Meanwhile, it is still unclear who is in the official Philippine delegation. Some experts were already in Copenhagen when they learned that they had been excluded. Without accreditation, they could not enter conference venue the Bella Centre for several days. Some Filipinos are literally out in the cold, lining up with other would-be delegates at the centre’s gates in freezing temperatures.  Heavy snow is expected in Copenhagen this week.

While the final list of delegates, including those accompanying Arroyo as she touches down here on Wednesday, is still a mystery, it is already widely known who has been omitted.

Aside from Muller, other key persons removed from the Philippine delegation included Joyceline Goco of the Inter-agency Committee on Climate Change at the Environmental Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and Dr. Rodel Lasco, an internationally-renowned forestry expert and member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Representatives from a number of civil society groups were also removed.

Exclusion of a hardliner

The most stunning omission was of Muller, who has more than 20 years of negotiating experience and has become famous in climate change circles for her hard-line stance towards rich countries, earning her the nickname “dragon woman” from grudgingly respectful Western peers.

Muller, a retired Philippine diplomat now based in Switzerland, has been one of the most vocal negotiators in calling for developed countries to fulfill their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol (1997) to fully fund emission reduction and climate adaptation efforts in poor countries.

Muller’s role in negotiating for the interests of the developing world ‘cannot be underestimated’, said Lim Li Lin, legal adviser to the Malaysia-based NGO Third World Network. ‘You really have few negotiators with the institutional memory and depth of understanding about the process, convention, and issues being discussed here. Clearly, [Mrs. Muller] was seen as a threat to the developed countries who have a lot at stake in these negotiations.’ Muller has since been “adopted” as an adviser by Sudan, enabling Muller to continue negotiating on behalf of the G77 bloc of 130 poor countries but without waving the Philippine flag.

Without an official explanation, conspiracy theories abound about Muller’s exclusion from her country’s delegation, including US pressure to have the “dragon woman” removed.

‘A lot of things have changed in the Philippine position since Hillary (Clinton) visited the country’, said Ma. Teresa Nera-Lauron of Ibon Foundation, one of several Filipino NGOs currently in Copenhagen to observe the talks. ‘We believe that [the President’s] visit here with other world leaders will only affirm the Philippines’ support of the US position in the climate talks.’

She was referring to the overnight visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Nov. 12-13 to visit victims of the recent cyclones and meet with Filipino youth.

Lauron said that the President’s arrival on Wednesday will be met with protests by Filipino civil society groups currently here in Copenhagen.

Muller herself has not commented on her exclusion but a close associate of hers told GMANews.TV: ‘We received information from a number of sources that it was [President Arroyo] herself who decided that Ditas [Muller] should not be in the Philippine delegation in Copenhagen.’

Presidential Adviser on Climate Change Heherson Alvarez rejects the notion, saying: ‘The President doesn’t know Mrs. Muller and the cutting process undertaken by the executive office was arbitrary. Presidents are not aware of the nitty-gritties’, said Alvarez. Alvarez said that the staff of the office of the Executive Secretary slashed the recommended list of delegates in order to keep the delegation “lean.”

‘In previous climate talks I have been the one preparing the list of negotiators… This time the President is the head of delegation – because of protocol I had to give way to her’, Alvarez said.

Alvarez has served as the Philippines’ chief negotiator to the yearly U.N. climate talks since his appointment in 2008.

Philippine position on carbon emissions

Philippine civil society groups have expressed concern that these recent developments, particularly the non-inclusion of Muller in the delegation, may signal a shift in the government’s previous position that developed countries need to make “deep and early cuts” in carbon emissions.

Last November during a cabinet meeting in Bohol Mrs. Arroyo said that the Cabinet must form a position that ‘does not insist on deep and early cuts but must be binding.’ Calling it useless to push for ambitious reductions in carbon emissions when rich countries such as the US and China are not willing to commit, the President said that ‘cuts and amounts should not be sticking points’ but that sacrifices must be made to get binding commitments.

