, Michel proposed an international lending programme to be funded by the rich countries, “perhaps managed by the World Bank or the IMF” to immediately provide cash to address the issue of climate change.
“Clearly, we at the political level should look at additional funding,” he said. “We can suggest to our partners that they include these concerns in their development plans, but if there are additional costs we should provide assistance.”
By proposing a loan mechanism rather than a grant scheme, Michel was accepting political realities. “If we ask EU members if they are ready to finance this, the answer would be no,” he said. “The loan idea is politically possible. It would encourage investments and could be self-financing.”
Several speakers championed the idea of a new or improved multilateral agency to take responsibility for climate change initiatives. “Why not a worldwide organisation to address this problem?” asked MEP Josep Borrell. “Is it because we don’t believe in it or because there are vested interests?”
The short-term electoral imperatives of national politicians hinder their ability to take tough decisions to solve long-term problems such as climate change, agreed many panellists. Many also agreed that – a step removed – global organisations can withstand many of the immediate pressures.
“If we’re prepared to delegate powers to the market, why not delegate a little of our sovereignty to global governance?” asked Valentine Sendanyoye Rugwabiza of the WTO.
Rugwabiza suggested that climate change could be addressed using the current set of multilateral agencies if national governments seriously set out to implement already existing international agreements on the environment and development. “We need coherence at the national level if we are going to have coherence at the international level,” she said.
Achim Steiner of UNEP expressed frustration because two decades after the Brundtland Report (also known as Our Common Future), there has been no improvement on any of the key indicators highlighted in that document. He added that, according to his figures, CO2 emissions are up by 35% since 2000, meaning since the Kyoto accord was signed.
“There is still a level of contradiction and hypocrisy,” he said. The sundry international environmental agreements signed over the last 30 years have proven ineffective, he recognised. But neither is he enthusiastic about the creation of a new multilateral body. “I am sceptical about jumping to form a new institution,” Steiner said. “Function follows form and there is no consensus about how to do this.”
Nuno Ribeiro da Silva of Portuguese Industrial Association pointed out that producers and consumers sometimes receive contradictory messages from governments on environmental protection. In Portugal, the value added tax (VAT) on electricity is 5%, but when consumers retrofit their homes to make them more energy efficient, they pay 21% VAT on the necessary equipment. Rational tax and pricing policies, such as those that encouraged meat packers to replace outdated freezers in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, could produce interesting results, he said.
Alberto Binger of the University of the West Indies outlined a technological fix that could conceivably receive financing under Michel’s loan scheme. Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, discovered in 1888, uses sea water and the differences in temperature between the ocean’s surface and lower depths to produce energy with zero carbon emissions.
Attached documents
- Background Note [pdf]