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However, Russia like many of the parties that have withdrawn from the KP or simply do not subscribe to the rules-based, top-down multilateral system that the protocol represents, want to enjoy the rewards of the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

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.

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.