Mr. Lechtenbohmer from Germany started off with a summary of the inaugural meeting that was held in Bologna in October 2009 and presented the Synthesis Report published by the LCS-RNet Secretariat hosted by IGES, Japan. The goal of the network is to promote research cooperation to enhance understanding of how a future low carbon society will look like. In that occasion a roadmap was discussed and proposed. Five are the main points of the agreed roadmap:

1) Long and mid term targets;
2) Economic aspects of low carbon societies;
3) Role of technology;
4) Public policy and life style change;
5) Cross-cutting issues such as planning for land use and human resource development;

Dr. Clini, Director of the Minister for the Environment, Land and Sea – Italy, managed to take a break from the negotiations to join the event and give a insightful speech. He emphasized the role this network could play in addressing climate change because as it gives an example of an important infrastructure to approach the climate change issue. Besides what will happen in Copenhagen, it is crucial to identify concrete ways to identify technologies and mechanisms for facilitating international cooperation on appropriate technologies and energy systems. In this perspective, the activities of the low carbon network represent an important step forward: participants from the LCS-RNet brought examples of transition path towards low carbon societies from their own countries, stressing the role of domestic actions and policies in order to promote technology diffusion and social and behavioral changes.

Discussions are expected to exceed the regular timetable – as it happened in quite some cases during the last days – due to the unsatisfactory status of the works performed by the groups so far, both under the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol tracks. “We do not deserve a good mark” said the Chair of the LCA group that is negotiating the Convention in the afternoon, presenting the outcome of the efforts undertaken.

On the LCA table now you could see a set of draft decision texts for the consideration of the COP: a core decision plus 10 thematic decisions. Now it’s really time to fix the texts, because the themes on which convergence cannot be found will be forwarded, full of options as they are now, to the political level. Which is not necessarily a good thing since decisions at that time will be made on very different basis than technical considerations.

Throughout the day informal consultations have been held by the Chair, who tried to solve some points on financial resources and investment, on the various approaches for enhancing mitigation including market mechanisms, as well as on specific mitigation actions for agricultural sector. Other issues have been sent out of the room to seek a last-minute agreement, but apparently the discussions in drafting groups have proved to be disappointing once again. Now the LCA plenary scheduled for at 7pm has been postponed at 10pm, and the Chair will decide what to do to avoid delivering an insufficient homework.

On the KP side a new compilation of draft texts has been prepared and presented, and here the cover page states: “the Chair would like to stress that nothing will be agreed until everything else is agreed”. The KP discussion in plenary setting is planned to take place after the LCA session.

It’s going to be a long long night.

In the light of this, yesterday was not a real day-off for many negotiators. The COP President Connie Hedeegard convened informal consultations with the involvement of a number of Ministers (almost 50) who were already in town in order to kick off a political process before the official high-level segment starts on Wednesday. A strong political guidance is indeed needed as soon as possible. African countries and least developed States have in fact blocked the negotiations. They declared that, unless the issue of emission reduction targets by developed countries is addressed and set without delay, they will refuse to further participate in the negotiations. Besides that, developing countries are pushing to have more clarity on the legal form of the Copenhagen outcome, to be resolved before deciding on the substance of the text. High-level Chinese and Indian representatives pointed out that they expect key elements to be agreed before their arrival in Copenhagen. In their view, this is to avoid a situation where western leaders fly in and rush developing country Parties, forcing their hands on main points on the last day of the conference.

As a consequence, today’s drafting groups – that had been working on the “daughter decisions” for days – were stopped, and another general informal consultation session was held. COP Presidency sketched a list of crunch political issues to be discussed at the “informal political level”, including developed countries’ emission reduction targets and long-term financing that appear as the hardest nuts to crack. This is intended to provide world leaders with a condensed number of options to fix during the final segment. Some Ministers were selected to help the Presidency conduct this informal dialogue on critical issues. So experts are now supposed to resume the works of drafting that had been interrupted to finalize the remaining technical aspects in the meanwhile.

Negotiators can sense the feeling of nervousness and slight diffidence in the rooms, which is definitely not a good sign for the coming days.

This joint side event – Hot spots. Projections and impacts of climate change in the Mediterranean and Caribbean Areas – represents a concrete action of the cooperation set up between these two research centers.
In 2005 the  CCCCC has been recognized as a Centre of Excellence by the World Bank, various UN Agencies and Governments crediting it to enable the grant from the Government of Italy. This grant was provided under a Memorandum of Understanding, signed on December 15, 2004 in Buenos Aires, between the Ministry of the Environment and Territories of Italy and the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre. In the same year, CMCC was established with the support of the Italian Ministries of the Environment, Land and Sea,  Education, University and Research, and Economy and Finance.

The side event has been introduced by Dr. Corrado Clini who stressed the role of collaboration. Especially, similarities and differences of these two areas could help to understand and design measures in orpe with climate change effects.

Such position has been emphasized also by Dr. Leslie (CCCCC). He explained the symbolic role of the event as a landmark and milestone. First, cooperation with Italy is an important example of institutional cooperation in dealing with climate change. Second, collaboration in addressing adaptation to climate change and develop joint programs show how cooperation on climate change should be realized. Finally, Caribbean countries could learn from what would be implemented in the Mediterranean area.

Climate and economic vulnerability in developing countries has been analyzed from different prospective.

