Clashes over whether to launch formal negotiations on Durban Platform in Doha

Negotiating parties were divided over whether to ask ministers to discuss the two work streams of the exploratory roundtable discussions started here in Bangkok, Thailand, at COP 18. COP 18 will be held in Doha, Qatar in November.

The split became even more apparent at the closing plenary of the Adhoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (AWG-ADP) today. Today, September 5 is the final day of the Bangkok informal inter-sessional.

Essentially nearly all developed countries want the ministers to meet on the ADP in Doha even though its work is still at the preliminary stages. The European Union, the Umbrella Group (led by Australia) and the Environmental Integrity Group (led by Switzerland). It was not all developed countries asking for the meeting. The Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) led by Nauru backed the suggestion by rich countries.

However the BASIC group countries, a group made of the big emerging economies of Brazil, South Africa, India and China, opposed the suggestion. The ADP discussions are still in their exploratory stages and therefore it is premature to have the ministers meet on the issue. The BASIC’s position received a boost with an endorsement from the fairly new but increasingly influential Like Minded Group (LMG) of countries led by Malaysia.

The Umbrella Group is a coalition of non-EU developed countries Canada, Japan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Norway, Russian Federation, Ukraine, United States, Australia and Iceland. The Environmental Integrity Group is made up of Mexico, Republic of Korea, Liechtenstein, Monaco and Switzerland.

South Africa speaking for the BASIC countries said a ministerial on the ADP in Doha will be premature. He urged parties to allow the ADP to crystallize its work first.

But this was not the only point of departure. The Like Minded Group (LMG) of developing countries also dismissed Gambia’s call for negotiations on the ADP to be launched in Doha as ill-timed. Like many other other parties, LMG want the exploratory discussions to mature before launching contact groups at the negotiations.

For Gambia and the LDC given the 2015 for a new climate regime to ready (although its implementation will start in 2020) it was necessary for parties to move quickly to launch the negotiations so as to complete it on schedule.

Divergent views, limited movement

Reports from facilitators of spin-off groups on progress achieved in their negotiations under the AWG-LCA amplified the lack of progress in Bangkok so far. AWG-LCA Chair Aysar Tayeb concluded that progress in the Bangkok negotiations had been limited, as strong divergent views remain on whether further work on the issues is needed beyond Doha and what body would be suited for addressing them.

On shared vision parties are divided on whether the context or the numbers for a global goal and peaking time frame should be addressed first. It is also unclear yet which body will undertake this after if the AWG-LCA winds down in Doha.

On developed country mitigation the discussions have not moved beyond clarification of targets and approaches for measuring progress to parties taking deeper cuts in their emissions. In fact the European Union on a separate platform has indicated that they will not go beyond 20 per cent on 1990s although the economic bloc had announced prior to Bangkok that will take up high ambitions to reduce emissions up to 30 per cent on 1990s levels.

On developing country Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) the spin-off group discussed elements which could be included as part of an outcome in Doha. The elements include enhanced support to deliver NAMAs, understanding the diversity of NAMAs, development of guidelines for Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) of support, proposals for building the capacity of countries to prepare and implement NAMAs through regional workshops, guidelines and handbooks.

On REDD+ financing, the discussions have focused on guiding principles, enabling conditions necessary for scaling up and facilitating financing, issues that require further exploration and signals required from Doha to trigger financing for the full implementation of REDD+. Some of the institutional arrangements required include the establishment of REDD+ board, registries, insurance or reserve mechanism, review and regulatory bodies.

On sectoral approaches contact group which has focused on four options on the general framework, parties remain heavily divided. The facilitator of sectoral approaches reported discussions addressed five options on bunker fuels. This is expected to be narrowed down in later discussions.

There were also reports on various approaches, finance, technology, response measures, adaptation, capacity building and review.

Progress slow in Bangkok

Parties remain stack on many fronts at the ongoing climate change negotiations in Bangkok, Thailand. At a stocktaking session of the Adhoc Working group on the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) convened by the chair, Madeleine Diouf, developing countries expressed frustration at the lack of progress. 

