Prelude to Paris

The eighteenth COP (COP18) was held from November 26 to December 8, 2012 in Doha. The eighth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 8) and meetings of five subsidiary bodies: the thirty-seventh sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 37) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 37), the second part of the seventeenth session of the Ad hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP 17), the second part of the fifteenth session of the Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the UNFCCC (AWG-LCA 15) and the second part of the Ad hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP 1), were also held during this period. This was also the first time that the UN climate conference was being held in the Middle East. The Doha conference was more of an implementation meeting and was also looking to consolidate whatever had been achieved thus far and close various groups that had fulfilled their remit. Accordingly, the AWG-KP, AWG-LA and work on the Bali Action Plan were all terminated.

Discussions

The discussions began with statements from the outgoing President, the South African Minister for International Relations and Cooperation, the incoming President, Qatar, represented by the Deputy Prime Minister, and the UNFCCC Executive Secretary, all pitching for working towards the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. The following were the main issues discussed and agreed upon:

• There was an agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol to the second commitment period. The Doha amendment to the Kyoto Protocol basically stated that the second commitment of the Protocol would run from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2020.
• The discussions also included work on getting to a new legally binding treaty for emissions reductions by all Parties – developed and developing — by 2020. It was agreed that the overall emissions should fall by 18 per cent from the 1990 levels by the year 2020.
• The outstanding issues of the Green Climate Fund and the USD 100bn a year pledge for developing countries by 2020 also came in for discussions.
• There was also an agreement to continue to work on the loss and damage issues associated with climate change, including risk and insurance.
• The issues important for the developing countries such as capacity building, technical and financial assistance to develop their National Adaptability Plans, and operationalising the Technology Mechanism, including the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) and the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN), were also agreed.
• It was agreed that there would be systems for more transparency in reporting. In particular, better MRV (Measuring, Report and Verification) systems would be discussed and devised.

All the countries and various groupings took this opportunity to reiterate and clarify their positions. Interestingly, the US position was now more in harmony with most countries and displayed a constructive tone, even though they continued to oppose the extension of the Kyoto Protocol. Jonathan Pershing, the US delegate, pointed to efforts of the Obama administration to move towards better fuel efficiency of vehicles and agreed that everyone had to do more to prevent the harms of global warming. Apart from the EU, most developed countries like Japan, Canada, Australia and others opposed the extension of the Kyoto Protocol. Most developing countries including China, Small Island States, African countries and Brazil were in favor of extending the Kyoto Protocol.

One issue that was noted with interest was Bhutan’s shift from Gross Domestic Product to Gross National Happiness. The new measure included the positives from action on climate change and gains from emissions reduction.

There were two issues that were hotly debated and discussed right till the end of the conference: climate finance and whether countries could carry over carbon credits from the first period of the Kyoto Protocol to the second commitment period. On climate finance, only the UK and Germany had committed funds to the Green Climate Fund by the second week, while the US contended that it was under no obligation to commit funds until 2020. During tense negotiations, India pointed out the urgency in raising more finances and the EU urged the US to put more funds on the table. Only after this did Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands pledge more finances. Even after this, when enough funds were not forthcoming, the loss and damage issues were put on fast track as a compensation to developing countries. Even here, the US insisted that the word ‘compensation’ could not be taken to be a legal obligation and had to be treated as ‘aid’. On carrying over carbon credits, it was Poland that insisted on doing so (and this would also apply to Russia and Ukraine who had earned these credits because of an industrial slowdown in the first period), but was persuaded to not insist on it because it would lower ambition. As André Corrêa do Lago, head of the Brazilian delegation said: “the second phase has to have environmental integrity, and you will not have that if countries are allowed to carry [the credits] {…}. This is not a way to have effective reduction”.

Conclusion

The COP18 was basically a staging post and a preparatory summit for the expected major agreements in the 2015 conference. The only noteworthy outcomes were: the agreement on the second period of commitment of Kyoto Protocol, an agreement to come up with a more comprehensive legally binding treaty for all before 2020 and expedited action on the loss and damage fund for assistance to developing countries. Developed countries and commentators from there continued to press developing countries to do more. As Lord Stern, chair of LSE’s Grantham Institute on Climate Change, said: “it’s a brutal arithmetic – the changing structure of the world’s economy has been dramatic. That is something developing countries will have to face up to”. Sounding an optimistic note, Connie Hedegaard, the lead EU negotiator in Durban and EU climate chief, wrote in The Guardian shortly after COP18: “Yes progress was slow and frustrating, but the main goal was to prepare the ground for the big 2015 talks. Job done.”

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