This side event, moderated by Jukka Uosukainen, Special Envoy for Climate Change, Finland, launched the book “Evolution of Indonesia’s Climate Change Policy: From Bali to Durban.” This book discusses Indonesia’s leadership in international negotiations on climate change and highlights key developments in Indonesia’s climate change policy. Panelists also discussed reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) developments in the negotiations, and the state of play leading to the next Conference of Parties (COP).

Antonio La Viña, Dean, Ateneo School of Government, the Philippines, underscored Indonesia’s climate change policy is more than just land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF). He stressed that the policy demonstrates how developing countries move beyond parochial national interests and take international leadership. He noted a robust debate about the strategies and institutions needed to achieve Indonesia’s climate policy objectives.

Outlining key milestones in Indonesia’s climate policy, Agus Purnomo, Special Staff to the President for Climate Change, Indonesia, highlighted: the low carbon emissions framework; increased adaptation costs due to tropical storms; the bilateral REDD+ partnership with Norway that tests payment for performance; and the top five mitigation measures and their benefits. He indicated climate change is a top priority for the President, demonstrated by the recent two-year renewal of the moratorium on logging in primary forests and peatlands.

Agus Sari, Co-Chair, Work Programme on REDD+ Financing, Indonesia, described the mix of public, private, national and international funding sources that could support Indonesia’s mitigation efforts. He noted developments in testing performance-based programmes, and indicated the difficulty in measuring non-emissions related performance, such as capacity building and institutional readiness. He indicated demand for emissions reduction as essential for market mechanisms.

During discussions, participants addressed: criteria for performance-based payments; safeguards; domestic carbon markets; links between Indonesia’s domestic carbon markets and international ones; the possibility of using verification rules from voluntary markets; issues regarding land tenure and Indigenous Peoples in light of a recent court decision; and prospects for an ambitious outcome on results-based finance for REDD+ in Warsaw.

Panelists noted: the importance of social and environmental safeguards; how various standards could be combined with Indonesia’s Principles, Criteria, and Indicators for REDD+ Safeguards; and how local priorities and interventions could be brought to the national level.

This side event, moderated by Sébastien Duyck, University of Lapland, addressed opportunities to further implement a rights-based approach within the current and future climate regime.

Duyck introduced the Human Rights and Climate Change Working Group, describing it as an informal network of legal scholars and law-oriented organizations. He noted that, since adoption of the Durban Platform, there is an opportunity to discuss human rights, not only in relation to implementation issues but also to equity.

Robert Chimambo, Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), discussed mining related issues in Zambia in the last 20 years, stressing that foreign direct investments (FDI) are not environmentally friendly and do not recognize local peoples’ rights. He explained how copper mining by international companies resulted in displacement of thousands of people in Zambia, increasing their vulnerability.

Grace Balawag, Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre on Policy Research and Education (Tebtebba), said human rights should be fully integrated into any climate change decision under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and noted the importance of Indigenous Peoples’ rights.

Sabine Bock, Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF), discussed equity principles, including: precautionary principles; common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) and respective capabilities; and equitable access to sustainable development. She said these principles rely on the balance of different rights, stressing the non-discrimination principle as crosscutting in the human rights framework.

Recalling the importance of treaties as the most solemn agreements by States, Curtis Doebbler, INTLawyers, said States’ responsibilities in relation to the UNFCCC are linked to their international human rights obligations. Referring to the equity issue, he emphasized the need to interpret it in the context of the Convention, which implies taking into account and applying the principle of CBDR.

Bridget Burns, Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), discussed gender-sensitive human rights in international climate change policy, exemplifying the safeguard approach and ways gender has been considered in the social and environmental standards (SES) discussions on REDD+.

In the subsequent discussions, participants touched upon: the responsibility of States for legal compensation; the possibility of using human rights as a normative tool to raise mitigation ambition; and ways to strengthen the normative approach of human rights in the UNFCCC process.

