The Bumpy Road To Copenhagen
No commentsParties agree that a first draft of the text for a new treaty would be available for the interim meeting slated to take place in Bonn in June of 2009.
At the closing session of the UNFCCC in Poznan, Poland, which went on for hours after midnight, governments agreed to submit a proposal for a new treaty’s text before the next conference in Copenhagen.
The Poznan conference was the halfway point in a two-year negotiation process aiming to produce a new climate treaty to bring down emissions after 2012, when the only treaty presently in force, the Kyoto Protocol, comes to an end.
“We will now move to the next level of negotiations, which involves crafting a concrete negotiating text for the agreed outcome,” said the conference’s President, Polish Environment Minister Maciej Nowicki.
Parties agreed that a first draft of the text would be available at a meeting in Bonn in June of 2009. Apart from the Copenhagen climate change conference next year, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will organise at least three more meetings in the coming year.
The Poznan talks made progress on a number of issues that are important in the short run — up to 2012 — particularly for developing countries, including adaptation, finance, technology, and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
In the technology transfer area, the conference endorsed the Global Environment Facility’s strategic programme on technology transfer, which aims to scale up the level of investment by leveraging private investments required by developing countries for mitigation and adaptation technologies.
The Poznan talks also put finishing touches to the Kyoto Protocol’s adaptation fund, enabling the fund to receive projects in the course of 2009.
“I think this is a very important accomplishment — making the adaptation fund operational,” said head of Indonesia’s National Council for Climate Change secretariat, Agus Purnomo.
The parties also agreed that the fund, fed by a share of proceeds from Kyoto’s carbon trade mechanism known as CDM, and voluntary contributions, would have a legal capacity.
But the meeting did not reach consensus on how to boost the fund’s coffers to scale the money desperately needed to help poor countries deal with the impact of climate change.
Decisions were also made to streamline and speed up CDM, with parties asking the CDM Executive Board to explore procedures and methodologies to enhance regional and sub-regional distribution of projects.
Under the CDM, projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries and contribute to sustainable development can earn certified emission reduction or CER credits. Countries with a commitment under the Kyoto Protocol buy CERs to cover a portion of their emission reduction commitments under the Treaty.
There are currently more than 1,240 registered CDM projects in 51 countries, and another approximately 3,000 projects undergoing the registration process.
Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, praised the governments for sending a strong political signal that despite the global crisis, significant funds can be mobilised for both mitigating climate change, and adapting to it.
“We now have a much clearer sense of where we need to go in designing an outcome, which will spell out the commitments of developed countries, the financial support required, and the institutions that will deliver that support as part of the Copenhagen outcome,” de Boer said.
But green activists were not happy about the outcome. The World Wife Fund for Nature (WWF) criticised the summit for showing lack of progress and called it “a major missed opportunity”.
“This was a moment in time when real leaders should have stepped up and taken the positions that would combat the economic and climate crises at the same time,” said Kim Carstensen, Leader of the WWF Global Climate Initiative.
“Instead, industrialised countries preached sermons about the importance of climate protection in the Poznan plenary while lacking or attacking policies to make it happen at home -– a serious sign of climate hypocrisy.”
Parties agree that a first draft of the text for a new treaty would be available for the interim meeting slated to take place in Bonn in June of 2009.
The UN climate change conference in Polish city of Poznan concluded in the pre-dawn hours on Saturday with a commitment from governments to shift into full negotiating mode next year, in time to ink a historic pact in Copenhagen.
