The negotiations in April referred to as Bonn 1, gave an impression of a better atmosphere and more dynamics than was the case at the COP-14 meeting in Poznan in December 2008. This was mainly due to the presence of the delegation from the new US government. It was applauded, on the opening day, when the US gave the impression of taking the climate threat seriously, wanting to make up for lost time, wanting to follow scientific recommendations and had no doubts as to climate change being man made.
However, the Americans made it quite clear that they were attending the conference to listen and learn and that they had not yet been given a mandate to start negotiating. Therefore, the conference did not lead to any breakthroughs or major developments. In conclusion the conference gave no noticeable progression and the prospects for coming to terms in Copenhagen in December are rather slim.
Two main challenges
Roughly speaking there are two external, but crucially important processes that cause the delay in the negotiations and may prove detrimental to the outcome in Copenhagen.
The first is the EU position on financing. While they have already declared themselves willing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to 30% below the total emissions they had in 1990 provided other rich countries do the same, there is still a matter of how much money they are willing to contribute with, how the money will be generated and how it will be managed and paid out. The lack of position is founded on an internal disagreement about burden sharing within the EU in addition to disagreements on the principles of earmarking states financial resources.
The EU has appointed an expert group with representatives of all the treasury departments that will work with concluding a recommendation before the next ministry meeting in the end of June (after Bonn 2). It is highly unlikely that the EU will have reached a clarification on this issue before the fall.
Hesitance on the part of the Americans
The other is the US’s mandate problem. Since a new agreement will include parts that need to be ratified in both Congress and Senate, the US is waiting for a climate bill that will pass through the legislative body. Such a bill will give the clearest expression for what mandate the American administration will have in the negotiations. If president Obama himself had set the mandate, he would have stood the risk of Congress’s disapproval and their refusal to ratify the final agreement. He considered (and made an attempt at) pushing through the necessary clarifications in this year’s budget proposition, but was rejected as it was considered to be more than a mere budget item.
At present, two congressmen have introduced a bill for Congress (the so-called Waxman-Markey Bill) that goes even further on emission cutbacks than Obama himself suggested (back to the 1990 level of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020). The higher percentage emission cuts proposed in this bill is still far from satisfactory. It only represents an approximate 7% emission reduction from the 1990 level by 2020.
A more interesting aspect of the bill is that it makes allowances for the US to pay for emission reductions abroad, primarily through REDD (forest conservation). The bill allows for part of this to be considered as “offsetting” (pay off), which is not good. The good thing is that someone in Congress now sees that the US can meet its obligations by financing measures in other countries – something that has so far been a non- issue for the Americans. The interesting thing about limiting their obligations to forest conservation is that in doing so they avoid money from being spent in China or other economically competing countries.
An unclear foundation for the negotiation text
The chair of the negotiations for the “Convention track” Long-term Cooperative Action (LCA) had prior to the conference prepared a summary on his own initiative. This was based on a mandate he had been given in Poznan to summarize all proposals and views expressed so far since the Bali meeting in 2007. The purpose of the summary was to place focus on the divergence and convergence between the parties and draw up an outline for the negotiation text to be presented before the next negotiation talks taking place in June (Bonn 2).
The industrialized countries (G77+China) spent much of the first week in Bonn objecting to this document, as they felt it did not give a satisfactory reflection of the views they had expressed and the proposals they had made. This brought on some frustration that resulted in the document never receiving a proper processing.
The path onwards
It is unclear when the Americans will have a new bill in place. The Democrats in both the administration and Congress have expressed an interest in having one in place before Copenhagen, but some doubt it is feasible. There is a concern that this will prove crucial to both the outcome and the content of the agreement reached in Copenhagen.
Even though neither the EU nor the US will have finished these processes by Bonn 2, there are other arenas that can prove decisive before the meeting in June. Major Economies Forum (MEF), G20 and G8 are all important arenas for discussing climate change. It is apparent that the solutions to the current deadlock in the negotiations are only to be found at the political level and it is therefore imperative that the state leaders become involved in the process.
Read more about why the developed countries should assume the biggest part of the finance burden in regards to a climate agreement: Climate funding for Africa + Discussion paper on UN Climate Fund
- Written by: Harald Nyeggen Sommer, Advisor on Climate Change, Department for Development Policy, the Norwegian Church Aid. Contact:
