16 December 2015, CSIRO ECOS CSIRO and Ngadju tackle bushfires in the Great Western Woodlands. Old and new ways of fire management are coming together to help protect one of the most unique woodlands on the planet. Members of the Ngadju community began working with CSIRO about four years ago to help prevent fires in the Great Western Woodlands (GWW) in south-western Australia. The GWW is the largest remaining tract of dry climate woodland on Earth. The region receives as little as 250 mm rain per year. Owing to the variable rainfall and lack of readily accessible groundwater suitable for livestock, much of the region has remained virtually unchanged since European settlement. However during recent years, the GWW has experienced an increase in the frequency of large, intense wildfires causing fire-sensitive old-growth woodlands to be lost at an alarming rate. Leslie Schultz from Ngadju Conservation believes climate change is contributing to the increase in fires. “The heat we get now is harsher and when it does come, there’s less rain—this can only spell trouble for the Woodlands,” he said. Les said the relationship between Ngadju and CSIRO was born from his own experience of “burning off country”—something he learnt from his elders. “We need to control the country so it doesn’t control us,” Les said. “We want to incorporate our traditional land management methods. We managed our country not with rakes, shovels and bulldozers but with fire.” The insight and the benefits of utilising Indigenous fire knowledge was no more apparent than during the recent devastating bushfires in Western Australia. These fires damaged large areas of the GWW directly. In the nearby community of Esperance one fire led to the loss of four lives, with reportedly more than 280,000 hectares of farmland burnt, along with houses, sheds, machinery and almost 5,000 livestock. Ngadju mobilised to help fight these fires and provided valuable insight into the current landscape. They also currently operate a small ranger team in the GWW and undertake a mix of contract land management. Read More here
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16 December 2015, WRI, Form AND Function: Why the Paris Agreement’s Legal Form Is So Important. Because the Paris Agreement is a universal, legally binding agreement to tackle climate change under international law, it joins other such agreements as the highest expression of political intent and will. Yes, it has binding and non-binding components, but overall it is durable and underpins decisive real-economy change and drives corresponding national legislation and policy. Entering into legally binding agreements sends a strong signal to corporations, planners, investors and other implementers that governments will enforce climate policies. This is an agreement between countries in which each country indicates its intent to be bound at the international level. Each country follows its own domestic authorization process based on its own unique legal system, before joining this international agreement. This legal form makes the Paris Agreement, adopted December 12, 2015 at COP21, fundamentally different from the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol was a product of its time, with only a small number of countries taking on binding emission reduction targets. The Paris Agreement moves beyond that, achieving legal rigor while ensuring universal participation. While Kyoto succeeded in reducing emissions in some developed countries, it only had binding targets for a few countries. By contrast, the Paris Agreement includes every country and thus has to accommodate the different development stages of those countries. The targets themselves are not binding, but all countries are obliged to prepare, communicate and maintain their targets and pursue domestic measures to achieve them. Framing the obligation in this way is likely to increase the likelihood of implementation, since the targets are nationally-determined and in many countries, already anchored in nationally binding laws and regulations. It’s a more accommodating way to bind countries to deliver their national plans, while recognizing that some countries are not in a position to have their targets stated directly into a treaty. The Agreement has strong legally binding provisions on how to measure, report and verify emissions reduction commitments. Countries will be required to measure their emissions in the same way, report on them in the same frequency and format and have them verified through an independent technical process. The Agreement also ensures that countries must come to a multilateral setting to discuss progress on implementation of their emissions reduction targets. This commitment from all countries provides the means to track progress on how countries implement their commitments. This means there are opportunities to “name and shame” countries for not meeting their commitments. It is here that the court of international public opinion acts to judge and pressure countries. More specifically, the Paris Agreement includes a set of legally binding obligations on a range of issues, including: Read More here
16 December 2015, The Guardian, Climate change deal: five reasons to be glad, five to be gloomy. Will the deal agreed in Paris be enough to save the planet? Emissions cuts and investment are promised, but legal responsibilities are thin on the ground. Read More here
15 December 2015, The Conversation, How emissions trading at Paris climate talks has set us up for failure. The Paris Agreement has mostly been greeted with enthusiasm, though it contains at least one obvious flaw. Few seem to have noticed that the main tool mooted for keeping us within the 2℃ global warming target is a massive expansion of carbon trading, including offsetting, which allows the market exchange of credits between companies and nations to achieve an overall emissions reduction. That’s despite plenty of evidence that markets haven’t worked well enough, or quickly enough, to actually keep the planet safe. The debate over whether to include carbon markets in the final agreement came right to the wire. Some left-leaning Latin American countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia vehemently opposed any mention, while the EU, Brazil, and New Zealand, among other countries, pushed hard for their inclusion – with support from the World Bank, the IMF and many business groups. Play with words What we have ended up with is some murky semantics. Though terms such as “carbon trading”, “carbon pricing”, “carbon offsetting” and “carbon markets” don’t appear anywhere in the text, the agreement is littered with references to a whole range of new and expanded market-based tools. Article 6 refers to “voluntary cooperation” between countries in the implementation of their emissions targets “to allow for higher ambition in their mitigation and adaptation actions”. If that’s not exactly plain speak, then wait for how carbon trading is referred to as “internationally transferred mitigation outcomes”. The same Article also provides for an entirely new, UN-controlled international market mechanism. All countries will be able to trade carbon with each other, helping each to achieve their national targets for emissions cuts. While trading between companies, countries or blocs of countries is done on a voluntary basis, the new mechanism, dubbed the Sustainable Development Mechanism (SDM), will be set up to succeed the existing Joint Implementation and Clean Development Mechanism, providing for a massive expansion of carbon trading and offsetting while setting some basic standards. Read More here