In Copenhagen, however, Alvarez gave assurances that the Philippine government has not changed its stance: ‘Our position on deep and early cuts still stands and any suggestions to the contrary, that the Philippines is reneging or budging on this, are not true.’

With its small carbon footprint and meager political clout, the Philippines is not considered an influential country in climate change negotiations. However, the Philippine delegation has traditionally played a leadership role within the G77 bloc of 130 poor countries by taking on progressive positions championed by experienced Filipino negotiators like Muller and Tony La Viña of the Ateneo School of Government (who remains on the Philippine delegation).

In previous years, Muller has often stood up to remind intransigent countries such as the US about the ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ in the climate negotiations among signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Although rapidly growing China has overtaken the US as the world’s largest polluter, Muller points out that 80 per cent of the accumulated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere came from the Industrial Revolution since the 19th century and not to activities in recent decades.

In terms of per capita emissions, even big developing countries such as China and India lag behind industrialized countries, in which each citizen produces huge amounts of carbon emissions compared to individuals in poorer countries.

On Monday, the talks were suspended for several hours when developing countries under the G77 bloc walked out to protest the refusal of developed countries to discuss new emission reduction targets under the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol. Negotiations only resumed when informal talks assured the boycotting countries that talks on emission reductions would go on.

As the climate talks reach the high-level segment on Wednesday, with government ministers arriving and making hard decisions on the negotiations, rich and poor countries are still wrestling over major issues.

The sticking points include how much and how fast developed nations must cut emissions; what emerging economies like China, India, and Brazil must do to slow the growth of their own emissions; and how much money rich countries should channel to the poorest countries so they can shift to low-carbon economies and cope with the adverse impacts of climate change, such as destructive cyclones.

Developing countries are indignant over what they perceive as developed countries’ reluctance to set emission targets high enough to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Developed countries have insisted that emerging economies must also promise to set carbon reduction targets.

In previous interviews, Muller has described the insistence on reductions from big developing countries such as China, India and Brazil as an “inequitable demand that constrains the economic growth of newly-developing nations”.

She said developing countries are expecting “full, effective and sustained implementation of the convention and not change it, revise it, or have another agreement” in Copenhagen.

Delegation’s revolving doors

Muller’s exclusion from the Philippine delegation may now bring into question the Philippines’ relationship to the rest of G77, according to Lin of the Third World Network. ‘We really hope this does not signify a change in position for the Philippine government because it would be a real shame if the Philippines went from being a leader in the G77 to becoming a country that is creating problems within G77 and undermining the positions of developing countries’, she said.

The G77 bloc is already plagued by rumors of rifts between larger developing nations, the most vulnerable and least developed nations, and oil-producing countries.

The Department of Foreign Affairs has so far not agreed to provide Filipino journalists here with the most recent list of accredited and nominated members of the Philippine delegation…but reports of who’s in and who’s out conjure up the image of a revolving door.

As acting head of the delegation prior to the president’s arrival on Wednesday, Alvarez used his authority last December 10 to reinstate at least eight technical staff and civil society representatives who were previously removed from the delegation.

This included three technical staff members of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Climate Change (or ‘OPACC’): Jasper Inventor of Greenpeace International, who for the past two years has been the Philippines’ key negotiator for developed countries’ new carbon reduction commitments under the Kyoto Protocol’s second phase; environmental attorney Ron Gutierrez of Upholding Life and Nature (or ‘ULAN’); and Nong Rangasa of the Albay provincial governor’s office.

Rangasa told GMANews.TV that before they were reinstated, ‘We had to remain on the sidelines because we were not recognized by our government. We were not on the list. Those who could not get reinstated to the list had to join other delegations of other countries and NGOs. So the Philippine representation here is now scattered.’ Albay province has become an international model in recent years for climate adaptation efforts at the local government level.

Nong Rangasa says that non-inclusion of other members of the delegation will hamper its effectiveness. ‘Now we are undermanned and therefore we can’t cover all the issues. We will have difficulty delivering on the interests of the country.’

