Durban Platform Agreement Concludes 2011 Climate Change Talks

Summary.  This year’s UNFCCC conference to negotiate a climate change treaty convened in Durban, South Africa.  On December 11, 2011 the attending parties agreed to the Durban Platform, embodying new climate change objectives.  For the first time, agreement was reached to negotiate a legally binding world-wide treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions.  The objective is to complete the negotiations by 2015, and to implement them by 2020.  Unfortunately, these dates are greatly extended from earlier timelines.  They permit greenhouse gases to be emitted unconstrained and to continue accumulating in the earth’s atmosphere without sanctions in the interim.  Because of the delay, climate scientists are concerned that the global average temperature will increase considerably more than previously hoped.  This would mean severe changes in climate and weather, leading to increased numbers and severity of extreme weather events.

Introduction.  Following up on the 2010 Cancun conference, this year’s meeting under the U. N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took place in Durban, South Africa from Nov. 28 to Dec. 11 (an unscheduled extension of two days was needed to reach a conclusion).  The principal objective had been to negotiate a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol (see this post), originally concluded in 1997, and which expires at the end of 2012.  It covers only “developed” countries such as the U. S., Europe and Japan, but the U. S. Senate unanimously refused to ratify the pact so that the U. S. in fact has not been bound by its terms.  The Kyoto Protocol went into effect in 2005.  Under its terms, most participating states undertook to reduce man-made greenhouse gas emissions below their emission levels of 1990 by 8%, during the commitment period, 2008-2012. 

Another goal was to negotiate implementation of commitments made last year at the Cancun conference on funding adaptation efforts, verifying greenhouse gas emissions, and reforestation.

The Kyoto Protocol specifically excludes developing countries of the world from its terms. In 1997 developing countries had very low levels of economic activity, and emitted very small amounts of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide).  Since then, however, the principal developing countries, such as China and India, have expanded dramatically, and have become major contributors to man-made greenhouse gas emissions.  China overtook the U. S. in total amount of emissions around 2009, and now emits the most of any country on earth.

Developing countries have argued that the economically advanced countries had been burning fossil fuels, generating greenhouse gases, for more than a century as they reached their present state of economic well-being.  Developing countries insisted that they too should have the opportunity, if not be granted the right, to use fossil fuels to similar extents in order to develop their economies along similar paths.   That is, they object to being placed under future restrictions affecting their growth because of the past history of greenhouse gas emissions from the industrialized countries of the West.

China’s position, for example, in recent years has been that the terms of any new accord be based on carbon intensity, i.e., the amount of greenhouse gas emitted per unit of economic activity (e.g., gross domestic product), rather than the absolute amount of emissions.  As measured in this way, China’s greenhouse gas intensity has been trending lower year-by-year, although China  still continues pouring more and more absolute amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The “Durban Platform”.  After 2 days of intense negotiations extending beyond the scheduled end of the conference, the parties agreed to the new “Durban Platform” (see References below for sources).  As had been foreseen before the conference began (see this post) agreement on a specific format for an agreement after 2012 to follow the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol was not reached.  Rather, it was agreed that negotiations to reach a formal agreement by 2015, to take effect no later than 2020, would start now.  It is felt that the Durban agreement represents a significant positive departure from earlier agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol, and the Cancun Agreements of last year.  A major stipulation of the Platform, to be incorporated into the treaty to be negotiated, is that all parties would be legally bound to abide by emission limits agreed to in the treaty. 

This represents an important positive step over the voluntary efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that were incorporated into the Cancun Agreements (reported here).  It would bring major emitters from the developing world such as China and India, on the one hand, and the U. S., currently not bound by the Kyoto Protocol, on the other, under the same legal framework for reducing emissions and limiting the accumulation of atmospheric greenhouse gases.  This feature is a crucial concession from both sides of the emissions argument granted in reaching the platform agreement.  Indeed, the U. S. special envoy on climate change, Todd Stern, expressed misgivings about undertaking an initiative that would likely encounter opposition in the U. S. Congress.  He stated “This is a very significant package. None of us likes everything in it. Believe me, there is plenty the United States is not thrilled about.”  Yet he understood that the Platform incorporates important new features that would fall apart if all parties did not buy into them.  In this regard, the Yale University Project on Climate Change Communication reports that, based on a nationwide U. S. survey taken in November 2011, 21% strongly support, and 45% somewhat support, signing a treaty that requires the U. S. to cut emissions of carbon dioxide by 90% by the year 2050.

