Obama to outline US climate goals at Copenhagen

By JULIE PACE and H. JOSEF HEBERT (AP) – 19 hours ago

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will commit the United States to a goal of substantial cuts in greenhouse gas pollution over the next decade when he travels to a widely anticipated climate conference in Copenhagen next month.

The president will take part in the conference Dec. 9 before heading to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. The White House announcement Wednesday ended heavy speculation about whether Obama would attend the summit amid expectations that it likely will not produce a binding climate agreement.++

The president will lay out his goals for reducing the United States' carbon dioxide emissions by about 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. (China just anncouned its goal of 40-50% during the same period)That target reflects climate legislation still pending on Capitol Hill. A House-passed bill would slash heat-trapping pollution by 17 percent. A Senate bill seeks a 20 percent reduction, but that number is likely to come down to win the votes of moderate Democrats.

Obama's commitment to that goal would reverse long-standing U.S. opposition to mandatory emission cuts during eight years of the Bush administration.

The White House also said a half dozen Cabinet officials including Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as well as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency — which is preparing regulations to cut greenhouse gases — will take part in the Copenhagen talks. It is the highest profile contingent of U.S. officials to ever take part in international climate negotiations.

The conference had originally been intended to produce a new global climate change treaty on limiting emissions of greenhouse gases that would replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. However, hopes for a legally binding agreement have dimmed, with leaders saying the summit is more likely to produce a template for future action to cut emissions blamed for global warming.

Yvo de Boer, U.N. climate treaty chief, told reporters in Bonn Wednesday that Obama's attendance was critical. He said, "The world is very much looking to the United States to come forward with an emission reduction target and contribute to financial support to help developing countries."

While Obama tried to tamp down expectations during his trip to Asia this month, he also called on world leaders to come to an agreement that would have "immediate operational effect" and not be just a political declaration.

Former Vice President Al Gore had urged Obama to make the trip. Gore's participation in the 1997 Kyoto talks were key to breaking an impasse that threatened the climate talks that eventually produced an agreement by developing countries to cut greenhouse emissions. The United States, however, never ratified the agreement and the Bush administration walked away from it.

While Gore flew to Kyoto as intense discussions were under way, Obama's visit to Copenhagen will be at the beginning of the talks. Some environmentalists said they hoped the president's trip would be more than ceremonial.

"The Copenhagen climate summit is not about a photo opportunity," said Kyle Ash, climate policy adviser for Greenpeace USA. "It's about getting a global agreement to stop climate chaos. President Obama needs to be there at the same time as all the other wold leaders."

But others said the visit will reinforce the U.S. government's shift on climate policy from that of the Bush administration, which rejected the 1997 Kyoto climate accords out of hand and over eight years steadfastly opposed broad mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases.

"It's a clear signal to the world that we're serious ... that he is committed to this issue," said Jake Schmidt, international climate director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Schmidt cautioned not to expect Obama to "bring back the final deal" on climate, but he said it would help to establish momentum for an agreement next year.

The United States hopes to counter complaints by some delegates in Copenhagen that the U.S. has yet to establish mandatory emission reductions and that — despite Obama's speeches — it may not anytime soon, given the partisan fight in Congress over legislation to require economy-wide reductions in heat-trapping pollution. Congressional Republicans, as well as some centrist Democrats, have opposed the climate legislation, arguing it will result in higher energy costs at a time of economic problems.

In a statement announcing Obama's trip, the White House listed areas where the administration has taken a variety of steps both domestically and internationally to reduce America's reliance on fossil fuels — from the $80 billion in spending on clean energy as part of the economic recovery package to a requirement for significant increases in auto fuel economy by 2016, and agreements with China and other nations to promote energy efficiency and clean energy development.

Copenhagen Countdown: 17 days

Richard Black | 18:16 UK time, Friday, 20 November 2009

If you've spent the week following every change of direction in the political winds about the likely outcome of the forthcoming UN climate summit, you'll have seen more twisting than the average Chubby Checker song.

Extending borrowing from the arts and entertainment world: "To bind or not to bind" has been the week's big question - but seeing as we've discussed this elsewhere, I'll put it to one side for the moment - while "Hey Johnny - what are you disagreeing about?" "Whaddya got?" would be a popular pick for the most apt exchange.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN climate convention, made a couple of strong and - taken together - highly indicative statements at a news conference during the week.

The first:

"There is no doubt in my mind that (Copenhagen) will yield a success; almost every day now, we see new commitments and pledges from both industrialised and developing countries."

The second: that the list of countries putting emission targets forward:

"must of course include the United States."

For environment groups, for developing countries, and now for the UN's top climate official, the US holds the key more than any other country to the chances of signing off any kind of agreement in Copenhagen.

For years, under George W Bush, the US was cited as the main obstacle to further deals on limiting climate change.

Now, under a president who emanated change and engagement and all sorts of other radically different vibes during his election campaign, the US is widely seen just one year on as still the major obstacle to a further deal on limiting climate change.

As a non-US citizen, I can't help wondering how that feels inside the country; comments much appreciated.

It's still not clear whether the US will come forward with targets or money or any firm pledges by Copenhagen. Chief negotiator Todd Stern said during the week that it was something that Barack Obama's administration wanted to do, without falling into the Kyoto trap of promising something that it would not be able to deliver.

"What we are looking at is whether we feel that we can put down a number that would be provisional in effect, contingent on getting our legislation done. Our inclination is to try to do that, but we want to be smart about it."

The US may have the will, but it won't have the bill - the Boxer-Kerry legislation, that is, seeking to impose caps on emissions economy-wide.

Senators said this week that it won't come into the Senate before spring - at the earliest.

This timeline makes things very awkward for those who - like Mr de Boer - would like to have a new deal signed and sealed halfway through next year.

If issues such as healthcare reform delay the Boxer-Kerry bill beyond the spring, the US may still not have anything approved by all arms of its governments to put before the international community by the middle of the year.

And what sort of bill might the Senate eventually consider?

A bipartisan group of senators is looking at whether something radically downscaled in ambition would stand a better chance of progress - something that would cap only emissions from power plants and maybe heavy industry.

This would of course have a smaller effect on emissions. It would also lead to the Senate passing a very different bill from the one that went through the House of Representatives in July, meaning the process of reconciling them could take longer afterwards... and so on.

There's a chicken-and-egg-style aspect to all this. The lower expectations are for Copenhagen, the less pressure any senators will feel to push forward.

That's an issue emerging in Australia during the week, where lawmakers appear to be in the final stages of debating legislation that would reduce emissions by 5-15% below 2000 levels by 2020.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is desperate to get the measure through the Senate. But it has been blocked once before; and now Eric Abetz, deputy leader of the Liberal/National opposition party in the upper house, observes:

"Given how Copenhagen seems to be collapsing, there doesn't seem to be any real need to rush".

Following on from the recent upping of lobbying by religious groups, an unusual new player entered the arena during the week in Australia - the United Firefighters Union, who told politicians that they were endangering lives and property if they held up the bill.

As with religious groups, I'm not sure how much influence the men with hoses will have - but if I were standing in the path of one of the forest fires that have caused so much damage in Australia in recent years, I think I'd listen to them.

Those in favour of a strong new deal received some succour during the week from pledges by Russia and South Korea on tackling emissions.

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev indicated a new target of keeping emissions 25% lower in 2020 than they were in 1990 - strengthened from the previous figure of 10-15%.

The new target still permits a real-world rise in emissions as they're now about 37% below 1990 levels, having plunged when Communist-era industry collapsed in the early 1990s - but it's stronger than before.

More strikingly, South Korea - one of the most developed of the nations that are not quite developed enough to be asked to take on an actual cut in emissions - pledged to make one anyway.

President Lee Myung-bak announced emissions will fall by about 4% between now and 2020 - a 30% reduction in the extent to which national emissions would grow without any restraining action.

There had been suggestions (including on this blog) that President Hu Jintao of China might reveal an analogous target during Barack Obama's visit - but nothing materialised, for reasons about which we can only speculate, but (speculating here) are presumably connected to the Obama administration's non-offering of targets on money and mitigation.

Still more heart will be taken from India's just-announced plan for a thousand-fold expansion in solar power over the next 12 years - a plan that will presumably mean building fewer coal-fired power stations.

Meanwhile, lots of the discourse around legally-binding agreements and politically binding deals and so on has gone on without much reference to the fact that some countries might simply not sign anything in Copenhagen that falls below their minimum expectations.

"We should not allow any country to turn a political failure into a media success," the Marshall Islands' UN Ambassador Phillip Muller said mid-week.

Would small-island developing states and the least developed nations of Africa withhold their signatures if they felt that only a fig leaf were being proffered in Copenhagen?

We don't really know the final negotiations positions of any countries and blocs, but it has to be a possibility, I suggest, that might concentrate minds in the west.

Also concentrating minds, perhaps, will be a new analysis of emissions trends released during the week in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.

Remember that G8 pledge to hold warming to 2C? According to the Global Carbon Project, current emissions trends are taking the world in the direction of 5-6C: a world of rising sea levels, drought across much of the tropics and drastically declining agricultural yields.

Perhaps someone somewhere will think of having a global treaty to sort all that out. Oh - hang on a minute...

As always, if you think I've missed something important in this weekly round-up, please post a comment.

Update 2309: Because comments were posted quoting excerpts apparently from the hacked Climate Research Unit e-mails, and because there are potential legal issues connected with publishing this material, we have temporarily removed all comments until we can ensure that watertight oversight is in place.

Climate deal 'unlikely' this year--BBC

The UK government says it is highly unlikely that a new legally binding climate treaty can be agreed this year - and a full treaty may be a year away.

Two years ago, the world's governments vowed to finalise a new treaty at next month's climate summit in Copenhagen.

Climate Secretary Ed Miliband has until now said it could be done - but now he says only a political deal is likely, echoing some other senior figures.

Developing countries reacted with frustration and disappointment.

"When we left (UN talks in) Bali two years ago, we all expected that would be agreeing on a legally binding outcome to respond to the urgency... that we were on the verge of catastrophic climate change, so we're very disappointed," said Selwin Hart from Barbados, speaking for the group of small island developing states.

"If we don't take urgent and ambitious action, the reality is that some small island developing states will not be around within a couple of decades - certainly not by the end of the century."

In the middle of October, Mr Miliband said a new treaty looked "more do-able" following a meeting of the Major Economies Forum in London.

His comments now echo warnings from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Denmark's Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen and US chief climate negotiator Todd Stern that only a "politically binding" agreement can now be achieved.

Political vacuum

"We would have preferred a full legal treaty, it has to be said," said Mr Miliband.

"I think the important thing about the agreement we now seek in December is that while it may be a political agreement it must lead, on a very clear timetable, to a legally binding treaty.

A lot of people still think that we can do something that will lead to real implementation in the fight against climate change Artur Runge-Metzger European Commission negotiator

"Also, I'll be completely clear about this: I think an agreement without numbers is not a great agreement. In fact it's a wholly inadequate agreement."

It remains unclear whether the US could put numbers forward in Copenhagen - on reducing emissions, or on financing for poorer countries - in the absence of domestic legislation.

But South Africa's Alf Wills, who co-ordinates the G77/China bloc of developing countries on extending the Kyoto Protocol, suggested the real hurdle was political rather than logistical.

"A lot of people still think that we can do something that will lead to real implementation in the fight against climate change - we will spend money, we will enact legislation, we will continue in this," said Artur Runge-Metzger, chief negotiator for the European Commission.

As to when all the loose ends should be tied up, he suggest three to six months was a reasonable period.

"Copenhagen is one of the most important meetings in human history, but the politicians seem determined to blow it," said Joss Garman of Greenpeace.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8345501.stm

Climate: A defining issue

Richard Black and his blog--a great resource for what's going on with COP 15, what will be going on: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/

Tuesday, 17 November 2009

A couple of weeks ago, the cat came well and truly out of the bag: there would not be a legally binding treaty at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen next month.

Or will there?

During his meeting on Tuesday with China's President Hu Jintao, President Obama appeared to indicate that some sort of comprehensive agreement was still possible.

Then, Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, speaking to a pre-summit meeting of environment ministers, called for developed nations to bring firm targets to Copenhagen - targets that should be binding.

All of this is very much at odds with statements from a number of European officials and ministers during and directly after the recent UN negotiating session in Barcelona, which were variations on the theme that a legally-binding deal was "unlikely", "extremely unlikely" or "impossible".

It certainly poses more questions. What does "legally binding" mean in this context? What does the alternative being bandied around - "politically binding" - mean?

And where does the formulation that President Obama used in his Beijing speech - "not a partial accord or a political declaration, but rather an accord that covers all of the issues in the negotiations and one that has immediate operational effect" - fit in to the overall picture?

We are into a miasma of nuance here; but for different parties, all of the nuances are important, so it's worth having a look at what's being suggested, what might actually transpire, and who's likely to be happy or unhappy.

So let's go back to the Bali meeting nearly two years ago and the pledge, in the Bali Action Plan (BAP), to produce something new by Copenhagen.

The BAP doesn't actually prescribe a legally-binding treaty, although that's an interpretation and an outcome that's been accepted by most governments as desirable and necessary.

You could argue that something legally-binding is implied by the agreement that all developed countries must adopt "measurable, reportable and verifiable nationally appropriate mitigation commitments or actions, including quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives".

What is explicit is that a Copenhagen agreement must "achieve the ultimate objective of the [UN climate] convention" - in other words, must stabilise "greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system".

In the broadest sense, then, there is acknowledgement by all governments that everything enacted before - the UN climate convention of 1992, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 - could not achieve that goal, and something new was needed.

That "something else", according to BAP, would have to be bigger and bolder, encompassing emissions cuts by rich countries, curbs on the rate of growth of emissions by major developing countries, and finance and technology transfer to help poorer countries constrain their emissions and adapt to climate impacts. ( Three goals)

It was described by UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband as the most complex set of international negotiations ever, on any issue.

Two principal factors now line up to prevent a full binding treaty emerging in Copenhagen. One is the sheer amount of negotiating needed in a tight period of time; the other is that the US has yet to put any commitments on the table and may not do so before the summit.

What a number of developing countries are still demanding - joined, apparently, by Mr Rasmussen - is something that is firmly binding even though it might not carry any formally legal weight, let alone the paraphernalia of a full treaty.

But how can that be?

Recall first that these treaties don't become binding on anyone until they've been ratified by enough countries to gain the status of international law. In the case of Kyoto, that took eight years - and in the case of Copenhagen, we don't yet have an agreement on the legal form of any treaty, let alone what would trigger its adoption as law.

Secondly, one of the bases for the Copenhagen process has been that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed".

(A better phrase might be "nothing is binding until everything is binding, because certain things such as an agreement on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) could conceivably emerge as a self-standing entity whatever the carnage around it.")

Are governments really going to grant binding status to something that includes main numbers on emissions targets and finance, but omits details that for some nations might turn out to be crucial? This has to be a consensus of 192 countries, not a majority vote.

Thirdly, what is there except international law that can bind countries to anything?

When it comes to the form and status of something that is not international law but is more than just a promise, I for one am out of ideas; if anyone has a clearer notion, I'd be very happy if you can spell it out for us in a comment.

A fourth issue is that some countries are very unhappy about signing up to anything that is not legally binding. A number of developing nations including Sudan (chair of the G77/China bloc), Grenada and Barbados have been making noises about not agreeing to anything that is not legally binding.

Their position is that we had the politically-binding agreement in Bali. In a sense, we had it in Rio; this is supposed to be the time for delivery on those fine words.

And it not just small developing countries; a number of European delegates have said that no deal is better than a bad deal, and presumably if they do not see the requisite amount of "binding" in the text, they will not sign, whatever embarrassment that might cause the Danish hosts.

The runes on this story appear to shift their shape daily. Experienced negotiators and observers suggest the fog is unlikely to clear before the final Copenhagen dawn on December 18th.

To the outside observer, it might seem a strange old way to try and solve a problem that most governments acknowledge as a serious and urgent threat to humanity's prospects.

But if there's one thing that governments appear to consider truly binding in this process, it's the requirement to obfuscate and procrastinate right down to the wire.

Barcelona – Inching Forward, Buying Time, Raising Alarm

datelinecopenhagen Dateline Copenhagen 2009-11-09

Mock Annex I leaders prepare to cut up a climate finance check for developing countries (Photo courtesy of Oxfam))

Last Monday, Alexander Ochs called November the “month for ambition.” After already slow progress at the last Copenhagen preparatory meeting in Bangkok in October, the creeping pace this week has left even more unresolved business for negotiators to get through for the world to get a binding global agreement in Copenhagen.

United States negotiators continued to stall on offering guaranteed and quantified greenhouse gas pollution cuts. A U.S. target will have no credibility until the Senate passes climate legislation, which is so far not on track to happen before Copenhagen 15^th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the UN climate convention ends. Given this uncertainty, the industrialized nations continued to hesitate on raising the level of their reduction commitments. High-emitting emerging countries have also mostly balked at being asked to limit their own emissions.

Pushing negotiations into 2010, possibly as far as COP 16 (likely in Mexico in December), would buy the U.S. time to create domestic law, but at the risk of countries not ratifying an agreement before the Kyoto Protocol’s commitments expire in 2012. Governments are now talking about reaching a politically binding agreement in Copenhagen, instead of a legally binding one. Reaching agreement on a strong treaty without tying all the legal bows is better than getting a weak treaty that is legally binding. Still, every meeting that fails to wrap up a post-Kyoto agreement puts us one step closer to the commitment-free void that still waits for us on 1 January 2013 when Kyoto currently expires.

Big gaps also remain in the forest negotiations. The Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) rules for developed countries still don’t distinguish between intact, natural forests and tree plantations. Turning the first into the second releases significant amount of carbon and kills forest species. Protection against developing country conversion of natural forests remains in the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) section, but only in vague terms, the text still in brackets to signify that governments haven’t yet agreed on the exact definition. These loopholes leave a major source of emissions unregulated.

Financing discussions also only inched forward, with funding for adaptation, technology transfer, and climate disaster insurance still having far to go. An adaptation fund for developing countries was nearly finished last year in Poland, and has served as a good model for other funds. Nations looked to a proposal by the Japanese government this week to fill in the details for formulating the other funds, but the proposal was vague and looked strikingly similar to a U.S. architecture already under consideration. Meanwhile, governments fought over text that would have industrialized nations paying a risk insurance premium for climate change-induced disasters in developing countries. No clarity on any of these funding proposals emerged by the end of the week.

Developing countries, international youth, and sustainable development advocates reacted with panic at the agonizing pace of negotiations. The Africa Group delegates staged a temporary walkout in protest of industrialized countries’ failure to finalize their reduction commitments. Youth, environment, and development groups called out Saudi Arabia’s persistent attempts to stall any progress with banners and actions outside the negotiating hall and 18 Saudi embassies worldwide. These groups are anxious to see a swifter commitment to an agreement. As the youth said at the meeting’s only intervention speech late Friday, “take the brackets off our future.”

This comment is an exclusive contribution to our blog by Kyle Gracey (chair@sustainus.org), Chair of SustainUS – a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of young people advancing sustainable development and youth empowerment in the United States.

Headline : Race to kill kyoto protocol

Down to Earth, Center for Science and Environment, New Delhi, India

Intro:As Copenhagen nears, Obama’s America sees new hope: Yes, we can...dump climate multilateralism. In Bangkok, most developed countries joined the charge. Their methods: jettison equity, peddle domestic actions and dangle carrots to break developing country unity. Some, like India, show signs of wavering. Kushal Pal Singh Yadav tracks negotiations in Bangkok

An atmosphere of gloom prevailed in the galleries of the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok on October 9, 2008. It was the last day of talks on climate change, and there was near-unanimity that the Kyoto Protocol was going to die. Delegates from developing countries were an angry lot. Those from developed countries did not seem to care much.

The penultimate meeting, just a few negotiating days before the big one at Danish capital Copenhagen in December, had been chosen to sound the death knell for the internationally binding agreement on emission reductions (see box: Genesis of Kyoto). Chinese chief negotiator Yu Qingtai put it succinctly: “Developed country partners are trying to invent something totally new two months before Copenhagen and asking everybody else to come along. That’s not the way to conduct negotiations.”

The first nail in the coffin was driven in by the US, the biggest polluter that first refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and is now dragging its feet on committing to a healthy cut in emissions. US inaction, cried delegations of developing countries, is inciting other developed countries to dump the protocol. “The developed countries need to rise to the challenge rather than race to the bottom with the US,” said Lumumba Stanislaus-Kaw Di Aping, head of Sudanese delegation and chair of G77 plus China. But isn’t the Barack Obama administration more progressive about climate change? “Obama has only offered some of the most progressive utterances,” Lumumba shot back.

In the last week of talks in Bangkok developed countries (referred to as Annex I under the protocol) developed cold feet; they were not ready to commit to emission reduction targets for the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol. The first phase ends in 2012. The discussion came to a standstill.

In addition to the US, the European Union (EU), which had for long been claiming the moral high ground, turned out to be the villain. EU had proposed a reduction target of 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. This could go up to 30 per cent if an ambitious deal were signed in Copenhagen. EU had been banking on the US passing its climate change bill before the Copenhagen meet (see: Kerry-Boxer doesn’t pack a punch on P 28). That would have meant some sort of legal commitment from the US to reduce its emissions. But during the Bangkok meet it became clear that the US climate legislation would not be ready in time for Copenhagen.

So EU was faced with a situation where it would have committed to a reduction target without any commitment from the US.

Seeing that the biggest polluter might not come to Copenhagen with any reduction target, most developed countries began abandoning the Kyoto process. Japan, the other major party under Kyoto, has also expressed reservations about continuing under a Kyoto regime.

Why we need Kyoto
The negotiations on climate change take place under two ad hoc working groups.

The deadlock in the group discussing the reduction targets for Annex I countries had repercussions on the group debating long-term emission cuts by all nations and implementation of the Bali Action Plan, a roadmap to conclude a deal at Copenhagen. After failed negotiations in the first group, developing countries did not see any merit in continuing with negotiations in the second group. The ground was prepared for EU to make a pitch for a new unified treaty.

“There is now a concerted effort to somehow put the Kyoto Protocol aside and to say we need a new instrument in which the commitments of both those that are party to the protocol and those that are not party to the protocol could be reflected,” said Shyam Saran, Indian prime minister’s special envoy on climate change.

But the new treaty is also meant to reflect the commitments of developing countries, or at least the major developing countries. It is a call to throw out of the window the differentiation of responsibility for climate change. Emissions by the developed countries over the past decades are today haunting the developing countries. Developed nations are responsible, developing countries are not. This differentiation is at the heart of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (unfccc) and climate negotiations. Under Kyoto, developing countries are allowed to increase emissions so that they can develop.

EU reaffirmed its faith in the Kyoto process at press conferences, but said it was looking at one legal treaty that would include the Kyoto system, albeit in bits and pieces.

Developing countries are sceptical. “We do not accept the argument that you can save a legal instrument by tearing it to pieces and keeping the parts that you believe are good,” Chinese negotiator Yu retorted. “It’s a basic contradiction; you kill a document so that you can save it.”

“We are being told that a new and single instrument is essential if we want an agreement at Copenhagen. It does not need a great deal of imagination to see what this could lead to,” Saran said in the closing plenary in Bangkok. The proposals, far from enhancing climate change actions, will end up diluting the commitments of Annex I countries, unilaterally imposing new commitments and burdens on developing countries, he added.

Developing countries, more specifically what are termed emerging economies, the likes of India and China, are under pressure from developed countries to commit to emission-reduction targets. The US and EU have been bullying them to abandon the equity principle—that every individual has an equal share of atmospheric space—and to focus on actual emissions.

“We want to achieve the substantive goals of Kyoto, but we can do this only if we widen the participation. We are convinced that we need to bring into a single legal instrument all that we have done in Kyoto but make it applicable to a much wider participation—the US on the one hand and the emerging developing countries who have become large emitters on the other hand,” Jonathan Pershing, the chief US negotiator, said in Bangkok.

Adopting the same tenor, EU advocated dumping the per capita emissions approach based on the equity principle. Speaking on behalf of the developing nations, Yu tore into their web of arguments. “Emission aggregates don’t stand alone in abstract. Behind a country’s emissions are human beings. Each of them is entitled to a fair share of the common atmospheric space in the world,” he said. “I am sure everyone believes all are born equal. As a Chinese, I don’t think anyone can persuade me to believe that being born a Chinese would give me less entitlement compared to what someone born in a developed country would get. That is politically and morally incorrect.”

In the midst of relentless pressure and lobbying it seems one person blinked.

Just to bring the US into the fold does not mean that an instrument with more than a 100 parties is set aside. We are being told that a new, single instrument is essential for an agreement at Copenhagen. We are not engaged in negotiating a new climate change treaty. -SHYAM SARAN, Indian delegation headM
What they are trying to do during the past week or so is a concerted effort to put an end to Kyoto protocol and everything that protocol represents. It's a basic contradiction; you kill a document so that you can save it. It's just incomprehensible. -YU QINGTAI, Chinese delegation head
Attempts to replace the protocol will be counterproductive. Developed nations need to rise to the challenge, not race to the bottom with the US. -LUMUMBA DI APING, Sudanese Ambassador, G-77 + China Chair
When you have big countries not acting, then countries of a similar status feel 'we don't have to do anything too'. So rather than being aspirational everyone wants to do nothing. And the end outcome: we are more threatened, more vulnerable and our future more insecure. -ALBERT BINGER, Scientific advisor to Grenada, Chair of AOSIS

Sadly for India, it was its environment minister Jairam Ramesh.

India fumbles
Ramesh, in a confidential note to the prime minister, suggested a drastic shift in India’s stance in climate negotiations. Key suggestions included making compromises to bring the US on board an international agreement, putting in place domestic legislation for emission reduction, aligning more with the G20 than G77 and China, delinking mitigation actions from financing and technology transfer from Annex I countries, and a trade-off on climate negotiations in favour of securing a UN Security Council seat.

This was not the first time Ramesh expressed views widely divergent from India’s position. During his earlier visit to the US, he was quoted as saying that India would be open to verification of all its actions on mitigating climate change. India’s official position is that only the actions enabled by multilateral financing will be open for international verification. In fact, India has always opposed any kind of scrutiny of its domestic actions. In Bangkok this very issue led to an argument between an Indian negotiator and Pershing.

Following a backlash from all quarters on his note, Ramesh was forced to issue a clarification that India will never agree to eliminate the distinction between developed and developing countries. “I have never at any stage considered or advocated abandoning the fundamental tenets of the Kyoto Protocol,” the minister clarified.

But by suggesting that India might pass a greenhouse gas mitigation law, Ramesh seems to have walked into the US trap. The US has for long been advocating that instead of a multilateral, internationally binding treaty, each country pass its own mitigation law. In Bangkok, Pershing clearly stated that the US favoured “every country commits at home” and takes national actions which can then be enshrined in an international treaty.

Such an approach will destroy Kyoto. Climate change is not a domestic problem because CO₂ emissions do not know national boundaries. A global problem requires a global response. The US has been advocating that every country does what it can, and not what science demands of it. This approach will kill the multilateral process.

This will also mean delinking mitigation actions from financing and technology transfer, and that will be not be affordable for developing countries. India is, in any case, doing whatever it can to address climate change. In fact, it is doing far more than it is required to, more than the US and many other developed countries. But high-end technology options come at a cost. Under the Bali Action Plan, it was agreed by all parties that the developed countries would pay full, incremental costs for adaptation and mitigation actions in developing countries. They have to pay for their historical responsibility.

Linking a geopolitical issue like a Security Council seat to a soft stand at climate negotiations is not a good idea. By moving away from developing countries’ group (G77 and China), India will get isolated. There is no way it can then get a Security Council seat. G77 plus China has been a major force in negotiations, thwarting developed countries’ attempts at diluting Kyoto processes.

Ramesh’s eagerness to bring the US into the mainstream has led him to suggest measures that would compromise the very basis of negotiations, the unfccc and the Kyoto Protocol. Ramesh maintains that India supports any means to bring the US into the mainstream, without diluting the basic Annex I and non-Annex I distinction. But he is again faltering. This time by supporting the Australian proposal put forward earlier this year. The proposal creates a kind of schedule where all countries have commitments of similar nature, though the level of effort may differ. It is similar to the US approach of blurring the distinction between developed and developing countries. In Bangkok, the US asked for a single deal that puts similar commitments on all countries.

The Australian proposal suggests replacing the Kyoto Protocol with a series of national "schedules", in which countries record climate action plans and agree to be legally bound by what they themselves suggest.

