Non-Party Stakeholders Inputs for the Talanoa Dialogue

Non-Party stakeholders’ inputs for the Talanoa Dialogue

Question 3 - How do we get there?

Context of the submission:

SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit),The University of Sussex is carrying outresearch in collaboration withCanadian researchersandwith guidance from individuals of Indigenous communities (Horizon 2020 funded research project The research explores low carbon energy transitions in Alberta where oil sands productions occur in Canada.

Authors:

Jenny Lieu, Luis D. Virla, Eise Spijker,Romy Tittel, andCece Fitzpatrick

How do we get there?

Ways in which the UN Climate Change process can help you achieve your vision and goals, and how your actions can help in expediting sustainable transitions to climate neutral societies

A consorted set of efforts are needed to properly value natural capital as well as mitigate the negative externalities related to fossil fuel extraction and consumption. Part of this includes providing means to adapt to the changing climate along with the adverse impacts of oil sands/resource development.
Alberta’s economy is path dependent on oil sand production but also suffers from the boom and bust of the oil economy. The UN climate Change process can help to break this dependency on the oil economy by setting up a process to value adaptation measures (e.g. REDD+) along with mitigation measures. However, REDD+ needs to be extended to non-forest regions including areas rich in biodiversity (e.g. peatlands where Canada contains around 25% of the worlds peat lands and other vulnerable ecosystems).
There should also be a stock taking exercise that assessesthe status/health natural capital and rates of decline based on resource development/extraction. The natural capital stock can be co-defined by affected right holders (those that have rights to land use) along with scientists and government and non-government environmental organisations.
The UN can also facilitate the development of global open source innovation clusters. These innovation clusters can set up to support the co-development of low carbon technologies that support the transition away from fossil fuel dependency and speed up the innovation of low carbon technologies to markets. Technologies can include geothermal energy (e.g. from abandoned gas wells for district heating in Alberta) or wave/tidal energy (for coastal areas). These technological clusters will have to be carefully governed to support open source collaboration. The challenge will be to attract private industry. Such projects can also be funded in collaboration with European Union Horizon 2020 projects which already supports open source research and innovation.

Concrete solutions that have been realized while implementing your commitments, including lessons learnt from success stories and challenges, and case studiesthat are in line with the 1.5/2 degrees’ goal and can support the Parties in achieving their NDC goals, enable higher ambition and inspire engagement of other non-state actors

One possible solution to improving adaptation measures to cope with the adverse impacts of oil sands/resource development and to climate change risk includes developing a legacy fund for stakeholder/right holders most adversely impacted by resource development. This can include creating a damage/compensation protocol for key risks throughout project life cycle (e.g. environment, health) funded by oil sands royalties and tax payers. This protocol (including the tools, methods, resources and planning) should bestructured in a way that stakeholders participate and interact in a constructive manner in natural resource development projects, before, during and after implementation (project life-cycle commitment). See next section on theConsensus Building Engagement Process as a collaboration model for details.
Mitigation measure includes collaboration with industry, the investment community, policy makers to support the development of a renewable energy sector for both large and small-scale generation. See next section ‘Policy levers’, ’Collaboration/cooperation opportunities’, and ‘Public and private financing models’ for details.

Collaboration models with other stakeholders and, in particular, between non-Party stakeholders, national governments and the UN Climate Change process that have been successful in helping you, or canhelp you, achieve your commitments

We propose an inclusive engagement processthat can be applied when developing natural resources or implementing new technologies, particularly largescale technologies/resource development projects that could have unintended environmental and social impacts. The Consensus Building Engagement Process (CBEP) focuses on step-by-step consensus building through consultation and inclusion of all affected stakeholders. The CBEP is shown as a cyclical process with five stages: Pre-assessment 2. Development 3. Implementation 4. Monitoring and learning 5. Reflection (see Figure 1).
The process is intended to support decision-making processes that impact local or Indigenous communities, particularly in energy and land useprojects (e.g. hydro projects, renewable energy etc.). Throughout each CBEP stage, consensus is built through dialogue and establishing trust among parties during the consultation process. Effectively, the local/Indigenous community has veto power in each stage, as consensus is required before moving to the next step. Although consensus may prolong the entire engagement process, we argue that addressing the issues of concern within a respectful space defined by the all parties involved is more constructive for building long term relationships.
The engagement framework intends to encourage a reflective dialogue that is co-developed by the local/Indigenous right holders and interested parties (natural resource developers) in order to come to a consensus on decisions. The outcomes of the reflective engagement process should be mutually beneficial for the Indigenous community and the interested parties.
The process can be facilitated by a neutral third-party body or the "Public Defender", whose costs are borne by industry and government. The Public Defender Body can act as a nexus between industry, government and local/cultural needs as well as the environment. The positions can be filled by any person with skillset to advice communities on technical issues resulting from the development project, to advise on government regulations, shortcoming in governance as well as representing local and cultural priorities. This body will also be tasked with accounting for the cost of the environmental impact from this industrial activity.
Figure 1: Consensus Building Engagement Process (Lieu, et. al, 2018)

