The latest round of climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, ended in a cliff-hanger in the early hours of 11 December. A last-minute huddle on the conference floor produced an unexpected agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol, and a commitment to produce a replacement for it. Though the deal failed to meet what many see as the minimum cut in emissions needed to limit global warming to no more than 2°C, it was probably the best outcome that could have been hoped for given current political and economic constraints. By agreeing to keep talking, participants at least kept the prospect of effective long-term action alive.
Expectations for the two-week long 17th Conference of the Parties (COP-17) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) had been modest at best, even though for many observers the urgency of a global binding agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions had only increased since the last summit in Cancun, Mexico a year ago.
But at 2:40am on Sunday, some 36 hours after the scheduled close of the conference, the South African chair called a ten-minute recess and asked EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard and Indian Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan to huddle on the conference floor with representatives of several other countries to try to resolve differences over a crucial phrase. Some 50 minutes later, delegates emerged from what was described as a ‘scrum’ with compromise language proposed by Brazil. By 4:55am, the UNFCCC executive secretary, Christine Figueres, was able to tweet: ‘Listen up! We have Kyoto CP2, path toward future with legal force for all, Green Climate Fund full implementation of Cancun package!’
Lowered expectations
In the run-up to the Durban conference almost no one expected it to result in a new global deal. There appeared to be unbridgeable gaps between the negotiating positions of the major players: the EU, the United States, the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) and the rest of the developing world.
The positions of China and the United States, in particular, were seen as stumbling blocks. China, the world’s largest and fastest-growing emitter of greenhouse gases, wielded significant diplomatic clout in shaping any potential agreement – and its actions with or without a deal are critical for long-term mitigation of climate change. The United States, the only major emitter not to have ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol under which countries agreed to reduce emissions, was heavily constrained by domestic politics.
The Durban meeting faced two major challenges: making concrete the frameworks, agreements and mechanisms agreed in the 2009 Copenhagen Accord and at Cancun, and extending or replacing the Kyoto Protocol beyond the end of the first commitment period in 2012.
The Green Climate Fund, proposed at Copenhagen and agreed in Cancun, is intended to generate $100 billion per year in loans and grants to stimulate mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries. Developed countries had pledged $30bn in ‘fast-start finance’ in 2010–12, although only about $12bn had been provided before the Durban conference convened. Agreement on a governance structure for the fund was a principal goal in Durban. Other mechanisms agreed in Cancun include the Technology Mechanism to foster networks of experts and centres of excellence to promote innovation and transfer of low-carbon solutions, the Cancun Adaptation Framework, and technical aspects of reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+).
While these are all crucial operational aspects of a long-term global response to climate change, more important politically was the future of Kyoto and its replacement by a new global agreement. Besides the practical implications of the demise of Kyoto, many developing countries were likely to see a failure to extend or renew the protocol as a breach of trust on the part of the wealthier countries and major emitters.
Without an extension of Kyoto, the non-binding, aspirational national emissions targets up to 2020 agreed in the Copenhagen Accord would be the only remaining international framework to tackle global warming. There is an acknowledged gap between those targets and the necessity for emissions to peak no later than 2020 to keep warming within the agreed target of 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
Most developing countries wanted agreement on a second commitment period – the formal position of the G77+China grouping – but many industrialised or transitioning economies (‘Annex I’ countries), including Canada, Russia and Japan, were unwilling to go along if the developing countries, particularly China and India, remained exempt from making commitments to reduce emissions. (When the protocol was adopted in 1997, Annex I countries accounted for about two-thirds of greenhouse-gas emissions, but that figure has now dropped to less than one-third). The lack of binding targets for major emerging economies was the main reason the US Senate failed to ratify Kyoto, and Washington remains unwilling to commit to any deal that does not include such targets.
The EU, which has a common negotiating position in UNFCCC talks, said it would agree to a second commitment period under Kyoto, but only in the context of immediate negotiations towards a binding global agreement by 2015, to be operational by 2020 when the non-binding commitments under the Copenhagen Accord and the Cancun agreements expire. This ‘EU Roadmap’ was supported by a large majority of developing nations. Brazil, India, Japan, Russia and the United States, however, argued for a delay in the start of real negotiations until 2015, in order to reflect on and firm up scientific understanding. China appeared to rule out any agreement before 2020, except for an extension of Kyoto.
A new deal
In the end, the conference agreed on either a five or an eight year extension of the Kyoto Protocol (to be decided at COP-18 in Qatar in December 2012, along with specific Annex I national emissions targets); implementation of the Green Climate Fund and the rest of the Cancun agreements; and a ‘Durban Platform’ for a new ‘protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force’ applicable to all parties, to be negotiated by the end of 2015 and to go into force in 2020 when the second Kyoto commitment period expires.
Work would begin urgently on this new agreement in the first half of 2012. Other parts of the package include new accounting methods and accountability measures for REDD+, steps towards making the Cancun Technology Mechanism and Adaptation Committee operational, and some relatively minor measures and processes related to transparency and efficiency.
The final shape and wording of the Durban Platform and the rest of the package were not enthusiastically welcomed by any countries or NGOs – a sign of a real compromise. And although failure to extend Kyoto beyond 2012 would have been a major setback for long-term efforts to cope with climate change, the Durban deal is only a partial success. A commitment period of eight rather than five years will take the protocol up to the point where the new comprehensive global deal is expected to begin, but it also means a longer delay in implementing more stringent emissions targets.