Additionally, the Durban Platform included an agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol for five years beyond its expiration in 2012.  Currently only the European Union has an emissions reduction “roadmap” already in place (see this post). It has set the goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% below the levels of 1990 by the year 2020, to increase energy production from renewable sources to 20% and to reduce overall energy use by 20%.  Its ultimate goal is to reduce emissions by at least 80% by 2050.  Its emission rate is already decreasing; in the period from 1990 to 2009, the gross domestic product of the EU grew by 40%, while overall emissions were reduced by 16%.

Financing for Adaptation and Mitigation

The Durban Platform included an agreement to begin assembling the “Green Climate Fund” for these purposes from developed countries and disbursing the funds to developing countries.  The Cancun Agreements committed to achieving a level of $30 billion by 2012, and a long-term goal of providing $100 billion/yr by 2020, to help poorer countries adapt to changes in climate and to promote development of renewable sources of energy. 

Reforestation and Record-Keeping

The Durban Platform also included portions implementing other objectives presented in the Cancun Agreements, namely, protection and expansion of the world’s forests, and the documentation with verification of each nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Efforts Accomplished Leading up to the Durban Conference

Under China’s 12^th Five Year Plan (see this post), the country proposes many programs to reduce its energy intensity (energy use per unit of gross domestic product created).  It is planning a significant expansion of solar generation, albeit beginning from a quite low capacity in place currently.  Nevertheless the absolute amount of greenhouse gas emissions envisioned under the Five Year Plan continue to increase because of the installation of new fossil-fuel driven power generating plants under the Plan.

Australia recently passed a law implementing a cap-and-trade carbon tax on its fossil-fuel driven power and industrial enterprises.  It sets further goals for long-term reduction of emissions, 60-80% by 2050, and promotes development of renewable energy sources.

Conclusion

The Durban Platform embodies, on the one hand, the recognition by developing countries that the past history of emissions by now-industrialized countries cannot be reversed, and on the other hand, the recognition by developed countries that all nations of the world must be brought under a legally binding world-wide climate agreement.  Because of the persistence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (see below), and the fact that emissions from one location or region pervade the entire earth, all nations of the world have to accept responsibility for limiting emissions in order to constrain warming of the planet.

The Durban Platform, of course, is only an agreement to negotiate a binding agreement.  The hard part begins now, if the timeline established at Durban is to be met.  Difficult bargaining lies ahead to establish targets for reducing emissions, especially from the countries with the highest emission rates, and the highest rates of growth of their economies and hence their demands for energy.

The delay until 2020 as the year in which the next regime for limiting emissions begins represents a serious setback to efforts to constrain atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases within environmentally acceptable limits.  The Cancun Agreements of 2010 explicitly acknowledged the finding of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that “climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet, and thus requires [it] to be urgently addressed by all Parties”; they must strive to constrain the average global rise in temperature to 2ºC (3.6ºF) or less.  The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere required to achieve this limit is 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide (CO₂) equivalents.  Currently, with the concentration of CO₂ at about 392 ppm, the world-wide average temperature has risen about 0.7ºC (1.3ºF) above the temperature that prevailed before the industrial revolution began.  These numbers are significant because CO₂ persists in the atmosphere for 100 or more years (barring some reabsorption from reforestation), since there is no natural mechanism for shortening its lifetime.

The CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere can be envisioned as a bathtub containing CO₂, with the faucet adding more CO₂ each year, but with a drain that is essentially blocked, preventing CO₂ from draining out.  Each year’s CO₂ emissions raise the level of CO₂ in the bathtub.  It’s the overall level of CO₂ in the atmospheric bathtub that determines the extent of the warming of the global average temperature, not whether any year’s emissions are greater or less than the previous year. 