G-77 & China negotiators in a huddle

Developed countries were equally dismayed at developing country parties’ persistence that Annex I parties make deep cuts in their emissions as well as make available finance, technology for developing countries to adapt and pursue low carbon pathways.

Senegal said without any substantive progress on the Kyoto Protocol track, other tracks cannot make any meaningful progress. Senegal spoke for Least Developing Countries (LDC). 

St Lucia, speaking for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) expressed concern over developed country parties’ lack of ambition, to cut more deeply their carbon emissions. For AOSIS, developed countries don’t seem to appreciate the consequences of a likely 3°C rise in global temperature. 

However, Russia like many of the parties that have withdrawn from the KP or simply do not subscribe to the rules-based, top-down multilateral system that the protocol represents, want to enjoy the rewards of the mechanism. 

Developing countries remain resolute that these rewards including New Market Mechanisms will be limited to parties that sign on to the second emissions commitment period of the KP. It remains to be seen how firmly these countries will stand their ground to defend their science-backed position.

Bangkok climate talks: parties clash

Bangkok, Thailand, may be the world's capital of "smiles" but it's no smiling business at the climate change negotiations here. It is another big, bare knuckle fight over the future of the earth. 

Parties, mainly Annex I (rich countries) have clashed with non-Annex I Parties (developing countries) yet again. Negotiating parties are split down the middle pretty much on every single substantive issue at the informal inter-sessional on climate change underway in Bangkok, Thailand from August 30 - Sept. 5, 2012. 

It's more than a fight over agenda and/or process. It's really about the future of the planet, how to save it from possible meltdown.

Negotiators

Rich countries want two of the three negotiating tracks terminated at the end of 2012 in Doha, at COP 18, but developing countries which stand to lose the most from an overheating planet, think and rightly so, that the work streams of these two tracks (AWG-KP and AWG-LCA) under the Bali Action Plan have yet to be completed and therefore can and should only be closed when they have delivered on their mandates as per the Climate Convention. The third and newest work stream is the AWG-ADP (Durban decision). 

Shutting down the work of the AWG-KP and the AWG-LCA at this stage will effectively leave rich countries off the hook to jump ship (to the AWG-ADP) without actually honouring their prior international commitments under these two tracks. And the big question is what will be the guarantee that any agreements reached under the Durban mandate in future will be honoured by wealthy countries given their failure to do what they pledged to undertake under the two older negotiating tracks. So, this fight also an issue of trust and not only substance.

A global coalition of climate change campaigners, the Assembly of the Global Campaign to demand Climate Justice hit the streets of Bangkok to urge developed countries to honour their moral and legal obligations to save the planet and world's most vulnerable from climate change.

Turning vision to action: Mining conference opens in Accra

A four-day conference on mining and Africa’s development got underway in Ghana’s capital, Accra today. Participants are drawn from a wide range of organsiations and constituencies from around the continent. The 40 participants includes activists and researchers working on mining and development issues, trade and investment issues, gender and development issues; trade unionists, artisanal and small-scale miners and community leaders from mining areas.

At the opening this morning, Yao Graham, coordinator of Third World Network-Africa (TWN-Af) and host of the meeting said the conference has three key objectives: deepen participants’ understanding of the Africa Mining Vision (AMV) and Action Plan; generate a common understanding about opportunities and challenges for civil society advocacy around the reform agenda; and discuss and make input into and help shape the Business Plan of the African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC). The AMDC is the continent operational body to oversee the implementation of the plans generated under the AMV.

The 2011 adoption of an Action Plan for the realization of the AMV and release of the International Study Group (ISG) report which offers critical intellectual ammunition in support of the Vision and the principles for the Action Plan represent a body of analysis and principles which provide a firm basis for policy dialogue between African grounded agenda about the place and role of mining in Africa’s development.

Since 2008, TWN-Africa and its counterparts in African Initiative on Mining, Environment and Society (AIMES) has pressed for the widening and deepening of outreach by the African Union and the UNECA towards organizations of Africa civil society for their meaningful and credible involvement in the processes around the AMV. Without an active and organized engagement by African citizens and their organizations, the promises of the AMV and its related documents will not amount to much.

