Public support of climate actions – common problems need common solutions.

International conference of Climate Action Network of Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia was held from 19 till 23 of February in Tbilisi. Climate Secretariat of Russian Socio-Ecological Union has participated in this event. Public stands for ambitious national CO2 reduction targets corresponding to global challenges to slow down the climate change. For Russia greenhouse gas emissions reduction should be a priority in the energy sectordevelopment.

On the conference of CAN EECCA network different countries were presented: Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus. Representatives from CAN International, Change Partnership, the Norwegian Society for Nature Conservation, Belarusian and Austrian Red Cross also participated.

Conference participants discussed the results of the climate negotiations in Warsaw, and what are the problems for creating a new global legally binding agreement. One of the challenges is to achieve the proper amount of the climate finance and its targeted use. Developed countries want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and developing countries want to adapt to the climate change. It is necessary to achieve the national goals strengthening in the largest countries.
According to Alexei Kokorin (WWF Russia): “For internal purposes of countries - global trade solutions are not necessary. They also don’t want the increased control. But the control system must be international, to avoid corruption”- says Alexey. (More on the outcome of COP19: http://rusecounion.ru/post_warsaw)

At the climate negotiations COP-15 in Copenhagen the common goal was adopted to prevent the global temperature rise to more than 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial era. But many scientists say it is possible and necessary to hold the temperature rise at 1.5 degrees, because at 2 degrees many species would disappear, reduction of biodiversity will occur, agricultural land will be degraded, significant change in ecosystems will happen.
Irina Stavchuk from the National Ecological Center of Ukraine (NECU) told about the adequacy and feasibility of long-term global temperature rise limit by 1.5 degrees. Technological impossibility has not been proved yet. There are technologies that can be used to capture carbon and pump it to the underground. This could keep the level of emissions, but everyone except the business representatives against such actions, because the consequences are unknown. In addition, this technology is very expensive.
(more info: http://infoclimate.org/?books=adekvatnost-i-vyipolnimost-dolgosrochnogo-...)

Among the discussed issues was the topic of greenhouse gas emissions trading system. Sanjeev Kumar from the Change Partnership organization gave examples of this system in the EU and some other countries. In 2013, the Chinese government has developed the rules of emissions trading in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, where air pollution can be assessed as a catastrophic. It is believed that this is the easiest and cheapest way to reduce emissions, but so far it has not justified itself. The largest carbon market in the world - the EU - has made minimal progress in this field, since the prices on quotas are ridiculously low. On the other hand, the EU imposed a fine of 40 euros per ton of CO2 and it has pushed the companies to join the carbon trading market.
Some countries use combined strategy: emissions trading, energy efficiency and renewables. (More on this topic http://rusecounion.ru/klimat_11113)

Members of the CAN EECCA network discussed the experience, and developed the plans for publicizing the Fifth IPCC Report. On the 25-29 March 2014 IPCC is planning to present the second Working Group report named "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability", and on the 7-11 April - third Working Group report "Mitigation of Climate Change". There is a good experience on joint (WWF and RSEU) presentation of the first Working Group report "The Physical Science Basis" on 28th of October 2014 in St. Petersburg (see http://rusecounion.ru/ipcc_presentation), and RSEU Climate Secretariat information dissemination on this report among all-Russian climate NGO network. For the second and third part of the report press conferences and other actions will also be conducted in almost 20 regions of Russia.

Cooperation in Climate Network CAN-EECCA has already produced tangible results. Local observers of the network cooperate during climate conferences/negotiations in frames of UNFCCC, and develop joint positions in the negotiation process (see http://infoclimate.org/can-positions/).

According to Olga Senova (RSEU Climate Secretariat), one of the important results of the joint action network - the campaign «Energy Efficiency is the Biggest Power Plant», which is held this year by NGOs in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (more about Campaign «Energy Efficiency… " in Russian: rusecounion.ru/mp_russia).