For the industrialized world, the proposal has an intoxicating allure. It abandons the principal tenet of the Kyoto architecture that there is a fundamental difference between developed and developing countries. Instead it applies the framework of "Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions and Commitments" to everyone. It also opens other core elements of Kyoto, like targets, to renegotiation.

For instance, a discussion draft Australia submitted to the unfccc in May offered the following clarification: "The objective of this Agreement is to achieve an environmentally sound response to climate change...through unified long-term action that sets the world on a path to peak global emissions by [X] and then reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by [X] per cent by [X] on [X] levels..."

Australia proposes that all countries decide their own targets. This creates ample scope for horse-trading

Speaking before the New York University School of Law in September, Australia’s climate minister Penny Wong said, “In putting Australia’s proposal forward we are seeking once again to help find common ground where it has thus far eluded us.” Later in the speech she neatly packed the premise of the Australian proposal in feel-good jargon: “The design (of an agreement) itself can influence the level of ambition of the agreement because the design will influence the level of confidence the parties have.”

Subversion proposal
Translated into simple English it means: countries will sign an agreement in earnest only if it is flexible enough not to impose commitments they don’t like. This matters because an agreement will be durable only if countries sign earnestly. In turn, confidence in the enduring cachet of an agreement alone will bring countries to the negotiating table willing to make concessions. So the Australian logic is: if we want countries to agree to do more, we have to let them do less.

In the run-up to Copenhagen, delegates should understand the perversity and politics of this logic. They must closely scrutinize three issues. First, that the Australian proposal jettisons the principle of historical responsibility. The May discussion draft does not even contain the word “historical”. It also sterilizes the principle of common but differentiated responsibility by extending it to an absurd limit: every country is unique, so we must reject legally binding distinctions like Annex I and Non-Annex I countries. Although the proposal does not say countries like India, China or Brazil should take on targets, it also forbears to say they should not.

Second, the proposal suggests building an international agreement by collating national proposals. The May draft states, “Countries would put forward draft national schedules as part of the negotiation process. This would provide an opportunity for transparent assessment of the comparability of effort and comment on the draft schedules.”

The idea that science should determine the global level of effort, and principles of equity and responsibility should determine their distribution, is missing. Instead, following—or perhaps leading—the US example, domestic laws are allowed to set the global agenda.

Third, the very notion that without any guiding principles of equity or fairness, a free-for-all negotiation among 200 countries will yield fair results, beggars belief. Ramesh’s suggestion to the prime minister that India could obtain a Security Council seat by softening its climate position hints at the kind of horse-trading that could ensue.

Ever sanguine, Wong offered a salve in her speech: “For developing countries, taking on international mitigation obligations for the first time is a big deal, but the flexibilities in schedules are designed to give them greater comfort.” If “developing” is replaced by “developed”, the statement becomes insightful, much like the Australian minister’s closing remark: “Naturally, even the perfect design can only take us so far. The level of ambition (of the next agreement) will ultimately be determined by the political will of the parties.”

Prospects of getting an equitable and ambitious deal at Copenhagen are dimming by the day. It is now almost certain that the US will not be able to pass its climate bill in time for Copenhagen. American chief negotiator Todd Stern has said he would not go beyond what the US Congress is willing to endorse. As it did with Kyoto, the US is all set to let the world down a second time.

With inputs from Jaisel Vadgama

---------- BOX:Genesis of Kyoto ----------

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted in 1992. The UNFCCC provides a framework to stabilize greenhouse gases at a level that would prevent “dangerous anthropogenic (human induced) interference with the climate system”.

The framework convention recognized developed countries as the source of past and current greenhouse gas emissions, and made them responsible to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. Developing nations were given the time and space to increase their emissions in the pursuit of development. Thus, a principle of common but differentiated responsibilities was established.

In 1997, parties to the convention agreed to a Protocol to the UNFCCC in Kyoto, Japan. The Kyoto Protocol commits industrialized nations (known as Annex I under the treaty) to emission reduction targets.

These countries agreed to reduce their overall emissions by 5.2% below 1990 levels in the first commitment period of 2008-2012. Specific targets varied from country to country, ranging from -8% for the EU collectively to +10% for Iceland. The Kyoto Protocol came into force in February 2005.

Negotiations are on for the reduction targets of Annex I countries in the second commitment period. The Bali Action Plan, adopted in Bali in December 2007, set a deadline for the conclusion of negotiations at Copenhagen in December 2009.

---------- BOX:Kyoto diary ----------

December 11, 1997: Kyoto Protocol adopted with legally binding emission reduction targets for developed countries.

November 1998: The Byrd-Hagel resolution unanimously passed by the US Senate rejecting Kyoto

2001: The Third IPCC report presented the worst case scenario with the average global temperatures rising by 6 degrees Celsius within a century

July 2001: Most countries decide to continue with the ratification process at the climate Summit in Bonn

December 2002: Countries in the process of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol promise to do so within a year

E.U. Reaches Funding Deal on Climate Change

October 31, 2009
By JAMES KANTER and STEPHEN CASTLE

European Union leaders on Friday offered to contribute money to a global fund to help developing countries tackle global warming hoping kick-start stalled talks on a new agreement on climate change.

