From Kyoto to Bali
On 3–15 December 2007, over 10,000 delegates, observers and journalists attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali at which representatives of 187 countries agreed on the ‘Bali Roadmap’. This is intended to pave the way to a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the first phase of which expires in 2012.
The Bali conference actually comprised five overlapping meetings of separate bodies formed under the umbrella of the UNFCCC. The Subsidiary Bodies on Implementation and on Scientific & Technological Advice – designed respectively to assess the UNFCCC’s overall effectiveness and to provide a link between the scientific community and policymakers – met and reported their findings to the 13th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP-13), the UNFCCC’s highest decision-making body. In parallel, the 176 countries which had adopted Kyoto convened their third meeting of parties (CMP-3), and an Ad Hoc Working Group (AWG) on developed-country commitments met to continue negotiations on a second commitment period to begin in 2012.
The new Roadmap therefore comprises several distinct elements: the Bali Action Plan adopted by COP-13, which plots the course of negotiations until the 15th COP meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 at which a successor to Kyoto is to be adopted; the Adaptation Fund established by CMP-3, which is designed to help developing countries to meet the financial burden of adapting to the effects of climate change; and separate agreements on setting up mechanisms for technology transfer and to halt or limit deforestation and forest degradation, and to establish carbon-capture and -sequestration programmes.
Prior to the Bali conference there were high hopes for a substantive agreement in principle on reductions in greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. This was fuelled by changes in the positions of the United States and Australia, which had not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. On 17 November the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the final component of its Fourth Assessment Report, its comprehensive review of the impact of climate change, for presentation to COP-13. Although the new report was based on others released earlier in 2007 and contained no new data or conclusions, the accompanying summary for policymakers contained stronger, more emphatic warnings than before. As the language is scrutinised and agreed by both scientists and diplomats from all participating nations, this appeared to signal a shift on the part of the US towards greater recognition of the urgency of the situation. Then, on 24 November, the centre-left Labor Party led by Kevin Rudd won Australia’s federal election. Rudd immediately announced the creation of a cabinet post with specific responsibility for climate-change policy, and on 3 December, the first day of the Bali conference, he was sworn in as prime minister and signed the Kyoto Protocol.
Roadblocks and roadmaps
Despite this momentum, some of the optimism of campaigners leading up to the conference was misplaced. The head of the US delegation, Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky, stressed her intention to focus on a roadmap for future negotiations: Bali was ‘not for countries to state what the end of the negotiations might be’. At the opening session, the conference president, Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar, warned that ‘while the launch of negotiations and a clear deadline of 2009 to end [them] would constitute a breakthrough, anything short of that would constitute a failure’.
The principal obstacle to an agreement was Washington’s position that developing countries, especially China, India and Brazil, should make commitments to reduce GHG emissions in the same way as developed countries. Moreover, the US was reluctant to commit to binding targets, preferring a voluntary and technology-focused approach. The EU had previously committed unilaterally to a reduction of emissions by 20% on 1990 levels by 2020, and by 30% as part of an international agreement, a move intended to galvanise such an agreement. The AWG’s Bali report explicitly recognised that the developed countries would have to reduce emissions by 25–40% from 1990 levels by 2020 to achieve the lowest levels of GHG concentrations assessed in the recent IPCC report, and by significantly more if the developing countries did not also commit themselves to making cuts – they have been as reluctant as the US to do so. Although the preamble to the draft Bali Action Plan released on 10 December contained an allusion to the AWG report and cited the reduction targets, the US delegation objected, arguing that it would prejudice the 2008–09 negotiations. Along with Canada, Japan and Russia, the US successfully argued for a simple reference to ‘much deeper emissions cuts by developed countries ... to achieve the ultimate objective of the Convention’, with a footnote citing a page from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Technical Summary reflecting similar reduction levels. The AWG report, the draft Action Plan and the final Action Plan all referred to the reductions necessary to achieve a particular atmospheric concentration of GHGs (450–550ppm CO2 equivalent), without calling for the adoption of that concentration as a target, or for binding commitments to achieve it.
