It is composed of two entities, a policy-making body called the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) and the Climate Technology Center and Network (CTC&N). The CTC&N currently exists only on paper until it is hosted by another pre-existing organization, will get to implement actual transfer of technologies and perform its functions as mandated by the Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC.

Paragraph 128 of Decision 1/CP16 from Cancun mandated that the COP in Durban, South Africa resolve the following: (a) the relationship between the TEC and the CTC&N and their reporting lines; (b) the governance structure and terms of reference for the CTC&N and how the CTC will relate to the Network, drawing upon the results of a workshop authorized by the Cancun decision; (c) the procedure for calls for proposals and the criteria to be used to evaluate and select the host of the CTC&N; (d) the potential links between the Technology Mechanism and the financial mechanism of the Convention; and (e) consideration of additional functions for the TEC and CTC&N.

Durban outcomes

The technology negotiation group of the AWG-LCA in Durban did not come up with a clear articulation of the relationship between the TEC and the CTC&N.

The governance structure agreed upon for the CTC&N is an advisory body, the details of which are to be decided in the next meeting of Subsidiary Body on Implementation, one of two permanent bodies of the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol.

The selection process for the call for proposals for hosting the CTC&N is that the TEC will nominate from within itself the six-person panel who will do the initial technical evaluation of the proposals and ranking of the bidders who want to be the host. The shortlist ranking of the bids will be submitted to the Subsidiary Body on Implementation who in turn will agree on a ranked list of up to three proponents based on the outcome of the assessment conducted by the evaluation panel and to recommend the host of the CTC&N for approval by the COP at its 18th session in Doha, Qatar in 2012.

The Durban meeting sketched out the link between the Technology Mechanism and the financial mechanism, though not to the satisfaction of the developing countries negotiating under the umbrellas of the Group of 77 and China and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs)

The consideration of additional functions of the TEC and the CTC&N approved during the informal session of the technology group that came out in CRP.39, was not reflected in the final outcome document produced by the Chair of the AWGLCA, , especially on the giving of advice and support, including capacity-building on the conduct of technology assessments of new and emerging technologies by the CTC&N and the request to the TEC to consider issues related to intellectual property rights related to the development and transfer of technologies

The final outcome document of the AWGLCA was prepared by the Chair of the Working Group and transmitted for the approval of the COP under his our authority, following various objections raised by Parties as to its lack of balance in several areas. The final outcome document was approved as part of the Durban package.

The consideration of issues relating to intellectual property rights as part of a new set of functions for the TEC were also not in the final text presented for adoption by the Conference of Parties but is contained in a separate document for further work next year.

Governance Structure of the CTC&N

The decision on having an advisory body that will sit atop the governance structure for the CTC&N is a half-won battle from whichever perspective one takes.

For the two weeks of the negotiations, the US, supported by Canada, Japan, Norway and Australia, and sometimes, the EU, insisted that this body be constituted by the host organization itself.

The Philippines repeatedly hammered on, during several “informal informal” sessions, the serious legal issues arising from this set-up, from several levels:
(i)  From the UN side, how can a UN body be governed by an entity which is from outside the UNFCCC itself? This does not appear possible under existing UN rules, especially when the lines of accountability and fiduciary duties are melded in the host organization, who are supposed to be providing hosting services to the CTC&N;

(ii)  How can it be that the governance structure of a UN body, in this case, the CTC&N, be outsourced to an outside entity and the terms of the governance reduced to the terms and conditions of a hosting agreement?  Hosting agreements usually detail the specifics of the services to be provided by the host organization, but governance, as a function, is not a service that can just be given out to those who may aspire to abide by it. At best, the Cancun mandate should have been worded as governance “arrangement” and not governance “structure” to suit this kind of proposed set-up;

(iii)  If a host organization agrees to take on the tasks of being the host of the CTC&N and agrees to constitute such a board, it will change the character as well as the primary and secondary purpose for the establishment of the host organization, which pre-existed before the hosting assignment or task is taken on.;If the host organization agrees to such change, then such change would have to come at a certain price or consideration which the UNFCCC may not be able to provide;

(iv)  Assuming the host organization constitutes such a board, the constituted board will just then be a mere creation or appendage of the host organization, putting more doubt into the independence and integrity of such a constituted organization, which is the CTC&N of the UNFCCC It will be difficult then for the UNFCCC to exact accountability from this organization as it will have to pass through the pre-existing board of the host organization which constituted the board of the CTC&N.

There were no significant and substantive explanations or responses to these questions save for the US saying that the technology group or the Parties for that matter, should not be hung up on governance issues and that this can be dealt with in the hosting agreement.  Norway said that it is just the question of the name of the entity which should not be a board, while Japan said that it is a matter of clarifying the reporting lines from the host organization which has constituted the board and to the COP, to which it is accountable.

Since these serious legal issues needed a proper response, the compromise was that there is already this advisory body, which from a G77 and China’s point of view is already a half-won battle, as at least it has spelled out there will be a distinct entity that should be governing the CTC&N, and this is not the same as the host itself.

However, the fight is not yet over until the next SBI meeting, since it has not yet been clearly spelled out how the advisory body links to both the TEC, the CTC&N and the host organization.

It could still be argued by those who want to wrest control of the CTC&N away from the COP that the host organization can do a better job of exacting accountability for the operations of the CTC&N.

Eventually, for practical purposes, it may be useful for the AWGLCA next year to separate the advisory body from that of the host organization in order that the lines of accountability and fiduciary duty are clarified, and they are separate from the host organization.

Composition of the Advisory Body of the Climate Technology Center

The composition of this advisory body is expected to be another potential flashpoint in the subsequent stages of the negotiations.

In fact, during the last negotiating session of the technology group in Durban, prior to forwarding the informal group’s text to the AWG-LCA Chair, the group’s facilitator Jukka Uosukainnen (Finland) walked out of the discussions when the G77&China, (in retaliation for the US proposal of eight government representatives that will sit in the then called CTC Board), suggested 22 such representatives comprising 4 representatives each from the five UN regional groups and 1 each from the small-island developing states (SIDS) and the LDCs.

The facilitator came back later when the negotiating groups were about to compromise on a US offer of 19 representatives. In making this proposal, the US reversed from its earlier position that this body should just be small and efficient. According to some observers, the idea here was to set up the advisory body as a competitor to the Technology Executive Committee, (which is another twenty-person entity).

All through the negotiating sessions, the US supported by Australia, Canada, Japan and sometimes the EU, consistently questioned the competence of the TEC on dealing with issues related to technology development and transfer, arguing that the TEC was not created for the purpose of implementing technology development and transfer projects.

The G77&China, on the other hand, argued that the TEC is well positioned to be such a body that will exercise oversight and provide guidance to the CTC&N It will already save the COP time since the lengthy process of selection of its members was already over and done with.

Selection Process of the Climate Technology Center

At least, after several contentious exchanges in the course of the duration of the COP, the Parties agreed on a two-step process for selection viz.  the technical evaluation phase and then the selection phase.

The G77 and China wanted originally a process similar to the conduct of a double-blind study on the initial technical evaluation of proposals composed of four experts who will evaluate the proposals independently without meeting each other, but this was opposed by the US and the EU arguing that this is not actually scientific even if it may appear to be that and it is difficult to check how these independent experts understood and applied the criteria. After several sessions, Parties have come around to tasking the TEC to do the selection of these experts, even designating its own members to do this evaluation.

