Climate Concern or Commerce?

By Gopal Krishna
07 Dec 2009


Can Copenhagen Conference finalize the emission reduction targets of the developed countries in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2013-2020) and make available sufficient public funding for developing nations for low emission growth?

All governments must give their adequate response to the urgent challenge of climate change during the historic UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, beginning from today. Negotiators appear to have the clearest signal ever from their leaders to craft concrete proposals. Referring to numerous emission reduction pledges that developing and developed countries have made in the run-up to COP 15, Yvo de Boer, the top climate change official of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) commented that there was unprecedented political momentum to clinch an ambitious deal in Copenhagen. Die hard optimists are saying that in the past 17 years of climate negotiations never have so many different nations made so many firm pledges together.

The Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC was adopted at the third session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 3) in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 which entered into force in 16 February 2005 - the ninetieth day after at least 55 Parties to the Convention, incorporating Annex I Parties - deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession. As of November 2009, 189 countries and 1 regional economic integration organization (the EEC) have deposited instruments of ratification, accession, approval or acceptance of the Kyoto Protocol. The total percentage of Annex I Parties' emissions is 63.7%. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for Annex I Parties i.e. 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These amount to an average of five per cent reduction against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.

The major distinction between the Kyoto Protocol and the UNFCCC is that while the Convention encouraged industrialized countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol commits them to do so.

One the eve of the Copenhagen summit, according to the UNFCCC's Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer, developed countries will need to provide fast-track funding on the order of at least 10 billion USD a year through 2012 to enable developing countries to immediately plan and launch low emission growth and adaptation strategies and to build internal capacity. At the same time, developed countries will need to indicate how they intend to raise predictable and sustainable long-term financing and what their longer-term commitments will be.

Parties to the UN treaty agreed at UNFCCC's meeting in Bali, Indonesia to jointly step up international efforts to combat climate change and get to an agreed outcome in Copenhagen in 2009. The Copenhagen agreed outcome need not resolve all details, but it must provide clarity on four key issues: Ambitious emission reduction targets for developed countries; Nationally appropriate mitigation actions of developing countries; Scaling up financial and technological support for both adaptation and mitigation; and An effective institutional framework with governance structures that address the needs of developing countries.

Therefore, Copenhagen should provide a post-2012 outcome as well as important decisions and start-up finance to immediately kick-start action on climate change in 2010.

A UN Climate Change Conference is more of a political conference attracting key members from governments and civil society professionally dealing with climate change. The opening day and the end of the conference attract high level government participation. As far as the political proceedings are concerned, it should be noted that concluding negotiations usually go well into the last night of the conference.

Denmark's first goal is to avoid all unnecessary emissions of GHG. Therefore, Denmark has decided to offset emissions for COP 15 through a project in Bangladesh organised by the Danish Energy Agency. The DEA calculates this project will cut more than 50,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year and improve air quality in one of the world's most polluted cities. The direct cost of the COP15 for the UNFCCC secretariat will be approximately US$ 2 million. A finalised budget for government expenditure related to COP 15 has not yet been produced. The Danish government has allocated approx. US$ 62 million to COP activities, but it is possible that the final amount will exceed this figure.

Notably, deliberations in Bangkok & Barcelona during September, October and November 2009 were not successful in concluding any legal text for the seemingly final round of climate change negotiations ahead of the Copenhagen Summit in December, 2009, where a comprehensive international climate change deal is to be finalized. Earlier, negotiations in the aftermath of COP-14 too continued in Bonn, Germany with no gains in hand.

The core point under debate is the emission reduction targets of the developed countries in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2013-2020). The efforts by Group of 77 and China comprising of 131 developing countries like India and China are aimed at making the industrialized countries take obligations for pollution reduction as a logical step in view of their historical responsibility but there is no progress on it so far. The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol comes to an end in 2012.

India and other developing countries have proposed that industrialized countries should reduce their emissions by at least 40 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 because they are responsible for almost all the excess green house gases (GHG) and dangerous interference with the atmosphere.

Attempts by US and EU to terminate the Kyoto protocol's next phase have not succeeded so far. A joint statement by G-77 and China (comprising of 131 countries) in Barcelona, Spain on November 6, 2009 at the last plenary of Ad Hoc Working Group Under Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) before Copenhagen clearly demonstrates their position that "a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol must be established for a period beyond 2012 as the legal basis for comparable Annex I emission reduction commitments." The Group of 77 and China look forward to achieving a momentous and historical international climate change outcome in Copenhagen.

The stalemate is evident and so far any possibility of radical breakthrough is not in sight. It appears that the routine pronouncement of being "committed to working together and with other countries in the weeks ahead for a successful outcome at Copenhagen" only reveals that nations would work together bilaterally and with all other countries for an agreed outcome at that meeting. This amounts to agreeing to US position of taking domestic action instead of an internationally legally binding action. No one knows the exact contours of the "agreed outcome" which would pave the way for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol that commences in 2013.

The Group of G-77 and China "strongly stand against all attempts by developed countries to reach an agreement which could in any way result in the Kyoto Protocol being superseded or made redundant. G 77 and China have reaffirmed that the core mandate of the AWG-KP is to define the second and subsequent commitment periods with ambitious quantified emission reductions for developed countries that will significantly contribute to the minimization of future impacts of climate change on developing countries."

Venezuela, a member of G-77 and China group, has voiced objection to proposals seeking to "market the atmosphere", which it said amounted to a situation wherein country "who pays may pollute." The developing countries have said that developed countries are using "green excuses" to get out of their historical responsibilities. They have underlined that market approaches play a limited role in the Kyoto Protocol and are not mentioned in the UN Convention, suggesting their inclusion poses a legal problem. India emphasized that climate technology transfer does not refer to commercial transfer but to concessional transfer.

US, along with the EU and other industrialized countries, is emphasizing the importance of the private sector and the carbon markets towards financing of the climate solutions. In the context of private sector funding, India and China drew attention to the unpredictability of private finance, double counting arising from emission reductions achieved through offset mechanisms like carbon markets, exaggerated estimates concerning how much finance the private sector and markets could generate and the structural link between climate change and markets. Developed countries are seeking to erase the distinction between developed and developing countries and impose new mitigation and reporting commitments on the latter. G77 and China have opposed such proposals, noting historical responsibilities and the clear distinction between mitigation by developed and developing countries, also reflected in the Bali Action Plan.

Given such state of affairs which appear to be guided by forces bigger than sovereign nation states nothing beyond a political statement or a COP decision is expected from Copenhagen, Denmark.

In the meanwhile, a proper independent inquiry into one of the greatest scientific scandal of our age must be undertaken to get to the bottom of the claims by the group of scientists who have for years been more influential and played a role at the heart of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In Copenhagen, governments reach a satisfactory agreement or not, scientific truth with regard to the basis of claims regarding adverse climate change must be unearthed.