Getting more revenue from mining companies is an important step. The AMV agenda is, however, much deeper and wider than the reform processes taking place in most African countries. The AMV envisages an end to Africa’s dependence on the export of raw material commodities and the structural transformation of African economies. It places far-reaching shifts in mining policy and the role of the sector in Africa’s economies within this transformative agenda.

This conference will thus hopefully contribute to how African citizens and their organizations work together to ensure that the policy decisions taken at continental levels not only become more widely known but more critically become the drivers of domestic policy change across Africa.

Hosted by TWN-Africa with support from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) the meeting is organized by African Initiative on Mining, Environment and Society (AIMES) and the Africa section of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa).

Citing the Lagos Plan of Africa, ITUC’s Kwasi Adu Amankwah observed that the AMV is not the first time that Africa has developed a new progressive document to transform Africa’s primary commodity dependent economy to an industrialized one.

On the question of sub-regional and regional, ITUC-Africa suggested the need to develop a follow-up mechanism at the regional level to guide and assess national level work regarding the AMV to avoid relapse. There is also the need to institute mechanisms by which African countries can assess each other.

Oliver Maponga of the UNECA said although the ISG report took several years to complete the work done laid a solid foundation for the AMV. The recommendations of the ISG report have been applied to develop the AMV Business Plan. The AMV and its related documents and processes are owned by the African Union and its related bodies.

UNECA expectations from this consultative meeting include additional views or issues to be considered and new ideas on implementation. The UNECA is also hoping to build momentum around the AMV, review the work streams of the AMV Business Plan to be finalized for implementation by the end of July 2012.

Divergence on details of renewing the Protocol

Many parties were explicitly dissatisfied with the slow pace of progress at the AWG-KP and the failure to reach convergence on a list of critical issues around the second commitment period of the Protocol.

The issues over which they diverge are many and range from the length of the second commitment period, through the overall ambition level, to the mid-term review of commitment period reserve and carryover of Assigned Amount Units (AAU) to the failure of some Annex I Parties to submit their Quantified Emissions Limitation and Reduction Commitments (QELROs) information and conditions attached to QELROs submitted by some developed country parties.

These concerns shot to the fore at the closing plenary of the Ad hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) on May 24.  Senegal’s Madeleine Diouf–Sarr is chair of the AWG-KP.

Algeria (chair of G77 and China) said the lack of clarity around the QELROs especially will impede satisfactory outcome for the second commitment period of the Protocol.

Swaziland speaking for the Africa group said some parties were pushing for re-interpretation of Protocol in an attempt to stall the process. In an apparent reference to the AWG-ADP process, the group also expressed concern over attempts by developed country parties to link the second commitment period with other processes.

Developing countries and groups want a five-year term for the second commitment period to avoid locking in the low ambitions of Annex I Parties. However Annex I Parties insist on an eight-year period.

Gambia (chair of the Least Developed Countries) said it was unacceptable that some Annex I Parties have failed to submit their QELROs due to ‘national circumstances’. Nauru (chair of Association of Small Island States) also noted that the low ambition levels of Parties cannot warrant an eight-year commitment period.  These concerns were also echoed by Ecuador (for the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America), Saudi Arabia (for the Arab Group), Bangladesh and India.

The European Union which insists on an eight-year period said the length of the second commitment period is inextricably linked to other outstanding issues such as amendments to Annex B and the carryover surplus AAUs. In effect, for the European Union the lack of progress on the length of the second commitment period will impede movement on all the other issues.

The first commitment period of the KP ends later this year and the second period is expected to come into force on January 1, 2013 to avoid gaps between the two periods.

Parties split on where to discuss technology issues

Parties were split on how to enhance action on technology development and transfer to support mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. 

Some parties, mainly Annex I, want the issue of intellectual property in particular pushed to fora other than bodies under the UNFCCC – institutions such as the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the World Trade Organsiation (WTO).

Developing countries however want technology and its related issues addressed under the AWG-LCA and other UNFCCC bodies.

AWG-LCA contact group, chair Aysar Tayeb of Saudi Arabia also underscored this sharp divide in his final report to the group on May 24, 2012.