The next stage of the process, the selection phase, is what became contentious but the group settled on the SBI to make the selection. It was not clear what will happen if the SBI could not come to a compromise on this item. Thus the technology group asked the SBI to agree on the recommendation to the COP on who will eventually be the host of the CTC&N, as can be found in para. 138(a) of the LCA outcome document, which reads:
“138.  Requests the Subsidiary Body for Implementation:
a) To agree on, at its thirty-sixth session, a ranked list of up to three proponents based on the outcome of the assessment conducted by the evaluation panel referred to in paragraph 132 (d)(i) above.”

Relationship of the TEC and the CTC&N

While this has not been explicitly spelled out, how this will eventually unfold is seen by how the two entities comprising the Technology Mechanism – the TEC and the CTC&N – will render its report to the COP.

The G77 and China wanted the Climate Technology Center to report to the TEC, but the EU, as well as the US, insisted that the CTC should also be able to report directly as both of them are accountable to the COP.

In one negotiating session, the US even said it did not want TEC to have any role at all in the governance or management of the CTC&N.

The Potential Links between the Technology Mechanism and the Financial Mechanism

Financing is another key issue that was hard-fought, but references to the Green Climate Fund and the Standing Committee was deleted during one informal group meeting on 8 December, and the Parties came around to the compromise wording that does not really amount to much though it appears to broaden the sources of funding of the CTC&N [2].

Uganda was the last country to insist on the relationship between the Technology Mechanism and the Standing Committee, which was then in para. 11alt, but even that was deleted, given that there was already a late-night compromise wording on how funding for the operations of the CTC&N are to be provided.

Without clear sources of specific amounts of core budget and short and long-term funding, there is a possibility that the CTC&N will be hampered in its early stages of operations.

Consideration of Additional Functions for the TEC and the CTC&N

The Philippines fought to have the giving of advise and support as well as capacity-building for the conduct of technology assessments of new and emerging technologies as part of the regular functions of the CTC&N, supported by Bolivia which had numerous repeating texts on this item, including IPRs during the Panama inter-sessional period.

Haiti and Iceland, which were supposed to be fighting for gender considerations, which could have been made part of the technology assessments, did not anymore speak crunch time perhaps they were not as convinced that the technology assessments would include gender considerations, though they earlier suggested that gender considerations be made a regular basis of the work of the CTC&N.

While the Philippine proposal on the consideration of an additional function for CTC&N on the giving of support and advice and capacity-building on technology assessments for new and emerging technologies and the Bolivian suggestion on the request to TEC to consider intellectual property rights issues related to development and transfer of technologies came out in document CRP.39 on 9 December as prepared by the AWGLCA Chair under his own authority, they are nowhere to be found in the final LCA outcome document. Whether this can be considered again by the AWGLCA when it resumes its further work on this issue is an open question which is up to the country proponents to raise so this can be resolved by the AWGLCA Chair at that next session.

Looking Forward to the next SBI meeting

The advisory body will continue to be contentious, but hopefully, Parties should have a clearer notion of the relationship between the advisory body and the host organization and the legal limitations of fusing the lines of accountability between the host organization that they will agree to make the advisory body an intermediate body between the COP and the host organization. There is no other way around this since the COP, which convenes only once a year, will have to designate an entity, not the host organization itself, which will deal on a regular basis with the host organization. This is how accountability is ensured, it cannot be left to the host organization, which constitutes such board, to determine these things.

The financial aspects of the operations of the CTC&N are another topic for discussion.  Things will get clearer when the bidders will make their own proposals on how these activities that will also be participated in by the Network members.

The final question relates to whether the earlier proposals for considering additional functions to the TEC and the CTC&N can be revived in the next session of the AWG-LCA. It remains an open question that can be tested during the next inter-sessional period.

According to one developing country negotiator, to answer the question of who won and who lost, the Durban duel between developed and developing countries on the matter of technology transfer resulted in the following:

- The G77 and China originally wanted the TEC to be the entity that will exercise oversight and provide guidance to the CTC&N. At the start of the negotiations in Durban, they modified their stance to a kind of a board, which is an intermediate body between the COP, the TEC and the CTC&N, leaving some items for the TEC, such as the giving of strategic guidance on some key issues like prioritization and selection of network members, among others. The advisory body created by the Durban COP appears to be something similar, in a general sense to what the G77 and China wanted, though the role of the TEC over this advisory body is not clearly spelled out as the TEC will remain exercising its own mandate on its own concerns, not that of the CTC&N.

-  The US, supported by Canada, Australia, Japan, and to a certain extent, the EU, wanted the TEC out of the way in the running of the affairs of the CTC&N.  It was agreed that how this relationship will evolve or how they will relate to each other, to “promote coherence and synergy” as called for by paragraph 127 of Decision 1/.CP16 of Cancun COP.  It is a matter of time and the test of such relationship in how the two will agree on the modalities of their reporting to the COP.

- The selection process for the host organization is a partial achievement for the G77 and China, as the TEC got to play a role in doing the technical evaluation of the bids for hosting of the CTC&N though the US prevailed in having the Subsidiary Body on Implementation do a ranking of the list of who may be recommended as the host of the CTC&N.

The final form shape and functions of the Technology Mechanism will continue to be fought out in 2012.+

[1]  Member, Philippine Delegation to UNFCCC COP 17, in Durban, South Africa from 27 November to 10 December, 2011. The views presented here are his own and do not represent the views of the Philippine Delegation.

[2]  The LCA outcome document on the chapter on technology development and transfer, has the following paragraphs on the financing of the activities of the CTC&N:
139. Decides that the costs associated with the Climate Technology Center and the mobilization of the services of the Network should be funded from various sources,including the financial mechanism of the Convention, bilateral, multilateral and private sector channels, philanthropic  sources  as well as financial and in-kind contributions from the host organization and participants in the Network;

140. Requests the Global Environment Facility to support the operationalization and activities of the Climate Technology Centre and Network without prejudging any selection of the host;

141. Invites Parties in a position to do so to support the Climate Technology Centre and Network through the provision of financial and other resources.

The provisional agenda of the Conference has yet to be adopted, following informal consultations by the South African COP Presidency on three agenda items raised by India relating to equitable access to sustainable development; unilateral trade measures and intellectual property rights (IPRs). In an unusual approach, Parties agreed to continue work on the other agenda items, pending informal consultations on these outstanding issues.

According to sources, these three issues are still being strongly resisted by developed country Parties and a few developing countries from being addressed in the negotiations. This is done through efforts to defer them from being considered here in Durban or to say that these issues are better dealt with in other fora such as the World Trade Organisation (in the case of unilateral trade measures) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (in the case of IPRs).

Meanwhile, several informal consultations are being held by the COP Presidency on the “bigger picture” under a process called the ‘Indaba’ to address the deadlock over the second commitment period for emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol and the push by developed countries for a new legally binding mitigation treaty under the Convention which will replace the Protocol, with the inclusion of all “major economies” to reflect the “changing economic circumstances and different social and economic development priorities and opportunities”.

As of late Wednesday night (7 December), negotiators were in intense talks in efforts to finalise a decision over the Green Climate Fund (GCF), with the issue of whether and how the Fund is to have legal personality and capacity. According to sources, the United States is resisting efforts by the COP to confer legal personality and capacity to the GCF.

Under the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWGLCA), the Chair, Mr. Daniel Reifsnyder from the US provided Parties with an update of the amalgamation of draft texts at the contact group which met on Wednesday (7 December).