The negotiations reached a climax on Saturday 15 December, after the conference had been extended by a day to resolve the question of emissions targets. India proposed a revision to the clause on mitigation actions by developing countries, arguing that the language in the Action Plan presented at the plenary was from a draft preferred by the US, and that language previously agreed should be restored. The text as presented called for ‘measurable, verifiable and reportable nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing countries ... supported and enabled by technology, financing, and capacity-building’. The revision moved the first four words towards the end of the sentence in order to modify the developed countries’ commitment rather than that of their developing counterparts. The suggestion led to intense debate among the Group of 77 developing nations and China. After several hours, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono gave passionate and emotional speeches pleading for compromise and agreement. The EU, which had opposed the revision, changed its stance, but Dobriansky announced that the US could not ‘accept this formulation at this time’. After a hostile response from the floor and a further 20 minutes of entreaties from representatives of eight developing countries, she rose to say that ‘the US wants to make sure we all act together ... we will go forward and join consensus’.
The Bali Roadmap fell short of what many observers had hoped for, but UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer asserted that it delivered all that could realistically have been expected. Besides practical agreements relating to adaptation, forestation and technology transfer, the Roadmap sets out a two-year timetable for negotiations on a comprehensive climate-change treaty, the ultimate aims of which are outlined in Figure 1.
Path to Copenhagen
The dramatic way the agreement on the Roadmap was reached was as important as its content. The delay in Dobriansky’s announcement may only have been due to a need to consult with Washington. But the US appeared isolated, caving into pressure from an almost completely united international community. Although there are still difficult negotiations to come, the US now seems less likely to be a deal-breaker. In fact, while the US was successful in removing overt mention of emissions targets from the Roadmap, this does not mean that such targets will not be part of the post-Kyoto agreement. All the major blocs, not just the US, made concessions in Bali, but the gap between the US and developing nations on targets, mechanisms and responsibility, albeit narrowed, remains.
Two parallel and complementary negotiation processes offer opportunities to achieve synergies mentioned in the Roadmap. There will be another six meetings of the AWG negotiating the second commitment period under Kyoto before the 2009 Copenhagen conference. Even though its efforts are likely be superseded by a Copenhagen agreement, the discussions and decisions of this group – which excludes the US – will inform the Roadmap negotiations. Separately, in September 2007 Washington convened the first of a series of Major Economies Meetings, comprising the top 16 GHG emitters (accounting for 80% of emissions) plus the EU and UN, intended to reach consensus on voluntary, non-binding targets. The second of these meetings took place on 30–31 January in Hawaii and a third will take place before the G8 Hokkaido summit in July. This process has sometimes been viewed as an attempt to bypass or undermine the UNFCCC – during the stand-off over emission targets in Bali, the EU threatened to boycott the Hawaii meeting. But any agreements or discussions at these meetings, or at the G8, could feed back into the Roadmap process.
The course of the negotiations and the shape of the final agreement are impossible to predict. Much depends on the results of the 2008 US presidential and Congressional elections. The Bush administration’s reluctance to hand the issue of climate change to Democrats on a platter may well have been a factor in the US turnaround in Bali. The leading Democratic candidates have taken positions on climate-change solutions close to those of the EU, and have called for the US to act as a global leader on the issue. The leading Republican candidates have been less explicit in their views, but tend to reflect Washington’s current position, especially regarding the need for emissions reductions by economies such as China and India.
Regardless of who becomes US president in January 2009, the makeup of the US Senate will be critical. The Bill Clinton administration signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, but was never willing to risk submitting it to the Senate for ratification, principally because of its exemptions for developing countries. By the time of the second meeting of the Roadmap’s negotiating group in June 2008 it should be clear who the candidates of the two major parties will be, and by the fourth meeting in December the identity of the new president will be known. This will leave less than a year to reach a final agreement. Bali was a dramatic coda to a year in which the urgency of facing climate change was pushed to the forefront of the international agenda. This need will only increase, and a groundbreaking accord in two years’ time is within reach.
