ClimateChange

The overall objective of the Aprodev Working Group on Climate Change and Development is global climate equity. Within this overall objective, the Group will focus on strategically influencing European Union policies with regard to climate change, aiming to ensure that they safeguard and are coherent with the EU’s stated poverty eradication and development policies.

APRODEV will focus its work on the following issues:

the EU’s approach to the current UNFCCC processes, with the aim of ensuring that the EU recognises both its historic responsibility for climate change and that developing countries have a right to development which must be protected.
the EU’s Energy and Climate Policy Strategy, the European Climate Change Programme, the EU-Africa Partnership on Climate Change, the Global Climate Change Alliance, and EU positions in the negotiations towards an adequate and equitable Post-2012 agreement.

APRODEV and member agencies' papers and positions

Copenhagen Legal Options & Equity

The Aprodev Climate Change Working Group launched the report "Copenhagen Legal Options & Equity" on November 5 at the UN Climate talks in Barcelona , the final round of negotiations before COP 15 in December. Read the press release.

The report analyses different proposals for what type of climate change agreement should be agreed in Copenhagen, based on how well the different options respect the right to development of poor countries, how they provide for ambitious emission reductions from developed countries and recognize developed countries' historical responsibility for climate change.

Some questions the report raises include: How can governments best be held accountable if they do not live up to their promises? What are the the political risks of replacing Kyoto Protocol with a new treaty, as proposed by the EU - and what are the consequences for developing countries?

The report draws the conclusion that the Kyoto Protocol needs to be extended and improved - not replaced. Building a new treaty from scratch would not only put equity elements of the Kyoto Protocol at risk - it could also delay action, lower the global level of ambition and lead to continued negotiations for years to come. The climate and the world's poor and vulnerable cannot afford to wait any longer.

Read the report or position paper for the full analysis.

APRODEV letter to President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso on the forthcoming Communication on Climate Finance, August 2009

APRODEV Lobby Points: Key Elements of an Equitable International Climate Change Agreement, August 2009

Christian Aid Report: Growing Pains – The Possibilities and Problems of Biofuels, August 2009

APRODEV et al Recommendations to the Swedish Presidency on Adaptation in the UN Climate Change Negotiations, July 2009

DanChurchAid Report: ‘Intellectual property rights blocking an equitable solution to the climate crisis?’, July 2009

APRODEV Finance Proposal: ‘The United Nations Climate Fund – An Equitable Financial Mechanism under the UNFCCC’, Submission to the UNFCCC, June 2009

APRODEV, CIDSE and Caritas Europa joint letter to EU leaders on Climate Change before the Spring Council - March 2009

APRODEV response to the EC communication, Towards a comprehensive Climate Change Agreement in Copenhagen - February 2009

APRODEV submission in preparation of an EC communication on a post-2012 international agreement on Climate change - December 2008

APRODEV Poznan lobbying points

APRODEV submission to EC electronic consultation "Towards a comprehensive and ambitious post-2012 climate change agreement"