This is why the nine year delay in implementing significant limitations on emitting greenhouse gases is so critical.  Each year’s delay adds more CO₂ and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, which persist and make limiting the temperature rise within a desirable bound all the more difficult.  Furthermore, each year’s delay means that the countries of the world will continue installing new facilities that burn fossil fuels, and that will continue in their need for fossil fuels for their effective economic lifetime, 30-40 years or more.  Thus today’s actions along “business-as-usual” lines have detrimental consequences that persist for decades.

Under the Durban Platform, growth in emissions can continue unabated without sanctions (save for voluntary efforts to limit them) for the next nine years.  As a result, long-term world-wide average temperature resulting from higher greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will increase more than anticipated earlier.  Consequently many regions of the world will suffer more, and more severe, damages and harms due to extreme weather events brought on by the higher average global temperature.  Climate scientists fear that the delay in implementation of any new agreement will lead us to higher global average temperatures than the 2ºC goal established by the IPCC.  Keith Allott, the head of climate change policy at WWF-UK, stated “we must be under no illusion — the outcome of Durban leaves us with the prospect of being legally bound to a world of 4C warming. This would be catastrophic for people and the natural world….”

 

References

The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/11/global-climate-change-treaty-durban (accessed Dec. 11, 2011).

National Public Radio (US): http://www.npr.org/2011/12/11/143532103/global-deal-reached-in-wee-hours-of-climate-talks (accessed Dec. 11, 2011).

Natural Resources Defense Council, blog:  http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jschmidt/what_must_global_warming_negot_2.html (accessed Dec. 12, 2011).

Natural Resources Defense Council, blog: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jschmidt/important_progress_at_global_w.html (accessed Dec. 11, 2011).

Natural Resources Defense Council, blog: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jschmidt/congrats_australia_law_passed.html (accessed Dec. 12, 2011).

USAToday: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/story/2011-12-10/united-nations-climate-conference/51782606/1 (accessed Dec. 11, 2011).

© 2011 Henry Auer

The Cancun Conference on Global Warming, Nov.-Dec. 2010

Summary: Environmental and climate negotiators from 194 states and regions of the world met at Cancun, Mexico Nov. 29-Dec. 11, 2010 to continue efforts under way at the Copenhagen conference of one year earlier, to agree on steps to combat global warming.  The final product, the Cancun Agreements, was finalized the last day.  The Agreements emphasize the urgency of the need to address global warming, and specify in considerable detail various undertakings in mitigation, adaptation, transparency of reporting and verification, establishing financial vehicles to aid in these efforts, and facilitating technology transfer related to mitigation and adaptation.  Participating representatives have expressed gratification that the Cancun Agreements represent considerable progress in the quest for a global approach to limit global warming and its effects.

Introduction.  One year ago the world’s environmental and political leaders gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark to develop a framework to lower man-made emissions of greenhouse gases and to constrain the resulting global average temperature rise to less than 2 deg C (3.6 deg F) above the level that prevailed before the industrial revolution began.  This meeting, and others like it in a long series, was held in accord with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  194 parties (nations and the region of the European Union) are included in the UNFCCC.  Groundwork had been laid at a previous meeting held in Bali a few months earlier.  Nevertheless, the proceedings in Copenhagen were quite fractious and unproductive.  At the last minute a nonbinding agreement was hammered out in a short document, the Copenhagen Accord.

The Cancun conference, convened for two weeks ending Dec. 11, 2010, was a follow-up to the Copenhagen meeting.  Issues raised in the Copenhagen Accord but not resolved with any degree of specificity (see my earlier post) were further addressed in Cancun.  These included

• efforts at mitigation of the increasing emission of greenhouse gases around the world (i.e., reducing the rate of such emissions),
• efforts at adaptation to the adverse effects of global warming that have already occurred,
• reduction of emissions coming from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries,
• assuring transparency of knowledge and information concerning efforts at mitigation and adaptation by establishing standards for measurement, reporting data and verification of results, and
• establishing an international fund to support mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing and least developed countries.

The Cancun Agreements are the final product (text and press release; see the Cancun meeting web site for additional documents) of the Cancun conference.  Whereas the Copenhagen Accord is considered nonbinding, the objectives and implementing structures set out in the Cancun Agreements were approved by all the parties except one, in the final session.  As such, the Cancun Agreements, while still not representing legal obligations in the way that the Kyoto Protocol does, nevertheless reflects affirmative assertions of objectives and concrete steps to be taken, that were agreed to by all the parties going forward. 

A signal feature of the Agreements is the explicit acknowledgement by all the participants that “climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet, and thus requires to be urgently addressed by all Parties”, and that they must strive to constrain the average global rise in temperature to 2 deg C or less.  It states that “deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required according to [climate] science, and as documented in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change” (IPCC).  It thus recognizes the important role that climate scientists have played in defining the phenomenon of global warming and in establishing an upper limit for the average global temperature in order to prevent severe consequences from afflicting the planet.  The Parties further agreed that global emissions should peak as soon as possible.  Agreement by all the parties further represents the first time that they have accepted to work together to attain this goal, and to ease the burden of least developed countries in their efforts at both mitigation of and adaptation to global warming.

Mitigation.  The developed, or already industrialized, countries (such as the U. S., Europe, and others) are encouraged to develop more ambitious targets for reducing man-made greenhouse gas emissions as recommended by the IPCC.  They are to develop and implement ways to achieve them, and assess the best ways of doing so including market mechanisms involving carbon credits.  The developed countries are to report their inventories of greenhouse gas emissions every year, and to report on progress toward reducing emissions, as well as on financing and adaptation activities, every two years.

Countries undergoing rapid transformation from agrarian to industrialized economies are called developing countries (such as China, India and others).  They are to be beneficiaries of financial and technological support originating in developed countries in order to promote and enable their mitigation efforts, while recognizing their objectives of economic development and reduction of poverty among their populations.  Developing countries are to publish reports on their progress toward reducing emissions every two years.  Mitigation activities in developing countries are to be measured, reported, and verified domestically and by international analysis, as discussed below under transparency.

Reduction of emissions due to deforestation and forest degradation (given the acronym REDD) is a major undertaking in the Cancun Agreements.  Destruction of forests, especially in tropical regions, has been rampant in recent decades, resulting in large contributions to greenhouse gas emissions.  Most of these forests are in developing and least developed nations.  Reversing deforestation and undertaking planting of trees for restoring forests is a significant feature of the Agreements.  In addition, preserving and restoring forests frequently contributes to preserving and restoring indigenous cultural life, and promotes adaptation efforts as well.

Adaptation. Among other measures, the Agreements establish a Cancun Adaptation Framework, an organization that will oversee both the substance and the financing of projects that help countries (such as island nations and least developed nations) adapt to the effects of global warming.   Its mission includes ongoing and expanded projects addressing resource losses and damage.  These include adverse effects such as sea level rise, increasing temperatures, ocean acidification, glacial retreat and related impacts, salinization, land and forest degradation, loss of biodiversity and desertification.  These activities are most important for least developed countries as being most vulnerable and least able to develop programs by themselves.  Concrete steps toward setting up an Adaptation Committee are to be undertaken by February 2011.

Transparency.  A major impediment to progress in addressing global warming at the level of a global conference has been a perceived or suspected lack of credibility when a particular nation reports its emissions, and its mitigation and adaptation activities.  The Cancun Agreements have established formal mechanisms for assuring transparency in the measurement, reporting, and verification (given the acronym MRV) of activities in these areas. They include a process for international consultations and analysis (ICA) of reports provided by developing countries in a way that respects national sovereignty.  The analyses will be carried out by competent technical experts in consultation with the respective countries.

