COP17

A draft document is making the rounds in Durban that would raise cash from the world’s shipping industry through a special tax to help fund the USD100 billion Green Climate Fund. According to Reuters, the document proposes that money raised by "specific actions" to reduce emissions from maritime bunker fuels -- which may be designed and implemented by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) -- could be directed to developing countries and used to aid climate adaptation through a Green Climate Fund.

Yesterday 163 civil society organizations from 39 countries released a letter alleging an attempt led by the US, the UK and Japan to turn the Green Climate Fund into what they call “Greedy Corporate Fund” at UN climate talks in South Africa.

Temperatures are already beginning to rise among delegates at the UN climate summit in Durban. While around the outskirts of conference generally “nice” and “positive” position papers were released, it was the news that Canada certainly won't make any further greenhouse gas cuts and may even withdraw from its conditions under the Kyoto Protocol that got collars sticky. Additionally rumours on the sidelines indicate that the UN's carbon offset scheme wouldn't be depended upon to generate the USD100 billion in annual climate aid for developing nations by 2020, although there was minor step towards charging for ships' emissions.

In a move to make its position in crystal clear at the COP17/CMP17 United Nations Climate Change Conference 2011, which starts in Durban next week, China State Council has issued white paper that summarizes the country past efforts reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and lays out its road map for green development over the next five years. It has also underlines China's demand that the talks to come up with “three” tangible results. To those familiar with China's effort to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP in the last five years and the measures being put in place under the 12th Five Year Plan through to 2016, the contents of the white paper contains no great surprises.

In the run-up to the international climate negotiations in Durban later this month, China has responded to efforts to ban the trading of widely-discredited HFC-23 offsets by threatening to release huge amounts of the potent industrial chemical into the atmosphere unless other nations pay what amounts to a climate ransom. The threat comes after the European Union and other nations moved to ban HFC-23 credits from internal carbon trading mechanisms in recognition of the perverse incentives created by these credits in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).