It seems amazing that I find myself here, at the next Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)…… Has it really been a year already?! There is so much that I wish I could report had been accomplished in the interim. Alas, the formal, international treaty process continues to grind along – slowly, inefficiently, without the results that are necessary NOW.

There has never been a need for more urgency to address the challenges of climate change. All of the evidence that has come out of recent research demonstrates that, if anything, we underestimated the speed with which climate change would impact our ecosystems – and our lives. Better science, it seems, does not lead to better decision making. The diplomatic efforts proceed unchanged by new information – grinding along the same fault lines that have challenged the UNFCCC from the beginning. I believe it is time to ACT.

There has been a lot of progress in the last year in the voluntary carbon marketplace, along with significant technical, financial, and policy advances. Most of these come from trying to achieve something…..sometimes flawed, and certainly small in scope – but with the intent of gaining experience that can lead to better ideas and implementation in the future. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good. At this juncture, one year form the 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit in Rio, when we first started addressing this challenge through the UN process…..I find myself with mixed feelings. I feel great concern that we have been so self absorbed – such that we are being very slow to respond to a challenge that is so clearly urgent. This preoccupation is tempered by the fact that I begin to see motion in the sector of forestry and climate change. there is almost something of a critical mass -I can almost see it on the horizon, not quite, but close….there is something happening. I sincerely hope it catches and grows!

Keegan Eisenstadt

Hello ClearSky friends and climate change concerned citizens,

I’m still in Cancun and feeling very inspired by the action from 3:30AM this morning. Quite honestly, this is a truly impressive feat of diplomacy by the Mexicans. This is a big win for REDD, CCS, and a new Green Fund (World Bank is interim trustee). All major players are happy (with the exception of a small block headed by Bolivia, Cuba, and Venezuela).

Specific elements of the Cancún Agreements include:

• Industrialized country targets are officially recognized under the multilateral process and these countries are to develop low-carbon development plans and strategies and assess how best to meet them, including through market mechanisms, and to report their inventories annually.
• Developing country actions to reduce emissions are officially recognized under the multilateral process. A registry is to be set up to record and match developing country mitigation actions to finance and technology support from by industrialized countries. Developing countries are to publish progress reports every two years.
• Parties meeting under the Kyoto Protocol agree to continue negotiations with the aim of completing their work and ensuring there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods of the treaty.
• The Kyoto Protocols Clean Development Mechanisms has been strengthened to drive more major investments and technology into environmentally sound and sustainable emission reduction projects in the developing world.
• Parties launched a set of initiatives and institutions to protect the vulnerable from climate change and to deploy the money and technology that developing countries need to plan and build their own sustainable futures.
• A total of $30 billion in fast start finance from industrialized countries to support climate action in the developing world up to 2012 and the intention to raise $100 billion in long-term funds by 2020 are included in the decisions.
• In the field of climate finance, a process to design a Green Climate Fund under the Conference of the Parties, with a board with equal representation from developed and developing countries, is established.
• A new Cancun Adaptation Framework is established to allow better planning and implementation of adaptation projects in developing countries through increased financial and technical support, including a clear process for continuing work on loss and damage.
• Governments agree to boost action to curb emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries with technological and financial support.
• Parties have established a technology mechanism with a Technology Executive Committee and Climate Technology Centre and Network to increase technology cooperation to support action on adaptation and mitigation.

With renewed hope I begin to think that we are moving slowly forward.  The T-shirt from the youth delegation of the Solomon Islands claiming “You have been negotiating about this for longer than I have been alive.  You can’t tell me you need more time.” Somehow seems less of an indictment this morning.  Let’s see where we go from here.

Excited and hopeful,

Keegan

The heavy interest in REDD+ projects is palpable here in Cancun.  What is not so evident is that the compliance markets are going to be ready to move the REDD+ agenda forward.  Even if an agreement comes out of this COP, it will effectively be authorizing the technical working groups to begin work on the REDD+ protocols and methodologies for national level REDD.  I repeat, to BEGIN work.  That leaves the non-UN markets to lead the way and pioneer the path forward for REDD+.

