The countries bring widely varying numbers of people to the task.

For about 95 countries (those in colours other than red), this map shows the number of pre-registered participants and the climate risk index for 2010 as determined by GermanWatch.

Click on each country to see the numbers. On the climate risk index, a lower number signifies a higher level of climate risk.

For a full list of countries’ delegates, climate risk index rank and Gross National Income per resident in dollars, click here (Excel file).

Analysis:
By Hoy Chicago (Note: The tally of delegates was compiled by hand and has a 1 percent margin of error).

Sources: 
GermanWatch 2010
UNFCCC list of COP17 delegates (part 1 here, part 2 here).
World Bank Little Data Book on Climate Change 2011

The talks are a complex web of simultaneous sessions and Malawi simply does not have enough skilled negotiators to be in every room. Nor can it offer much in exchange for action from more powerful nations to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases or provide money to help Malawi deal with the impacts of climate change.

Countries like Malawi do have one trick up their sleeves – the ability to form alliances — but even so the main power lies in the hands of large individual nations.

“It is a rather a tricky situation for us to negotiate as a country,” says Evans Njewa, head of Malawi’s negotiating team. “But through blocks to which we are affiliated we are able to get our views heard. Through these groupings we make our contributions and through our spokespersons our position is presented to the United Nations.”

Coalitions mean compromise

Malawi is a member of more of these negotiating blocks than most other countries. It is in the Least Developed Countries group, the Africa group, and the G77 alliance of 131 developing nations. It also works in partnership with the 43-nation Alliance of Small Island States.

Each of these groups wants rich nations to make legally binding commitments to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. But Canada, Russia, Japan and the United States say they will only do that if big emerging economies like China, Brazil, India and South Africa also make their pledges binding.

What does that mean for countries like Malawi, where climate change threatens the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals as well as the delivery of the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy?

“There is power in togetherness and we feel talking as a group carries more weight,” says Njewa, who added that Malawi’s main position was to lobby for more donor support to help it adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Just as countries can form negotiating blocks, the blocks can also form alliances. Pa Ousman Jarju, chair of the Least Developed Countries group, says that collaborating with other blocks is not a sign of desperation but shows the passion his group has for finding solutions to address climate change.

But country positions do not automatically become those of the larger group, whose agendas must be common to all of their members. This makes it hard for a country like Malawi to call for all that it wants.

Punching above its weight

Malawi could be more influential if it took the climate change talks more seriously, according to Dingani Jere, Malawi’s national coordinator for the Christian advocacy organization, the Act Alliance.

He says Malawi undermines its position by not having the President or top government officials attend.

“This is a serious meeting and looking at how crucial the issue is, we needed the President to be here,” says Jere. “After all we are just close by to South Africa. With such an attitude I don’t think we can be that influential.”

Felix Jumbe, the president of the Farmers Union of Malawi and vice president of the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions says the absence of Malawi’s president and other leaders is telling. “I think they knew that even if they made it to here they would not have changed anything,” he says. “I think such meetings are a waste of time and money.”

With little more than 24 hours to go before the end of the 2011 climate change conference, the principal secretary at Malawi’s ministry of foreign affairs, Anthony Livuza, told this reporter that the negotiations were difficult because of rich countries’ unwillingness to act. He says the impasse is very disappointing for Malawi.

“We came with a lot of hope and now our hope seems to be tampered with,” he says. “We were hoping for more commitments because Malawi faces a lot of constraints in terms of funds and capacity to deal with complex issues of climate change.” 

Nepali participants meeting at ICC, Forest users group boycotted the meeting after raising their voice on denial

Community forest groups demand access to climate negotiations, but lose out as fight between ministries heats up

Members of a federation of community forests from Nepal accused the government of Nepal of being biased towards them by refusing to accept their representative as a party delegate at UN climate talks.

Members of domestic and international NGOs were accepted as delegates, in addition to government officials. They are here in South Africa with delegates from 195 countries at the 17th annual UN climate summit.

“When we asked the government to give status of party to some of our members they denied. But we found out here (in Durban) that they have brought the people from NGOs and INGOs as the party delegates. It’s not fair, “said Dil Raj Khanal, who represents the Federation of Community Forest Users Nepal (FECOFUN) and is also the legal expert on natural resources.