He also provided an overview of the state of the negotiations and suggested possible ways on moving forward, including the need for Ministerial consultations on several issues.

Shared vision

The AWGLCA Chair said the ‘shared vision’ is an example of an issue that Parties may not be able to resolve in further work in the informal group. He said several suggestions have been made by Parties on how to take this work forward. Some Parties urge that all the issues contained in this section be forwarded for further work next year – possibly in a dedicated, more focused process. Others urge that Parties reiterate in particular the need to agree on a long-term global goal (for greenhouse gas emissions reduction) and a time frame for global peaking (of emissions). He believed that this is an issue that would benefit from consultations led by Ministers to help determine the best way forward.

Mitigation

1) Mitigation by developed country Parties: The text on developed country mitigation addresses three areas: biennial reports, international assessment and review, and matters relating to paragraphs 36-38 of the Cancun Agreements (relating to the pledges, level of ambition, accounting rules etc). The Chair said that on matters related to paragraphs 36-38 of the Cancun Agreements, there are several issues arising from the three texts where guidance from Ministers will be required.

The first of these issues relates to clarification of pledges, and a related question of whether these pledges should be translated into other forms. While views differ on the specific activities and timeframe for completion, there is convergence around the need for a continuing process to clarify pledges. However, there is no convergence on translation of these pledges. Some Parties wish to recognize and quantify the ambition gap, while others see no such need.

The AWGLCA Chair believed the way forward may be additional work next year, but Ministerial guidance will also be required on the timeframe for completion and whether this work should focus on the actions of one group of Parties or more broadly.

Similarly on the matter of accounting, he said some Parties call for the development of common accounting rules to guide reporting and assessment of progress toward mitigation targets. Others consider that accounting of targets should be based on national policies and circumstances. His assessment is that a way forward may be found through a work programme to examine specific aspects of accounting for targets, drawing upon ongoing work to clarify pledges.

In the area of biennial reports, his understanding is that the two biggest remaining issues are whether to adopt guidelines at this session, or to defer adoption to next year, and the date of submission of the first biennial reports. He believed that these issues as well as remaining unresolved technical issues can be resolved in our ongoing work in the informal group and do not need to be referred to ministers.

On international assessment and review (IAR), Reifsnyder said there were two major stumbling blocks. First, whether the process involves a compliance assessment and second the accounting framework for the IAR. There are also unresolved technical issues in the text. He believed that work should continue as follows:

On matters related to paragraph 36-38 of the Cancun Agreements, questions related to clarification of pledges, accounting for targets and ambition should be taken up in a consultation led by Ministers. A way forward in each of these areas may be found through elaboration of elements and timeframes for a work program. He recommended that work to finalize text on biennial reports continue under the guidance of the co-facilitators, with the goal of reaching agreement on guidelines that can be adopted at this session. Delegates should proceed with the understanding that the biennial reporting guidelines can be revised in the future to reflect any decision on accounting.

The Chair believed that co-facilitators should continue to work on IAR, with the exception of references in the text to a compliance procedure. Some Parties consider a process to determine compliance a necessary component of ensuring comparability of efforts (between Kyoto Protocol Parties and developed country Parties that are not Parties to the Protocol but are Parties to the Convention), while others consider it fundamentally incompatible with the nature of their pledges. This is a matter on which Minister-led consultations may be needed. (The US is opposed to any discussions on reviewing their pledges and the need for international rules on compliance.)

2) Mitigation by developing country Parties: The amalgamation draft texts contained four areas related to developing country mitigation: matters related to paragraphs 48-51 of the Cancun Agreements (on the pledges), biennial update reports, international consultation and analysis (ICA) and registry.

Reifsnyder said more work on all four of these areas was necessary. Under matters related to paragraphs 48-51 of the Cancun Agreement, Parties generally agree on the need to continue a process to understand the diversity of mitigation actions, but do not agree on the steps or inputs. There are also questions regarding how to enhance mitigation efforts and whether a common approach to measuring the effects of mitigation actions is needed.

On biennial update reports, he said there appeared to be three major options: adoption of descriptive guidelines that elaborate on the elements agreed in Cancun, adoption of guidelines that reference relevant sections of the existing guidelines for national communications of Parties not included in Annex I (developing countries), and deferral of work to next year.

On ICA, key issues are scope, frequency, clarification of the process, and the flexibility accorded to developing countries. The registry text is quite mature, with very few substantive issues remaining, he added.

He believed that matters related to paragraphs 48-51 of the Cancun Agreement should be taken up in Minister-led consultations. His assessment was that co-facilitators should continue with their work on reporting guidelines in the informal group. To ensure balance with progress on developed country biennial reports, the focus should be on agreeing on elements of descriptive guidelines that can be adopted at this session. Although there were a number of unresolved issues that remain under ICA, he believed that co-facilitators should continue to work on them in the informal group.

3) REDD-plus finance (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries), there was no change in the text and the Chair urged Parties to continue discussions.

4) On cooperative sectoral approaches and sector-specific actions, he said Parties had made considerable progress in their consultations on the three main areas under consideration – the general framework, agriculture, and international aviation and shipping.  In his view, this item may benefit from consideration by Ministers, who may wish to consider whether there is yet room to establish a programme of work on agriculture. At the same time Ministers may wish to consider whether to establish a process for further developing elements of a general framework for cooperative sectoral approaches and sector-specific actions and how it will apply to the various sectors, including international aviation and maritime transport.

5) On various approaches, Reifsnyder said that Parties had made great efforts to progress on the work on various approaches to enhance the cost-effectiveness of, and promote, mitigation actions and believed that the informal group should continue to work to agree on an outcome or to develop clean options that can be referred for further consideration in Minister-led consultations. He asked Parties to also consider how best to reflect issues that should be considered if a work programme can be established in this area.

6) On the issue of ‘Economic and Social consequences of Response Measures’, he said that the facilitator prepared a consolidated text on the basis of the six proposals from Parties. He said Parties discussed the consolidated text in the informal group and that it received support from some Parties but that it was not accepted by others. Because of this, and despite the strong urging of some Parties there is still only a facilitator’s text that was not appropriate to be included in the updated amalgamation texts.

He said that it appeared that there were positive developments in the informal consultations being undertaken by the Chairs of the Subsidiary Bodies (SBI and SBSTA) on the impact of the implementation of response measures, with the objective of developing a work programme to address these impacts, with a view to adopting at the 17th session of the COP, modalities for the operationalization of the work programme and a possible forum on response measures.

(The subsidiary bodies of the Convention are the Subsidiary Body on Implementation and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice.)

Adaptation

The AWGLCA Chair said that work on the text on the Adaptation Committee advanced considerably and Parties were able to agree to most of the text thus getting one step closer to bringing the Adaptation Committee to life here at Durban. There were still a number of outstanding technical issues relating to the indicative activities for the Adaptation Committee to undertake. In addition, there are two outstanding issues related to the issue of the membership of the Adaptation Committee and to whether it should report directly to the COP or to the COP through the subsidiary bodies. These were issues he believed would benefit from Minister-led consultations.

Finance

The Chair said that work was progressing well in the informal group on finance and believed that work should continue in the informal group before assessing whether any of the issues with which it is dealing should be taken up at a higher level.

Technology

Reifsnyder said that the informal group on technology managed to narrow down options on the selection process of the host of the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) and the governance arrangement for the CTCN. It has also advanced significantly on the evaluation criteria for selecting the CTCN. The group also elaborated the funding arrangement of the CTCN.  On the question of intellectual property rights, he said that consultations were currently being undertaken by the Presidency on that issue, and suggested that Parties focus on completing the necessary technical work to launch the CTCN in Durban while awaiting the outcome of these consultations.