Alvarez also said that the absence of these persons with specific expertise in the climate talks has forced current members of the delegation to take on extra tasks.

During the first three days of the conference in Copenhagen, only six persons were present as part of the Philippine delegation to the climate talks. These included two officials from the Departments of Agriculture and Foreign Affairs plus four others from non-government organizations and academe.

Since then, more members of the delegation have arrived in Copenhagen, including an undersecretary from the DENR and representatives from the Philippine offices of World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International.

– With Yasmin Arquiza in Copenhagen, and Howie Severino

Bernaditas “Ditas” Muller, a retired Filipina diplomat based in Switzerland and an environmental adviser to the Department of Foreign Affairs, has represented the Philippines to international climate talks since before the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and was instrumental in negotiating the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. She is also currently the lead negotiator and spokesperson to the climate talks for 130 developing countries from Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific island nations—a huge bloc known as the G77 and China.

Muller has incurred the ire of Western governments and the admiration of the developing world for her hard-line negotiating style. In the lead up to Copenhagen, she has been a key figure in holding Western countries accountable for their greater responsibility in causing climate change, of which poor countries who have not emitted much carbon are victims.

While President Arroyo’s office has remained silent so far on its reasons for removing Muller from the Philippine delegation, civil society groups suspect that the President may have acted under pressure from the United States and other industrialized nations.

A group of nearly 40 environmental and development NGOs released a statement last Friday warning that the President’s move is “inimical to the interests of the country and will cause a serious embarrassment for the Philippines and the rest of the developing world.”

“The negotiators of industrialized countries are really afraid of Ditas Muller because she keeps reminding them of their responsibilities. They want her out of the picture so that they can push their own agenda. There are many developing countries that depend on Muller to defend their interests,” said Chito Tionko of the Panay Rural Development Inc., one of the NGOs behind the statement.

In the lead up to Copenhagen, poor nations and environmental groups have criticized industrial nations, especially the United States and the European Union, for their perceived lack of ambition in setting forth carbon reduction targets and in delivering much-needed funding and technologies to help developing nations cope with the effects of climate change.

Despite research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommending that industrialized nations cut their carbon emissions to 25 to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by the year 2020, the targets of most rich countries are lower.  The United States has pledged the equivalent of a mere 4 per cent reduction.

Previously, the Philippines has been vocal  in the international arena about calling for deeper and earlier cuts.  However, it now seems that President Arroyo may be willing to sing a different tune.  At a cabinet meeting in Bohol last November 10, President Arroyo said: “We need not insist on deep and early cuts in carbon emissions, but we should require countries to make a commitment.”

“We used to be one of those countries that was strongest in insisting on deep and early carbon cuts. But now, just because of what the US and their allies dictate, we have to weaken our position? President Arroyo has clearly sold out on the interests of the Filipino people,” said Meggy Nolasco of the Philippine Climate Watch Alliance.

Muller herself has chosen not to comment on the issue. She may still be able to negotiate in Copenhagen if the delegation of another country embraces her.

This may not be an unlikely scenario.  Neth Dano from the Third World Network, an international development organization that has been closely monitoring international climate talks, says it’s “too important for G77 in this negotiation” for her not to participate in the talks.

Aside from Muller, several dozen other civil society members of the Philippine delegation, who negotiated for the country during previous climate talks in Bangkok and Barcelona, were also removed from the Philippine delegation to Copenhagen. As early as August, Presidential Adviser on Climate Change Secretary Heherson Alvarez recommended 38 government and civil society representatives to be included in the official Philippine delegation to the climate talks. The Department of Foreign Affairs had recommended more than 100.

The final delegation selected by President Arroyo included only around 20 names, without an explanation as to how they were chosen.

The use of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal for energy consumption, is responsible for 55 per cent of the total emissions, the report from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said.

According to the report, greenhouse gases from agricultural activities accounted for 29 per cent of emissions, while waste contributed nine per cent and industrial processes made up seven per cent of the total emissions of 126,878 kilotons.

