Compared to the 200 side events booked through the UN process, there are 201 events outside the UN process in the spaces framed with red colour.
Thursday, 11 December 2008
The allocation of space in Poznan
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Business Day in Poznan
Tuesday 9 December 2008 – A whole building in the Poznan International Fair was hired by WBCSD and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) for the Poznan Business Day, co-organised with ten other trade associations.
Global industry's elite were all there: 150 business executives, almost exclusively from US, EU and Japan. There were also government representatives (USA, France, UK, Poland, Denmark, Japan, Mexico, South Africa) and representatives from international organisations (European Commission, OECD, IEA, UN). The meeting was addressed by the US, French (representing the EU), and Antiguan and Bermudan (representing the G77) ambassadors to the UNFCCC and Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UNFCC and chief of the negotiations.
It was quite a good turnout for a single day, especially considering that national youth delegations and NGOs are struggling to arrange meetings with governments who "don't have time".
What business wants
At the event the world's business elite made its basic demands:
- The reform and expansion of carbon markets through the CDM
- Public money - as a remedy for financial recession - for the deployment of existing 'law carbon' technologies and the development of new ones by business
- The inclusion of nuclear energy and 'clean' coal in the CDM and the public funding of their deployment
- Technology transfer for the developing world only through commercial channels, in the form of Foreign Direct Investment
- A 'sectoral approach' for the energy intensive sectors
Unstable moral grounds
The participants agreed that there was no common understanding of the term 'sectoral approach' among the different sectors of industry. Even though, this is clearly their new trick to avoid effective reductions from the energy intensive sectors. In the EU framework it was 'global competition' that meant these sectors needed special treatment. At the global level they still need to work out their arguments, but the message is the same: the biggest industrial polluters want special treatment.
The ICC's Guy Sebban's hackles were raised when the Chair of the UNFCC Expert Group on technology transfer implied that a certain amount of free licensing of patents to the developing world may be indispensable. "We should stop saying that because the discussion will end up pretty wrong," said Sebban.
This is typical of how business regards the third world. In the session dedicated to the adaptation to climate change - which mainly concerns thoseleast developed countries which are the most severely affected - most of the participants were networking outside.
Receptive ears
But political representatives were quite receptive to these demands and they all underlined the importance of dialogue with business and that this has to intensify in the run up to Copenhagen. "We will only be successful with the engagement of the business community; we need to find new ways to engage better and we are open to your ideas," said the US ambassador. The French/EU ambassador did suggest that dialogue with trade unions was also important (even when the presence of trade unions in Poznan is astonishingly low). But he added: "we have to use all technologies; I shall not name them, but you know what I mean." Nuclear - the unspoken energy source. Addressing the artificial nature of the carbon market, he added: "We have to learn from business how to design markets."
Yvo de Boer tried to comment on the main points of the meeting, after he had been 'briefed by a fly in the wall he had sent in the morning session'. He pointed out that there is "increasingly unclarity regarding what businees means with 'sectoral approach'". It remains to see wethere he will put it forward when it becomes clearer. He also said that 'there is no surprise' that business stated 'whatever the decisions are they should provide a clear margin for profit'. But, can the quest for profit that brought us to this climate mess, also save us for it?
Corprate takeover to intensify
At lunch, people discussed that in previous COPs business used to form a larger part of the national delegations but now it is more present 'outside'. Closing the meeting, WBCSD president asked for "a more direct dialogue than the one through flies on the wall" and set the aim of a more impressive business day in Copenhagen.
Yvo de Boer said there would be "many opportunities for a useful dialogue with business" over the coming year. A first draft of the Copenhagen agreement is expected to be agreed in Bonn in June 2009. How much will this be influenced by this dialogue?
An urgent task is designated for civil society: prevent the corporate take over of Copenhagen and the procedures up to then.
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
CJN! Press Conference on the 'Corporate takeover at Poznan'
Monday 8 December 2008 - The Climate Justice Now! network held a press conference on the privileged access that big corporations have to the UN negotiators and the exclusion of indigenous people and other groups.
