As we were writing in our previous post, the future of the post-Kyoto agreement is seriously endangered. Yesterday, during an Asia-Pacific summit in Singapore, the US president Barack Obama and country leaders from China, Japan, Russia, Mexico, Australia and Indonesia agreed to delay a climate agreement to 2010 or even later. This means that there will not be the Copenhagen Protocol with reduction targets set for all countries with huge emissions. So maybe it is better to make hawajskie party

According to Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen, the failure of COP15 is sealed. He foresees that there will be a political agreement to continue climate change efforts only, but concrete figures may come on the UN summit next year. Some pessimists say that countries will not be able to set a deal before 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

The European Union see the US as the main cause of the problem. The climate bid is still not signed by the US Congress. This situation has a strong impact on other big emitters, such as China, India or Brazil, and determines their access to global climate change battle on the US decision. The EU also will not rise its greenhouse gases reduction target from 20% to 30% because of lack of support in global efforts from other countries. The other subject of the Copenhagen talks – finance aid to developing countries – may also be lost due to discord within the EU regarding costs distribution between European countries.

Only Ivo de Boer, the UNFCCC Executive Secretary, seems to be still focused on the final result, saying that “Copenhagen can and must deliver clarity on emission reductions and the finance to kickstart action.”  We will see soon whether the world really “can”.

Regards,

Gustaw

The beginning of June brings an important (maybe still not crucial) meeting of UNFCCC parties – working groups that will focus mainly on the negotiation documents presented by UNFCCC in May 2009. In this short article I would like just to indicate the main purpose of the two documents regarding Kyoto Protocol and related aspects. The basic document (outlining the new structure of convention) was presented in a previous article – UNFCCC negotiating texts.

No doubt…new Protocol, replacing the Kyoto Protocol (Copenhagen Protocol?) is the most problematic aspect both for developed and developing countries embraced within the UNFCCC. However some basic commitments should be agreed before going to the details which I assume are the national reduction targets in new Protocol. The basic commitments were presented in the main negotiation document (the draft version) that was already mentioned.

The negotiating text concerning the post-Kyoto agreement shows many options presenting variants of reduction targets for countries from the Annex B countries in present Protocol and also some baselines, very important as many post-communist countries received too ‘generous years’ within they should reduce their emissions. This situation impilcates often huge amount of AAU (assigned units) that can be sold by these countries (as their meet their reduction targets well beyond) to the countries that are below their targets.

For more details regarding the proposed targets and baselines I suggest visiting the official UNFCCC website.

Please consider that it’s just an negotiating paper.

Other document that will be discussed in Bonn, from 1st to 12th June, is referring to amongst others flexible mechanisms as JI (Joint Implementation) and CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) and also to emission trading, land use and forestry.

For me the most interesting proposition is to include nuclear energy to CDM projects. It will be definitely a very controversial solution and will be broadly discussed. Other ‘eye catching’ point is to include CCS (carbon capture and storage technology) also under the Clean Development Mechanism.

We will see what the Bonn meeting will bring.

Regards,
Anthony