2012

Dear Colleague:

In this issue I provide updates on the legacy of the recent Rio+20 Earth Summit, food security and climate change, the debate on the role of fossil fuels in providing energy for all, deforestation reduction efforts and more. A recent spate of heat waves and storm-related power outages here in Washington and other extreme weather events across the United States is a stark reminder that rapid climate change may already be upon us, and that the consequences are much worse for the world’s poor than for the residents of Washington suburbs who complain about several days without air conditioners and refrigeration.

All best,

Michele de Nevers

Two for One Deal on Development Goals?

Although the Rio+20 summit discussed a proposal by Colombia and Guatemala to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which will come to an end in 2015, with measurable Sustainable Development Goals that link environmental and human development concerns, the outcome document endorses the idea but says nothing specific about the content of sustainable development goals. Rather, it created a 30-member working group to craft a proposal next year. Charles Kenny has been pushing for the sensible solution of a single new set of goals that addresses both sustainability and development.

June-July Twin Summits Fall Short

June and July saw twin global summits, the Los Cabos G-20 Summit in Mexico and the Rio+20 Earth Summit.  While there was substantial overlap in the issues discussed (green growth, food security) reporting and analysis tended to focus on just one or the other. A CGD event, Assessing the Los Cabos G-20 Summit and Rio+20 Earth Summit: Implications for Development (access video), found that much of the action in both cases happened outside of the official summit talks. Lawrence MacDonald concluded that both summits were helpful but “neither the G-20 nor Rio+20 nor any other international meeting, whatever the approach, has been able to come up with solutions of sufficient scale to avoid a looming planetary catastrophe.”

Image: Convergencia de Comunicación de los movimientos

Food Security and Climate Change

At the Third Annual Malthus Lecture, sponsored by the Population Reference Bureau and IFPRI, Dr. Jonathan Foley, Director, Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota gave a terrific presentation showing that it’s possible to grow global food production while at the same time shrinking agriculture’s environmental footprint dramatically and conserving forests to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.   His analysis shows that “tremendous progress could be made by halting agricultural expansion, closing "yield gaps" on underperforming lands, increasing cropping efficiency, shifting diets, and reducing waste.

Image: CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture

Together, these strategies could double the world's food production while greatly reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture.”

Expanding Energy Access While Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The role of fossil fuels in providing electricity to the 1.3 billion people who lack it continues to provoke debate.  The US Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC), a government firm, has adopted targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its portfolio, in part by establishing annual emissions caps.  This has led to a dramatic upsurge in renewable energy in OPIC’s portfolio, with renewable energy accounting for one-third of the total in 2012, and the development of new financing instruments. 

Image: flickr user Philou.cn

The World Bank faces similar difficult trade-offs. New World Bank president Jim Kim discussed these tensions during a Q&A following a recent speech at the Brookings Institute, noting that views differ widely on the bank’s board, with developing countries expressing impatience that rich countries that burn plenty of fossil fuels want to restrict bank lending for similar projects in developing countries.  Kim added that he found it “extremely disturbing” that data show the impacts of rapid climate change arriving much sooner than expected, and he promised to put the put the science of climate change in front of member countries. 

Forest Conservation Performance Rating to the Rescue for REDD+

The role of fossil fuels in providing electricity to the 1.3 billion people who lack it continues to provoke debate.  The US Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC), a government firm, has adopted targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its portfolio, in part by establishing annual emissions caps.  This has led to a dramatic upsurge in renewable energy in OPIC’s portfolio, with renewable energy accounting for one-third of the total in 2012, and the development of new financing instruments. 

David Wheeler, Robin Kraft and Dan Hammer have developed a new Forest Conservation Performance Rating system, fCPR.  It provides color-coded ratings for tropical forest conservation performance that reward conservation in three dimensions: (1) exceeding expectations, given an area’s forest clearing history and development status; (2) meeting or exceeding global REDD+ goals; and (3) achieving an immediate reduction in forest clearing.

G-20 Stalls on Fossil Fuel Subsidies

While the Rio+20 outcome document made no mention of phasing out fuel subsidies, the Mexico G-20 Leaders Declaration did “recall and reaffirm” the G-20 promise at the September 2009 Pittsburgh Summit to reduce and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies in the medium term.  It asked the G-20 finance ministers to report on progress at the next summit and to “explore options for a voluntary peer review process for G20 members by their next meeting.”   However, neither a deadline nor interim benchmarks for the phase-out were specified.