The speakers were:
- Jorge Fugagaro, President of the Indigenous People's Organisation of the Colombian Amazon
- Ricardo Navarro, President of CESTA / Friends of the Earth El Salvador - You can listen to his comments here
- Yiorgos Vassalos, Researcher of CEO - Listen to an interview with him here
I was there to highlight the problem of corporate lobbyists also being part of government delegations in countries like Brazil (Shell, UNICA, Grupo Plantar), Italy (ENEL) or Finland (employers organisations).
The Press Release
Corporate takeover at Poznan: the facts
Poznan, Monday 6 December. For immediate release. The UN Climate Conference in Poznan is systematically privileging business lobby groups over public interest organisations, according to members of the Climate Justice Now! Coalition.1 In addition, Indigenous Peoples´ representatives do not get formal access to the negotiations, despite the fact that they are amongst the most affected by climate change.
* Who is the biggest non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Poznan? According to the official participants list, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) has the largest NGO delegation, with 254 registered delegates at the UN Climate Conference. It is a business lobby group and not a public interest organisation.
* The space for side events at UN talks in Poznan is substantially ´privatised´, with more than half of the conference space sold off for events organised outside of the UN process. Compared to the 200 side events booked through the UN process, there are 201 events outside the UN process.2
* The Poznan Business Day offers major polluters privileged access to negotiators. This event, co-organised by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and International Chamber of Commerce with cooperation from the UNFCCC and Polish government, offers companies privileged access to senior officials, ministers and negotiators. No such spaces have been offered to Indigenous Peoples´ or other civil society organisations.
“Private sector interests have an undue influence over UN climate talks,” says Ricardo Navarro from CESTA / Friends of the Earth El Salvador. “ We are witnessing corporate delegations getting larger, while at the same time the negotiations are being watered down. The UN negotiations should focus on people´s interests, not on private sector interests.”
“Indigenous Peoples have been asking for official party status at these talks since 2001, but this has still not been granted” says Jorge Furagaro, President of the Indigenous Peoples´ Organisation of the Colombian Amazon.
The Indigenous Peoples´ delegates have lodged a complaint to the UNFCCC about the lack of an official Indigenous Peoples body within the UN climate talks process.
Further information
Juana Camacho, CENSAT AGUA VIVA / Friends of the Earth Colombia + 48 698 33 31 31 (Polish mobile number valid until Dec.11 only)
Oscar Reyes, Communications Officer, Transnational Institute + 44 7739 827 208, oscar@tni.org
Notes
1. Climate Justice Now! is a new coalition of over 160 civil society organisations committed to socially just solutions to the climate crisis. Its statement of principles can be found here: http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=18992
2. These comprise: 50 that form part of the International Emissions Trading Association programme; 75 hosted by the European Union; 42 hosted by Econcern, an energy company/ consultancy. Some additional side event slots have been offered by the UNFCCC following the re-arrangement of its agenda in relation to the Eid holiday, but it is unclear how many of these are new and how many in response to cancellations.
Monday, 8 December 2008
The International Emission Trading Association: Diverting focus from environment to markets
Saturday, 6 December 2008 - IETA has the biggest representation in Poznan with 254 lobbyists registered in the official (provisional) participants' list under the category 'Non-governmental organizations'. It represents some of the biggest energy corporations of the world, some other industrial giants and many banks and assurance companies.
IETA was the biggest lobby group also in the previous UN climate conference in Bali, but the corporate take over of the climate talks has moved one step further in Poznan; half of the space of the Poznan International Fair is available to rent, while the official procedure is taking place in the other half. IETA has hired a whole building where it holds up to 12 events per day. A real parallel conference!
But IETA is also holding meetings inside the official space. One of those took place at Saturday evening in a crowded room under the title: 'Post-2012 international action supporting local action'.
The panelist used very sophisticated business language provoking to most of the attendees a rather bamboozled expression. 
They want the CDM to be reformed because they consider that "its current architecture doesn't match with current challenges". This is where we should look for the reason why CDM has failed to reduce global emissions so far. The solution will come from "a new CDM with more flexible mechanisms." Even some of the panellists said that it had to be not too complicated because "politicians already have problems understanding it."
When you go to such event, you start to feel as if only business people know the details about how to reduce emissions and save the climate. The rest of us just grumble, since these are the people that "will make it happen."