Activities in the so-called land use change and forestry sector, however, have absorbed 107,387 kilotons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Even though greenhouse gas emissions went up, offsets from higher vegetation reduced the country’s total emissions to 19,491 kilotons made up mainly of methane and nitrous oxide gases, said the report, which is based on 1994-2000 data.

“What this is telling us is that our forests, our biomass that’s there, is an important resource. It’s an asset. It actually helps offset our other emissions as a country,” said Fr. Jett Villarin, science adviser of the Manila Observatory based at the Ateneo de Manila University and team leader of the inventory report.

The figure represents a significant drop of 81 per cent from the previous figure of 100,740 kilotons of greenhouse gas emissions cited in the previous report submitted in 1999, based on 1990-1994 data.

Isagani Serrano, president of the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM), described the results as “counter-intuitive” for bucking the trend in other developing nations, where carbon emissions are increasing along with economic growth.

The DENR commissioned the PRRM and the Manila Observatory to prepare the report, which was presented at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati.

According to the report, the Philippines is a “net sink” of 35,113.5 kilotons of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas coming from human activities that scientists have deemed responsible for global climate change. This means the country absorbs more carbon dioxide than it emits into the atmosphere.

Not comparable

The report represents the 2nd national communication of the Philippines as part of its obligation as a member country of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is holding a landmark conference in Copenhagen in December.

Fr. Villarin cautioned against making comparisons between the two reports however, saying “in 1994, the initial report was used with old data, and old emission factors. That’s why we’re comparing apples and oranges. In fact, we may have been a sink then also, once we apply what we’ve done in 2000 to 1994.”

The latest figures are consistent with previous findings from the Forest Management Bureau (FMB) of the DENR that the country’s forest cover is growing due to the establishment of tree plantations and the substantial decrease in the area covered by logging concessions.

According to FMB statistics, the Philippines had a forest cover of 10.5 million hectares in 1969, when the first forest inventory was done. The figure dropped significantly to 6.5 million hectares in the second forest inventory in 1987, mainly as a result of commercial logging activities during the Martial Law years. In the latest forest mapping activity in 2003, however, the country’s forest cover had risen slightly to 7.2 million hectares.

“Many things were underestimated in the initial communication, I think agro-forestry, upland farms,” said Fr. Villarin, adding that many grassland areas had been replanted with coconut trees and other trees in 2000. “When you do that you bring in carbon,” he noted, resulting in a higher absorption of carbon dioxide emissions.

“When I see the 2000 inventory, I see that as the main driver – the conversion of what used to be wasted landscape now being used for economic reasons, for business. But this is not necessarily reforestation,” he added. “There can be deforestation happening, I’m sure there is, that’s also offset by these other things that are regrowing.” – Pia Faustino and Yasmin Arquiza, GMANews.TV

Green groups and the local government of Makati City, a main financial hub in the Philippine capital, recently launched a fleet of 10 electric jeepneys or e-jeepneys that will ply two routes in the city’s main business district.  The e-jeepneys will provide fare-free and emission-free public transport for commuters.

Electric jeepneys now ply Makati roads from Pia Faustino on Vimeo.

In the last 150 years, about 60 percent of carbon emissions came from the small population of 12 percent living in the United States and Europe, data from the WRI shows. In contrast, only 24 percent of emissions came from the much greater majority of 80 percent living in poor countries.

“Which countries are historically responsible for climate change? The rich countries have been spewing emissions since they begun to develop at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution,” says Bernarditas Muller, a retired Filipina diplomat and coordinator of G77 plus China, the largest bloc of 132 developing nations in the climate talks. “But now that we poor countries have begun to develop, we are constrained because of climate change,” she added.

Despite the average Filipino’s small carbon footprint, he will most certainly be trampled by the effects of climate change. The 2009 Global Assessment Report of the United Nations’ International Strategy for Disaster Reduction ranked the Philippines as the 12th among 200 countries analyzed for risk to tropical cyclones, floods, earthquakes, and landslides.

Experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which provides scientific advice to the UN, have predicted that natural disasters such as storms and hurricanes will become more intense as the globe gets warmer.