Capacity Building

The Chair reported that there are very few outstanding points, and believed they could be resolved in further consultations in the informal group.

Review (2013-2015)

On the review, he said there were mainly two outstanding issues which would benefit from consideration in Ministerial-led consultations. First, the scope of the review: whether it should be limited to the adequacy of the global temperature goal and progress toward achieving it as agreed in Cancun or whether it should be defined more broadly. Secondly, the question of who should conduct the review: whether it should be conducted by an expert review body or by the existing Subsidiary Bodies.

Legal Options (on the outcome of the AWGLCA)

Reifsnyder said that the ‘legal options’ was a difficult issue. He said some Parties noted that they did not see this group as the place to discuss future process issues and saw this conversation happening elsewhere (in an apparent reference to the ‘Indaba’ process led by the South African COP Presidency). Many Parties also made links between this issue and the outcomes of the work of the working group under the Kyoto Protocol. He said the question of the future of the multilateral rules-based regime was now being taken up in the Presidential Indaba process and he believed that it was indeed in that broader Presidential process where this issue could now be advanced.

Several countries had reactions to the Chair’s comments.

Venezuela wanted the issue of the level of ambition to be addressed by Ministers, given that the ambition was rather low and was concerned that the new framework for a regime may be legalized with a low ambition level.  On cooperative sectoral approaches, it wanted a broader approach and not just on the sectors currently being discussed. It was also concerned with the bad treatment of the element of economic and social consequences of response measures and wanted a full consideration of all the issues raised in its submission, including the social consequences of response measures. On the issue of market mechanisms, it said that this was linked to the issue of the continuity of the Kyoto Protocol and was a political issue and wanted a ministerial discussion on this.

Saudi Arabiaalso expressed its frustration on the way the response measures were being handled. It said that there is refusal by the developed countries to engage in the development of negotiation texts. It was concerned by the imbalance in the treatment of this issue and said there was no real engagement on substance on this issue. It also did not share the Chair’s positive outlook over the matter being dealt with in the Subsidiary Bodies as developed countries were refusing to engage on substance. This, it said, was a matter for Ministerial consultations. Speaking for the Arab Group, Saudi Arabia said that it was unacceptable to have no outcome on this issue.  On the sectoral approaches, it said that if this issue was passed on to Ministers, it needed to address the general framework that guides the sectoral issues and without this, it was difficult to reach outcomes.

Boliviawas concerned that the mitigation of developed countries did not address increase in the level of ambition and the need for common accounting rules as well as compliance. It said that the Ministerial consultations need to be open and inclusive. There was need for a decision on compliance and a penalty system.

Chinasaid that the intention of referring issues to the Ministers was to seek political guidance on difficult issues that could not be resolved by negotiators and not for the texts to be referred to them. The AWGLCA contact group and informal groups could then act on the guidance given.

On the issues referred to the Ministers, as regards the discussions on the long-term global goal and peaking, it was important to refer to the associated issues of historical responsibility, equity and means of implementation to achieve the global goal and peaking. On mitigation, it agreed with Venezuela on the need to seek guidance from the Ministers on how to deal with the level of ambition.

India said that Ministerial guidance was useful in unlocking many pieces on mitigation and a lot of work needs to be done to capture the options for the consideration of Ministers. India was concerned that some issues were kicked up to Ministers as in ‘shared vision’ with no more meetings scheduled at the level of negotiators. It said that interactions with negotiators in this regard was useful and urged not to close this interaction.

Ecuador expressed concerns that the mitigation of developed countries was confined to only the Cancun decision and there was no reference to the Convention. On REDD-plus, it wanted movement on the financial mechanism.

The Philippines expressed deep concerns on lack of progress on the element of ‘shared vision’ and ‘review’. Determination of the long-term global goal for emissions reductions must be within the context of issues of survival as well as economic considerations, means of implementation and burden-sharing. It also supported the proposal for a study process in order to guide Parties on the consequences of the decisions being made. On the review, it was important to strengthen the Convention and to determine the scope of the review and said that the existing subsidiary bodies could advance further work. On the Ministerial consultations, Philippines hoped that the Ministers would have the opportunity to go back to their constituencies to ensure the provision of political guidance.

The European Union also stressed the need for a high level of ambition as regards mitigation and was concerned that the amalgamation text was not balanced in relation to the mitigation of developed and developing countries. It also wanted clear options on the establishment of market mechanisms, which is key for the EU to commit to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

The US said that a number of areas (in the texts) did not reflect its interests and could therefore not participate in its outcome.

Japan stressed the need for parallelism in relation to the mitigation efforts of developed and developing countries and the current text did not reflect this balance.

This call was made by Ambassador Silvia Merega of Argentina, on behalf of G77 and China at the opening session of the AWGLCA held on 29 November in Durban.

Merega said that for a successful outcome in Durban, progress in the work must ensure even treatment of issues and decisive leadership was needed to ensure that all submissions coming from the Parties are discussed and the issues in the agenda are addressed meaningfully and receive a fair and equal treatment.

A serious imbalance in the progress of issues can clearly not be conducive to a successful outcome that is comprehensive and balanced, she added.

Merega said that in Durban, the G77 and China expected an outcome that is comprehensive and balanced, enabling the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention, pursuant to the results of the thirteenth and sixteenth sessions of the Conference of the Parties (referring to the Bali Action Plan and the Cancun decisions), addressing both implementation tasks and issues that are still to be concluded. Such a result must fully respect the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, the two-track negotiation as mandated by the Bali Roadmap, and rendering operational the Cancun decision.

She highlighted the importance of mitigation as part of a balanced and ambitious outcome in Durban. We recall that the appropriate treatment of the issue as determined in the Bali Roadmap demands a decision here in Durban, on the adoption, of the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol and significant and ambitious efforts must be done in this regard. The second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol must be the basis for comparable Annex I emission reduction commitments of Non Kyoto Protocol Parties.

There was need to also address ways to enhance the mitigation ambition of Annex I commitments, as well as the tasks necessary to operationalize the Cancun decisions including the setting up of the registry for support for developing country mitigation actions.

New responsibilities as per Cancun decision, such as measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs), should be accompanied with clear indications on the amount and timing of financial resources that have to be provided to developing countries.

In Panama (the last meeting of the AWGLCA in October), the level of engagement in mitigation was positive, but insufficient in others. The G77 and China reiterated the need for balance, both within mitigation and between mitigation and other building blocks, including adaptation and financing.

Merega emphasized the importance of the issue of economic and social consequences of response measures for all developing countries, and therefore, the need to give full consideration under the AWG-LCA to what actions are necessary to meet the specific needs and concerns of developing countries arising from the impact of the implementation of response measures taken by developed country Parties. In this respect, the Group expected that developed countries engage constructively on this issue in order to have negotiating text to forward for adoption by the COP.

[In Panama, the informal group on economic and social consequences of response measures saw deep divisions over issues raised by a large number of developing countries especially on unilateral trade measures (UTMs). Developed countries were opposed to any texts for negotiations and did not even want the submissions of developing countries to be compiled into a document. Developed countries and Singapore insisted that the UNFCCC was not the proper forum to discuss UTMs but the WTO was the appropriate forum.]

