The UN Climate Conference 2011 in Durban, South Africa brought together representatives of the world’s governments, international organisations and civil society to decide on the next steps of the international climate agreement.

Climate Alliance urged the international negotiations to consider the role of local authorities – we are committed and without local authorities and their achievements the ambitious climate targets remains an illusion.

Read more about our activities and messages for Durban (400 KB)

Handover of "Green Footprints" to UNFCCC Executive Secretary at COP17

More than 200,000 children in 25 countries collected 2.7 Million “Green Footprints” for the UN Climate Conference in Durban. On Wednesday, 30 November, Climate Alliance handed over the “Green Footprints” to UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres.

Further information here.

Teaming up to meet the targets - Climate Alliance @ COP 17 in Durban

Germany has an ambitious emission reduction target of
40 % by 2020 (based on 1990). In order to achieve this target the actions by local authorities are crucial. From 1990 until today, Climate Alliance members in Germany have reduced their emissions by almost 30 %, therefore having contributed above-average to the current national emission reduction of around 21 %. It seems that Climate Alliance members will achieve well beyond the national target of 40% by 2020.

In Durban the German Pavilion on the 1st of December hosted a joint event organized by Climate Alliance and the German Federal Ministry of Environment. The event focused on the German Climate Initiative as an example how national governments can support climate mitigation activities at the local level. Engaging the local level is crucial for Germany in its work towards fulfilling its emissions reduction obligations and achieving the 2 degree target. Putting Germany’s “Energiewende” into practice depends upon major transformations at the local level where authorities, in collaboration with all stakeholders, need to fulfil a leadership role.

During the event Climate Alliance, the City of Bremen and the Municipality of Rethem-Aller showed concrete results on how local government efforts can contribute to achieving ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.

Summary of the event

Teaming Up to Meet the Targets: Germany's “Energiewende” Put Into Practice (pdf, 124 KB)

Climate Action in Cities: Covenant of Mayors @COP17, Durban

On Friday, 2 December, during COP17 in Durban, the European Union Stand Programme hosted a presentation organized by the Directorate-General Climate Action on the topic of “Climate Action in cities”.

The significance of urban development for transition towards a low-carbon and climate resilient society was the main focus of the event. An introduction was given by the DG Climate Action, and it was followed up by local level activities on climate mitigation in the European Union. Climate Alliance contributed to this event by showing the commitment of the European cities in the framework of the Covenant of Mayors (CoM). Also the new extension of the Covenant of Mayors Initiative to East – engaging Eastern Partnership and Central Asian cities – was introduced.

The lively discussion focused on key questions regarding political commitments that need to be pursued, the practical development of the sustainable energy action plans (SEAPs) and the implementation of the necessary measures for achieving the CO2 reduction targets.

The breakdown in negotiations during the Copenhagen conference in 2009 reinforced fundamental concerns about the role of the UN in the international negotiations. Expectations were extremely high in the run-up to Copenhagen. The conference was to lead to an ambition climate protection agreement for the time after the Kyoto Protocol expired in 2012. The conference ultimately ended with the "Copenhagen Accord", a three-page document that was not agreed by those present, but merely "acknowledged" by them. In 2010, doubt about the contribution international negotiations actually make to the resolution of global issues also lay like a misty veil over other important processes, similar to at COP-10 in Nagoya with regard to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Accordingly, expectations in the run-up to the Climate Conference in Cancún were extremely subdued.

The agreement reached at the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún was largely judged to be positive however. Even otherwise critical NGOs assessed the results with relative optimism – and that although it at times looked as if the entire process would break down. Japan declared that it would not agree to any further commitments within the scope of a follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. Other countries including Russia and Canada subsequently followed suit, joining Japan in this declaration. This "shock" crippled the conference entirely.

It is not entirely clear whether the positive atmosphere can be attributed to the handful of concrete results, or rather to the relief that the process in itself will be continued. The fear of a breakdown was so great that one of the United Nations’ fundamental regulations was bypassed during conclusion of the agreement, namely that resolutions can only be reached with a consensus. Bolivia rejected the agreement, and threatened to file a complaint with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

An objective evaluation of the results is therefore extremely difficult, as the entire process is meanwhile composed of a great many individual processes and instruments, which are at different stages of negotiation. A positive or negative evaluation therefore primarily depends on one’s own expectations and an analysis of the individual points.  

Here's the evaluation from the perspective of the Climate Alliance in German.

The biggest climate summit ever ends with a rotten compromise, which must be tagged as climate crisis: a vague declaration without any concrete targets or committments. 120 Heads of State and Government go away empty-handed.

Industrialized countries can freely choose their reduction targets by 2020 until 1 February 2010. The target of a 80 % reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 was taken out of the text in the very last moment.

Only the promise of a $30 billion per year funding to battle climate change for 2010 to 2012 and of $100 billion per year from 2020 onwards in developing countries remained as positive factor in the "Copenhagen Accord", which was accepted in the weakest possible way: "the Conference takes note". No surprise, as most of the other of the 192 total countries almost immediately tore to shreds the compromise plan that a group of 30 countries presented in the final plenary.

The "Copenhagen Accord" is the desperate but miscarried attempt to save face. A clear failure could have been a better result, leading to a collective wake-up and the work on completely new approaches.

In the welcoming ceremony of the High Level Segment on Tuesday 15 December most of the statements concentrated on the necessity of achieving an ambitious climate agreement in Copenhagen. The message of the president of the COP 15, Connie Hedegaard was particularly direct emphasising the need for many compromises and the necessity of taking big steps forward. The executive secretary of the UNFCCC Yvo de Boer repeated the concern and appealed to the parties by mentioning the Green Footprints (ZOOM Campaign) as a concrete example of the expectations of the citizens – and the future generation – to seal the deal in Copenhagen.

Earlier the same day the Governor of California, Mr Arnold Schwarzenegger highlighted the role of subnational and local governments. In his view the subnational governments are already - and will even more in the future - significantly push the global climate protection efforts forward regardless of what is decided in the international negotiations. He stated that even if there would be no climate agreement as a result of the COP 15, the contribution and engagement of the subnational governments could be considered as the great achievement of Copenhagen. He also made an appeal to the UNFCCC to organize a dedicated Climate Summit for cities, and offered to host it in California.

Government representatives of around 190 states met in Poznan to discuss climate change strategies.

The two-week conference ended with only few results: a work programme for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 2009 and the operationalisation of the Adaptation Fund, which should provide financial support for adaptive measures to climate change especially for states in the south.

There were almost no signs of an ambitious post-Kyoto agreement. The industrialised countries could not agree on a convention for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. There was also no progress regarding forest protection across from the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali.