Beginners Guide
The latest round of international climate negotiations is known officially as the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP 10) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It will run from 6 -17th December 2004 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Framework Convention was agreed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992, and has since been ratified by 189 countries.
Its ultimate objective is the ‘stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner’, and states:
“The Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Accordingly, the developed country Parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse affects thereof.”
The Framework Convention has a non-binding target that calls for industrialized countries to bring their greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels by 2000. The recognition that this was inadequate gave birth to the Kyoto Protocol which was agreed in 1997.
Seven years later, the Protocol has finally been ratified by the required minimum of 55 industrialised countries whose emissions account for at least 55% (Russia was the last to ratify in 2004) and it will become legally binding in February 2005. The Kyoto Protocol calls for a 5% reduction (from 1990 levels) of greenhouse gases by industrialized countries by 2012.
The United States shows no sign of re-entering the Kyoto process, at least as long as the Bush administration is in power. The only other Annex B country to have announced it will not ratify is Australia. Of the others only Liechtenstein, Croatia and Monaco have yet to complete the ratification process.
What next for the Kyoto Protocol?
The Kyoto Protocol’s becoming a reality marks the end of 10 years of negotiation. In practical terms, this means that the countries that have ratified (known as Annex B countries) are now legally bound by the targets they agreed to back in December of 1997 in Kyoto. They must now get serious about meeting those targets, through reducing emissions at home as well as through the use of the various trading mechanisms in the Protocol
Formal preparations will begin for creating a ‘global’ carbon market for emissions trading for 2008, and the so-called ‘flexible mechanisms’, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) will become operational. The USA argued very strongly for these mechanisms but will now not be able to participate in them.
Finance: In July of 2001 at COP6bis, after the US had pulled out of Kyoto, a number of industralised countries Parties (the EU, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland – pledged to contribute USD 410 million per year starting in 2005 to assist developing country Parties with adaptation and mitigation (via Special Climate Change Fund and the Least Developed Countries Fund). This can finally get underway, although it is clear that this level of funding is by no means adequate.
What’s on the table at COP 10?
The formal process of the climate negotiations has been all but ‘on hold’ while waiting for Russian ratification. Now that entry into force is assured, furious preparations are underway to enact the provisions of the Protocol as well as to prepare for negotiations on the next round of cuts (the Second Commitment Period). This is happening amidst much discussion about how the climate regime needs to be broadened and strengthened. As such, although the formal negotiations at COP 10 will be more about form than substance, the sub-text, as well as the majority of side events and corridor conversations will be dominated by discussions of ‘Post-2012’ negotiations.
What is Dangerous Climate Change…?
The primary obligation on countries signed up to the Climate Convention is
to prevent dangerous climate change. A report published by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in September 2001 (Third Assessment Report
or TAR) included new and up-to-date information on the likely extent and impacts
of climate change. Since then, floods and heat waves in Europe, a global drought,
extreme floods in India and China, an apparent increase in the rate of CO2
build-up in the atmosphere, collapsing ice sheets and a new report detailing
the wholesale meltdown of the Arctic have given rise to concerns that the
climate may be changing even faster.
It is the obligation of the Convention Parties to make the political decision as to what is ‘dangerous’ climate change. Pertinent questions arising out of the IPCC report:
- Is the meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet or the destabilization
of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet dangerous, leading as it would to many meters
of sea level rise?
- Is putting 300 million people more at risk of malaria dangerous? 50-120
million more people at risk of hunger? 100 million more people at risk of
coastal flooding? More than 3 billion people at risk of water
shortage? Are these dangerous?
- Are significant damages to crop production in tropical and subtropical countries,
which could among other things reverse agricultural self-sufficiency progress
in many developing nations dangerous?
- Are losses of unique ecosystems and substantial damage to coral reefs dangerous?
One of the major differences between the TAR and the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report from 1995 was the higher range of global mean projected temperature increase during the course of this century, from 1.0 – 3.5ºC, to 1.4 – 5.8ºC. But, the impacts of the upper end of this range were not assessed by the IPCC, and recent evidence indicates that we need to pay attention to this.
…And How to Avoid It?
Greenpeace and our colleagues in the Climate Action Network
have staked out our position in favor of a maximum peak of temperature rise
as less than a 2ºC increase above pre-industrial
levels. For more details see “How
Much Climate Change Can We Bear?”
Conclusion
Greenpeace will continue to argue for environmentally effective implementation
of the Kyoto Protocol, and urgent negotiations to agree the next steps to
ensure the much deeper cuts which will be required to avoid dangerous climate
change: at least 30% cuts by industrialized countries by 2020, increasing
to 70-80% cuts by mid-century. This translates into global emissions reductions
by mid century of up to 50%. Anything less than this will consign our children
and theirs to a very unpleasant and very unstable world. The decisions that
governments, industry and civil society make over the next decade or two will
be crucial for climate protection in the long-term.
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