INSIGHT : Effective policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Bonn. A new report packed with best practice climate policies from across the world was released on Wednesday by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), revealing a wealth of existing opportunities to immediately scale up reductions in greenhouse gas emissions while powering up ambition to keep the global average temperature rise below 2°C.

“Science tells us that there is one path for us to be able to have a stable planet and a safe stable economy, and that is to get onto a below 2°C path – that is fundamental – and policy is actually following science as it should,” said Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, speaking to reporters in Bonn, Germany.

Less than two weeks away from the UN climate conference in Paris, widely known as COP21, she announced that 168 countries, covering almost 90 per cent of global emissions, had submitted their national climate targets, known as INDCs.

“These do make a huge dent in the projected increase in temperature that we would have by the end of the century, so if these INDCs are fully implemented then we would no longer be on a track of 4 or 5°C, we would be on a track of anywhere between 2.7 and 3°C, which is a much, much better projection in temperature rise,” Ms Figueres continued, but warned that this is not yet two degrees or below 2°C, which is what some countries still need for their survival and safety.

Introducing the new UNFCCC report— Climate Action Now – A Summary for Policymakers 2015, Ms Figueres said it is a “solutions” guide. It explains how nations can deploy a wide range of proven policies and utilise existing initiatives to meet the common challenge of climate change and sustainable development.

It also highlights both national and international cooperative actions while underling the vital role of non-State actors such as companies, cities, regions and provinces in realising bigger reductions in current and future emissions.

UNFCC further described the report as providing, at the request of governments, a straightforward, inspiring go-to-reference to assist ministers, advisors and policymakers pursuing climate actions now and over the years and decades to come.

The findings spotlight how effective policies across six key thematic areas not only reduce emissions rapidly but also advance goals in 15 other critical economic, social and environmental areas.

“Under the UNFCCC, governments have, over the past few years, led a significant effort during a series of technical expert meetings to identify and scope out the policies that lead to effective climate action – this report is the fruit of that effort,” Ms Figueres explained.

“It underlines the myriad of remarkable transitions that are already occurring nationally and internationally in areas ranging from renewable energy to transportation and land use. In doing so it provides governments and their partners with the blueprints and tool-kits to cost-effectively catalyse action now and take the Paris agreement to the next level of long term ambition,” she added.

She also noted that the “remarkable reality” revealed in this report is that the very policies that deal most effectively with climate change also offer a ready-made portfolio of actions that can equally assist the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by UN Member States in September.

Responding to questions from the press on how the recent attacks in Paris could affect the conference, the Executive Secretary said the UN was still addressing how security around the many events planned could be increased, and that she thought “this should be a call for personal prudence” on the part of everyone. In another development, United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon hosted a meeting on the links between water management and disaster risk reduction on Wednesday, stressing that floods, droughts and cyclones had caused more than $1 trillion in damages and affected over 4 billion people since 1990.

“The poor and most vulnerable have suffered first and worst,” he told, the second meeting convened as part of the UN High-Level Water and Sanitation Days 2015, a set of coordinated events taking place from November 18-20 at UN Headquarters in New York. The events coincide with final meeting of the Secretary-General’s Special Advisory Board on the issue.

“Issues of water and disaster resilience are so intimately related that it is impossible to think of one without the other. Yet too often we do, by thinking in silos and responding in fragmented ways. It is time to close these conceptual and operational gaps.”

Wednesday’s meeting came just 12 days before the opening of the UN climate change conference, widely known as COP21, in Paris, where world leaders will strive to develop a plan to mitigate global warming and its concomitant effects, which scientists say will include more devastating droughts, catastrophic flooding and destructive cyclones.

Mr Ban highlighted the vital role that water management and disaster risk reduction play in ensuring food security, increased access to energy, and in tackling the challenges of rapid urbanization.

“Investments in climate resilience and disaster risk reduction can also help combat climate change, save lives and avoid the destruction of vital infrastructure,” he said.

He appealed for global commitment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the framework accord adopted in March at the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, in Sendai, Japan, in which water management and disaster risk reduction are fully integrated.

“Member States have put in place a set of goals and targets that encourage cross-sectoral thinking in both the understanding of risks and our approach to managing them. They encourage whole-of society efforts that engage science, civil society and the business community to work in partnership,” he said.

“Let us build on the Sendai Framework of Action and Agenda 2030. Let us make the most of the climate change conference that opens in Paris in just 12 days,” he added. “Solutions exist. We have the tools. Our challenge is to connect the dots and work in an integrated manner towards the goals we share.”

In his remarks to the event, General Assembly president Mogens Lykketof said those taking part in the high-level discussions must dedicate themselves to 15 years of targeted and transformative action. Governments need to respond to the SDG goals and targets, meet the commitments they made in Addis and take the necessary measures to mainstream disaster risk reduction into their planning and activities.

“Other stakeholders – civil society, the private sector, particularly insurance companies – must also examine what changes they themselves must undertake and what changes they can help bring about,” he said, stressing that such multi-stakeholder action would be at the heart of a high-level thematic debate he would hold on April 11-12 next year.

It will focus on sustainable consumption and production, on technology, infrastructure, gender equality, taxation and aligning private sector activities with sustainable development objectives. And it will facilitate and highlight new strategic actions and partnerships to support implementation in these areas.

“Thereafter, the World Humanitarian Summit in May can mark a major turning point for a world struggling to adapt to humanitarian situations. And in October 2016, the Habitat III conference can demonstrate how all of these frameworks are leading to action in the area of housing and sustainable urban development.”

Also today, the secretary-general’s advisory board issued its 10-year report in which it said water continues to be undervalued and badly managed despite a growing crisis with an increasing number of people living under water stress, worsening flood and drought catastrophes, degrading ecosystems, and exacerbated political tensions in water-scarce areas.

“We have not paid enough attention to the ground rules of sharing water – across sectors, and across regional or national boundaries,” it added, stressing that it had to convince the most senior decision-makers of the centrality of the water issue. “Lack of adequate access to drinking water and sanitation plagues billions of people, especially the poorest.”

It highlighted the urgency of ensuring safe, uncontaminated drinking water, providing proper sanitation and toilets not only in the home but in schools, clinics, workplaces and markets, dedicating increased funding and preventing water pollution through waste-water treatment and safe reuse.

“Governments must take proactive and preventive action on growing water-related risks – governments still lagging behind must fast-track institutional reforms for better management and enhanced accountability. They must boost funding and strengthen capacities, especially in water-related statistics and administrative monitoring,” the board concluded.

It also called on the UN to better address water-related risks. “Considering that a lot of UN organisations deal with water but only as a marginal issue, nothing less than a full-scale water-cultural revolution within the UN is needed,” it warned.

“Relevant UN organisations need to allocate (more) core funding to water and need to review their policies. It is, for example, high time that WHO (UN World Health Organisation) endorsed water, sanitation and hygiene as primary prevention.”

Its recommendations include setting up a UN inter-governmental committee and a scientific panel on water and sanitation, strengthening UN-Water, the UN inter-agency coordination mechanism for all freshwater related issues, and establishing a comprehensive and independently reviewed global monitoring framework.

“Adequate sanitation, healthy aquatic ecosystems and sound water management are essential for human well-being and sustainable development,” Mr. Ban said in a foreword to the report. “Yet increasingly, water-related problems are putting countries, ecosystems, economies and citizens, especially women and children, at risk.” (UN News Centre)