“Everybody talks about communities by mouth but at the inner heart there is no respect for the communities,” added Khanal.

However, Batu Krishna Uprety who is the head of Climate Change Management Division at the Ministry of Environment who leads the UN climate negotiations said that they didn’t received any request from FECOFUN. “We haven’t received your request,” he replied to the query of community forest users’ representatives.

The community forest members said that the Ministry of Environment had advised them to make their request to the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation (MoFSC) as the forest ministry is the line ministry for the community forests group. But when the forest ministry sent the letter onward, it was rejected by the environment ministry.

“Everyone  is selling our name but when it comes to do some favor for us then everybody starts sweating,” said Ganesh Karki, General Secretary of FECOFUN. “We have especially realized this with the Ministry of Environment, so we boycott this meeting.”

The rift between the Ministry of Forests and Ministry of Environment is widening due to climate change in the country. The Ministry of Environment is the focal ministry to deal with climate change, something with which the Ministry of Forests has not been happy from the beginning. The forest ministry is one of the biggest and most powerful ministries in the country, far more powerful than the relatively new Ministry of Environment.

To complicate matters, the major forest initiative on climate change under the UN — known as Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) — is looked over by the forest ministry. On the other hand, the focal point for the whole UN climate treaty, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is under the  oversight of  the environment ministry.

The forest ministry seems like it’s not happy with the limited role given to the UNFCCC processes.

These ministerial disputes have affected even the personal relationships of the officials from both ministries. In many forums they keep on criticizing each others’ work. It has become clear that they are actinag as rivals when it comes to the issue of climate change.

The rift between the ministries increased dramatically due to a cabinet meeting at Mount Everest base camp in 2009,  as ministers even stopped talking to each other. The main reason behind the fallout was the leadership of the erstwhile forest minister Deepak Bohara in organizing the cabinet meeting at the base camp of Mount Everest prior to the UN  climate change meeting in Copenhagen. The forest ministry’s lead at that time had irked environment ministry officials.

FECOFUN is a federation of more than 15,000 community forest user groups in Nepal and is one of the key players in the forestry sector. The fight between the two ministries could be one reason for the denial to include FECOFUN representatives in the government delegation.

“We don’t get any information on what’s going on inside the negotiation from the government. If our representative was included in the government then we would have been updated about the process and that could have been very useful to disseminate information about the real negotiations to our members across the country,” said Bhim Prakash Khadka, Vice-Chairman of FECOFUN, who is also here in Durban.

 The high level discussions at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban South Africa will run from December 6-8 with Jamaica’s voice being noticeably absent for the first time in four years.

 Jamaica is ranked 22 in the world, according to data published by The Global Climate Risk Index 2010 which analyses the extent countries have been affected by the impact of climate change (storms, floods, hurricanes, drought etc.)

 Despite this, Jamaica will not be among those making a statement as the Jamaican delegation does not have a high level representative such as a Minister or head of state in attendance. This is due in part to the upcoming general election.

 Speakers at the opening ceremony include South African President Jacob Zuma and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. Statements will be made from heads of state, heads of governments and other heads of delegation over the reminder of the week.

The annual Climate Change Conference is a platform which provides a greater level of viibility of what’s happening and the needs that must be met to reduce the effects of climate change. 

Scientists say that the lifestyle choices being made are altering the earth’s system.  This due to greenhouse gases emitted, by an excess amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Thanks to all the fossil fuels we burn, there is now more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Currently, 80 percent of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels. Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean face a myriad of threats ranging from increasing temperatures, sea level rise, droughts, more intense hurricanes and flooding. At the conference, the Caribbean and other small islands are fighting to get firm emission targets of 1.5 degrees and 350 parts per million. If these targets are not met they argue that the small islands will not survive the impacts of climate change.

While the most vulnerable countries such as small island states urged an urgent decision on a binding deal, some of the world’s biggest economies and polluters are pressing for more time to reach a decision. The United States has suggested the year 2020 as the earliest a deal could be reached. It argues that by that time climate change would not have reached dangerous levels and mankind would still be able to take control of the situation.

Supporting this stand is Canada, whose representative acknowledges the urgency of the problem but does not see the urgency of its solution. “There is urgency to this problem. We don’t need a binding convention. What we need is action and a mandate to work on an eventual binding convention,” Peter Kent, Canadian Environment Minister told the media during the UN talks first week.

