Tag: AWG-KP

Kyoto Protocol: Closing Plenary
CAN intervention

6th August 2010

Distinguished Delegates,

Tuesday's workshop left no doubt that we are on the way to exceeding the dangerous
threshold of 1.5 degrees if current Annex B pledges become their commitments for the
second period and current loopholes remain.
The projected abatement shortfall is between 7 and 10 Gigatonnes.
If you want to come to a global agreement to avoid dangerous climate change, you will
take any opportunity close this gap.
We hear a lot in this working group about the importance of the other track. To the
Annex B parties assembled here our message is simple. If you wish to secure progress in
the LCA track in December, you must act here. You must commit to the second
commitment period of this hard-won Protocol. You must indicate before the next
negotiating session, your intention to do so. The effect this has on both tracks in these
negotiations will be worth it.
Only by doing so will the other outcomes you seek so intensely, and which the global
community at large seeks to intensely, be achieved.
The Kyoto Protocol is crucial to the world's efforts to successfully limit climate change.
..

Thank you Mr Chair, Distinguished delegates, Clearly, progress is needed on the KP track here in Bonn.

CAN would like to remind delegates that when the KP was first negotiated, Parties agreed targets first, and the following years were spent agreeing the loopholes to accommodate them - loopholes that have contributed to the gigatonnes gap between accounting for emissions and what the atmosphere actually sees.

It is CAN’s long-standing opinion that the underlying rules should be negotiated first, so that the needed reduction target of at-least -40% can be allocated between the Annex B Parties, based on a clear and common understanding of the underlying scope and accounting rules.

Negotiating time in Bonn and for the subsequent intersessionals should therefore be focused on reaching agreement on a number of issues, including:

• Accounting rules that actually reduce net LULUCF emissions;
• Modalities for the flexible mechanisms – to avoid double counting of developed country mitigation and financial support obligations, and keep out inappropriate sectors, such as nuclear and CCS
• The AAU banking loophole
• The scope of new sources and sectors and other accounting rules – the “other issues”
• Commitment period length and base year

These issues need to be agreed, but not agreed at any cost. CAN has strong concerns about some of the proposals currently being discussed, especially for LULUCF.

In the LULUCF negotiations, Annex I Parties are proposing to make their forests part of the climate change problem, rather than part of the solution. They are proposing to increase their annual net emissions from forest management by approximately 400 Mt CO2e without even accounting for it. This type of proposal has absolutely no place in a global climate agreement.

At this session, Annex I Parties must stop the accounting games. Annex I Parties must commit to absolute reductions in net anthropogenic emissions from LULUCF and they must protect their forests and other natural ecosystems as reservoirs of greenhouse gases. Parties could then quickly agree to LULUCF rules that transparently meet these two principles.

Like so much in this process, time is not required to fix LULUCF, only political will and ambition.

CAN Position Paper Minimization of Adverse Effects of Response Measures