40 percent cut

Given the country’s small role in causing global warming but high vulnerability to climate change, the Philippines has joined the G77 in demanding that rich nations ramp up targets for reducing carbon emissions, as part of a new international agreement that will be finalized by world leaders next month in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“We are working on an agreement that will decide the fate of this generation and future generations.  Climate change is a long-term problem so you have to have long-term solutions,” says Muller. But with less than a month to go before Copenhagen, poor and rich countries still have key disagreements on which countries should cut emissions, by how much, and when.

The new agreement is a follow-up to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that set binding targets for 37 industrialized nations and the European Union to cut their carbon emissions by a collective 5 percent below 1990 levels, during the first commitment period from 2008 to 2012. The US famously refused to adopt the Kyoto treaty, even though it was the world’s largest carbon emitter at the time.

Both the US and EU have argued that any new agreement should require major developing economies like China and India to reduce emissions. The huge populations and fast growth of these two countries in recent years have made them the world’s first and fourth top carbon emitters at present.

“We are all emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The atmosphere doesn’t care where it’s coming from. We cannot go on seeing emissions increase in developing countries as they have at the moment. We are hoping to get developing countries to reduce the trend so we fall below business as usual,” says EU climate spokesperson Karl Falkenberg.

The Philippines and other developing nations are calling on rich nations, because of their historical role in causing global warming, to assume the heftier obligation by reducing 40 percent of their emissions from 1990 levels by the year 2020. The target is based on estimates from IPCC scientists on the necessary action to avoid the most disastrous consequences of climate change.

“Every country has a responsibility to address climate change, but those countries that created the problem should take a leadership role,” says Atty. Tony La Viña, Dean of the Ateneo School of Government and a key Philippine representative to the international climate talks. “But so far, their promises are far from what we need.” he added.

So far, Norway is the only industrialized nation to have agreed to cut 40 percent of its emissions by 2020. Japan and the European Union have announced cuts of 25 and 30 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.   The Kerry-Boxer climate bill currently pending in the U.S. Senate will target reductions of 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.  But because emission levels in 2005 were much higher than in 1990– the standard baseline year used in the climate talks– this is actually far less ambitious compared to other countries’ targets.

Small carbon footprint

Developing countries assert that industrialized nations have consumed more than their fair share of the earth’s resources over the past century, and are therefore obliged to assume most of the carbon cuts.

“This is not just about cutting emissions. Rich countries need to completely transform their production and consumption lifestyles. They complain that this will hurt their industry profits. But what other choice is there?” says Muller.

The developing world sees the stance of rich nations as an attempt to dodge their legal and moral responsibilities to climate change victims.

“There needs to be differentiation between the countries that created the problem, and the countries that are largely victims of problems they did not create,” says Chinese climate envoy Ambassador Qingtai Yu. “The per capita emissions of China are around four tons per person per year, or just roughly one third the per capita emissions of developed countries. Being born a Chinese should not give me a limited entitlement to the atmospheric space, relevant to that of a person born in a developed country,” he adds.

Yet the meeting ended in deadlock last Friday, with rich and poor countries bitterly divided over major issues, namely — by how much rich nations should cut their greenhouse gas emissions, and how poor countries can be given access to financial and technological resources to help them to grow their economies sustainably and to cope with the effects of climate change.

The agreement is scheduled to be sealed this December at another meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark.

But with fewer than 60 days to go before then, wealthy countries including the United States, European Union, Australia, and Canada have yet to promise greenhouse gas cuts at a par with what scientists say is necessary to avoid dire consequences.

To date, industrialized nations including the United States, Canada, European Union, Australia and Japan have pledged to cut their emissions by a collective 11 to 18 percent below 1990 levels by the years 2020.  This is significantly lower than the 25 to 40 percent cuts that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say are needed to keep the rise in global temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius.

Developing countries are also asking that rich countries provide them with financial and clean technologies to help to develop on a green path and to cope with the effects of climate change. Industrialized nations have yet to agree to this.