This stand drew a strong protest from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), which says it will not accept a proposal that delays any new binding agreement or more ambitious emissions reductions until 2020. The island states believe that these outcomes cannot safeguard the livelihoods and guarantee their survival , hence their demand for urgency for an agreement.

Ambassador Dessima Williams, Permanent Representative of Grenada to the United Nations and Chair of AOSIS cautioned that if Durban puts off a legally binding agreement and closes the door on raising targets for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions before 2020 many small island states will be severely threatened.

“AOSIS is calling on the Durban conference to deliver agreement on a second five-year commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, a process to rapidly ramp up mitigation ambition, and a mandate to quickly conclude a new parallel legal agreement in 2012 to cover those not bound by the Kyoto Protocol,” she said.

The world’s biggest emitters, China and the United States, are not bound by Kyoto. The European Union said its willing to commit to five more years of commitment to the Protocol, but argues that it would be no cause to celebrate. With less than 15 percent of emissions covered by countries signed to the Protocol, “it’s hard to see how anyone cold label that a big success,” said EU climate chief Connie Hedegaad on Monday .

Williams said that after a year of record emissions growth and high temperatures, the push by the world’s biggest carbon polluters to delay flies in the face of the overwhelming evidence in support of immediate action and represents a betrayal of the people most vulnerable to climate change and the world.

The World Meteorological Organisation said in a statement on Tuesday that global temperatures in 2011 are currently the tenth highest on record. “Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached new heights. They are very rapidly approaching levels consistent with a 2-2.4 degree Centigrade rise in average global temperatures which scientists believe could trigger far reaching and irreversible changes,” the statement says.

“AOSIS will here in Durban reject any outcome that cannot ultimately safeguard our livelihoods and guarantee the survival of our nations. Why would we ever agree to a deal that has as its ultimate and inevitable consequence our own demise? If Durban puts off a legally binding agreement and closes the door on raising mitigation ambition before 2020 many of our small island states will be literally and figuratively doomed,” Williams stressed.

Rising sea levels due to global warming are not only a threat to small islands but also to coastal areas. In Tanzania, for example, some houses in Pangani Township become partly submerged during high tide. Fresh water from wells is no longer fit for human use due to the intrusion of salt water, forcing district authorities to drill new wells to supply water to communities.

In South Africa rising sea levels are threatening to submerge properties in Ballito and Amanzimtoti.

Last week, the International Energy Agency revealed that delaying action until 2017 would close the door to any hope of keeping global temperatures below 2°C, and put humanity on a course to the devastation of 4°C of warming and many metres of sea-level rise.

The proposed 2020 timeline would also leave more than five years between the next report of the IPCC (due in 2014) and a new round of emission reduction commitments.

“It is a betrayal not just of small island nations, many of whom would be destined for extinction, but a betrayal of all humanity. There are no plausible technical, economic or legal impediments for not taking the actions required by science – we need to act now!”  AOSIS Chair argued.

The new forest code looks likely to win approval in Brazil this week, even as negotiators from that country and more than 180 others meet at the UN climate summit here in Durban, South Africa. Opponents of the new code say it will decrease the amount of forest that landowners need to protect, such as along rivers or hill slopes. They say the new legislation will hurt Brazil’s goals to reduce the threat of global climate change.

But Brazil’s negotiators at the UN talks denied the new code will prevent Brazil from meeting its targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which were announced in climate talks in 2009 and 2010. (Brazil is not bound by international law — like the Kyoto Protocol — to set greenhouse gas targets, but as a big emerging economy and forest country, it is under pressure to act.)

Andre Lago, head of Brazil’s delegation in Durban, said he doesn’t believe that the new forest code could affect Brazil’s progress in fighting global warming. “Brazil is achieving all goals pledged at international meetings,” he said. “And the government will keep its green policies, with or without the new forest code.”

Comments to this effect by members of the Federal Government last week in Durban earned Brazil its first-ever Fossil of the Day Awards on the sidelines of the climate summit. This “prize” is awarded by the Climate Action Network (CAN) to countries judged to have done their ‘best’ to block progress in negotiations each day. Brazil earned first place on Friday Dec. 2 for suggesting that the new forest law would actually reduce greenhouse gases emissions in a speech by Eduardo Assad, Climate Change Secretary of the Federal Government.

