MARGINAL PROGRESS REPORTED AT U.N. CLIMATE TALKS IN DOHA

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
12/14/12

Delegates concluded more than two weeks of United Nations-sponsored climate negotiations in Doha, Qatar Saturday with modest steps forward that many environmental advocates said were not substantial enough to make a dent in fighting climate change. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries emerged from an overtime, all-night negotiating session Dec. 8 at the 18th Conference of Parties meeting with several agreements that were vague on commitments and delayed most tough emissions reduction decisions for several years down the road.

Negotiators last year in Durban, South Africa agreed to the idea of a new legally-binding emissions reduction treaty for both rich and poor countries that would be finalized in 2015 and go into force in 2020. As a result, expectations for Doha were relatively modest given that negotiators were expected to make only incremental progress on the details of the plan. However, media reports this week indicated that delegates failed to sort out hardly any details for the 2015 plan in Doha. They did, though, ink an eight-year extension deal for the Kyoto Protocol, which would lengthen the agreement’s commitment period to 2020, when a new climate agreement under the Durban platform is expected to come into force. The extension agreement called—but did not mandate—for participating nations to make additional greenhouse gas emission cuts. The Union of Concerned Scientists called the agreement “pitifully weak” but expressed hope that when signatories—which now only encompass 15 percent of the world’s emitters—revisit their pledges in 2014 they will commit to deeper cuts.

Little Progress on Green Fund

Far less progress was reported regarding a path forward for the Green Fund, a mechanism under which the world’s rich countries vowed in 2009 to secure $100 billion annually in public and private financing for poor nations by 2020 to fight off and adapt to the effects of climate change. Developed countries, including the U.S., currently contribute roughly $10 billion per year to the fund, but negotiators agreed to postpone a deadline to make additional commitments to the fund until next year. Delegates in Doha did adopt language, though, that calls for the creation of a new ‘loss and damage’ fund, a mechanism that would help the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries deal with the impacts of extreme weather that is now more common because of climate change. However, negotiators did not take additional steps to secure funding or more details related to the new mechanism.

In a statement, Nauru Foreign Minister and Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States Kieren Keke said the outcome of the meeting was “rushed” “This is not where we wanted to be at the end of the meeting, I assure you. It certainly isn’t where we need to be in order to prevent islands from going under and other unimaginable impacts,” he said, calling for large emitters to take on larger commitments in the years to come.

NGOs Accuse Nations of Dithering on Climate Change

Many environmental NGOs and climate activists accused the world’s major emitters of failing to step up to fight global warming. “Instead of moving aggressively to increase the ambition of actions to reduce emissions and ramp up climate finance for developing country actions, all too many countries dithered and delayed in Doha,” the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Alden Meyer said in a statement. “The United States and many other developed countries spent most of their time and energy laying out what they couldn’t do, rather than offering constructive solutions on these issues.”

Several groups described the meeting as a failure. “These talks have failed the climate and they have failed developing nations,” the World Wildlife Fund’s Tasneem Essop said in a statement. “The Doha decision has delivered no real cuts in emissions, it has delivered no concrete finance and it has not delivered on equity.” Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo added: “Two weeks of negotiations have not altered that path and that politicians need to reflect the consensus around climate change through funds, targets and effective action.” 

Others expressed more hope in the COP process moving forward. “In Doha, we have crossed the bridge from the old climate regime to the new system. We are now on our way to the 2015 global deal,” Connie Hedegaard, European commissioner for Climate Action said in a statement. “It was not an easy and comfortable ride. It was not a very fast ride either. But we have managed to cross the bridge. Very intense negotiations lie ahead of us. What we need now is more ambition and more speed.”