Diluted breakthroughs

The COP13 was held in Bali from December 3-14 in 2007 along with the third Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP/MOP3). The meetings of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), which convened for their 27th sessions, were also held during this time. In addition, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol met for its resumed fourth session (AWG 4) from December 3-15. While a number of issues were discussed, the focus was on long-term cooperation between parties and the action plan in the post-2012 period when the first commitment period under Kyoto Protocol would expire.

Discussions

At a pre-Conference press conference, Yve de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, referred to the recent IPCC Assessment Report and said that there was no doubt that climate change posed a huge challenge to humanity. He also pointed out that the developing countries in Asia and Africa and countries with long coastlines will be the most affected. He recalled the floods, drought and intense heatwave conditions in Asia and Africa, and affirmed that serious action could not be postponed. He reflected upon the position taken by leaders in the recent high-level meeting in New York calling for a breakthrough in Bali in COP13. He underlined that science had provided some answers, and to implement these would require political will.

COP13 began by electing Mr Witoelar, the Indonesian Environment Minister, as the President of the Conference, who opened the Conference to launch a new process to discuss the future of the climate change negotiations. He stated that Parties were in agreement that the negotiations on the shape of the future climate change regime would be concluded by 2009. He also pointed out that ‘the carbon market was the key to the efforts to tackle climate change’. He also highlighted that the Parties may support four building blocks for the future climate regime: Adaptation, Mitigation, Technology and Finance. The incoming President was basically laying out the markers for the successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which was the main task of COP13.

The negotiations were rather dramatic. Recognising that any future climate agreement would need US’ participation to be effective and meaningful, there was an effort by the EU and other developed countries to rope the US into these negotiations. While the US did agree to participate in the negotiations, its delegation proved very difficult to please and wanted the future commitments watered down, which was against the general view that the future would need far more ambitious commitments.

The US went back to its earlier stand seeking firm commitments from developing countries, which set up a confrontation with the G77 plus China group. In addition, the US also wanted the following important provisions of the Bali Work Plan deleted: a) the need for global emissions to peak in the next ten to 15 years and then be reduced to very low levels; b) a collective aggregate target, for developed nations, of between 25 and 40 per cent below 1990 levels to be achieved by 2020; and c) the need to reduce global emissions by half or more by 2050 in order to stabilise atmospheric concentrations at the level indicated as safe by the IPCC.

With China also flexing its muscle at being overlooked in the main negotiations, the COP13 was staring at a failure. In fact the strong Chinese accusations of favoring developed countries against the UNFCCC Secretariat, reduced Yvo De Boer to tears. Ultimately, the host nation Indonesia and the UN Secretary General had to press into service their best negotiations skills to get the US around to agreeing to a watered-down text, mollify the Chinese and get on board the G77 group of developing countries.

In the COP/MOP3 tract of discussions, the Ad Hoc Working Group (AWG) was tasked with drawing up a draft on the future course. The AWG placed two options: the first option was a mere mention of intent; the second option was more ambitious, with all the targets, which were excluded from the main COP13, stated clearly. Ultimately, the more ambitious text was accepted since the US was not a member of the COP/MOP3.

Finally, the COP13 did manage to reach the following agreements:

An Adaptation Fund: After much discussion, it was agreed that an Adaptation Fund would be set up within the UNFCCC and would be managed by an Adaptation Board. This was a small victory for developing countries since they managed to keep the Global Environment Facility (GEF) away from managing this fund. Strongest push came from Bangladesh, the Maldives and Tuvalu, which are also countries most susceptible to climate change.

Bali Roadmap: A roadmap was agreed upon after much wrangling between developed and developing countries, as discussed above. Finally, a consensus text emerged with a lot of push from the EU. This included a Bali Action Plan to engender sustained long-term cooperation. Furthermore, developed countries were to commit to “quantified emission limitation and reduction”, developing countries to take mitigation actions “supported and enabled by technology, financing, and capacity-building”, positive incentives for reducing deforestation and protecting carbon sinks, international cooperation on adaptation actions, capacity building and technology transfer, action on the “provision of financial resources and investment to support action on mitigation and adaptation and technology cooperation”.

Ad Hoc Working Groups (AWGs): Two AWGs were set up: one to monitor and review long term cooperative action (AWG-LA) and the other to work on future commitments of developed countries after the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP)

The Bali Roadmap was supposed to work towards a package solution in the areas detailed above, which would be presented to COP15 at Copenhagen in 2009.

Conclusion

When the COP13 at Bali was half-way through, an earthquake occurred in Bali and Sumatra, reminding the participating countries of the fragility of ecosystems. Even so, COP13 proved to be a success in setting up the future roadmap. Two important landmark decisions were the setting up of an independent Adaptation Fund to be managed by a board within the UNFCCC and the Bali Roadmap (including an Action Plan).

The writer is Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Mass Education Extension and Library Services and Department of Cooperation, Government of West Bengal