Timed to coincide with the COP meetings, the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS), has approved two distinct methodologies for use in the market, and the Climate Action Reserve (CAR) of California has formally begun the process to include REDD+ from the States of Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo in Mexico.  So the voluntary carbon market is releasing REDD+ project methodologies for use around the world, and CAR is beginning to formally push sub-national action for the California compliance cap and trade market.  The development of these two tracks is vitally important for REDD+.  It formally opens a path to market for actions that have been contemplated, or are currently being worked on, in the field to access the market, NOW.  It also demonstrates the interest of the marketplace for REDD+ credits – and that the world has moved on.

There is a bit of a feeling like the UN process is already behind the Voluntary Market and the regional compliance carbon markets with respect to REDD+.  This may not be true forever, but there is certainly a window for the next few years when the voluntary market and the CAR market will dominate the action on the ground.  I hope that the UNFCCC process will embrace the work done in those markets and learn from them for the CDM – and not decide to reinvent the wheel. 

In the short term, I look forward to implementing some REDD+ projects – under the newly validated VCS methodologies or in Mexico under CAR!

Saludos a todos,

Keegan

Climate Ride California, was a success!  Keegan Eisenstadt, ClearSky CEO, and Devin Trainor, ClearSky’s new intern, cycled together as part of the first California Climate Ride.  Over 100 riders rolled along the northern coast of California as part of a fundraising bike ride for climate change awareness and bike advocacy.

Here Devin reports on his experience:

It took a full week of dedication and extreme logistics but we pulled it off!  The sleep deprivation and sweat was well worth it.  Each rider raised $2,400 for the event.  This money was donated to 1 Sky, Rails to Trails Conservancy, and Green America.  Riders were cyclists, non-cyclists, educators, students, business people, advocates, young, and old.  The ride was a forum for creating climate action connections through an untraditional platform – the bicycle.   The bicycle took us through the impressive coastal redwoods.  Cycling 320 miles created a common experience for all of us to struggle through.  As we were pushing up hills, a comparative simile came to mind of the climate policy struggle our nation has been pushing on Capitol Hill.  We endured these long hills and full days to contemplate, connect, raise money, and raise awareness.

The ride is best summarized by day 3:  A 100 mile day.

• A 7am departure,
• A 10 hour ride,
• Devoured every edible part of a pasta dinner,
• Listened to captivating lectures from University of Pennsylvania’s, Dan Garofalo, and an internationally acclaimed photographer, Chris Jordan,
• With images of decaying seabirds and colorful plastics piles where their stomachs should have been, the riders set up camp and go to sleep while the staff summoned energy to plan the entire next day.

As part of my ClearSky internship, I am positioned to gain a foot into the complex world of current climate action.  The issues are immense and often intimidating.  Educating oneself goes as far as your mind is willing to participate, then what?  Information does not act on its own, it must be translated into action.  Climate Ride is one approach, and it all adds up!

As jet-lag refuses to abate, I find myself writing this post at 4:40AM.  It is early morning in Cambodia, and I’m here to have a look at the new Avoided Deforestation project being designed in Northern Cambodia.  The Oddar Meanchey Community Forest REDD Project, implemented by The Forest Administration of Cambodia, Terra Global Capital, and Pact Inc.  There is a novel experiment happening in the forest of Cambodia – rural, forest-dependent communities are being engaged in the international carbon market in a way not previously seen.  Numerous communties along a river valley, that leads eventually to the Mekong River, are aggregating their good stewardship of their forests in an avoided deforestation project.  The rural communities are all being vested with secure land title from the national forestry authority.  This is something of great importance to the communities, and something they have never had.  It is also considered to be a lynchpin to achieving sustainable management by forest communities around the world.  If the people become owners of the lands, are they apt to manage it differently than if they are users of the forest?  That’s the question.  It is often taken for granted that a homeowner treats the home beter than a tenant renting the space.  Is that true of forests as well?