Opportunities to further scale up action and means to address barriers that can enable even further action by non-Party stakeholders based on the actions you have taken to implement yourcommitments. (“We’ve made progress and have made new commitments as described above. This is what I need from national governments, other non-Party stakeholders and the UN Climate Change process to take even further action…”) [Maximum 200 words for each item below]:

Policy levers

Clear bur differentiated policy targets should be developed based on large scale clean energy generation as well as decentralised low carbon energy systems. Supporting decentralised energy system democratises energy generation and allows households or end users an opportunity to capitalise on energy production (provided that the policies are in place to promote renewable energy electricity generation). However, careful planning is required to establish an effective policy mix as the introduction of a single policy instrument may not have the same intended outcome when its introduced into an existing mix. Proper analysis and evaluation should be conducted before introducing a new policy to minimise the potential negative consequence.
Additionally, the negative externalities are not fully priced in fossil fuel costs. Aside from carbon emissions, fossil fuels are impacting the ecosystem and the costs of land reclamation are not priced in the costs. These additional costs need to be borne by both producers and consumers of fossil fuels and specific taxes also put on energy generation technologies that account for negative impact on 1) land (biodiversity, placing undue stress on species 2) water quality and 3) air contamination/pollution (beyond GHGs). There is an urgent need to put a price on negative externalities from energy/resource development beyond carbon emissions.

Collaboration/cooperation opportunities

There needs to be closer collaboration with government to provide investment direction for clean technologies and the investment community to properly value fossil fuels and promote cleaner energy technologies. See section on ‘Public and private financing models’ to promote the development of renewable energy.
Positive collaboration with industry could also play an instrumental role in decreasing the implementation time and improving the impact of low-carbon alternatives in the oil and gas sector in Alberta. Recent collaboration with industry and indigenous/local communities have proven to be successful into developing the fossil-fuel sector by allowing communities to become partners in investment projects with high profit margin. However, if this model is taken to support sustainable practices and renewable energy development- a community to industry direction, companies could be invited to become partners in other profitable activities that are more in line with the traditional way of life and the ecosystem preservation. By becoming a stakeholder, companies could change their approach in the area and potentially accelerate their migration to lower environmental impact practices.

Lessons learned based on the experience and progress so far

One means of carrying out the stock taking exercise on natural capital is to learn from Indigenous knowledge of the land. Indigenous communities have been stewards of the land and have been monitoring changes over a long period of time (often longer than mainstream scientific monitoring). The knowledge can be combined with mainstream science to track environmental changes over time. One example of such collaboration can be seen in the McKay Berry Focus Group in Alberta, Canada. This group was of formed by members of the Fort McKay First Nation and scientists from the Wood Buffalo Environmental Association, Alberta. The group has developed a community-based program for the monitoring of the berries populations in the area. The key elements in this project has been the development of a scientific methodology sensitive to the culture and tradition of the community members [ Since 2010, this group has been successful with monitoring the health and quality of the berries, as well as important factors to that impact these indicators. Beyond the results, the group has allowed the community stakeholders to obtained accurate information to make informed environmental decisions.
A global study of integrating indigenous knowledge and communities in addressing climate changes is seen in a panel initiated by the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation of the American Museum of Natural History for a conference in 2008. The panel, comprising of Indigenous leaders and scholars in the area, compiled 57 indigenous narratives from all over the world describing climate change and its impacts ( Indigenous knowledge presented in the narratives provided valuable information over an extended period of time that was not captured in scientific records(This section is directly taken from Lieu et. al, 2018)

Public and private financing models

One means of cleaning up the energy system is to support the development of renewable energy. The majority of renewable energy investments in Alberta are large scale projects. Although there are interested investors for small scale renewable energy systems, the market for decentralised/small scale RE energy production is still in its infancy. A part of this is due to a lack of investor confidence. In order to increase investor confidence, the governments can provide confidence through specifically supporting small scale generation through specific feed-in tariffs for small scale generation (funded by national climate bonds) or through tax breaks for electricity self-generation.
Projects can be funded through ‘Ethical investment funds‘ that focus on environmentally and socially sounds projects. The baby boomer generation in Alberta can be targeted as investors to support the low carbon project due to their large savings base and willingness to invest in their children and grand-children’s futures.
There also needs to be a more even level playing field for low(er) carbon energy technologies in local and global markets. A part of this is properly capturing the risks in the costs of investments for fossil fuels. The banking industry including investments and risk evaluation of investment portfolios need to better collaborate with climate initiatives. Currently the evaluation of risks need to be further explored to sufficiently capture the investments risks of high carbon investments.

Reference:

Lieu J, Virla D A, Abel R, and Fitzpatrick C (2018) “Consensus Building in Engagement Processes for reducing risks in developing sustainable pathways: Indigenous interests as core elements of engagement”. Eds: Doukas, H., Flamos A, Lieu J. Understanding risks and uncertainties in energy and climate policy: Multidisciplinary methods and tools towards a low carbon society. London: Springer. Accepted to be Publish in May 2018.