This side event, moderated by Laurence Mortier, Switzerland, presented preliminary results from a study assessing country pledges for mitigation and design options for the Framework for Various Approaches (FVA)/New Market Mechanisms (NMMs), especially regarding baselines of projected emissions. The study was funded by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, and the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment.

Franz Perrez, Ambassador for the Environment, Switzerland, highlighted the need for NMMs to: promote and scale up mitigation; achieve net emissions reductions; and achieve environmental integrity with the help of standards to ensure they deliver real and additional mitigation outcomes.

Ivo de Zwaan, the Netherlands, emphasized the importance of broad participation in the new climate agreement. He called for a dynamic and flexible agreement that encourages parties to join by providing them with tools such as NMM/FVA, to fulfill their commitments.

Juerg Fuessler, Infras, outlined the following preliminary findings: pledges need clarification in order to be operational and impact crediting baselines; national strategy plans may foster best practice in setting crediting baselines; host countries may use different approaches to derive baselines; and the requirement for “real, permanent, additional and verified mitigation outcomes” makes baseline and additionality important elements of FVA/NMM. He also identified areas for further research, including on dynamic crediting baselines to incorporate deviations of actual emissions from forecasts and on the adequacy of using common accounting frameworks for crediting and additionality determination.

Martin Herren, Infras, discussed possible governance models for FVA/NMMs, their coexistence with existing mechanisms, and the link between host country pledges and crediting baselines. He identified setting conservative baselines as one way to address inherent uncertainties in forecasted baselines.

Responding to a question on environmental integrity of project-based approaches, Anja Kollmuss, Independent Consultant, underlined how NMMs could open up avenues for using sectoral approaches.

During discussions, participants reflected on: how clarification of pledges could be achieved in light of the diversity of current pledges; necessary factors to ensure environmental integrity of market mechanisms; the role of industry in FVA/NMMs; the feasibility of sectoral approaches and how project-based approaches would fit into FVA/NMMs; and better modeling design to assess leakage.

This side event, moderated by Ioanna Mouratiadou, PIK, discussed insights from integrated assessment models from the EU, the US and China on the interplay of economic growth, fossil fuel availability and the timing of climate policy.

In his opening remarks, Lars Grotewold, Stiftung Mercator, introduced Roadmaps Towards Sustainable Energy Futures (RoSE), a collaborative research project involving modelling teams from the EU, the US and China. He identified this study as the first to systematically explore the implications of economic growth, population and fossil fuel scarcity for climate policy, using a suite of models.

Ottmar Edenhofer, Deputy Director, PIK, highlighted elements of a comprehensive assessment framework for low stabilization scenarios, including: technological and economic requirements, such as energy system prerequisites and costs of climate stabilization; institutional requirements; and distributional effects and regional implications.

Addressing the requirements of climate stabilization, Elmar Kriegler, PIK, indicated key results from the RoSE project, stressing that: in the absence of a climate policy and with current trends in energy intensity, energy demand and CO2 emissions will increase with per capita income; fossil fuel scarcity alone is not sufficient to reduce CO2 emissions; and emissions need to be phased out towards the end of the century or in the first half of the 22nd century.

Katherine Calvin, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), discussed, inter alia, land use perspectives on climate mitigation, underlining that: wealthier populations have higher meat consumption, while larger populations require more food production, both of which increase agricultural land use; higher meat consumption results in increased agricultural methane emissions, while agricultural land use results in higher CO2 emissions; and these increased emissions demand, in turn, more mitigation from energy systems.

Jiang Kejun, Energy Research Institute (ERI), China, presented implications for China resulting from transformations in different sectors, including: energy; economy; buildings; transportation; power generation; carbon capture and storage (CCS); and technology. He indicated, inter alia, that high gross domestic product (GDP) growth could support low carbon development in China, and noted China’s leadership in low carbon technology manufacturing.

The ensuing discussions addressed follow-up questions from the participants on, among others: assumptions related to nuclear energy use, as well as on population growth in the scenarios presented for Africa; assumptions on technology innovations and climate policy; the relationship between GDP growth and per capita emissions; and technological progress in China.