Source: BBC Radio 4: Today
URL: N/A
Date: 22/10/2015
Event: Christiana Figueres: "we will have a very virtuous cycle detonated"
Credit: BBC Radio 4
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Sarah Montague: By tomorrow, climate change negotiators meeting in Bonn should have come up with a plan for cutting global carbon emissions - it's part of the run-up to the big climate summit in Paris in December. This time, there's a new approach - countries make their own pledges on tackling climate change, they're reviewed every five years. But those pledges already appear to be inadequate - the reductions would not limit the average increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees, a target set by the United Nations. We'll hear from the UN climate chief in just a moment, but first our Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin is on the line from Bonn. Given those difficulties, Roger, are they getting towards something substantial?
Roger Harrabin: Well, things are moving, I have to say, you know - the mood here is much more positive than it's been in previous years. All countries accept the need for them to do something themselves to reduce the risk of dangerous climate change - the US and China are working hand-in-hand and there's more than 150 nations have submitted detailed pledges as to what they're going to do, the cost of solar power is tumbling, that's all positive, but - and you've mentioned a few of these, already - there's still a lot of acrimony because poor nations feel like rich nations are still getting away with too much respon- er, lack of responsibility. It's going to be very difficult to get a deal over finance - rich countries still haven't put up the amount of money they said they would, to help poor countries adapt to climate change and get renewable power.
Now there's a chance that these might be overcome in the Paris talks, but here's a sticking point - if you add up all the countries' pledges, as you said, add them all up together, they don't go far enough to stabilise climate change. So we could end up with a deal in Paris, to save the climate, that doesn't actually save the climate. And that creates another issue for these preliminary talks - how do they ramp up ambition in the future? There are some tough negotiations ahead.
Sarah Montague: Roger, thank you very much. Well, listening to that, from Bonn, is Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - good morning.
Christiana Figueres: Good morning, how are you?
Sarah Montague: Very well, thank you - thank you for talking to us. Do you accept that charge, that the pledges made so far will not meet the 2-degree target set by the UN for global warming?
Christiana Figueres: Absolutely, but this is not news - I've been saying this for at least a year, maybe two years. Er, this is definitely foreseeable, um, and what we actually are seeing is good news, for two reasons. The first, that while we knew that the current level of mitigation pledges - what we call national climate change plans - was not going to be enough to get us immediately in Paris to 2 degrees, the sum total of what we have already on the table has actually surprised us - the fact that we have 154 countries, and counting, that are put in their climate change [?] and our first estimates tell us that that actually totals 4 gigatonnes, which has actually already taken us off the business-as-usual and put us not on a 2-degree path but somewhere between 2.5 and 3, which is -
Sarah Montague: But then - forgive me for interrupting - but then you are relying on what countries do being upgraded at later stages, the fact the pledges will be reviewed after five years. There is nothing in the UN framework to ensure that happens - when they're reviewed, countries could end up doing less, rather than more, couldn't they.
Christiana Figueres: They could end up doing more rather than less [laughs]. They could actually end up over-complying, which I think is going to be the case, because once the Paris agreement is in place, it will send a very strong signal, and what I think is going to happen here is we will have a very virtuous cycle detonated, where technology will move faster than it has, where capital shifts will increase in speed and in scale, and where policy will continue to advance, all three together - technology, capital and, um, and policy will actually help to accelerate the change.
Sarah Montague: On this point about capital shifts, now wealthy countries are supposed to come up with a big figure, $100 billion to help developing countries adapt to climate change. No, you're nowhere near that figure, are we? [Long pause.] Christiana Figueres... Ah, seems like there's a deafening silence on the line, there - that was the UN's climate chief speaking to us from Bonn, where negotiators are trying to work out a package that they can then put to the big climate summit that's coming up in Paris in December....
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Sarah Montague: We've actually now managed to get Christiana Figueres, the UN climate chief, back on the line - I'm sorry we were interrupted earlier. I wanted to know about the funding to help developing countries adapt to climate change, because you haven't reached the target number.
Christiana Figueres: No, the target is 100 billion per year as of 2020, so we're currently in 2015 and we have to make sure in Paris that there is a credible pathway toward 100 billion. What is encouraging is that the latest report that has come out shows that there could be as much as 50 billion that went in, in 2013, and 62 billion in 2014, denoting that we are at least in order of magnitude already on our way to 100 billion and increasing - of course we don't have the numbers for this year and into the future, but -
Sarah Montague: Right.
Christiana Figueres: - there could be a good possibility that we're on our way.
Sarah Montague: Okay, so things moving in the right direction there, as far as you're concerned. What about the direction that the British government has been moving in, since the election - the scrapping of green subsidies, for example, the support for onshore wind. How does what they're doing match the pledges and the ambition that you're calling for?
Christiana Figueres: Well, you know the, um, we do see that the UK government continues to play a very, very positive role at the international level, supporting, certainly, financially developing countries, as well as being very constructive in the policy development of this agreement. I have heard quite a bit of concern about their national policy, um, but we certainly expect that the INDC that they're in, the national climate change plan, is going to be met.
Sarah Montague: All right, Christiana Figueres, I'll have to stop you, thank you.