Remarks by Charles Chauvel MP, New Zealand Delegation
APPF, Singapore
Wednesday January 20, 2010

Mr Chairman, distinguished delegates

I am the opposition spokesperson on energy and climate change issues in the New Zealand Parliament.  Since taking up that responsibility a little over a year ago, I have watched the progress made by individual states, collectivities and by the global community on this issue with mixed emotions.  Never were those emotions more mixed than when I attended the COP15 in Copenhagen last month on a self-funded basis as a member of the delegation of the International Trade Union Confederation.

This is the first opportunity I have had since COP15 to speak publicly, and so I want to begin by recording my particular thanks to my Labour movement colleague, ITUC President Sharan Burrow, for facilitating my inclusion in its delegation, hence ensuring that I could attend COP15 on an official basis. 

In his opening remarks to us on Monday, APPF President Tarmugi described the Copenhagen Accord – and I paraphrase his remarks – as imperfect, but a base on which to build.  I respectfully agree, with the caveat that we must build quickly.  I sense that others share this sense of urgency.  I have read the resolutions put forward by members.

6 of the 38 resolutions, more in total than the resolutions on any other matter before us - deal with climate change, indicating that the APPF understands that this is a pressing issue.

By necessity the texts of the resolutions before us predate COP15.  It seems to me that a useful contribution to our deliberations might be for me to summarise the main features of the Accord reached at that Conference.  Clearly, our work should take account of the results of COP15, and anticipate the further progress it expects.

On my reading of the Accord, and on the basis of the discussions at COP15 that I witnessed or had reported to me, there are 10 significant matters of which we as the APPF should take note.

First, the Copenhagen Accord emphasised that climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time.  Second, it accepted the scientific view documented by the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report that the increase in global temperature should be kept below 2 degrees Celsius.

Third, it stressed the need for cooperation to achieve the peaking of global and national emissions as soon as possible, recognising that the time frame for peaking will be longer in developing countries.

Fourth, the Accord stressed the need for cooperation to facilitate adaptation to climate change.  Adaptation needs to prioritise reducing vulnerability and building resilience in developing countries, especially in those that are particularly vulnerable, especially least developed countries, small-island developing States and Africa. Developed countries have accepted that they must provide adequate, predictable and sustainable financial resources, technology and capacity-building to support the implementation of adaptation action in developing countries.

Fifth, Annex 1 Parties agreed to commit to their various 2020 emissions reductions targets, to be submitted by the end of this month, and to be measured, reported and verified by accounting that is rigorous, robust and transparent.  In this regard, the recommitment over the last few days by the European Union to its commendable reduction target of 30% is in my view particularly praiseworthy, as are similar commitments of which we have heard today, for example from our Korean colleagues.  Korea has adopted a 30% reduction target despite not having any obligation to take on any reduction obligation.

Sixth, non-Annex 1 Parties agreed to implement mitigation actions, including those seeking international support which will be subject to international measurement, reporting and verification.

Seventh, the crucial role of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation was recognised.  It was agreed that developed countries needed to mobilise financial resources to incentivise this.

Eighth, it was agreed that various approaches, including the use of markets, could enhance the cost-effectiveness of, and to promote, mitigation actions.  It is specifically provided that developing countries, especially those with low emitting economies, should be provided incentives to continue to develop on a low emission pathway.

Ninth, scaled up, new and additional, predictable and adequate funding, as well as improved access, is to be provided to developing countries, to enable and support enhanced action on mitigation, adaptation, technology development and transfer and capacity-building.  The collective commitment by developed countries is to provide new and additional resources approaching USD 30 billion for the period 2010 – 2012, rising to USD 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries. This funding is to come from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance. 

New multilateral funding for adaptation is to be delivered through effective and efficient fund arrangements, with a governance structure providing for equal representation of developed and developing countries.

Tenth, an assessment of the implementation of the 2009 Accord is to be completed by 2015.

Delegates, it is not surprising, given the genesis of the Accord and the circumstances of its adoption,  that some of the important matters that need to be recognised and dealt with in the context of climate change are absent from its text.  One of the most significant is the notion of achieving a just transition within societies, as well as
between developed and developing countries.  Another is the urgency of addressing the position of the small island states, whose continued viability depends on adequate international cooperation to reduce emissions.  This is an issue of great concern to New Zealand, whose boundaries at international law encompass Niue, Tokelau and the Cook Islands, and which is bound by friendship, kinship and goodwill to many of the other Pacific states.  These issues have to be given due attention, soon.

As politicians in the Asia Pacific Region, we are all well aware that there are many preconditions to the implementation of the Accord. These are by and large the same factors on which depend achieving the sort of comprehensive binding global deal that many of us hoped would come from Copenhagen, and which did not, but which must be achieved in short order.

These preconditions include the need for all nations to make greater commitments to action.  They require a translation of the undoubted political will of the present US administration into a meaningful emissions reduction path, be it by legislative intervention or via executive action over the course of the next year, so that the
unreadiness that marked the US position at COP15 is not repeated in Mexico City.  Clearly, the financing commitments reflected in the Accord also depend in large part on US coordination.

In all frankness, a further precondition for progress requires another APPF member – China - to reflect the massive progress it is making domestically on environmental and climate change issues at the international level, so as to provide leadership that was simply not in evidence from its delegation in Copenhagen.

Mr Chairman, distinguished delegates. The APPF includes members from developed and developing countries.  We share the world’s largest ocean and its most dynamic and populous region.  Our members include the two nations – the US and China – that together hold the key to reaching a satisfactory global agreement on cutting emissions.  On climate change, I hope that APPF members will show ourselves to be worthy of the challenges we face on this, the most pressing issue facing the planet.