SNAPP

SNAPP 2012 – Supporting National Assessments of Post-2012 Proposals for Climate Protection and Sustainable Development

The overall goal of this project is to enhance international cooperation on climate change by supporting deliberations on future climate policy by developing countries at the domestic level as well as in international processes.

There is growing recognition that protecting the Earth’s climate system in accordance with Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change implies that global temperature rise needs to be restricted to below 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels, as concluded, for example, by the UK EU- and G8-Presidency´s “Exeter Conference” as well as the European Council of March 2005. There is also agreement that this requires additional and urgent action from developed as well as developing countries, albeit according to the agreed and justified principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”.

Proposals from developing countries to deepen their own national involvement and/or to initiate more decisive action at national level on climate change mitigation will require a much broader coalition of developing country actors to become involved in the advocacy, design and implementation of climate policies. In most developing countries, including the countries covered by this project, the pool of climate experts and advocates is too small to carry forward the complex task of designing and implementing future actions on a significant scale, despite growing interest and activities by various actors (including the predecessor of this project, BASIC, as well as EU efforts) to enhance capacities and dialogue with and within these countries.

The specific objective of SNAPP 2012 is to support the emergence of proposals from (key) developing countries concerning future international climate policy and frameworks, taking into account a range of existing proposals.

These proposals should be:

• Analytically sound
• Informed by detailed in-country deliberations leading to appropriateness as well as ownership,
• Linking international climate policy goals with the social and economic priorities of the countries concerned. Work will focus on four key developing countries: Brazil, China, India and South Africa.

Actions and Means involved

SNAPP 2012 will build upon the network and innovative pattern of working established by the Phase I of the BASIC project (2005-2006), which was funded by the European Commission and brought together developing country experts and policymakers in in-country workshops to build capacity on climate issues.
By partnering with WWF, BASIC and WWF take the scope of the activities to a new level, or phase II, specifically aiming at creating national dialogues for “blue sky thinking” on international climate issues and their relation to domestic climate policies and sustainable development. WWF-India will function as coordinator and convenor on behalf of the project and its participants, building on many years of expertise on international climate policy. Above all, WWF-India will:

1. Coordinate and steer the project structures and processes;
2. Coordinate preparation of the national workshops and international dialogue;
3. Coordinate the framing and commissioning of expert papers. WWF will do this by cooperating nationally and internationally with the BASIC network.

Outcomes for each country [Brazil, China, South Africa and India] will be informed by:

1. By two expert papers commissioned to national experts, analyzing past and present negotiation positions, domestic policies, and available options,
2. By national workshops organized by National Dialogue Steering Committees established specifically for this project. Results will feed both into the international dialogue as well as into a dissemination strategy developed by the National Dialogue Steering Committees. Each national activity will result in a key actor’s database which will be utilized, inter alia, for future in-country advocacy and dialogue beyond the lifetime of SNAPP 2012.

An International Dialogue set to take place in Brussels in the final project phase (end of project: December 2008), will focus on constructing a holistic framework for a future international climate regime that could command support from (key) developing countries and fulfill the ultimate objective of the Convention. The International Dialogue will be supported by an International Dialogue Expert Group, containing representatives from the national dialogues, the international expert community and key policy makers, and informed by an overarching post-2012 discussion paper.

Expected results

The expected results include a greater collective understanding and decisiveness of a critical mass of actors in the four countries, on possible contributions of those countries into a post-2012 framework. These proposals will be closely tied with achieving national sustainable development goals. Such proposals and dialogues will also increase the understanding of different national circumstances in the global community, a precursor for any international treaty.