On adaptation, the G77 and China strongly believed that the Cancun Adaptation Framework was one of the main achievements of Cancun in relation to the balanced treatment of mitigation and adaptation. Furthermore, the provisions included in the Adaptation Framework have been incorporated in order to have a coherent approach to adaptation under the Convention. In that sense, the establishment of the Adaptation Committee has been a priority to the Group. The Group welcomed the progress made to define the modalities, composition and procedures of the Committee, and looked forward its operationalization as soon as possible, keeping in mind the importance of creating the proper linkages to other institutional arrangements, in particular to the operating entities of the financial mechanism, as well as to others adaptation related arrangements that are being discussed under the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI).

On the composition of the governance body of the Adaptation Committee, Merega reiterated that it should have a majority of members representing countries of the G77 and China, taking into account that developing countries are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

On the very important issue of finance, the Standing Committee and long-term finance, the Group was ready to work on the draft negotiating texts to achieve concrete results. Merega said that it was clear that without financing, including for technology development and transfer and capacity building, the extent to which developing country Parties will be able to effectively implement their commitment under the Convention will be directly affected.

The Group believed that the role of the Standing Committee is of paramount importance and a decision must be adopted at this COP to fully perform its mandate to assist the COP in exercising its functions with respect to the financial mechanism of the Convention. The linkages between the Standing Committee and the COP as well as the functions of the Committee, in particular, the MRV of support provided to developing country Parties for the preparation and implementation of NAMAS and its reporting, among others, should further be explored and defined.

The G77 and China believed that the main source for long-term finance should be developed countries public funds, so as to ensure the adequacy and predictability of new and additional finance to meet mitigation and adaptation costs, and to redress the historical imbalance in financing for adaptation. Long-term finance should include the initial capitalization of the Green Climate Fund to become operational here in Durban. There was also a need to address the gap in financing for fast-track finance for the period which ends in 2012.

On the development and transfer of technologies, the G77 and China recognized the work done by the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) in its first and only meeting it had so far. In order to fully implement the Technology Mechanism established in Cancun, it was of utmost importance to define the governance structure of the mechanism; a structure where the TEC should serve as the linking body between the COP and the Climate Technology Center and Network (CTCN) to give coherence with other institutional arrangements under the Convention.

The Group expected the TEC to meet as often as necessary next year and have enough time and resources to develop and implement a program of work that fulfill its functions that were adopted by the COP in Cancun.

Other developing country groupings in supporting the position of the G77 and China expressed similar views.

Saudi Arabia for the Arab Group, said there was progress on the mitigation issues in Panama but not on the issue of economic and social consequences of response measures and stressed the need for balance in addressing all elements of the Bali Action Plan. On the form of the legal outcome of the AWGLCA process, it said that content will determine the legal form and not vice- versa.

Grenada, for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) stressed the need for increase in ambition on mitigation. It also called for a mandate for a parallel protocol which sits alongside the Kyoto Protocol (KP) for comparable mitigation actions of developed countries who are not KP Parties and for and actions by developing countries supported by finance and technology transfer.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on behalf of the Africa Group said that the shared vision should be more than just a number and must reflect the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and historical responsibilities. The shared vision is not just about climate stabilization but has to also encompass the means of implementation. On mitigation of developed countries, it said that Cancun was weak on the comparability of efforts of developed countries and was silent on compliance and this needed to be addressed. The International Assessment and Review (IAR) process must be stronger than the KP compliance system and must be rigorous. The MRV regime must ensure comparability of efforts, avoid double counting and ensure environmental integrity.

On developing country mitigation, it said that the NAMAs are voluntary and can be amended according to change in national circumstances and the overarching priority of developing countries was poverty eradication. The implementation of NAMAs also depended on the availability of finance, technology transfer and capacity building.

On the issue of the review, the DRC said that it should be about a review of the implementation gaps to enable the full effective and sustained implementation of the Convention.

Gambia for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) wanted the Durban outcome of the Bali Action Plan to be a legally binding instrument which sits next to the Kyoto Protocol. On the issue of long term finance, it said that there should be no gaps after the fast-start finance and there must be a robust work programme to define the timeline for the mobilization of the $100 billion.

Nicaragua speaking for the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) said that the current mitigation pledges of Annex 1 countries was insufficient and called for the loopholes to be closed. It said that the Green Climate Fund should not be an empty shell and proposed that it should have financial resources of at least 1.5% of the GDP of developed countries.

El Salvador, for the SICA countries (Central American Integration System) expressed concern that there has been slow disbursement of fast-start finance and that only a small proportion of the money was new and additional. It also called for greater transparency in this regard.

Papua New Guinea for the Coalition of Rainforest countries called for the Green Climate Fund to have a window for forest related activities as well as for new market mechanisms.

The European Union stressed the need for Durban to initiate a process for a new global framework that will level the playing field in relation to mitigation. Such a framework should be completed by 2015 so that it can come into force in 2020 and it needed this reassurance for it to undertake a second commitment period of emissions reductions under the KP. It also wanted an expansion of new market-based mechanisms.

Australia for the Umbrella Group and South Korea for the Environmental Integrity Group expressed similar views as the EU.

On the organization of work, Chair of the AWGLCA, Mr. Daniel Reifsnyder of the United States proposed that the substantive work would be resumed under a contact group which will have touch base sessions to have an overview of the work being undertaken in the various informal groups to deal with the issues and this was accepted by Parties.

Saudi Arabia raised the issue that the informal group on economic and social consequences of response measures had no negotiating text and said that it could not accept to move on other issues until there was a text by 30 November. It said that Parties were not negotiating in good faith as a text on this issue was being blocked.

In response, the Chair said that the issue was being discussed in multiple places as in the subsidiary bodies and he wanted the chairs of those bodies to report to the contact group on Thursday (1 December) on the progress made in this regard.

Saudi Arabia said that it could not accept that since the package under the AWGLCA had to be balanced on all the elements of the Bali Action Plan and every issue needed to be treated fairly and equitably as part of a comprehensive package.

The Chair said that in the informal group could use the submissions by Parties which are conference room papers as basis for the discussions.

Parties proceeded to meet in informal groups to advance further work.

Barcelona, 21^st November 2011. A new report released today by GAIA – Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, reveals serious flaws in CDM-backed Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) projects. Most of these projects support incineration technology to burn waste and landfill gas systems (LFG) to bury waste, which ultimately increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and displace informal workers communities’ livelihoods, amongst other problems. By buying CDM carbon credits from these projects, the EU is contradicting its own policies on waste management, which prioritize recycling, pollution controls and waste diversion from landfills. The report calls for a EU ban on CDM carbon credits in the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS).

The report released today “The European Union’s double standards on waste and climate policy” shows severe contradictions between the European Union (EU) climate and waste policies that needs to be recognized and eliminated without delay. On the one hand, the EU policies on municipal solid waste (MSW) management prioritize waste reduction, reutilisation, and recycling. Furthermore, MSW management in Europe is successfully taking steps towards more organic waste diversion from landfills and increasing recycling rates, in the spirit of increasing the efficient use of natural resources.

On the other hand, EU climate policies are built around the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) to comply with its emission reductions targets. This scheme allows member states to buy carbon credits, known as Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), generated by projects developed under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) — including landfill gas systems (LFG) and waste incinerators, the very disposal methods at the bottom of the Waste Hierarchy.

