Will Kyoto survive COP17 in Durban?

The world’s only binding climate agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, will expire soon, but will the most important means to compel industrialised nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions soon become a mere footnote in history, as Der Spiegel wrote in an article last week? Will the gloves come off at COP17 starting at the end of November in Durban?

And, will South Africa’s new national climate-response policy, set to be revealed at the COP17 conference, prove to be a mechanism that will inspire other governments to change their stance on Kyoto?

Early in October at the Panama talks, the last round of official United Nations climate change negotiations ahead of COP17, old battle lines were redrawn. Japan, Russia, Canada and the United States insisted they would not sign up to a second commitment period for Kyoto when it expires at the end of 2012.

But many developing countries that have rallied behind the Group of 77 and China insisted that Kyoto should not die, according to the Mail & Guardian.
Speaking from Panama, Green­peace Africa analyst Ferrial Adam said countries were cognisant of what had happened in Copenhagen and were steering clear of an open fight over Kyoto.
"But in Durban, the gloves are expected to come off," she said. "Countries are digging in their heels, protecting their national positions. The old blockages are still there."
The chairman of the Least Developed Countries group, Pa OusmanJarju of Gambia, stressed that poor countries needed the financial mechanisms embedded in Kyoto to help them cope with climate change

The current CO2-reduction agreements expire at the end of 2012, and there is enormous resistance to new targets.

The environment ministers and negotiators from around 200 countries, who will travel to Durban, at the end of November for the latest global climate conference, are a long way from breathing new life into the Kyoto process, writes Der Spiegel.

Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, is making the bold claim that there is "a strong desire from all sides to see a final political decision made" in Durban.

But, this decision will probably consist of doing without fixed agreements on CO2 reduction in the future. "The meeting in Durban could become an act of mourning," warns Reimund Schwarze of the Climate Service Centre in Hamburg, which analyses climate policy on behalf of the German government, in an interview with Der Spiegel.

UN climate talks in South Africa next month must make meaningful progress or governments "risk permanent damage to their credibility", a group of global businesses warned on Thursday.

At the November 28 to December 9 summit in Durban, governments should try to adopt measures to ensure poor nations will have $100-billion in annual climate aid by 2020 and to pave the way for low-carbon investments, said a communique from over 175 companies including rretail giant Tesco and the Nedbank Group.

Major emitting nations must also cut their carbon emissions deep enough to contain global warming, the statement said.

"If we do not act, climate change risks seriously undermining future global prosperity and inflicting significant social, economic and environmental costs on the world," the companies said.

"Without this agreement, business lacks the clarity and certainty needed to invest to its fullest potential."

The companies also encouraged countries to forge bilateral and multilateral agreements to form financing partnerships and to tackle particular problem areas such as deforestation and emissions from international shipping and aviation.

A similar statement was issued on Wednesday last week by a group of 285 investors managing assets worth more than $20-trillion, including Calpers, the biggest pension fund in the United States.

Tough policy action will stimulate private-sector investment into cleaner technologies and create green jobs, they said. (Source: Engineering News, 20 October 2011).

South African policy

South Africa hopes that it will make an impression on the world with its new national climate-response policy which will be unveiled at the upcoming COP17 conference.

The policy will require business to make a number of sacrifices to get South Africa on to its envisioned low-carbon trajectory, including plotting a carbon budget that will prescribe for the country’s different business sectors just how much carbon they have to spend.

President Jacob Zuma said at Copenhagen in 2009 that South Africa would reduce its emissions by 34% by 2020 and by 42% by 2025, if backed by international funding.

According to the Mail & Guardian, those claims will now be backed by a white paper that would place the country on a sustainable footing.

One of the most contentious issues in the paper will be the carbon budget, which will be published in two years after consultations with different sectors. Businesses will have to present plans to the government on how they envisage they will reduce their emissions, and the budget will then seek to impose the necessary caps.

Peter Lackey, acting deputy director-general of the water and environmental affairs department, said the mere fact that South Africa is carbon-intensive doesn’t mean that it will continue to be so. The South African people are under threat because of the country’s carbon profile.

He said the policy was not meant to represent a carrot-and-stick approach, but would provide targets and direction for businesses to work towards.

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