Representatives from developing countries are outraged over what they perceive as rich nations’ failure to take leadership on solving a problem that they are largely responsible for creating.

“They have done more to create the problem so they have a greater obligation to help solve it.  If your neighbour burns down your house, then who should help you to rebuild your house?  Of course, the one who is at fault,” said Filipino diplomat Bernaditas Muller, a spokesperson and coordinator of the largest coalition of developing countries in the climate talks.

The majority of the additional carbon in the atmosphere today was generated by developed countries, which began to burn massive quantities of fossil fuels like coal and oil at the onset of the industrial revolution around two centuries ago.  Even today, the richest 20 percent of the world’s population generates more than 60 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet poor people in developing nations stand to be the hardest hit by climate change, the IPCC also reported in 2007.

In the Philippines alone, more than 500 people have died in the past three weeks because of flooding and landslides caused by Typhoons Ketsana and Parma. India, Vietnam, and Cambodia have also experienced extreme flooding.

While the exact causes of any one weather event cannot be scientifically proven, scientists have predicted that extreme weather events like these will become more frequent because of global warming.

In the meantime, the onset of a climate change may be moving faster than our world leaders’ actions to stop it.

The new agreement will outline the world’s response to climate change in the coming decades.

Scientists and environmentalists have emphasized the urgent need for world leaders to halt the worsening of climate change and address its disastrous impacts, which may include more frequent extreme weather events like the recent typhoons that battered the Philippines.

“[Developed] countries must act now with urgency to moderate these storms and spare the whole world from the impoverishing and devastating impacts of climate change, especially to low-lying archipelagic island nations like the Philippines,” said Presidential Adviser on Climate Change Heherson Alvarez at a press conference in Bangkok.

Alvarez heads the Philippines’ 27-member delegation to the Bangkok Climate Change Talks.  The delegation also includes undersecretaries from the Departments of Environment and Natural Resources, Science and Technology, Energy, and Agriculture, as well as representatives from civil society.

Detailed in the proposed climate deal under negotiation in Bangkok are new emissions reduction targets for wealthy countries, sustainable development actions for poorer countries, and financial and technology transfer options for those countries hardest hit by the effects of climate change.

Yet until now, developed and developing countries continue to disagree on a number of crucial issues, casting doubts on whether a meaningful climate deal will be reached in Copenhagen.

“Time is not just pressing, it has almost run out.  There is no Plan B, and if we do not realize Plan A, the future will hold us to account for it,” said UN Climate chief Yvo de Boer in an opening speech to more than 2,000 delegates to the Bangkok Climate Talks.

Developing nations are pushing for wealthy nations such as the United States to reduce greenhouse emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by the year 2020.  However, reduction targets put forth so far by wealthy nations have not matched these demands.

The European Union has announced a target of 30 percent — given sufficient action by other countries — with Japan offering a 25 percent emissions reduction from 1990 levels by the year 2020.  Meanwhile, the United States, until recently the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, has put forth targets of 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and 80 percen by 2050.

The US has also insisted during negotiations that emerging economies like China and India also set targets for reducing the growth in their emissions.

Developing countries are meanwhile demanding that developed countries provide funding and access to new technologies to enable the world’s most vulnerable countries to cope with climate change impacts.

The Bangkok Climate Change Talks are one of only two remaining meetings left before the landmark summit in Copenhagen.  Another five days of negotiations are scheduled for Barcelona, Spain in early November.

A report released last year by the United Kingdom’s Hadley Center said that the world must reduce its global emissions by 3 percent every year beginning in 2010 in order to limit the increase in average global temperature to 2 degrees by the year 2100.    The report also stated that if greenhouse emissions continue at their current rates, then average global temperatures may rise by as high as 7.7 percent by 2100.

The 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released in 2007  listed a number of dire consequences for Asia if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unabated.  These include less access to freshwater by the year 2050, increased flooding along coastlines and riverbanks in densely populated mega-delta regions, and increased sickness and death due to diarrhea , malaria and other diseases caused by droughts and floods.