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.

Blame game kick-starts in Bonn

There’s been hardly any movement at the Bonn climate talks in the last 24 hours even as the meeting draws to a close.

If anything, it is that the blame game has kicked-in in earnest with both the EU and United States ploughing into China, accusing the Asian country in particular of ‘hardening’ its stance on how not to launch talks under the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (AWG-ADP).

But it is not only China that maintains that the issue of pre-2020 mitigation be completed under the two existing mandates (AWG-LCA and AWG-KP) which are already working on the issue, a large number of developing countries from all regions of the global south (which make up about four billion of the world’s population are united in their call on Annex I countries to honour their legally binding international obligations under the climate change convention and protocol.

Annex I Parties’ mischaracterization of these developing countries as ‘blockers' is not only misleading but is also hollow and scandalous.

**A plenary is scheduled for later tonight in search of a breakthrough after a series of meetings on Wednesday collapsed. Throughout today, May 24, Sandea De Wet, interim Chair of the ADP from South Africa, has been in closed informal sessions with some parties. 

There’s even the possibility that parties would be forced to a vote on the issue. If that happens, it will be the first since the UN climate change process began two decades ago.

US, EU block negotiations on finance

The United States and its allies are blocking negotiations on finance at the Bonn UN climate change meeting. Developing countries want Annex I Parties to renew commitment to the three-year Fast Start Finance (FST) as a first step towards bridging the gaping funding gap. Little progress has been made in Long-term Finance.

At the AWG-LCA contact group meeting on finance on May 23, 2012, developing countries sought for clarifications on the nature and sources of finance to fill the gap that will emerge once the (FSF) ends later this year.

United States said the FST was a ‘one-time political commitment’ and therefore will not be renewed to set a precedent. The European Union was much less blunt. The EU said it will contribute its fair share of international public support but also noted that private and innovative finance will play a much bigger role. Discussions on Long-term Finance stalled. The EU said a workshop in July and another later this year will deal with the question of long-term finance.

But the US and EU also opposed calls by developing countries for a spin-off group on finance to concretely address the funding gap post 2012.

Developing countries pointed out the financing gap from 2013 to 2020 and the need for new, additional and predictable funding. Developing countries also want climate change finances to come from predictable and public sources rather than private and other less predictable sources.

Under the Copenhagen Accord and Cancun Decision Annex I (developed) countries are obliged to provide developing countries with Fast Start Finance of US$30 billion to mitigate the impacts of climate change for the three year period of 2010-2012. In addition to the FSF, Annex I Parties were committed to provide US$100 billion annually by 2020 to enable poor countries to tackle climate change.

The US said the 2020 target of mobilizing US$100 billion was linked to meaningful mitigation actions for 2020. For the US if developing countries want to have a mid-term finance target, as proposed by many developing countries, then they would have to take on mid-term mitigation targets. However Egypt remarked that the US$100 billion was not set with mitigation goals and that a mid-term goal for mitigation (for developing countries) was a new idea.

Developing country concerns about long-term finance borders on clarity of sources, access modalities, timeframe and pathway for scaling up finance and the adequacy of the US$100 billion.

Bonn talks deadlocked: Annex I Parties insist on deregulation

The Bonn UN climate change negotiation has hit a stalemate. The rift is over whether mitigation for the period 2012–2020 should be tackled by the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (AWG-ADP) or the two existing negotiating tracks.

The two already existing negotiating tracks are the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) and the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP).  A series of sessions, both plenary and informal, over the last few days have failed to resolve the impasse.

Developed countries have failed to meet their legally binding international obligations under the existing climate change regime and are therefore pushing to have mitigation negotiated under the ADP even though the Durban mandate/COP 17 extended the mandate of the AWG-LCA to enable it to continue its work which includes mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology and capacity building in accordance with the Bali Action Plan (BAP), Decision 1/CP/13.

Three main outcomes emerged from the December the 2011 climate conference in Durban, South Africa. The ‘Durban mandate’ launched a process for the negotiation of a new climate treaty to be implemented from 2020. The mandate also agreed on measures to implement some decisions adopted by earlier COPs.

Developed countries are required under the existing global climate regime (convention and protocol) to cut their emissions and for non-Kyoto protocol members, such as the United States, to undertake comparable, measurable and verifiable emission cuts.

Developing countries are also, under the Bali Action Plan, tasked to carry out Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA) with financial and technological support from developed countries.

If developed countries are successful in their pursuit, it will abruptly and effectively terminate the AWG-LCA process, outcomes and the principles of equity and Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) which distinguish the actions and responsibilities of both developed and developing countries. These principles have been at the heart of climate negotiations up until now. 

Developed countries’ at Bonn will also render the work of the AWG-KP meaningless.

As a tactic, developed (Annex I) countries have categorized the stalemate as a fight over procedural issues, which imply that developing countries are wasting precious limited negotiating time.

However, as noted earlier, the fight is actually about the substance, context and paradigm of the climate regime pre-2020 and indeed the post-2020 when the Durban mandate requires a new legal global climate change regime to come into force.

Rich countries led by the United States and the European Union are most content with the ADP as it does not have comparability, firewall or support for NAMAs of developing countries unlike the AWG-KP and AWG-LCA.

The danger with developed countries’ plan to move 2012-2020 ‘enhancing mitigation ambition’ to the AWG-ADP is that it will reprieve these countries from legally binding commitments to install lower non-binding targets.  It will also impose an inequitable burden on developing countries in meeting mitigation ambition.

Such an outcome will invariably send global temperatures above safe limits and out of control.

UNFCCC 2012 climate change conference in Bonn

The 2012 inter-sessional meeting of the UNFCCC will take place in Bonn, Germany from May 14–25. The Bonn meeting is the first session post-Durban’s COP 17. Negotiators are expected to launch the Durban Platform and plan their work to negotiate a new climate regime which is expected to be completed by 2015 for it to take effect from 2020.

The inter-sessional will also discuss technology and adaptation support developing countries require to build their own sustainable energy futures and to adapt successfully to existing climate change.  Other critical issues for the Bonn meeting are the question of finance, the Green Climate Fund and how to expand funding support for developing nations to and beyond US$100 billion per year by 2020.

Negotiators will also work on finalizing other decisions for their adoption at COP 18 in Doha in December 2012 and this includes the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. 

TWN-Africa staff, Kwesi Obeng will blog the inter-sessional from Bonn.