Will Kyoto survive the Durban heat?

Will we see the death of the Kyoto Protocol at the COP17 climate change conference in Durban starting next week or not? That is probably the most important question hanging over the Durban talks. Negotiators will seek to avert the death of the Kyoto protocol, an international climate agreement drawn up in the 1990s to cut greenhouse emissions.

Its first commitment period expires in December 2012. The concern is that there will be no agreement to extend it into a second commitment period.

The South African government certainly does not want a burial tomb with the words ‘Death of Kyoto’ attached to the Durban conference.

When Kyoto was first negotiated, it set targets for 39 developed greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% below 1990 levels for the period between 2008 and 2012, the so-called first commitment period.

In a recent interview, Alf Wills, environment affairs chief negotiator told the Weekend Argus and the Saturday Star: “The fundamental challenge we need to preserve is that we’ve spent the past 20 years negotiating this set of international rules. That’s 20 years of negotiations you don’t want to lose. We have the opportunity to improve that system.

Japan, Canada and Russia have already signalled that they will not commit to a second period because China and the United States, the globe’s top polluters, have not ratified Kyoto.

John Ashton, the UK Foreign Office’s special representative for climate change, said it is fashionable to argue that a new climate treaty, based on the Kyoto-architecture of legally binding carbon caps, is dead.

According to this view, Kyoto should be given a decent burial, attended by high profile VIP’s like Angelina Jolie, Richard Branson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and U2’s Bono, and switch to a Plan B.

This turns out to be a looser arrangement in which governments make voluntary pledges to each other. Its advocates often call themselves ‘realists’, Ashton told the Mail & Guardian.

The case for voluntarism was first punted by those who wanted to ease the effort to deal with climate change. It has subsequently attracted support from academics and other commentators whose concern about the climate is unquestioned. The problem, argues Ashton, is in its politics.

“There really is no plan B for the climate. A voluntary framework will not be enough to keep us within the 2 degrees limit of manageable climate change. If a legally binding approach, including a round of post-2012 Kyoto commitments, falls off the table at the COP17 negotiations, most would see this as giving up on climate change. They would be right,” said Ashton.

The Kyoto protocol inspired the world’s largest single market to take big steps towards a carbon-neutral energy system, making our economies stronger and more resilient.

The deal that is essential, must include a second phase of Kyoto commitments for those who are willing to accept them, plus an unambiguous commitment to targets by 2020 from the other major players, said Ashton.

Government negotiators have called in former environment minister Valli Moosa in an attempt to stave off a stalemate at the COP17 climate change conference.

Observers last week pointed out that India’s refusal to commit itself to legally binding carbon emission cuts was giving the United States an excuse to play hardball. India accounted for 6.2% of global carbon emissions last year, and the United States for 16.4%.

China, responsible for 24.6% of the world’s emissions, was also reluctant to take on binding cuts but had a more flexible approach.

“India’s hard line is causing a stumbling block. India and China are saying they won’t move, so the United States is also saying it won’t move. The three countries are holding things up,” an observer with insight into informal negotiations told the Mail & Guardian.

Until July 2011, when India’s environmental minister Jairam Ramesh was redeployed, India had weakened its stand against legally binding emission cuts.

But the new minister, Jayanti Natarajan, took a tough line against cuts, insisting India would rely on voluntary actions to reduce its emissions.

In September she told journalists that India had voluntarily done “far more than developed countries” to cut emissions and wanted to know from developed nations about their efforts “before we talk about any other legally binding commitment”.

“Countries should avoid using environment concerns to further their economic interests. One should not pass on green protectionism, deliberate use of environmental policy to discriminate against foreign commercial interests, in the name of green economies,” she said.

Prodopto Ghosh, a former environment secretary and now a senior fellow at the Energy Research Institute, is a hard-liner, like Natarajan.

Ghosh took a hard line on climate finances last week in response to the announcement that the European Union had earmarked $5,5 billion for developing countries.

“There is no new money coming from rich countries. They have been repackaging existing funds to help developing countries adapt to climate change and curb emissions,” Ghosh said.

Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said she was confident the world would make “enormous strides in reducing greenhouse gas-emissions”.

“Most of the technology we need is there, the private sector is increasingly engaged and needs to take a key role in applying those technologies.”

Figueres said the green revolution could go faster if governments and the private sector worked together to create policies supportive of environmentally sound business practices.

Figueres is ambitious. If China, India and the United States do not commit themselves to a second commitment period under the Kyoto protocol, but instead opt for a Plan B or voluntarism, it would be a clear signal that the world has given up on climate change without much of a fight.

• Add New
• Search

Comments (1)

• |2011-11-28 21:47:21 Anonymous  - The CACC COP
  Here we go on another round of politically motivated nonsense. I look forward to seeing another fiasco like COP15 in Copenhagen. Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change (CACC) scaremongering has run its course and nobody but the power-hungry, the politicians, the environmentalists and the manufacturers of those useless wind turbines and solar panels have any interest in the propaganda.
  
  It's time they turned their attention to something worthwhile instead of flogging this dead horse.
  
  Best regards, Pete Ridley
  • 1
  • 0

  Reply

Write comment

Your Contact Details:

Name:

Email: do not notifynotify

Comment:

Title:

Message:

Security

Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 4.0 beta2