The accumulation of rural farming villages, tree resin collectors, and buddhist monks leading the various communities have aggregated their efforts to protect their forests.  It is now “their” forests.  In exchange for protection and monitoring, guarding and measuring their forests against threats of harvest from outside, the communities also hope to gain access to the voluntary carbon marketplace.  The project is in the finals stages of validation/verification under the Voluntary Carbon Standard.  It will soon generate revenues from the sale of carbon credits, which will be shared amongst the Forest Administration, TerraGlobal Capital and the communities themselves. 

ClearSky is keenly interested in seeing the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) carbon credit marketplace take off in a robust manner.  It has a unique opportunity to be a win-win-win scenario.  By intimately involving communities in the design/implementation and rewards of a carbon project, the carbon funds can bring about more secure livelihoods for forest-dependent peoples around the world.  At the same time, REDD proejcts can protect the atmosphere and climate regime as well as the forests and biodiversity from areas that have not been significantly impacted. 

If the experiment works – it can achieve numerous goals at the same time.  That is something well worth looking into!

The headlines may have escaped your attention last week, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just released their financial analysis of the American Power Act (APA) – a bill that has been proposed in the US Senate for reducing our nation’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  The APA aims to reduce US GHG pollution 17% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, through a combination of approaches including a cap-and-trade system for the electric power industry and tax incentives for renewable energy.

US climate change legislation is projected to cost less than $0.40 per day for US households - less than a postage stamp!

Over the next 40 years until 2050, the APA is projected to cost households an average of $79 to $146 per year.  That’s less than your Netflix^© subscription for a year, less than your cell phone bill for 3 months, and less than your grocery bill for 2 weeks.  And for households really focused on trimming spending during the tough economic situation, the EPA showed that the APA will actually reduce average energy bills during the next 10 years.

The bill’s sponsors, Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), were very pleased by the EPA’s findings.  So were national environmental groups and businesses leaders.  Opponents of federal climate legislation have used scare tactics about potential outrageous costs of GHG regulation to support their reluctance, so how will they continue to stand in the way of our nation’s transition to a cleaner, greener future?  It’s time for all of us to rally behind clean energy legislation, while the cost is still cheap and the benefits are enormous!

With the newest climate change bill unveiled in the Senate last week, it has kick-started the same debate: to ’solve’ climate change or to focus on reviving the economy.  Interestingly, there are few actors in the policy and economic debate that view the two goals as linked.  However, bringing about a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions IS an economic development activity.  I find the inability to link the two goals in the news to be fascinating.  How is it possible that the US discourse can be so short-term?  How can the planet’s future ability to comfortably sustain human society be addressed by a system that has tremendous difficulty seeing beyond the next election cycle, the next fiscal-year, the fiscal quarter or the close of business stock price?  It is proving to be quite a challenge!

That said, the more bills that come out of the House and Senate, the better chance we have of joining the world in earnestly reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.  Having looked at the bill, and its predecesors, it comes nowhere close to the target set by the international scientific community.  But then, it appears that isn’t the goal of the first piece of climate change legislation in the US.  Instead, it appears that the goal is really to START….and to then adapt and fix it along the way.

As the long, heart-breaking process of watching the US Senate wrangle through another piece of climate legislation begins, it is a good time to reflect and take a deep breath.  As the teeth of the legislation become dull during the process, it is important to realize that TO START is the key.  To make the new societal baseline understanding, “one of action” appears to be the key.  After all, if the carbon market is still considered a key component of our response to climate change in 50 years – we will have missed the boat.  It is a great transitional tool, to leverage the efficiency of markets to achieve the common goal of reduced greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.  But the ultimate goal, transitioning off of a fossil fuel economy is the key to humanity’s response to this challenge.  The carbon market, and carbon offsets provide a unique opportunity to make the transition away from our fossil fuel addiction much easier and quicker – but the carbon offset, in and of itself, is not the solution.

I guess, understanding the ultimate goal and comparing that to the current state of debate – one can take heart that the debate has begun…….and NONE TOO SOON (and a little bit late)!!!

Another deep breath…….and a lot of work…..and we’ll change the world.

Keegan Eisenstadt