Financing.  The Copenhagen Accord established objectives for financing adaptation and mitigation efforts among poorer nations of the world.  In the year leading up to Cancun, little progress had been made in providing these funds.  The Cancun Agreements have set up goals and administrative structures to implement these objectives.  A fast start financing round from industrialized countries is to achieve a committed level of $30 billion by 2012 prioritized for the most vulnerable developing countries.  It further establishes a long-term goal of providing $100 billion/yr by 2020. 

Additionally a Green Climate Fund is to be established with a supervisory board that includes equal representation from developed countries and developing countries.  Its purposes include verifying accountability and establishment of functions and priorities for the accumulated funds.

Assessment of the Cancun Agreements.  Among the agreements negotiated under the UNFCCC only the Kyoto Protocol has legally binding requirements of the contracting parties.  This is because, after it was negotiated in 1997 it required the signature of each state for that state to be bound by it.  It became effective in 2005 after the requisite minimum number of states had ratified it; the United States never approved the Protocol and so is not bound by its requirements.  It expires in 2012; the Copenhagen and Cancun conferences, and earlier ones, have had as one objective establishing the legal framework for continuing the regime of the Kyoto Protocol after it expires.  Neither the Copenhagen Accord nor the Cancun Agreements are legally binding as neither established a requirement for ratification by participants.

In general, although hopes for the Copenhagen conference had been high before it convened, the final Copenhagen Accord was brief in form and relatively vague in content (see my earlier post).  The Cancun Agreements, on the other hand, were approached with much diminished expectations.  Webcasts of press conferences and other plenary sessions are available.  After the Agreements were made public this writer viewed separate concluding press conferences by the European Union representative, Connie Hedegaard, and the United States representative, Todd Stern.  (The webcasts are recommended for viewing; 20-30 min each.) The general tenor of their comments reflected satisfaction with the outcome, i.e., the Agreements.  The Agreements are considered to provide extensive detail in both expectations and provisions for structures to be set up for carrying out the administrative tasks provided for. 

An important issue, seemingly resolved here for the first time, is that of transparency.  The mechanisms for MRV and review by the ICA, described above, were characterized as being a major accomplishment, one which can only lead to enhanced confidence and trust among the parties.  Todd Stern pointed out that the Cancun Agreements were positively affirmed in final session by 193 of the 194 participants who collectively are responsible for more than 90% of global carbon emissions (the holdout was not a large country contributing significantly to global warming).  He contrasted this overwhelming affirmation with that for the Kyoto Protocol, whose signatories produced only about 28% of global emissions at the time, and with the Copenhagen Accord, which was not approved by the participating states.  Mr. Stern has come to the conclusion that perhaps a legal structure such as the Kyoto Protocol involving most or all nations of the UNFCCC may be impractical or impossible to attain, and that perhaps the better approach is a pragmatic one such as he feels the Cancun Agreements represent.  It may be better to establish trust and confidence, and to proceed with initiatives that arise within states rather than with strictures imposed by treaty; the Agreements in fact present ample wording enabling or encouraging such actions.

In a press conference a few days earlier, the representative of the People’s Republic of China, Xie Zhenhua, emphasized China’s measure of progress as limiting its carbon intensity (i.e., greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP).  (This press conference is difficult to watch, as the translations were sequential rather than simultaneous.)  In the current (11^th) 5-year plan, carbon intensity has diminished by 20%.  This writer feels, however, that with an economy that has been growing at 9-10% for the last several years, the absolute amount of emitted greenhouse gases has certainly continued increasing.  In response to a question in this regard, Mr. Xie summarized China’s position that the industrialized nations have already attained high levels of economic prosperity, whereas China is still a developing country with a high level of poverty and increasing extents of urbanization still proceeding.  Nevertheless, he stated that China is building into the next (12^th) 5-year plan a goal of reaching a peak in carbon emissions (implying a subsequent decrease). 

In closing, Todd Stern indicated that after several negotiating sessions with Mr. Xie over the past few months, he sensed that at Cancun Mr. Xie appeared to reflect a change of tone in his negotiating stance.  Mr. Stern posited that China may be coming to realize that it is in its own interest to reduce global warming emissions.

© 2010 Henry Auer