But E.U. leaders disappointed climate campaigners by making the offer conditional on donations from other parts of the world and by failing to decide how much Europe would contribute to a global pot of up to 50 billion euros by 2020.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt insisted the E.U. now had "a very strong negotiating position" to press for a global deal at United Nations talks in Copenhagen in December that are aimed at agreeing a successor accord to the Kyoto Protocol.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, also stressed that Europe was leading the way.

"There is no-one else among the industrialized nations" to have made as concrete an offer of climate finance, Ms. Merkel told a press conference in Brussels.

But environmental groups took a mostly negative view of the results of the two-day summit, saying E.U. leaders had chosen vague, global figures and thereby diminished chances of unblocking climate negotiations ahead of the meeting in Copenhagen.

"Europe has failed once again to say how much it is prepared to contribute for climate finance," said Sonja Meister, a climate campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe. "In every way the EU is shirking its historical responsibilities and blocking progress towards the just and fair agreement the world needs in Copenhagen," she said.

The European Commission had called on E.U. leaders to make an offer of up to 15 billion euros annually by 2020.

Mr. Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister, said leaders had instead agreed that developing nations needed about 100 billion euros annually by 2020 and that, of that sum, between 22 billion euros and 50 billion euros would have to come from public funds, as opposed to private sources like investments in carbon-reduction projects.

Mr. Reinfeldt also said that E.U. nations could make a voluntary decision to contribute to a so-called fast-track mechanism that would make funds available immediately to developing countries.

Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, put a brave face on the result, underlining that the trade bloc should not be "naive" going into the negotiations in Copenhagen that are set to begin in fewer than six weeks.

"Our offer is not a blank check," said Mr. Barroso. "We are ready to act, if our partners deliver," he said.

E.U. officials said that Ms. Merkel, the German chancellor, who had been reticent over making any European commitment, had been persuaded that the figures were only conditional on steps being taken by other nations.

Business Daily (Nairobi) Africa: Continent Rejects New Climate Change Pact Cosmas Butunyi 27 October 2009

As the clock ticks towards the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Africa has now declared that it will not accept a new pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

The African negotiators have also stated that neither will they accept a merger of the protocol that is currently in use, with a new agreement.

In a statement to mark the end of their Second Technical Meeting in Addis Ababa, the negotiators said successful negotiations should produce...

They want sections of the Kyoto Protocol on the developed countries to be amended to include further commitments for a second and subsequent commitment periods.

Africa also wants a separate legal instrument to be developed based on the outcome of the negotiations of the Bali Action Plan under the Climate Change Convention.

The statement reiterated that Africa should be equitably compensated in the context of environmental justice, for environmental resources, economic and social losses considering developed countries historical responsibilities on climate change.

"In this respect, Africa requires new, sustained and scaled-up finance, technology and capacity for adaptation and risk management," the statement read in part.

Africa wants the outcome of the Copenhagen convention to provide new, additional, sustainable, accessible and predictable finance to support a comprehensive international programme on adaptation, that reduces vulnerability and increases resilience.

The provision of financial, technological and capacity building support by developed country parties for adaptation in developing countries, they argued, is a commitment under the climate change Convention that must be urgently fulfilled.

The second technical meeting in Addis Ababa brought together about 150 African lead negotiators and high level experts on climate change from all African countries.

It is an initiative of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment and the African Union, (AU), in collaboration with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the United Nations Environment Programme.

This was one of the last meetings the continent is holding to consolidate consensus on its common position and was held in the backdrop of new developments in the ongoing negotiations on climate change, which tend to suggest the replacement or the merger of the Kyoto Protocol, among others.

The updated and consolidated African Common Position will be submitted to African Ministers and Heads of State on the eve of the COP- 15 in Copenhagen. The negotiators' statement said that the post-2012 regime should be based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

"Africa's shared vision calls for a fair, inclusive, effective and equitable new agreement in Copenhagen that will benefit the climate and vulnerable countries and be undertaken in the context of poverty eradication, sustainable development and the need for gender equity," the statement said.

The negotiators said that as the most vulnerable continent, Africa deserved the right for full support to adapt to climate change.

This is also due to the continent's least contribution to the global greenhouse gas emissions yet its communities stand to suffer the most.

Concerning mitigation, the African negotiators would like to see a firewall maintained between mitigation commitments by all developed countries and mitigation actions by developing countries.

While developed Countries must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and at least 80 per cent to 95 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050, in order to achieve the lowest level of stabilisation assessed by the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, mitigation actions for Africa should be voluntary and nationally appropriate and must be fully supported and enabled by technology transfer, finance and capacity building from developed Countries.

Other key messages are related to institutional arrangements that must be equitable and transparent; Technology deployment, diffusion and transfer and institutional capacity in Africa.