As ministers from around the world begin to arrive in Durban for the second week of talks, the future of the Kyoto Protocol is in doubt. Brazil is a signatory to the protocol, but as a developing country is not legally required to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.  Because up to 20 percent of carbon emissions are blamed on deforestation, however, Brazil is under pressure to limit the amount of carbon that is released into the atmosphere from forest clearing.

As to whether a second period of Kyoto commitments — the first period expires next year — will be agreed by industrialized countries this week, Lago said ” Brazil and other developing countries are waiting for agreement that includes commitments from developed countries to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.”

Read more about this in Portuguese here and here.

Islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific are in peril from rising sea levels due to warming waters.

These are among the key issues of UN climate talks taking place in Durban, where negotiators are seeking the way forward after the Kyoto Protocol expires in December 2012

The 43 members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) says it will not accept an outcome which delays a new binding agreement because the very survival of the small islands including the Caribbean is at stake.

The European Union is calling for a global deal to be reached by 2015 and implemented by 2020. AOSIS chair Dessima Williams says that’s too late.

 The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) – including Caribbean islands such as Jamaica – are calling for firm decisions to be taken re the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (a United Nations treaty which deals with Greenhouse gas emissions and climate targets) at the 17^th UN meeting on climate change being held in Durban, South Africa.

“AOSIS is insisting that delaying decisions re the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol or waiting until 2020 to decide on a new instrument under the United Nations Framework Convention will be detrimental to many small islands,” said Clifford Mahlung, Jamaica’s chief negotiator and a representative of the AOSIS.

“We want a second commitment period decision now (at this meeting). We want to see the major elements of a new agreement announced including the legal format while we are still here in Durban.”

Mahlung was speaking on the third day of negotiations at the UN climate change meeting which will run from November 28 – December 9, 2011. One of the issues being debated at the meeting is whether a second commitment period will be agreed upon for the Kyoto Protocol (the current agreement ends in 2012) or whether a new agreement will be formulated to replace the existing one.

According to Mahlung, the longer it takes to make the decisions is the more dire it will be for small islands who are experiencing severe climate impacts such as sea-level rise, more intense hurricanes and prolonged droughts. AOSIS is calling for strong targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If these targets are met, it is expected that the climate impacts for the small islands may be lessened in the long run.

Mahlung is a part of a 8 member Jamaican team attending the UN meeting. The other Jamaican delegates include acting head of Jamaica’s Meteorological Office, Jeffrey Spooner, Leonie Barnaby from Office of the Prime Minister, Keith Porter from the Forestry Division, Hopeton Peterson from the Planning Institute of Jamaica, Nicolette Williams from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Journalists Indi Mclymont-Lafayette from Panos Caribbean and Carol Francis from the Radio Jamaica Group of Companies.

Other Caribbean delegates include representatives from the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre in Belize: Carlos Fuller, Kenrick Leslie, Negotiators Crispin d’Auvergne and Alma Jean from St Lucia, Negotiator Leon Charles from Grenada, Tesha Burke from the Caribbean Youth Environment Network, negotiator Kishan Kumarsingh and Journalist Linda Hutchinson from Trinidad and Tobago.

The Caribbean countries are an active block of the 43 member AOSIS group.

An inside source who is directly involved in negotiations at the 17th annual UN climate summit, known as COP17, said today that there is no hope for an agreement for a second 5-year period for the Kyoto Protocol after the first period ends next year. Kyoto is the only existing international treaty to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases, which cause climate change. It was born in 1997 but only came into effect in 2005. Signatories to the Protocol are not bound to cut greenhouse gas pollution after 2012.

“The direction of the negotiations that have been going on for the whole of this week indicates that there will be no agreement to extend the mandate for Kyoto Protocol for another term of five years,” the source said.  “Already Canada has declared that it will pull out within the next two months while Russia and Japan have confirmed that they will opt out early next year. Under the circumstances, there is no hope of extending the mandate of the Kyoto Protocol.”

On Friday, China suggested it would be willing to accept legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas pollution at a future date. This opened some negotiating space for those advocating a new climate deal, but it is unlikely to result on concrete action by the time the Durban summit ends on Dec. 9.

