Federal Government cuts funding to UN environment agency by over 80pc ahead of Peru climate talks

Updated

The Federal Government has slashed funding to a key United Nations environment agency by more than 80 per cent, stunning environmental groups ahead of a global climate change summit in Peru.

The ABC has learned the Government cut $4 million from the UN Environment Program (UNEP), which provides advice on environmental policies and climate change negotiations.

"Whether it's air pollution, whether it's ozone depleting substances, what's happening in the world's oceans, the conservation of biodiversity - for a relatively small amount, Australia benefits from leveraging well over $500 million in contributions that other countries make," UNEP's executive director Achim Steiner said.

Australia was due to contribute around $1.2 million this year, but has only offered $200,000.

Over the next four years it will scale back its funding by $4 million.

Environmental groups are stunned, especially because according to UNEP's Voluntary Indicative Scale of Assessments, Australia should have contributed around $2.2 million next year.

"As an executive director, you have to be disappointed because clearly the contribution of member states is what enables UNEP to fulfil its mandate and be of service to the global community," Mr Steiner said.

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"It is probably the most effective return on investment if you think about it because Australia cannot work with 193 countries bilaterally on addressing some of these issues.

"Therefore the value proposition of joining forces with a relatively small contribution and leveraging virtually 500 times as much financing from others seems to be something that I hope Australia will consider once again as a very good investment, and one that has benefited Australia and also the Pacific region."

But Environment Minister Greg Hunt said the Government had to "make choices in a difficult budget environment".

"I would imagine that most Australians would see putting $12 million into coral reef protection within our region and combating illegal logging of the great rainforests of the Asia-Pacific as a pretty good investment compared with $4 million for bureaucratic support within the UN system," Mr Hunt said.

Major UN climate talks get underway in Lima, Peru

Delegates from around the world have arrived in Lima, Peru, for the start of major international climate talks.

Representatives of about 190 governments are meeting in Lima amid hopes that a UN deal to slow climate change is within reach for 2015, despite warnings that time is fast running out to keep global warming within safe limits.

Cooperation between China and the United States, the top two greenhouse gas emitters, and a decision by the European Union to cut its emissions, have given a new sense of momentum to UN talks that have failed produce agreement on a global deal in two decades.

Delegates are due to work out elements of a deal to combat climate change for a summit in Paris in a year's time, as part of a goal of limiting average world temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.

Temperatures have already risen by about 0.9 C and a UN panel of climate scientists said there are risks of irreversible impacts, ranging from damage to coral reefs to a meltdown of Greenland's ice that would raise sea levels.

"The window for action is rapidly closing," said Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

His panel said it was 95 per cent probable that man-made emissions were the main cause of warming.

The UN is desperate to avoid making Lima a "talkfest" and hopes governments will negotiate a framework for a binding climate agreement.

Climate talks: The sticking points Should warming be limited to two degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels, or a tougher 1.5 degrees as demanded by small island states?

Should the pact be a "treaty" to be ratified by national parliaments, a slightly less formal "protocol" or some other form of agreement?

To what degree will it be binding under international law?

Should richer economies shoulder a bigger burden or does the rise of China and India as massive polluters demand equal treatment for all?

Will nations' pledges be assessed to determine whether they are sufficient, combined, to meet the warming target?

Will there be an international review of countries' performance, a compliance mechanism or committee, or none?



"The scale and the task are in a sense unprecedented, and I think that is why in the past five to 10 years we have struggled to reach a global agreement because we are trying to synchronise the economies of literally every country on the planet," Mr Steiner said.

Negotiators have started the process much earlier than they did in Copenhagen, hoping to deliver a draft text of the agreement well before the Paris summit.

"[The Lima conference] is really the last stop before parties meet in December 2015 in Paris to essentially endorse and approve a new climate agreement," Mr Steiner said.

"So out of Lima the expectation is that a draft text for this agreement emerges and some of the key parameters are agreed among member states.

"For example, the baseline years for which future emissions cuts will be measured, and a number of technical details that are fundamental to be able to frame a global agreement where 193 nations can work together on climate change."

The UN has asked countries to start working on its post-2020 targets, known as intended Nationally Determined Contributions (iNDC), which it wants made public by early 2015.

"We'll go through a very careful process of analysing the position of other countries, the needs of the world and Australia's abilities," Mr Hunt said.

In a submission in October to a UNFCCC working group, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs said the 2015 agreement must:

Sustain economic growth and let countries take action that is appropriate to their national circumstances and policy choices, while delivering effective environmental outcomes;

Establish a common playing field for all countries to take coordinated climate action;

Include clear, credible and quantifiable emissions reduction commitments by all, in particular from major economies, that deliver real global outcomes;

Establish a durable rule-based architecture that creates transparency and accountability around countries' emissions and actions, and confidence that claimed emissions cuts are real.

Deforestation to be a focus in Peru talks

Around 20 per cent of global human greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation and reducing emissions from the practice is likely to be a key focus in Lima.

Deforestation accounts for half of host nation Peru's greenhouse gas emissions.

Law firm Baker & McKenzie released a comprehensive guide to REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).

"Ultimately we will need to have a more robust mechanism by which countries who do take positive steps to protect their rainforests and avoid deforestation are rewarded so it creates an incentive to protect rainforests, as opposed to destroying them for agriculture or mining or other uses," the firm's global climate markets partner Martijn Wilder said.

"These negotiations are absolutely critical because they continue the momentum and they continue the recognition of the importance of addressing climate change.

"More than ever what we're now seeing is domestic governments take fairly aggressive steps within their own countries to reduce emissions that in many cases will go beyond the commitments we're making at an international level."

ABC/Reuters

Topics: climate-change, environment, environmental-management, environmental-policy, environmental-impact, federal-government, world-politics, government-and-politics, australia, peru

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