Tag: AWG-KP

As we all settle in for the 17th Conference of the Parties and take advantage of all that Durban has to offer, ECO interrupts our regular programme for this special bulletin: The world’s effort to mitigate dangerous climate change cannot wait any longer.

Durban must deliver a package of agreements that cements what we have and clearly articulates a path forward incorporating the urgency and ambition needed. The key elements of the Durban outcome must include:

Legal form. For those Parties who somehow missed the urgent demand to secure the future of the Kyoto Protocol through agreement and ratification of a 5-year long second commitment period, what rock have you been hiding under? Second, to go alongside the second KP commitment period, a strong mandate is needed to reach agreement on a comprehensive, fair, ambitious and binding agreement with legally binding commitments, no later than 2015, to enter into force on 1st January 2018. A third pillar is to build architecture to ensure commonality and comparability for the non-KP Annex I Parties (yes, we mean you, USA) including common accounting and low carbon development strategies.

Finance. Parties should approve the recommendations of the Transitional Committee and adopt the governing instrument of the Green Climate Fund. But an empty fund is about as much use as a empty envelope. Parties must ensure that the Fund is properly capitalized as soon as possible. This includes agreeing a trajectory to ramp up financing towards the 2020 goal of $100 billion of climate financing per year in support of developing countries, and adopting a work plan to consider innovative sources of public finance.

The ‘low hanging fruit’ is bunkers finance. Parties should give direction to the IMO and ICAO on creating mechanisms for raising funds from international marine and aviation transport that reduce emissions and result in no net incidence on developing countries.

Mitigation. It has not escaped ECO’s attention that, despite the promises in Cancun, governments have successfully avoided any reasonable steps to increase their levels of ambition. ECO wants to be optimistic that this is because delegates have been preparing juicy bits for a one-year dedicated work programme to close the gap between the 2°C objective (let alone 1.5° C) and current mitigation pledges. We look forward to the specifics of this workplan being agreed in Durban. ECO also thinks Parties need to find ways to close the ever-widening gigatonne gap, first by increasing their appallingly low pledges, and second by ensuring that loopholes are closed, including bad LULUCF accounting rules, “hot air” and double counting.

Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF). Annex 1 countries have laid their LULUCF cards on the table, proposing to hide forestry emissions and largely not account for emissions from other land uses. This undermines targets and the integrity of the Kyoto Protocol. For countries, including developing countries, that are committed to securing rules with environmental integrity, Durban is the last chance to reject the worst options on the table and require robust rules.

Adaptation. Adaptation to disastrous impacts of global warming has become an issue of survival for the most vulnerable countries. At the “African COP”, negotiators should be reminded of the dramatic consequences that uncurbed climate change will have on the future of the African continent. Southern Africa in particular faces massive problems from droughts and changes in precipitation. Climate change impacts are already happening today and will worsen if the lack of ambition in mitigation continues. Scaling-up adaptation is indispensable to protect the lives of poor people and increase the resilience of their livelihoods. Adaptation negotiators face a heavy agenda: making the Adaptation Committee operational; solidifying the Loss and Damage work programme; preparing guidelines and modalities for National Adaptation Plans; and the next phase of the Nairobi Work Programme, amongst others. And ECO keeps hearing that some Parties want to hold progress on adaptation hostage. There is no justification for hindering progress on issues crucial for the most vulnerable countries who stand already with their backs against the wall (and with their feet in rising seas).

Shared Vision. Peaking global emissions by 2015 and adopting a long-term reduction goal (-80% globally by 2050) are issues of survival. ECO offers two key principles: the right to survival (which in turn defines ambition on the numbers); and the right to sustainable development. Durban should lock in these numbers with the understanding that each country shall do their fair bit to meet them. And we need a plan for a decent discussion on the fair shares concept after Durban.

Review. ECO will be highly disappointed if Durban doesn’t deliver a robust Terms of Reference for the Review of the long-term global goal and the process of achieving it. A Review Expert Body must be agreed to conduct the Review and recommend appropriate action to be decided by COP 21.

MRV. On MRV, ECO looks forward to robust guidelines for biennial reports, IAR, ICA, accounting for Annex I Parties, reporting on REDD+ safeguards, and a common reporting format for climate finance. Given that MRV is all about transparency, ECO is dumbfounded that the draft text doesn’t guarantee access to information and public participation in the IAR and ICA process, and reminds that ensuring meaningful stakeholder participation is a leading part of a successful Durban outcome.

Market Mechanisms. Here is a big stack of issues that Parties should tackle: stringent CDM reform; a framework for new mechanisms that results in a net decrease of emissions and is based on principles ensuring sustainable development and the protection of human rights; removal of loopholes that weaken targets such as surplus AAUs and non-additional carbon credits. And all of these must go forward on the condition that any market-based mechanism is premised on ambitious and binding emission reduction commitments.

Technology. A substantial outcome on technology is essential at Durban. This COP should ensure that issues concerning the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) host criteria are resolved, and calls for proposals are initiated. Further, the reporting of the Technology Executive Committee and CTCN should be addressed. What is needed will be an accountable, transparent mechanism guided by the COP. Technology outcomes should not be the victim of lack of political will dominating other critical issues, and Durban must deliver.

ECO has been clear in its call for a three-part outcome in Durban: adoption of a strong second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol; a mandate for negotiation of a more comprehensive and ambitious longer-term climate regime based on both scientific adequacy and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capacities; and a package of decisions facilitating near-term action on all four building blocks of the Bali Action Plan and implementation of the Cancun Agreements.