The report shows that the CDM creates a perverse incentive to landfill as much waste as possible, in contradiction to the Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC). Since the CDM promotes landfill gas capture on a profit-basis, i.e., the more gas one captures, the more profitable the project will be, landfilling of MSW—especially organics—is ultimately encouraged in this counterproductive climate mitigation strategy. In fact, one third of CDM-backed LFG systems are pure waste disposal without resource or energy recovery – those LFG projects that only flare.

“At least 64% of CDM-backed LFG projects scrutinised by GAIA plan to stay open and receiving MSW during their crediting period”, said Mariel Vilella, GAIA’s Climate Policy campaigner. “In this way, the waste keeps being landfilled and it produces the methane emissions that later will be captured, flared, and finally certified as emission reductions by the CDM. Consequently, emissions will actually increase, at the same time as more carbon credits are earned for supposed reductions”, Vilella added.

In its turn, CDM support for incineration provides an incentive to burn recyclable and compostable materials. “This contradicts the waste hierarchy established by the Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC and the EU Resource Efficiency Roadmap, which gives priority to waste prevention and reuse of materials before energy recovery or incineration”, said Joan-Marc Simon, GAIA’s Europe Coordinator.

“By buying carbon credits from CDM-backed MSW projects, the EU is actually fostering the generation of toxic emissions, jeopardising current practices of recycling and composting, and filling up the EU ETS with carbon credits that are in reality “non-additional”, said Vilella. “Ultimately, the EU is supporting waste management projects in developing countries that would be illegal on European soil”, concluded Simon.

The continued purchase of CDM carbon credits into the EU creates a double standard on waste and climate policies that needs to be addressed without delay, by excluding such carbon credits from the EU ETS.

 About GAIA:

GAIA is a worldwide alliance of more than 650 grassroots groups, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in over 90 countries whose ultimate vision is a just, toxic-free world without waste incineration or landfill.

The Ministers, who met to coordinate their views for the upcoming climate talks, emphasized in their joint statement that “the Kyoto Protocol is the cornerstone of the climate regime and its second commitment period (of emissions reduction by developed countries) is the essential priority for the success of the Durban Conference” that will be hosted by South Africa on 28 November to 9 December. The first commitment period will end in 2012.

The 9th BASIC Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change in Beijing stressed that Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol are working under the mandate of the 2007 Bali Roadmap and reaffirmed the need to focus on this mandate.

[Developed countries want a new mandate to negotiate a new single mitigation treaty for all Parties that would replace the Kyoto Protocol and include the developed and developing countries. The United States is not a Party to the Protocol and the mitigation actions of developing countries are under the UNFCCC and not part of the Protocol].

The ministers also underlined the importance of a proposal by India to include the issues of equity, trade and intellectual property rights in the agenda of the 17th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC. They agreed that “discussions on these important issues which are crucial to many developing countries, would contribute to a comprehensive and balanced outcome at Durban”.

Participating ministers were Xie Zhenhua (Vice-Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission of China), Liu Zhenmin (Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs of China), Francisco Gaetani (Deputy Minister of Environment of Brazil), Jayanthi Natarajan (Minister of Environment and Forests of India), and Bomo Edna Edith Molewa (Minister of Water and Environment Affairs of South Africa). Maite Nkoana-Mashabane (Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa) was also at the meeting in her capacity as the incoming COP President.

Representatives of Argentina (as chair of the G77 and China), Egypt (as representative of the Arab Group) and Grenada (as chair of the Alliance of Small Island States) participated as observers in what is called the “BASIC-plus approach”.

The BASIC ministers agreed that Durban should achieve a comprehensive, fair and balanced outcome to enable the full, effective and sustained implementation of the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol, in accordance with the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, and fulfilling the mandate of the Bali Roadmap in the two-track process of negotiation.

[The Bali Roadmap includes two distinct components: First, the Bali Action Plan, which launched a negotiation process under the UNFCCC to enable the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention through long-term cooperative action, now, up to and beyond 2012. Second, there is a separate legal mandate for negotiations under the Kyoto Protocol for the second commitment period of greenhouse gases emissions reduction by developed countries when the current one ends in 2012. The negotiations under the Kyoto Protocol were to conclude in 2009 but developed countries are still resisting an unconditional second commitment period.]

At the recent Beijing meeting, the ministers emphasized the need to implement the Cancun decisions (which were adopted in Cancun, Mexico in December 2010) as well as to address the unresolved issues from the Bali Roadmap. They called upon the Durban Conference to clearly establish the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol.

They further called for the Conference “to accomplish the Bali Action Plan where developed country Parties that are not Parties to the Kyoto Protocol have to undertake comparable quantified emission reduction commitments under the Convention and for developing country Parties to implement enhanced mitigation actions in the context of sustainable development and enabled and supported by finance, technology and capacity building”.

Stressing the “essential priority” of the Kyoto Protocol second commitment period for the success of the Durban Conference, the ministers said that “the continuation of the flexibility mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol is contingent upon the establishment of quantified emissions reduction commitments by Annex I (developed country) Parties.”

[All the Annex 1 Parties want to use the flexibility mechanisms under the Protocol such as the Clean Development Mechanism although they have not made commitments for emissions reductions for the next commitment period. Developed countries such as Canada, Russia and Japan have expressed clearly that they will not undertake further commitments for emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol.]

AMBITIOUS ACTIONS BY DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The BASIC ministers reiterated their support “to work towards the perspective of a comprehensive, ambitious and fair outcome”, ensuring the full, effective and sustained implementation of the two treaties.

They noted that while sustainable development and poverty eradication remain urgent challenges and overriding priorities for developing countries, these countries, in particular the BASIC countries have pledged ambitious actions to reduce emissions at substantial cost to their economies.

The ministers called upon the developed country Parties “to rise up to their historical responsibilities and undertake ambitious and robust mitigation commitments consistent with science and in accordance with the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”.

They highlighted the robust contribution already offered by many developing countries in emission reductions by which these countries have become the active leaders of the global effort against climate change. They stressed that this has come about despite the responsibility, established under the Convention, that developed countries “take the lead”.

POST-2020 IMPLEMENTATION AND REVIEW

In reaffirming the need for the Durban Conference to focus on the Bali Roadmap mandate, the ministers stressed that deliberations and discussions for the further implementation of the UNFCCC beyond 2020 must be firmly based on the principles and provisions of the UNFCCC and consistent with the latest findings of science as per the forthcoming 5th Assessment Report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In this context, they noted the importance of the Review process which is to be completed by 2015.

[In Cancun, Parties agreed to conduct a first review in 2013 to be concluded by 2015.]

On the Review, the ministers said that this must be conducted in accordance with the principles and provisions of the UNFCCC itself. They stressed that the Review must include a review of the adequacy of global temperature goal and effectiveness of ambitious quantified emission reduction commitments by Annex I Parties and the provision of finance and technology support by developed countries to enable developing countries to implement enhanced mitigation and adaptation actions under the UNFCCC.

They also reaffirmed that any outcome on “shared vision” (one of the elements of the Bali Action Plan) needs to be firmly based on the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities.

FINANCING A “PRESSING PRIORITY”

The BASIC ministerial statement underscored that financing is one of the pressing priorities at the Durban Conference. The ministers welcomed the work of the Transitional Committee (tasked in Cancun to design the new Green Climate Fund) and envisaged the consideration and approval of its draft report by the COP.

They agreed that the Conference should decide to initiate the operationalisation of the Green Climate Fund with accountability to and under the guidance of the COP, ensuring adequate financial support for developing countries. Therefore, they urged developed countries to capitalize the Green Climate Fund from their public financial resources as soon as possible.

