The UN climate secretariat has confirmed that they will be holding an additional major meeting this year, a sign some read as a positive harbinger for end of year climate talks in Durban, South Africa. The announcement was made at the closing plenary of the 6-17 June meeting, which was held in Bonn, Germany.
Heading into the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) mid-year conference, which wrapped up on 17 June, many observers speculated that slow movement in climate talks showed a lack of enthusiasm for progress in 2011. This opinion was bolstered early in the first week of the meeting when precious negotiating days were wasted haggling over the content of the negotiation agenda.
As the session neared its end, one outstanding question was whether an inter-sessional negotiation would take place prior to the Durban Conference of the Parties (COP). Inter-sessionals have become standard fare in the climate negotiations, yet some parties maintained that, in the absence of progress in Bonn, the expense and time of another week of talks would be a waste. In the corridors, a number of delegates and observers explained that the failure of any party to offer funding for an inter-sessional meeting was a procedural block to hinder further advance on topics key countries were not ready to agree on in Durban.
Apparently, sufficient pressure and progress were made to merit further discussion, prompting UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres to announce the establishment of an autumn inter-sessional meeting to continue ongoing discussions in the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA). Eventually, the two bodies suspended their sessions with the intention of resuming negotiations at the newly announced meeting.
It was announced that the meeting would take place during the last week of September and the first week of October, but exact dates have not been confirmed. While a venue has not been officially announced, sources say Panama is a frontrunner.
Question of Kyoto looms
The future of the Kyoto Protocol continues to bedevil the negotiations. Executive Secretary Figueres recently noted that Parties have already missed the deadline to finalise a second commitment period to begin in 2013 as the first period expires, since parties would needed a full year after finalising talks to line up the new period’s terms for implementation. Negotiating mitigation commitments has become a particularly sensitive area of discussions, with expectations that it will become even more so as the 2012 end of the first period of the Protocol approaches.
Most developing countries, however, say that procedural issues are fixable and insist that implementing a second phase of Kyoto is the only way forward in the climate talks. In the absence of a new agreement under the LCA on emissions reduction targets and pathways for all countries, they say, terminating the Protocol leaves the world completely empty handed.
While the possibility of extending Kyoto has not been ruled out, the declaration of Japan, Canada, and Russia that they have no intention of signing on to such a deal suggests the second phase would be weaker than the historic first agreement. In response, some developing countries are now suggesting that the three countries should be excluded from discussions shaping the rules for the second commitment period.
In Bonn, Figueres insisted that leaders need work together to find a compromise on the issue to ensure talks move forward. Many agree that the Kyoto crisis is now essentially a political question, whose resolution requires involvement from the top.
“Governments are realising that this link needs to be dealt with to get to a global solution and that will require high-level leadership during the year,” she said. “They can double their efforts and come forward with middle ground solutions and options which are acceptable to all sides.”
Trade featured prominently in Bonn
Trade issues received significant traction over the two-week meeting as the chairs of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) convened a forum on the impact of “response measures,” climate-speak for how to address the negative consequences on developing countries of efforts to mitigate GHG emissions. In Cancun, countries agreed to convene such a forum in Bonn and Durban.
Chairs of the SBI and SBSTA eventually merged the forum with a contact group on the same topic, thereby bringing a negotiating component to the forum. Still lingering is the question of how or whether the forum will take place in Durban. Notably, numerous presentations by countries and expert organisations contained explicit references to the potential effects on international trade of mitigation measures, such as border taxes, free allowances in emissions trading schemes, and access to climate-friendly goods and technology, with many pointing out that an ongoing space to discuss and address these issues is necessary.
The forum provided input to a separate informal group under the AWG-LCA that considered how to address the impacts of response measures - such as the establishment of a permanent forum, the use of existing channels to share information on the issue, and barriers to trade. These discussions are expected to be picked up again when the autumn inter-sessional gets underway.