Let’s make something else clear: building a long-term structure for fair and effective international action on climate change is important, but what really matters is meaningful action supporting peoples and communities already suffering the negative effects of climate change, and collective emission reductions at the scale and pace needed to avert even more catastrophic impacts in the future. The best legally binding treaty instruments in the world don’t amount to much without emission reduction ambition in line with the science and financial resources commensurate with the need.

 Coming out of Panama, there has been some progress in developing draft text on many of the elements of the Bali Action Plan and the Cancun Agreements.  But the prospects for linked agreements on extension of the Kyoto Protocol and the negotiations on a longer-term legally-binding instrument are not bright, absent significant changes in the negotiating positions of a number of key countries.  Let’s look at them in turn.

 EU.  Fair or not, the EU holds the key to the Durban outcome.  If the EU does not come to Durban with the clear goal of adopting a second commitment period (not some fuzzy political commitment) the Kyoto Protocol will wither and die.  On Thursday, the EU laid out a clear set of elements for negotiations over the longer-term treaty that would assure that a KP second commitment period is a bridge to a more comprehensive and ambitious legal framework. EU environment ministers need to be careful not to set overly stringent conditions for such negotiations when they meet next Monday in Luxembourg.  

 Australia and New Zealand. While the view from atop the fence is nice, these countries need to get off of it and make clear they are ready to join with the EU, Norway, and others in embracing a second KP commitment period.

 Japan, Russia, Canada.  These countries claim they are bailing out of Kyoto because it doesn’t cover a large enough portion of global emissions.  They need to come to Durban prepared to reconsider their position if agreement can be reached on launching negotiations on a longer-term treaty regime, or risk being perceived as multilateral treaty-killers, not treaty-builders.

 US. The one developed country that stayed out of Kyoto, in part because the Protocol didn’t include major developing countries, claims it is willing to enter into negotiations on a new legally-binding instrument.  But it has set very stringent conditions for the launch of such negotiations, while acknowledging that these conditions almost guarantee no agreement on a negotiating mandate in Durban.  Meanwhile, the US is struggling to meet its already inadequate emissions reduction commitment, and has been reluctant to discuss ways of meeting the $100 billion by 2020 annual climate finance goal its president committed to in Copenhagen.  At the very least, the US must contribute to such discussions in Durban, not attempt to block them.     

The LDCs and AOSIS. The moral power of the most vulnerable countries needs to be heard, highlighting both the existential crisis they face and the reprehensible failure of those responsible for the problem to face up to it.  These groups support both the extension of the KP and a mandate for negotiation of a new legally-binding instrument; they must continue to work together in Durban to achieve both of these goals.

The BASIC countries.All four of these countries are leaders in taking domestic actions to limit their emissions growth as their economies continue to rapidly develop.  Their leadership is also needed on the current fight to preserve a rules-based multilateral climate treaty regime.  They should certainly continue to demand a second Kyoto commitment period.  But they should also call the US’s bluff, by indicating their willingness to negotiate a more comprehensive long-term treaty regime including binding commitments for all but the Least Developed Countries, as long as it’s truly based on principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibility.              

 All countries must come to Durban prepared to negotiate in a spirit of compromise if we are to achieve the ambitious package of decisions needed to address the mounting climate crisis.  Ministers must take full advantage of their time together before Durban, at both the pre-COP ministerial consultations and the likely pre-Durban meeting of the Major Economies Forum, to explore constructive solutions to the current roadblocks to such a package of decisions.  Then in Durban, they must work actively under the guidance of the South African presidency to bring the deal home.  Their citizens need – and expect – nothing less.

ECO truly appreciates that the European Union still supports the Kyoto Protocol (KP), and is heartened by the commitment of the EU to continue (what some might call) ranting about the importance of a legally binding regime. This week, ECO has been particularly pleased to see that the EU started to show some more readiness to accept a second commitment period of the KP. And ECO understands, from the EU’s stated preference for a comprehensive legally binding outcome of the future framework, that the commitments under the Protocol are going to be kept legally binding.

Of particular concern to ECO is that some representatives from particular European countries favor other positions. Understandably it can be hard to make 28 mouths express the same, clear and coherent position but this is, indeed, urgently needed.

ECO believes that the EU should fight harder to ensure that, in Durban, the KP will move into a legally binding second commitment period with broad participation and binding rules. How would anyone understand that the EU believes it would be easier to build a legally binding regime after abandoning the only legal building block we have?

It is in the EU’s, and the planet’s, own interest to ensure that its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol goes beyond a political declaration. Moreover, if the EU is really keen to get all countries to negotiate a legally binding outcome in the LCA, promoting a political commitment to the KP does not seem the best strategy. Increasing ambition means going up, not down.  

Next Monday, when the EU member states' environment ministers meet in Luxembourg, the EU has the chance to unambiguously put its position on paper and ECO believes the time has come to do so and take on a clear leading role. To accept and adopt a second commitment period of the KP does not require anything more than what the EU is already doing, so ECO would find it difficult to understand that the EU denied this breath of fresh air to the current climate talks.

ECO believes the EU could gain a lot if it could leave Durban as the Party that (once again) shaped the outcome of the COP and helped to save the only existing pathway to a global legally binding agreement.