They further said that developed countries should fulfill their commitment of providing US$30 billion as fast start funding, ensuring new and additional funding and transparent information of its performance.

[Developed country Parties had committed to provide US$30 billion for the period 2010-2012 and to a goal of mobilizing US$100 billion per year by 2020.]

On the fast-start funding, the ministers reiterated the importance of ensuring that the accounting of finance is transparent, measurable, reportable and verifiable. They requested developed countries to submit information on the fast-start funding to the UNFCCC secretariat in a common and comparable format to strengthen mutual trust between developed and developing countries. This could serve as the first step in more accurate reporting on long-term financing, generating information to assess progress towards the collective financial commitments by Annex I Parties.

The ministers urged developed countries to honour their commitment to provide US$100 billion per year by 2020 in a predictable manner with specific measures and clear roadmap to be adopted in Durban, ensuring that there is no funding gap from 2013 to 2020. This funding should mainly come from public financial resources, and private and other alternative resources of funding should only be supplementary.

ADAPTATION

The ministers further emphasized that adaptation is the most urgent task in developing countries and supported the African Group’s position on prioritizing this issue in Durban. They called for immediate operationalisation of the Adaptation Committee, which should contribute to adaptation policy development and implementation of adaptation actions in developing countries following the requests of developing countries and respecting a country-driven approach.

They highlighted that the Adaptation Committee should establish effective links with the finance and technology mechanisms to support adaptation actions for all developing countries, particularly small island developing states, least developed countries and Africa.

TECHNOLOGY MECHANISM

The ministers also welcomed the functioning of the Technology Executive Committee and the progress on the set-up of the Technology Centre and Network. They urged a clear definition of the relationship between the two bodies and the link between the technology mechanism and the finance mechanism.

They highlighted the need to address the intellectual property rights issue properly and the early operation of the Technology Mechanism to advance climate-friendly technology transfer to developing countries.

NO TO UNILATERAL MEASURES

The ministers emphasized the need to address emissions from international aviation and maritime transport in a multilateral context and in accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. They highlighted that unilateral measures on climate change, such as the inclusion of emissions from international aviation in the EU-ETS (emissions trading scheme), would violate the principles and provisions of the UNFCCC and jeopardize the effort of international cooperation in addressing climate change.

The ministers stressed their dedication towards consolidating and strengthening the unity of the G77 and China and decided to continue to enhance transparency and inclusiveness (in the BASIC platform) through the BASIC-plus approach. They also reaffirmed their continued full support to the government of South Africa to make the Durban Conference a success in an open, transparent, inclusive and Party-driven process.

The ministerial meeting also received reports on the progress made by the BASIC experts group on Equitable Access to Sustainable Development and supported the publication of the paper as a contribution to the scientific body of knowledge. This experts group meets in parallel with the ministerial meeting.

India will host the next meeting in the first quarter of 2012.

The just ended United Nations Climate Change Conference in Panama barely made progress in resolving the thorniest issues, stalling negotiations to conclude a global agreement later this year in Durban, South Africa to save the planet from overheating.

The future of the Kyoto Protocol, the architecture of any future agreement, long term finance and sources of funding especially for the Green Climate Fund are some of the most fractious issues still outstanding.

Durban, South Africa will be a critical battleground to break the deadlock within the framework of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2011. The Panama talks made progress on a few issues, notably adaptation, agriculture, technology, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) and Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs).

Panama also agreed on a negotiating text and plans for disbursement of US$30 billion fast-start finance. The fast-start finance pledged has emerged to be neither new nor additional, but as largely repackaged official development assistance, African civil society and developing country governments have said.

In 2010, developed countries undertook at the Cancun UNFCCC meeting to provide US$100 billion each year by 2020 and US$30 billion by 2012 for poor countries to adapt to climate change impacts and move towards low-carbon economies.

The UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol together make up the fundamental global legal framework on climate change. The first period of emission cuts agreed in 1997 expire at the end of 2012. A new round of emission cuts must be agreed in Durban to avoid gaps between the first and second commitment periods to save the earth from tipping.

Canada, Japan and Russia, signatories to the Kyoto Protocol, are determined not to commit to a second period of emission reduction under the Protocol, unless all major economies – and that includes both China and the United States – submit to the same legal terms. The United States is not a signatory to the Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997, established legally binding targets for developed countries to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions linked to the earth’s warming.

The European Union (EU) will renew its commitment to the Protocol but only if it is tied to an agreement that spells out clearly when and how other countries’ pledges will be placed into a legally binding international agreement.

But many other groups including the African Group and 132 member group, G77 and China, are opposed to attempts to phase out the Kyoto Protocol.

Chair of the G77 and China and ambassador of Argentina, Jorge Argüello said ‘the Kyoto Protocol is a cornerstone of the climate change regime, and nothing will be achieved unless it can be extended in Durban’, adding that the second commitment period is paramount for the group.

‘Much as some rich countries like to repeat that discussing scenarios that they oppose is not “realistic” or “practical”, they must recognise that there is no point in insisting on a solution outside the Kyoto Protocol when 132 parties have strongly declared they can only accept a second commitment period as a meaningful outcome,’ Argüello said.

With the front of Parties fractured, the search for alternatives to the Protocol intensified in Panama. An EU proposal includes two parallel treaties one of which extends the Protocol for those covered by the agreement.

The second proposal calls for imposition of binding emissions targets on countries that currently face no legally binding emissions reduction commitments such as the US and emerging economic powers particularly China, India and Brazil.

Proposals for a temporary treaty that extends the Protocol until 2015 to safeguard the legal foundations and mechanisms and allow negotiations for comprehensive agreement to be reached beyond Durban seem to have gained a bit of ground in Panama.

Rich countries are pushing for a new agreement to replace or phase out the Kyoto Protocol. These countries, especially the United States, the largest historical emitter of global warming substances, Canada, Japan and Russia insist on a legal agreement that commits all ‘major economies’ in a symmetrical fashion where ‘the commitments of Parties were unconditional and not linked to the provision of finance.

While this position may sound reasonable because the mitigation actions of developing countries are not part of the Kyoto Protocol, it undermines the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ enshrined in the UNFCCC treaty which recognises the disproportionately high historical contribution of developed countries to climate change which therefore enjoins these countries to bear greater share of the cost of preventing the earth from warming out of control.

But in its current shape, the proposed new agreement – with its weak mitigation regime ‘pledge and review’ mechanism and ‘do as you please approach’ – will transfer the enormous burden of climate change to developing countries who have contributed the least to the phenomenon and who will also suffer the worst consequences of climate change in the coming decades.

African CSOs and the larger global climate justice movement see the actions of the developed countries as both self-serving and dangerous to humanity.

Third World Network (TWN) noted at a session during the Panama climate talks that Kyoto Protocol Parties refusing to undertake a second period of emission reduction commitments were in breach of their international obligations and the mandate for the UNFCCC’s Ad-Hoc Working Group on Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) negotiations.

‘The Kyoto Protocol is the only option we have and Durban is the last opportunity to ensure that internationally binding emission reduction commitments with international rules and compliance continue and do not lapse or end altogether’, TWN said. TWN is a member of the global Climate Justice Now movement

This new treaty which developed countries want to replace the Kyoto Protocol with, TWN said will ‘enshrine in international law a weak domestic “pledge and review” system that will no longer be rooted in international commitments, be backed up by the rule of international law, or be based on a consideration of what science says is necessary’.

