Bangkok climate talks fail to reach agreement on treaty fundamentals

BANGKOK – The two-week climate talks here reached a sour ending yesterday, with tension rising between developed and developing countries amid failure of government negotiators from around 190 nations to firmly agree on fundamentals for a treaty that would ensure continued restraint on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as support for mitigation and adaptation measures in developing countries, which suffer most from the wrath of climate change.

The United States, as well as other developed or industrialized countries identified under Annex I in the Kyoto Protocol, are being accused of engaging in “derailing tactics” as they are likewise charged with attempting to “kill” the only existing legally binding global climate-protection agreement by pushing for the creation of a “new international agreement” that would purportedly appeal more to America.

But a group of 130 developing nations (G-77), including the Philippines, did not agree to such moves.

They maintained that “by going out of a binding protocol with collective and individual targets and into a new agreement, which has only a collection of individual countries’ national targets… would be taking the international climate regime many steps backwards.”

The G-77, which is chaired by Sudan Ambassador Lumumba D’Aping, said that moves to introduce a new treaty on climate “is ironic and tragic” at this time when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report shows that climate change will cause a devastating crisis “if we do not act now” and when there is global clamor for “many steps forward” to address climate change.

According to the G-77, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the foundation of the international framework for climate change, and the Kyoto Protocol is the most important instrument embedding the commitments of Annex I parties.

Apart from being an international and legally binding treaty, G-77 nations said that the Kyoto Protocol has an aggregate figure that specifies the emission reduction commitments for developed country-members collectively as it likewise contains the emission reduction commitment of each member.

The Kyoto Protocol has a first commitment period, which ends in 2012, but the G-77 said that the treaty also states that there shall be a subsequent commitment period after the first period ends.

Thus, the group stressed “it is a legal obligation of Kyoto Protocol members to enter a second commitment period.”

“In Bali, the understanding was that negotiations under the Ad Hoc Working Group-Kyoto Protocol would finalize negotiations on the second commitment period figures for commitments for developed country-members collectively and for individual countries,” the G-77 said.

“As 2012 is nearing, completing the second commitment period figures for the Kyoto Protocol is the most important component of the Copenhagen outcome. Failure to do so would signal a failure of commitment on the part of Annex I countries.”

The G-77 countries expressed their “extreme concern” that talks on emission reduction figures for the second commitment period “are very slow and there has been no progress” despite the remaining five negotiation days before the Copenhagen climate summit.

The G-77 nations further raised concern about “clear signals” that the developed countries do not want to negotiate a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol; that the statement from most of the developed countries indicate instead that they want to abandon the Kyoto Protocol altogether and set up a new agreement.

Moreover, the G-77 countries expressed concern that through discussions in the Ad Hoc Working Group-Long term Cooperative Action here, it is also “becoming clear” that under the alleged new agreement to take the place of the Kyoto Protocol, the developed countries aim to drastically water down the nature of their commitments such that they would no longer have to undertake emission reduction commitments that are bound internationally.

“The replacement of the Kyoto Protocol with such a loose international arrangement will result in the drastic downgrading of international disciplines over developed countries in their emission reduction targets and efforts,” the G-77 pointed out.

“We believe that the solution is to implement our understanding in Bali, that developed countries agree to deep emission cuts collectively and individually and to inscribe this in a new Annex to the Kyoto Protocol for a second commitment period beginning 2013.”

D’Aping asserted during an earlier press conference that an attempt to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a new framework would be counter-productive and challenged committed developed countries like the European Union, Australia, and Japan “to rise up to the challenge rather than race to the bottom with the United States.”

US Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing has previously articulated that America will cut emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020, which developing countries find insufficient.

The US has also said developing countries need to include in any international treaty their domestic pledges to improve energy efficiency, downgrade deforestation, and cut emissions.

The US especially wants China and India to first lay down their respective commitment on emission reduction targets, being countries that already have robust economies.

As for the Philippines, chief climate negotiator Heherson Alvarez on Thursday expressed disappointment that negotiations encountered a deadlock, as it remains a “huge challenge” to hold Annex I nations accountable to their “historic contribution” to global warming and climate change.

“Bangkok is not delivering the numbers we need to moderate escalating climate change. What has been put on the table falls far short of what the science, as recommended by the IPCC, requires. These numbers, objective and quantified, are left undetermined in deadlock deliberations,” Alvarez said.

Discussions were largely considered in progress, which nevertheless shows some promise, Alvarez noted.

Talks on ensuring adaptation for vulnerable countries such as the Philippines have, in fact, been considered to reach some strides.

However, Alvarez said, “In mitigation, we are not seeing the level of engagement we need, especially with regard to mitigation actions by developed countries.”

Alvarez then reiterated his call for deep and early cuts on GHG emissions in order to curb the intensifying climate change.

He explained that adaptation might just become a futility without “sensible and humane mitigation targets” that is seen to address the driving force of climate change and its disastrous impacts.

He further emphasized that adaptation would be “a wasted opportunity in the way of an unrestricted carbon discharge.”

Also on Thursday, Yvo De Boer, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, which sponsors the climate talks, acknowledged that the climate negotiations process have been in an “up and down cycle” although he noted a general sense that discussions have been “very constructive” as government delegations and working groups have been getting down on the practicalities of the issue.

But he also said that “at the end of the line… discussions should take on the financial mechanism, where all of these depends.”

The Bangkok Climate Change Talks 2009 struck a hurdle in the middle of the two-week session on issues including financial mechanisms to combat climate change and new emission reduction targets until alleged moves to abandon the Kyoto Protocol altogether purportedly by developed countries surfaced the following days.

The climate negotiations here is the second to the last negotiations before world leaders gather in Copenhagen this December hopefully to vote on possibly either a new treaty or amendment to the Kyoto Protocol.

Government negotiators are set to meet again next month in Barcelona, Spain for five-day climate talks.  –Katherine Adraneda (The Philippine Star)