The Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are widely recognized as most vulnerable to climate change. These countries are working to negotiate an ambitious, legally binding international agreement on climate change under very difficult circumstances, both nationally and internationally.
The SURVIVE project supports the SIDS and LDCs in their goal to establish an international rule-based climate regime which can lead to ambitious emissions reductions sufficient to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and to ensure adequate funding for adaptation and mitigation.
By providing cutting edge strategic, technical, policy, scientific and legal support for negotiators, the project aims to assist and empower SIDS and LDCs to build upon the Cancun Agreements and to negotiate a legally binding international climate agreement under the Durban Platform.
SIDS and LDCs want this new agreement to contain ambitious mitigation targets; to provide a robust institutional architecture for finance, adaptation, loss and damage and MRV; to enable access to technology that meets their objectives and needs; and to be structured and governed in a way that ensures that their interests are fully represented.
Successful negotiation by the SIDS and LDCs will result in more substantial mitigation efforts by major emitters and consequently lower levels of warming, lower adaptation needs, and lower levels of loss and damage, benefitting all. Ensuring adequate finance for mitigation and adaptation will likewise be beneficial for the entire global community.
Challenges for SIDS and LDCs
The Cancun Agreements and 2011 Durban Platform established several major new pathways in the international climate policy architecture, which involve increasingly complex negotiations. SIDS and LDCs are attempting to make use of these new possibilities to protect their interests. Their goal is an international climate architecture which can lead to ambitious emissions reductions sufficient to limit warming a temperature increase of 1.5°C and that can deliver adequate funding for adaptation and mitigation.
The Cancun Agreements in 2010 started a process of reviewing mitigation pledges and the science around the 1.5°C target; of establishing a Green Climate Fund, an Adaptation Framework, an Adaptation Committee and a mechanism for handling loss and damages; of continuing to work to strengthen national institutions, and measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) and international consultation and analysis (ICA) methodologies; and of continuing to work towards a legally binding agreement. Ongoing international negotiations are set to produce a new international agreement by 2015 under the Durban Platform created at the end of 2011. Dealing with this range and complexity of issues is more difficult than ever before, and is particularly challenging for resource stretched groups such as the SIDS and LDCs.
Objectives of the SURVIVE project
• Policy and strategic analysis of scientific, mitigation, adaptation and finance issues
• Support for the development of adaptation and loss and damages mechanisms
• Strategic and technical input into the 2013-2015 review of the adequacy of the long-term goal
• Assessment of mitigation actions and gaps, emission pathways consistency and climate targets for 2020
• Scientific assessment of risks, impacts and policy options relevant to SIDS and LDCs
• Development of the PRIMAP model (including emissions and regional impacts) to improve its application to strategic scientific and policy questions relevant to SIDS and LDCs
• Assisting in building enhanced endogenous scientific, policy and strategic analytical capacity
• Collaboration with climate science and policy related institutions
• In the longer term, minimization of the risk of exceeding the maximum manageable climate impact identified by SIDS and LDCs
What is the PRIMAP model tool?
The SURVIVE project utilizes the science-synthesis PRIMAP model (Potsdam Real-time Integrated Model for Assessment of Emission Paths) developed by PIK to provide scientific and technical advice to SIDS and LDCs.
The model includes an emissions component which assesses emissions pathways and looks at issues such as equity and comparability of efforts by different countries, and a regional impact component that allows for scientific assessment of the relationship between key threats such as rises in regional sea levels and the global mean temperature and/or CO2 concentration, and mitigation options and emission pathways under consideration in the climate negotiations.
Who are the project partners?
SURVIVE’s project partners include LDCs and SIDS in the Africa, Caribbean, India and Pacific Ocean regions.
SURVIVE works closely with the lead climate negotiation teams in the SIDS and LDCs. It supports, where requested, the ministers, ambassadors and high-level officials of SIDS and LDCs, as well as negotiators and experts with leadership roles in climate institutions such as the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol.
SURVIVE works closely with the current chairs of the LDC group (Gambia) and of the SIDS group (Nauru) to deliver this project.