However, it doesn't take a genius to see that the demand to continue offsetting emissions in the non-developed world that count as reductions for the developed one (currently 66% of the EU reductions) is not the most rational way of eradicating the causes of climate change.
Responding to a question from a World Development Movement campaigner, a panelist said: "You've got a point. The issue is environment. We tend to forget it and focus to discussions about markets." Tell us about it Mister!
Having said that they quietly returned to their discussion about how to create the most effective market solution to climate change with the right proportion of flexibility. "Market solutions are not optimal," they said, "because the market is not perfect, but it is the best system we have."
So let's pray that they find the best market solution, otherwise bye bye climate. There is one thing in their logic that can't be touched: profit. No solution is acceptable if it doesn't permit their profits to continue to rise. And go find how that is compatible with 'the acceptance of the responsibility of climate change' that developed world corporations 'recognize' each time they're asked.
The street lobby!
6 December 2008 - Thousands of local and international demonstrators took to Poznan's streets today to make clear that "they are serious about climate change" and want "Climate Justice Now".
Friday, 5 December 2008
Big business against technology transfer and for exclusive deals of the developed world
Today ( Friday 5 December) the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) organised a side event on 'the business contribution to a new climate agreement'.
With 65 lobbyists, the WBCSD is one of the bigger business lobbying bodies in Poznan. It represents over 200 transnational corporations, most of them headquartered in Europe, Japan and North America, employing 'over 3 million employees and a combined turnover of 7 trillion dollars'.The meeting happened in a big meeting room in the main conference building with probably more than a hundred watchful attendees. WBCSD advocated a "sectoral approach" for managing emissions and defended corporate intellectual property over much-needed technology transfer.
Rely on sectoral agreements
The "sectoral approach" is in effect an excuse to exempt energy intensive industries from global emission reduction schemes. The WBCSD recommends that 'willing' countries make voluntary, industry-driven sectoral agreements. These agreement will not be part of the UN framework, but multilateral agreements between 'sovereign nations' or a 'select group of Parties at their own will'. They will include only the producer countries from a specific sector.
WBCSD runs a number of projects which are preparing these agreements, the most advanced of which is for the cement sector. Other projects have been initiated with the steel and paper industry. The damage from the emissions from these industries are shared by the whole planet, but it's the poorest countries that will face the biggest challenges in adapting to the impacts they cause.
But WBCSD wants the pace of reduction (slow?)to be decided by the developed partners alone. It acknowledges the opposition of developing countries to this nontransparent way of acting in closed special groups, but it says in substance that overthrowing this resistance is the only solution business accepts.
Protect intellectual property
On access to intellectual property and the much needed technology transfer that will permit to the Global South to deal with urgent mitigation and adaptation challenges, WBCSD representatives called it "completely unacceptable for industry" that a UN climate agreement would include compulsory licensing of patents. They want technology transfer only to take place through projects that require the participation of multinationals.
Promoting 'clean' coal and nuclear
At the side-event, WBSCD representatives argued that "the construction of thousands of CCS power stations and seven hundred new nuclear plants is needed for an effective mitigation of climate change".
Stronger role for business in decisionmaking
WBSCD is asking an even stronger role for business in decision making, saying that negotiators should stop "closing their ears" to business demands and abandon "old diplomatic methods". "Copenhagen should be different from Kyoto and reflect the real world experience" that business supposedly brings in.
Thursday, 4 December 2008
CEO, EU and the lobbyists in Poznan!
I'm travelling today to the UN international climate talks in Poznan on a mission to report on the activities of European corporate lobbyists there.
Supposed tough EU measures to tackle climate change have been dramatically weakened following a broad lobbying campaign by different sectors of industry, a new report from Corporate Europe Observatory shows. Industry has successfully argued that tough measures in Europe will make them vulnerable to global competition.
Will European business lobbyists try to water-down UN policies as well, in cooperation with their global colleagues? What argument will they use this time?
As negotiations in the EU continue in the run up to the 11-12 December summit, business is pushing to blur the 20% target for renewable energy. Key industry sectors have lobbied to reduce the impacts of measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Bizarrely, the EU will have to conduct international negotiations for a global policy framework while all this is going on.
Will the EU give a good account of its fine rhetoric of the 'global climate champion' or will it cede to weakening business pressures?
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