If the Cancun climate change conference (COP 16) was the place where the climate convention train got back on track, the Durban conference (COP 17) needs to be the place where key elements are delivered.
Following the failure of the world’s leaders at the Copenhagen climate summit to deliver the fair, ambitious and binding (FAB) treaty needed to protect the climate, many spent much of 2010 writing about the collapse of the UN convention process. This didn’t happen, and at COP 16 the Mexican hosts led the convention process so that it was back on track. Under the Cancun Agreements, Kyoto second commitment period discussions were permitted to move forward (albeit without binding Canada, Japan or Russia, who objected), and a Green Climate Fund to support climate adaptation and mitigation for developing nations was established (albeit without the details or the sources of funding having been identified). The fundamental discussions about the legally binding nature of any treaty and the low levels of ambition were put off to Durban and beyond.
Whatever is happening within the negotiations, the reality of climate change is stark and the failure of politics to deliver the necessary measures does not change the science that calls for urgent measures. Delay only makes the situation worse; the longer we postpone, the more expensive and painful it will be to take the action needed to protect the climate.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC – the climate convention) was one of three agreed at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit; its 20th anniversary is next year. The key objective of the climate convention is enshrined in Article 2: ’stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.’
We have already exceeded the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases that science considers the limit beyond which we will experience ‘dangerous climate change’, and the need for urgent action grows daily.
It was recognised in the ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ clause that developing countries should not have to hinder their economic development by cutting emissions. The industrialised countries that have benefited from the developing countries’ industrial development bear the main responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
However, the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ and the determination of developing countries to defend this ‘firewall’ while developed countries are determined to break it down (i.e. demand legally binding cuts of the developing world) are at the crux of the deadlock in the climate talks.
To put all of this in perspective, between 1900 and 2005, the US accounted for 30% of the world’s cumulative emissions that now sit in the atmosphere, while China was responsible for 8%; Japan 4% and India 2%. There is no question that the US and the developed world’s per capita emissions are responsible for the lion’s share of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere today and largely responsible for the impacts already taking shape. However, as the developing countries lift billions of their citizens out of poverty, their emissions are rising. China has now overtaken the US as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world annually, but the US still emits triple the carbon emissions per capita than China. Yet from the planet’s perspective, emissions remain emissions – whether per capita, per country, per ocean or per forest are immaterial.
The big questions for Durban – the ‘legal form’
What will happen to the Kyoto Protocol (KP) and its second commitment period and the Long Term Cooperative Action (LCA) negotiation track?
The Kyoto Protocol (KP), agreed in 1997 set binding targets for cutting emissions. Industrialised countries (Annex I) agreed to cut by about 5% from the levels being emitted in 1990 in a first commitment period that ends at the end of 2012. While the US originally signed on to the Kyoto treaty, in 2000 US President-elect George Bush rejected the Protocol, which effectively removed any hope of the US ratifying the agreement. The Kyoto Protocol set out no requirements for developing countries to cut their emissions.
Given that the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends next year, a resolution of the second commitment period looms large in the Durban climate talks. According to the Bali Action Plan (COP 13, 2007), this should have been dealt with in Copenhagen in 2009. The Bali Action Plan also set up a separate negotiation track called the Long Term Cooperative Action (LCA), which includes all emitters (US, China and all members of the UNFCCC) and it was meant to conclude negotiations with some kind of treaty in Copenhagen. Two years after Copenhagen, both the KP and the LCA track discussions will expire unless the negotiations find some way to extend them.
The developing world rightly is holding the industrialised governments feet to the fire on the promise of the Kyoto Protocol. It is the only legally binding treaty we have covering climate change and it puts the onus on the developed nations to stop doing more damage to the atmosphere while helping the developing world adapt to the sometimes horrific impacts they have not caused. As Ambassador Jorge Argüello of Argentina (currently Chair of the G77+China group of countries) said at the recent Panama talks: ‘The Kyoto Protocol is a cornerstone of the climate change regime, and nothing will be achieved unless it can be adopted in Durban.’
Ambassador Argüello reaffirmed this in the closing session in Panama and added: ‘We believe that the Kyoto Protocol is essential in enhancing the ambition of developed countries. In this regard, the establishment of Annex I commitments for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is the central priority for Durban. Any other result would undermine the rules-based multilateral response to climate change under the UNFCCC and cast a shadow over our shared commitment to multilateralism.’
Japan, Canada and Russia have already signalled that they will not take on a second commitment period, citing the exclusion from the Protocol of the world’s largest emitters, China and the US, as their reason for opting out.
The EU, which has been a leader on climate change and helped forge the Kyoto Protocol, is considering adopting a second commitment period. But it is not prepared to make an unconditional commitment and is calling on the larger developing countries whose economies and emissions are growing rapidly to agree to cut the business-as-usual growth in emissions as a pre-condition. Australia and New Zealand are currently biding their time without having committed one way or another.
Currently we have what appear to be ‘red lines’ on both sides. The developing country bloc, primarily led by the G77 and China, is pushing for a second commitment period as red lines in the negotiations. While the US, Japan and Canada insist that China, in particular, takes on legally binding reduction targets, Europe is looking for some kind of commitment from large developing countries regarding its emission reductions.
