Stephen Minas |
Published 6:29 AM, 14 Jun 2011
The world’s climate change negotiators have spent another week marred by procedural wrangling, as the International Energy Agency warned that the window for keeping the global temperature increase below the targeted 2ºC is rapidly closing.
National officials meeting in Bonn, Germany, for two weeks of United Nations climate talks spent much of last week unable to agree on agendas for key negotiating tracks. There has been no movement on divisions over the shape and ambition of a global climate deal. No further sessions have been scheduled to prepare for the end of year meeting in Durban, South Africa.
‘No time’ left to avoid regulatory gap
On day one of the meeting, UN climate chief Christiana Figueres flagged International Energy Agency findings that emissions in 2010 were the highest in history and that an estimated 80 per cent of projected power sector emissions to 2020 are already "locked in." IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol has warned that "the world has edged incredibly close to the level of emissions that should not be reached until 2020 if the 2ºC target is to be attained."
Figueres conceded that there is probably "no time" left to avoid a gap in the Kyoto Protocol – the first period of which expires in 2012 – even if a second commitment period is agreed to in December. Governments realised that a "regulatory gap" was a prospect and were working on how to deal with it, she told reporters. As to "exactly what that’s going to look like," she said, "I bought several crystal balls but not that one."
On the question of what comes next, the European Union’s Artur Runge-Metzger said that the bloc is "flexible" and would consider a second Kyoto period. But Runge-Metzger dismissed the "foregone conclusion" of some parties that the EU will automatically sign up for a second period of the Protocol, which requires only developed countries to cut emissions. He renewed his call for a "broader framework’ including all ‘major economies."
Agenda fight
A common basis for the Durban negotiation, however, has remained elusive. Referring to April’s deadlocked Bangkok meeting, chief US delegate Jonathan Pershing warned against having "another debate over whether to move the agenda forward." But from Monday morning that’s exactly what unfolded.
Disputes over a host of agenda items kept negotiators from beginning work on substantive issues in the climate change convention’s two subsidiary bodies. Issues included the measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of emissions reductions, the funding of reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation by market mechanisms, and Saudi Arabia’s insistence that compensation for the effects of mitigation measures on its oil-based economy be considered.
Three days of "haggling" (as Runge-Metzger put it) resulted in compromise agendas with hard decisions deferred. Contentious items were variously amended, deleted, held in abeyance or referred to further consultations. The final hurdle was cleared when an offending footnote in each of the tracks was dealt with to Bolivia’s satisfaction.
Many delegates expressed frustration with the delays. Nigeria’s representative admitted that "it is becoming embarrassing to tell our headquarters that on the fourth day of this session we are still dealing with the agenda."
Australian climate ambassador Louise Hand complained that "we’ve again had such unconscionable humbug over a simple agenda." Others said that the agenda arguments were not merely procedural but reflected fundamental differences over what the Durban meeting should achieve.
Calls for progress, transparency
Civil society groups have called for more access to negotiating sessions and have lamented the scant progress. "Some rich countries aren't serious about negotiating climate change internationally and they're using procedural tricks to get their way," claimed Meena Raman from Friends of the Earth Malaysia.
The EU was criticised for not raising its 2020 emissions reduction target to a long-foreshadowed 30 per cent. Matthias Duwe from Climate Action Network Europe told Climate Spectator that not increasing the target from 20 per cent could put the EU Emissions Trading Scheme "at risk." This is because the overall target informs the sectoral emissions caps under the ETS. Not raising the target would make it "almost impossible to also increase the tightness of the [emissions] cap," potentially dropping the price of tradable credits to "close to zero." This, Duwe said, would deprive the EU of the carbon price signal needed to spur a low-carbon transition.
Kyoto Protocol talks continue
Negotiators met on Saturday and Monday in a contact group to consider developed country commitments under a second Kyoto period. Canada indicated last week that it will not accept commitments under a second Kyoto period, joining Russia and Japan.
Jorge Argüello, chair of the G77 and China bloc of developing countries, called for a second Kyoto period with "strong terms" and accused rich nations of "insisting that the poorest of the poor should suffer the burden so they can maintain privileges and levels of consumption that are unsustainable."
On Monday, Bolivia rejected the notion that Durban could produce a "political commitment" to a second period, in lieu of actually amending the Protocol to provide for a second period. "A very bad scenario," Ambassador Pablo Solón told reporters, "because that means that again, when that is going to be concluded, who knows?"
With fundamental disagreements – including over the Kyoto Protocol’s future – unresolved between national governments at the political level, the diplomats in Bonn remain stuck in the slow lane.
Stephen Minas is a journalist. He researched international climate negotiations at the London School of Economics and the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.
Retrieved from http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/stuck-slow-lane-bonn
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