Countries have committed themselves to setting new targets, but the precise numbers will not be agreed until the last minute. Moreover, the United States remains outside the protocol and is only committed to the voluntary, conditional targets it adopted in Copenhagen and Cancun. Extension of Kyoto does, however, allow continuation of mitigation instruments such as the Clean Development Mechanism and REDD+, and keeps the formal UNFCCC process alive.
Japan and Russia have declared that they will not set revisedbinding targets in the second commitment period, but remain parties to the protocol. In a move decided before Durban but postponed so as not to distract from the negotiations, Canada announced on 12 December that it would formally withdraw from Kyoto after the necessary one-year notice period. With no prospect of meeting its emissions targets, Ottawa faced formal sanction if it remained party to the protocol at the end of 2012.
Since any new global deal, with stricter limits, is not intended to take effect before 2020 even if things go well, it is now likely that the 2°C ‘guardrail’ will be exceeded by a substantial margin by the end of the century. The UN Environment Programme reported in November 2011 that, for a two-thirds chance of keeping long-term global warming below the 2°C threshold, greenhouse-gas emissions would have to peak before 2020 at a level around 17–29% lower than that projected for ‘business as usual’, with a steep decline thereafter. According to a November 2011 pre-release version of the OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050, ‘business as usual’ would see the 2°C guardrail exceeded by 2050, and warming of 3–6°C by the end of the century. Other estimates suggest that if the emissions gap is not bridged, warming is likely to reach 3.5°C by 2100.
Even if all the commitments to emissions limits under the Copenhagen Accord and Cancun agreements are met, including those conditional on adoption of national legislation (such as a US cap-and-trade law), there will still be a gap of around six gigatonnes CO2 equivalent, or about half the necessary reduction. Although it would be possible to bridge this gap with current technology, there is little to suggest that the targets under the second commitment period for Kyoto will reflect the will or provide the necessary incentive to do so. Nevertheless, the preamble to the Durban Platform notes this gap and its importance ‘with grave concern’, the first time it has been formally acknowledged in a UNFCCC agreement.
The most important development in the Durban Platform is the acceptance by China that by 2020 it will have advanced to the point where it can and should accept binding emissions targets. Beijing’sprevious refusal, and that of other developing economies, particularly Brazil, India and Indonesia, has been the main stumbling block for American acceptance of Kyoto or any other binding limits on US emissions.
Targets, however, do not necessarily mean reductions. And targets that are not sufficiently ambitious could let the developing countries effectively continue with business as usual. In the first Kyoto commitment period, for example, some Annex I countries were permitted to increase their emissions. The level of ambition for overall reductions and the apportionment of responsibilities will continue to be major areas for negotiation.
The wording in the Durban Platform that broke the deadlock in negotiations is also problematic. The Berlin Mandate adopted at the first UNFCCC summit in 1995, which launched the negotiations that led to the Kyoto Protocol, called for ‘the adoption of a protocol or other legal instrument’. Similar wording for Durban was accepted by the US in negotiations, while the EU and many developing countries favoured language calling for a ‘legally binding treaty’. India, however, objected strongly, and held out for the insertion of ‘or legal outcome’, which the EU found unacceptably weak. The final ‘agreed outcome’ language echoed the Bali Action Plan, but the addition of ‘with legal force’ was innovative. While it sufficed to break the deadlock at Durban, it did so because no one was really sure of, or agreed on, exactly what it meant. This may pose problems for the future.
The timeline for the roadmap also poses problems. By the time of the Qatar meeting, the US may have a new Republican president with a strong mandate to oppose any climate agreement. A second Obama administration with a fresh mandate would make agreement on a new treaty by 2015 much more likely, but ratification of such a treaty would be under the following administration, and the partisan makeup of the Senate at that point cannot be predicted. Moreover, only once since the adoption of presidential term limits 60 years agohas an incumbent US president been replaced by a member of the same party in a general election. Whatever happens, the odds are that US politics will still be biased against climate action at the end of the decade.
On the other hand, with agreement by China and India to accept binding targets in a post-2020 treaty, the completion of the International Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report in 2014 could give political cover for legislators to modify their positions. The impacts of climate change are likely to become increasingly evident to the public over the next ten years. Global economic conditions, too, could be much improved in four and nine years’ time, and low-carbon energy technologies will be much further advanced.
The other decisions taken at the conference were more technical and incremental, but there are still some potential difficulties and open questions. Who, if anyone, will stump up the full amounts needed for the Green Climate Fund and REDD+ remains unclear. The host country for the Green Climate Fund – a point of some contention during the conference – was not agreed. The main contenders are Mexico, Germany and the United States; Washington may feel it is owed a concession for its compromises at Durban, but it is strongly opposed by many developing countries.
After Durban
The conference reflected the increased confidence and assertiveness of Brazil, China and India in international diplomacy. The EU played a leadership role, especially by comparison with its ineffectiveness in Copenhagen. The US achieved much of what it wanted – a delay in agreeing binding emissions targets, inclusion of the major emerging economies in such targets, and avoiding the perception that it was the main obstacle in the way of a deal to save the planet.
The agreed deal gave fresh impetus to international negotiations, but fell well short of the measures or timetable needed to avoid dangerous long-term warming. Much remains to be done if the world is to avoid the worst-case projections of climate change, and to develop the capacity to cope with the changes to come.
