Tag: COP17

The verdict on Durban – a major step forward, but not for ten years

In this guest post, Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees, High Tide and The God Species, advisor to the president of the Maldives, analyses the outcome of the Durban conference and what it means for the future of international climate negotiations. It’s one the best and most detailed accounts I’ve come across, from someone at the heart of the action. This article was first published at his personal blog.

Following the marathon negotiations session at Durban, all the delegates should now be back home – and if not quite rested, certainly ready to assess the outcome with the benefit of some distance. In this (rather long) post I will look at the key documents agreed in the Durban outcome, and try to offer some sense of what they mean for the climate regime, and for the climate. (Apologies for some jargon, and for unexplained acronyms, which should be familiar to anyone following the negotiations, and without which this post would be even longer still.)

The Durban mandate

During the second week of COP17 the South African presidency operated an ‘Indaba’ system of high-level meetings, where an options paper was gradually whittled down into a decision text on the crucial issue of the future legal form of the UNFCCC regime. Various iterations of this paper produced some rollercoaster ups and downs from the perspective of a small islands state delegate (as advisor to the President, I once again joined the Maldives delegation). The final version, agreed in the small hours on Sunday 11 December — nearly 48 hours after the COP was supposed to have concluded — is titled ‘Establishment of an Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action'(PDF link).

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Science sidelined at Durban

An image that has lingered with me from all the reports of the Durban conference was the Democracy Now interview with a somewhat disconsolate Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chair. He was at Durban to represent the science, a rather thankless task since he detected very little interest in what the science has to say.

“I’d like to see the science driving some of the discussions and the decisions that are taken. I’m sorry I don’t see much evidence of that right now.”

He pictured the delegations being confronted with the scientific reality every day and how that might affect the progress of their negotiations.

“[There’s a] complete absence of discussion on the scientific evidence that we have available   I would like to see each day of the discussions starting with a very clear presentation on where we are going, what it’s going to mean to different parts of the world and what are the options available to us by which at very little cost and in some cases negative cost we can bring about a reduction in emissions   I would like to see an hour, hour and a half, every day being devoted to this particular subject   I think then the movement towards a decision would be far more vigorous, it would be based on reality and not focusing on narrow and short-term political issues.”

Nothing remotely like that happened of course, and Pachauri vented his exasperation:

“Actually, to be honest, nobody over here is listening to the science.”

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A mad deal in Durban

Let’s revisit that cold war phrase: mutually assured destruction. Fifty years ago, MAD meant that in the event of conflict the USA and USSR could and would ensure the total annihilation of the other, thus ensuring what Wikipedia rather tamely describes as “a tense but stable global peace”. Having lived through those years, the tension was notable, and in some cases inspirational.

The madness on display in Durban is of another kind, and of a different character. The destruction on offer will be (we can only hope) slower, but it is likely to be just as total — and is certainly being mutually assured. The governments of the world, by kicking the can down the road aways, have just ensured that the task of reducing emissions will be harder than it need be, and that the ultimate damage will be greater than it might have been. [Guardian]

Durban represents progress of a kind, as Climate Action Tracker’s analysis acknowledges:

As the climate talks in Durban concluded tonight with a groundbreaking establishment of the Durban Platform to negotiate a new global agreement by 2015, scientists stated that the world continues on a pathway of over 3°C warming with likely extremely severe impacts, the Climate Action Tracker said today.

The agreement in Durban to establish a new body to negotiate a global agreement (Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action) by 2015 represents a major step forward. The Climate Action Tracker scientists stated, however, that the agreement will not immediately affect the emissions outlook for 2020 and has postponed decisions on further emission reductions. They warned that catching up on this postponed action will be increasingly costly.

What is mind-boggling is that so many leaders, so many highly-skilled diplomats and negotiators, can accept the evidence being offered by our understanding of climate system, and yet so comprehensively fail to act.

History and human nature, combined with the dysfunctional nature of international relations have conspired to give us what looks like it might be the worst of all worlds: one where lip service is paid to taking action, but where the big players are excused responsibility, and any efforts made are weak and meaningless. Plus c’est la même chose.

And so as not to beg the obvious question: I am left agreeing with Joe Romm. It will take a series of undeniable climate disasters, sufficient to provide the equivalent of a wartime motivation for action, before our politicians feel empowered to take the necessary action — before the world will act appropriately. One can only hope that the damage is not costly in terms of human welfare and wellbeing, and that they happen before nature rips the reins from our hands and the Anthropocene comes to an end.

Liveblog: Durban down to the wire

3.20 am Sunday morning

The South African Minister took key people into a “huddle” for 10 mins.

“Can the world be saved in a tea break?”  tweeted @FionaHarvey from The Guardian.

Tea Break over… so. They have agreed “to launch a process to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force applicable to all parties….” to be negotiated through to 2015 and be implemented from 2020.

Meanwhile, over in the Kyoto Protocol, the EU slipped back and agreed an eight-year commitment period, which would also take that through to 2020.   It’s up to governments to decide whether they want to submit pledges under that process by May next year.

So with the atmosphere in mind, and the steady march to 3.5ºC of warming, there’s nothing much here, yet, to slow that march.  The definition of the “legal” bit of this decision could mean anything – and I can see lawyers around me in plenary already working that out.   Will it be enough to bring the big emitters on board?

Will that be enough for New Zealand to make its pledge unconditional and continue with Kyoto? Or will our government continue to point fingers at the big guys? Given the work that Tim Groser did in watering down the text overnight, I doubt it.

But right now, I’m too tired to puzzle it all out. It’s certainly nothing like the strong climate action we need.

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The counsel of failure: Greenhouse Policy Coalition on Durban

“There is a danger that, in trying to encourage major emitters to sign up to a new agreement or to bridge the Kyoto legal gap, New Zealand might commit itself to something short of a global deal that binds us to making economic sacrifices which are not reflective of fair burden sharing.” So wrote David Venables, executive director of the Greenhouse Policy Coalition, in the NZ Herald this week.

I described the Greenhouse Policy Coalition in a post last year, but I’ll briefly recap. Its members come from a range of New Zealand industry and sector groups covering the aluminium, steel, forestry (including pulp and paper), coal, dairy processing and gas sectors. They include Fonterra, NZ Steel, the Coal Association, Solid Energy, NZ Aluminium Smelters Ltd and others. They are not deniers of climate change and express the cautious opinion that “there is sufficient scientific evidence to warrant the adoption of appropriate precautionary public policy measures”. However their emphasis is strongly on policy which protects what they regard as New Zealand’s international competitiveness.

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