The Kyoto Protocol is the only binding agreement between the 194 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which sets binding targets for 37 industrialised countries to reduce greenhouse gas  emissions. The Protocol also sets a mechanism for developing countries to engage the use of clean technology through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) so that these countries do not produce substantial amounts of greenhouse gas which accounts for global warming and subsequent climate change.

Negotiations to extend the treaty’s mandate for another five years  started at climate talks in Bali (COP 13) and were expected to be concluded at the Copenhagen summit (COP15) in 2009. Those talks failed, however, and no one expects the future of Kyoto to be revived here in Durban.

The USA, the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, never signed the Kyoto Protocol, arguing that China and other big emerging economies should also be held accountable for fighting climate change. Today, the countries under the Kyoto Protocol account for less than 15 percent of emissions, meaning the vast majority of polluters would not be involved even if Kyoto were extended.

The USA is against a legally binding agreement to set emission reduction targets, insisting instead that each country set up its own strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions basing on national legislation. It argues that any international deal that might be struck need not happen before 2020.

Washington, which failed to pass domestic climate legislation, also argues that there is need to revisit the  definition of developed and developing countries, arguing that countries like China, South Africa and Brazil have crossed the developing-country threshold and should be treated like developed countries. Another demand for the USA is that “highly developing “ countries like China should also be open to monitoring, reporting and verification of their  emissions by the international community, a move China has always opposed.

There is  fear that in the absence of a binding agreement like Kyoto, the target to contain global temperature rise to less than 2C by 2020 will not be met. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this will raise global warming to a tipping point and set the world on a catastrophic climate change scenario.

Speaking to the media in Dar es Salaam in November, Tanzania’s Minister for Environment Dr. Trezya Huvisa said that sustaining the Kyoto Protocol would be Tanzania’s and Africa’s agenda at COP 17. “For us Kyoto is a lifeline; it is the only way we can hold developed countries to meet their emissions reduction targets. Kyoto also gives hope to developing countries that we can deal with climate change through acquisition of technology and finance for adaptation from developed countries. We cannot afford to lose Kyoto,” she said.

The Deputy Director for Environment in the Vice President’s Office, Richard Muyungi,  also told the media at a Pre-COP meeting in Dar es Salaam that the Protocol was too important to be abandoned. ”For developing countries Kyoto gives some guarantee of meeting emission reduction targets. It ensures transfer of clean technology and provides funds for adaptation. In the absence of this protocol, the world’s resolve to deal with climate change will lose track,” he said.

Should talks in Durban indeed fail to extend the mandate of Kyoto Protocol for  another term, the UN will only be able to encourage  industrialised countries to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions without actually committing them to do so.

Climate Action Network (CAN) sponsors The Fossil Awards at climate talks in Durban, South Africa. Photo by Heather King.

Welcome to the Fossil of the Day Awards. These awards recognize those countries that have done their “best” to impede progress in the UN climate talks. The German NGO Forum first presented ‘The Fossil’ in 1999 in Bonn. Today, the Climate Action Network (CAN) – an international coalition of 500 non-governmental organizations that promote environmentally sustainable policy – bestows the awards. Each afternoon during the UN negotiations, members of CAN nominate and select winners. At the close of the talks, they present a ‘Fossil of the Year’ Award.

Canada has captured more than its fair share of the awards.  The past two years, Canada won the ‘annual honor’. And it’s continuing that winning streak this year, taking first place for the first and second day of the annual United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change talks, known as COP17.  The reason: Canada’s environment minister Peter Kent’s statement earlier this week that we need ‘eventual solutions’ to ‘urgent problems’. COP participants have been abuzz about reports that Canada intends to formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol.

“Canada is becoming a bad joke,” broadcast 18-year-old Isaac Astill, the ‘master of ceremonies’ at the awards.

Despite the pageantry, a student activist from Canada who accepted the award said he does not expect that the award will have much impact on his country’s delegation. Although the Canadian government is aware of the ‘honor’, they have suggested that ‘they have greater concerns than The Fossil.” According to the Canadian CAN student and CAN Board member, Ian McGregor, the issue of tar sands dominates Canada’s agenda. Alberta Province’s Athabasca oil sands (a.k.a. tar sands) are the world’s largest deposits of heavy crude oil. Canada’s current effort to export this energy resource is a hotly contested issue throughout North America.