The challenge we all have is that we are running out of time for the planet. Campaigners are pushing hard for a second commitment period of the protocol, but we know that even if successful, less than 20% of the world’s emissions would be covered. We need to deliver on the promise of the Bali Action Plan, the Kyoto Protocol as well as a second treaty that covers all the world’s emitters while respecting the ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’.
If the Durban climate talks do not conclude with any kind of deadline for a legally binding treaty, essentially the world will be left with a voluntary ‘pledge and review’ system, where countries make voluntary commitments that the UNFCCC periodically reviews these against the science of climate change. Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that by shunning legally binding commitments the UNFCCC would effectively devolve into a Wild West situation ‘with every country doing what it wants to do’. Basing emissions reduction commitments on what a country is willing to do rather than a need to control atmospheric CO2 ‘doesn't get you to where science says you need to go’, he said.
Climate finance: follow or - more accurately - find the money
Developing countries are the most vulnerable to climate impacts despite not being responsible for the problem, and not benefiting from the industrialisation that caused the problem. The populations and economies of developing countries are too fragile to cope with the impacts of climate change. Further, they do not have the investment needed either to adapt to climate change or to shift to the modern low-carbon technologies needed to pursue economic development.
Hence one of the agreements at the Copenhagen climate summit was that finance should be made available to support adaptation and mitigation. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said that ‘The US is prepared to work with other countries to jointly mobilise $100 billion a year by 2020’ to help the most vulnerable countries. There was an agreement for $30 billion to be made available quickly – the so-called ‘fast-start finance’ which comes to an end in 2012.
One outcome from the Cancun talks was establishing the Green Climate Fund, but as yet there is no money to fill the fund. Almost two years have passed since Secretary Clinton made her statement, and most of the members of the climate convention have associated with the Copenhagen Accord (the outcome of those 2009 climate talks), yet we still have no agreed sources of long-term finance.
While finance discussions are difficult, made more so by the recent economic crisis hitting the US and Europe, there are opportunities – firstly for innovation and investments in green growth and technologies, and secondly, as demonstrated by the UN Advisory Group on Finance report last year, there is a raft of innovative sources of finance which could provide billions of dollars without having any impact on national economies. Such sources include a global levy on bunker fuels (shipping and aviation fuel – this has the added advantage of providing an incentive to reduce emissions), an international financial transaction tax (FTT), and the removal/diversion of fossil fuel subsidies. President Obama himself put the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies on the G20 agenda. There really is no excuse for obfuscation and delay.
The G20 finance ministers and leaders discussed innovative sources of long-term climate finance when they met last week in France. While the meeting was overshadowed by the economic problems in Europe, the only somewhat positive outcome was some support for an international financial transaction tax or FTT.
Hence, a second key to unlocking the talks in Durban involves getting money into the climate fund. During the Panama discussions, the US pushed back developing countries’ attempts to put the issue of long-term finance on the agenda in the finance group. The EU joined with AOSIS, the Africa Group, India and Saudi Arabia in submitting text on proposals for fulfilling the long-term finance commitments, and in the end, Canada, Japan and the US appeared to relent, at least to allow the conversation to happen. Hopefully this might lead to negotiations on a package for long-term international climate finance in Durban.
Ambassador Argüello again highlights the issue: ‘It is clear that without financing, including for technology development and transfer and capacity building, the extent to which developing country Parties will be able to effectively implement their commitment under the Convention will be directly affected.’
Democracy deficit in the talks – rules of procedure
One issue which is not often talked about is that one key reason for the dysfunction within the UNFCCC is because there is no agreement on how the convention makes decisions. In essence, the lack of ‘voting rules’ or ‘rules of procedure’ which should govern how the process works means that almost everything is decided by consensus. It could be argued that the lack of agreed rules is one reason that we don’t have a deal. Every other international convention has agreed rules of procedure and it is high time this happened in the climate convention.
The frustration caused by the difficulties was noted by South African Ambassador Diseko when she said, ‘This is the most awkward of UN processes!’
Climate change impacts on poverty, on health, on jobs and on all the things that are top priorities for people. Mexico and PNG are jointly working on a proposal for rules of procedure to be adopted at the UNFCCC. This proposal is one to watch, particularly if the talks break down.
The costs of inaction are mounting daily. Recent extreme weather events – from massive droughts in the Horn of Africa to record tornadoes in the United States to wildfires in Brazil, all bringing tragic loss to millions of people – bear witness to the lack of political will. According to the global insurance company Munich Re, in 2010 there were more than 950 natural disasters, 90% percent of which were weather related, costing a total of at least $130 billion. Economically, socially and environmentally, it is time governments took responsibility for action; their failure leaves us trying to live with a law of the jungle. The planet cannot afford any more delays.
Paul Horsman is the Campaign Director for the Global Campaign for Climate Action, (GCCA) which runs the tcktcktck campaign. The GCCA is an alliance of more than 300 non-profit organizations all over the world. Our mission is to mobilize civil society and galvanize public support to ensure a safe climate future for people and nature, to promote the low-carbon transition of our economies, and to accelerate the adaptation efforts in communities already affected by climate change. Paul has been campaigner on environment and peace issues for over 25 years, mainly with Greenpeace and has worked on climate and energy issues since the early 1990s.