Dr. Trotz (CCCCC) presented the impacts of climate change in the Caribbean region. The bottom line is that they are already experiencing climate change effects with 2008 recording one of the most devastating hurricane season. The IPCC has classified this region among the most vulnerable regions and climate change impacts will exacerbate this vulnerability. The future for the Caribbean looks drier and warmer, hurricanes becoming more intense, more extreme events such as droughts and floods and related stresses. In particular, negative impacts are expected on the following areas: agriculture, sea level rise, water resources, renewable energy, and land use.

On regard to economic evaluation, Prof. Carlo Carraro (CMCC) spoke about the economic assessment of climate change impacts.
Starting from two different climate scenarios (+1.2 and +3.1°C by 2050 compared to 2001) , the CMCC has assessed the economic value of different physical impacts in the Mediterranean region using a general equilibrium, sectoral model (ICES), including impacts on health, sea level rise, tourism, agriculture, energy use. These impacts affect labor and land productivity, energy demand, health expenditure and tourism flows. Major negative impacts are in Africa and South-East Asia, whereas some developed regions such as Northern Europe could gain from climate change. Market adjustment is already a first form of adaptation to climate change. Indeed, for all regions the final impact on the economy will be lower comparing to direct economic impacts of climate change. For example, in the case of agriculture market adaptation, via changes in relative prices and yields, can reduce impacts. A similar conclusion can be observed in the health sector and in the tourism industry. Still there are regions that will suffer a lot despite market-driven adaptation. Developed countries (Europe) can adapt easier than less developed regions (North Africa and Middle East), and therefore policy-driven adaptation and cooperation on adaptation still plays a crucial role.

Finally, Dr. Emanuele Massetti (CMCC) presented mitigation issues for the Euro-Mediterranean area, including Europe, Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Results have been obtained using the WITCH model. MENA has a fast-growing population, surpassing Europe in 2045. Emission catching-up is faster in absolute values, but not per-capita. Stabilization at 535 co2-eq in 2100 would require emissions peak in 2015 in Europe and a bit later in MENA (2025). Per-capita reduction must be much faster in Europe than MENA. But how can we reduce emissions? Decarbonization of the developed world and improvement of energy efficiency in the developing countries are the answers proposed. In particular, Europe is already efficient in terms of energy use, thus, it should improve the carbon content of its energy decarbonizing energy supply. On the contrary, in MENA there are more opportunities to improve energy efficiency because existing inefficiencies. Incremental investments would be of the order of 100 billion per decade. Indeed, it represents more a managerial challenge instead of a financial challenge. Technology is the key answer to change the energy mix: adopting already existing technologies and investing for the development of new options. Finally, a stable and credible long-term signals are essential. One proposal presented is the introduction of a Global Carbon Tax on the top of a cap-and-trade system. This could lead to the progressive decarbonisation of the world stimulating the technology innovation in developed countries and the improvement of energy efficiency in the developing world as well as addressing investments in low-zero technologies.
Cooperation of developing and developed countries such as the one established between CCCCC and CMCC could be the starting point in fighting climate change impacts.

Among them the joint side event organized by CMCC and Caribbean Community Climate Change Center: “Hot spots. Projections and impacts of climate change in the Mediterranean and Caribbean Areas” which will take place on Monday, 14 Dec 2009 – Room: Liva Weel.

New results on the nature and mechanisms of climate variability, its impacts and their economic consequences in the Mediterranean and Caribbean Areas will be presented.

An integrated analysis will provide new insights on climate impacts and adaptation measures.

The complete list of Copenhagen events with the participation of CMCC

In the setting of extraordinary informal consultations held in the morning today, the Chairs of the two AWGs presented a provisional outcome of the works performed during this first week.

Michael Zammit Cutajar, the Chair of the AWG-LCA, announced officially that he envisages an “integrated comprehensive balanced package of decisions” as the outcome of Copenhagen negotiations. To this purpose, the first real draft text of an overarching decision has been prepared: it comprises the key elements of the agreement, while the ongoing works of drafting groups are preparing the ground for the thematic daughter decisions on each of these elements. Significantly, this text assumes the adoption of a new commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. In fact, AWG-KP Chair John Ashe has prepared a draft text outlining amendments to the Kyoto Protocol reflecting this solution.

After hearing the first reactions, to let the Parties digest and comment on the text’s substance informal consultations will be reconvened tonight. In the meanwhile drafting groups are still negotiating…

After initial disarray in the corridors for the breaking news, experienced negotiators tried to downplay the speculations recognizing that the document circulated was an “old version already seen in November”, so nothing really worrying for the continuation of the talks in Copenhagen. However, it has to be acknowledged that small developing countries delegations in particular are often informed by the press or NGOs rather than by direct sources such as bilateral meetings with counterparts. This could lead to difficulties to achieve the confidence needed for a clear discussion on substance.

The form of the Copenhagen outcome is expected to be a package of decisions, while the substance will be focused on substantive issues: mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, capacity-building as well as a shared vision on long-term action. In addition, specific provisions for action will be included in the agreement to address immediate needs before 2013.

The negotiations under AWG-LCA (the ad hoc group for long-term cooperative action) are the setting from which the final agreement is expected to stem. The Chair of this group established a number of informal (namely not accessible to observers but only for Parties) meetings intended for drafting the actual texts line by line. Works of the groups are supposed to be finished by Friday when a stock-taking meeting will take place before reporting to the Conference of the Parties on Saturday. The big issue comes from developing country Parties stating that the non-progress or continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, that is being discussed under AWG-KP, will be a real deal-breaker for the whole negotiations.