Ominously, such a system will trigger temperature rise of up t o 5 degrees Celsius and in regions like Africa, ‘this could mean 7 to 8 degrees Celsius of warming’, said TWN. Civil society therefore urged the larger international community to act swiftly to address the issue.

Annex I countries (developed countries), TWN noted, are more determined to ‘ensuring the Protocol’s market mechanisms continue and expand even in the absence of the second commitment period, rewarding them with benefits without corresponding commitments’.

These market mechanisms will basically ensure that Annex I countries conveniently shift the burden of climate change on to developing countries. For example, rather than cut down on their levels of greenhouse emissions and other pollutants, these Annex I countries will seek to hold down the development of less developed parts of the world such as Africa by acquiring forests there.

Data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Swedish Environmental Institute and and UNFCCC records indicate that developing countries are doing far more in curbing climate change than developed countries.

But Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UNFCCC sounded upbeat about a deal in Durban when she addressed the lobby group, Climate Markets and Investors Association, in London days after the Panama UNFCCC talks. Figueres said negotiators in Durban may go ahead to extend the Protocol without Canada, Japan and Russia.

Figueres may be upbeat about the December talks but the entrenched positions of negotiating parties foretell Durban will not save the earth.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS AND AFRICAN AGENDA

The climate change talks have been going on for a long time. Since Rio in 1992, when the Climate Convention was adopted, there have been 16 Conference of the Parties (COPs). Then in 2007, a new round of negotiations was launched in Bali.

Many thought Parties were going to arrive at a deal in Copenhagen, COP 15, but that proved a mirage. And then there was Cancun, and now Durban, where it is clear that negotiations will not conclude. What is perhaps unclear is what will happen after Durban.
How are humans going to live with climate change? One response to this is the climate justice response. The challenge here is that climate change impacts everything and everybody. It is a really big challenge, but it is also a huge opportunity. There is an opportunity to promote solutions that are real solutions – people-centered solutions, ecological solutions and socially just solutions.

Climate change is also a justice issue. The rich and corporations are the principal drivers of climate change. And here the culprits are mainly the extractive industries, the fossil fuel industries, mining and oil companies and, of course, consumers of what these companies are extracting from the ground, so it is also a demand-side problem.

But it is really the rich minority in this world that have principally caused the problem of climate change. However, those who did not cause the problem, the poorest, who are the world’s majority, will feel the impacts worst and first. This is a fundamental fact and the basic foundation for the climate justice analysis and the climate justice movement.

The developed countries – forming only 20 per cent of the world’s population – have emitted nearly three-quarters of all the historic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) into the atmosphere, so there is a fundamental imbalance here. This atmosphere is not theirs alone; this atmosphere is shared by all of us and they have polluted the atmosphere that they share with everyone, causing this problem of climate change.

If there is a limit to what can be emitted into the atmosphere, and developed countries have emitted so much, it means that there is little capacity for more. The fact is that these countries have already over-consumed what we might call their fair share. They have already taken away that space from us in developing countries, who arguably need it more to develop.

If this is the case, then we need to talk about how we develop – we need real, sustainable development. We need to de-link our development from emissions pollution. But because we haven’t yet been able to do this successfully – and even developed countries have not been able to show us that they can de-link their development from GHG emissions – we are still facing the struggle of how we are going to do it. At the moment the predominant model is to grow and develop our way out of poverty and that requires emissions.

On actual, historic emissions, since 1850, Annex 1 countries (the developed countries) have used more than three-quarters of available emissions space. This situation should probably be the reverse since the population in developing countries is around 80 per cent of the world’s population. What the developed countries propose in the negotiations is that they still take a very big share of the available emissions space in terms of population, when it should be much less because they have already over-consumed in the past and they have a much smaller population. That’s where the basic problem lies.

One of the key discourses in the climate justice agenda, proposed by Bolivia and backed up by NGOs and civil society, is what they have framed as climate debt: Because the developed countries have already over-used, and propose to continue over-using in the future, their share of the atmospheric capacity (a global commons), they have diminished the Earth’s ability to absorb GHG emissions and this has denied developing countries the fair space needed to further their development. This is an emissions debt to developing countries and has led to climate change and its impacts.

Then there is also an adaptation debt, as now there are adverse effects of climate change, and these impacts are being felt in developing countries. The adaptation debt to developing countries is in terms of loss and damage, the imperative to adapt and for lost development opportunities. Together, the emissions debt and the adaptation debt comprise a climate debt. This is how Bolivia and many climate justice groups have framed it.

Many groups have been calling for the adoption of the climate debt principle so that developed countries would be compelled to repay climate debt through finance and technology transfers. This obliges developed countries to accept full accounting for their historical emissions debt and commit to making the deepest possible emission reductions in the negotiations.

If one actually were to do a full accounting of the emissions debt of developed countries, this would probably show that they would need to cut emissions by minus 300 per cent. You might say that is impossible – we can’t cut it even by 100 per cent, how are we going to go to minus 300 per cent? We do acknowledge that such a cut back might not be technically possible at the moment. However, developed countries need to make the deepest cuts technically possible at this time. So what they need to do and what they can do may differ because there are presently technological and other practical limits. They need, however, to accept their responsibility and do the utmost.

And for what cannot be done, they must transfer finance and technology to developing countries who will have to make emissions cuts or be faced with the impacts that excessive global emissions bring. This is a debt that developed countries owe to developing countries, it isn’t aid. It is an obligation, a right that developing countries have to finance and technology transfers from developed countries.

This framing has allowed for a methodology that developing countries like Bolivia and others have put forward in the negotiations. Using the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities as a basis, Bolivia and other countries have demanded that developed countries reduce their emissions by 50 per cent from 1990 levels without offsetting by 2017, and transfer finance and technology to do likewise in developing countries.

There is a full spectrum of positions at the climate negotiations. There are the ‘usual suspects’ led by the worst of all, the United States. Others such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and Japan – basically the industrialised OECD countries – adopt hard-line positions. And then there is the European Union and the other developed countries that are either not in the European Union or are not quite in the developed country bloc, such as Mexico and South Korea, which are OECD countries, but are not Annex 1 countries.

Furthermore, there is the full range of non-Annex 1 countries. The largest bloc is the G77 and China, which comprises nearly all developing countries. Among the G77 and China there is the alliance of small island states, quite a prominent bloc in the negotiations because they represent the small islands who, up until this point, have been the moral voice of the negotiations owing to their focus on sea-level rise and the right to survival. There are the least developed countries, the African group and the ideologically left South American countries: Bolivia is key among them, also Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and others. There is also the BASIC grouping of emerging developing countries, not negotiating as a bloc, yet meeting regularly in an effort to coordinate positions. This group is viewed with suspicion by other developing countries. There is also the Arab group which overlaps with the African group.

What happened after the debacle in Copenhagen was that Bolivia went on to organise a large conference in Cochabamba in 2010. The idea came about as the Copenhagen meeting had failed miserably since the developed countries had tried to force the Copenhagen Accord onto other countries. Countries including Tuvalu, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Sudan basically rejected the Copenhagen Accord and there was no formal decision at that meeting. So Bolivia organised a World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth to bring together governments, civil society, and climate justice and social movements to discuss and address this issue. The idea was that it was supposed to be democratic and open to the peoples of the world to decide on this fundamental issue. There is much we can draw on from this.

The problem is what developed countries are trying to do: They acknowledge that climate change is a problem (some sectors in the US don’t acknowledge it is a problem and that is another problem altogether), however, their approach to solving the problem is incorrect. What they are trying to do, instead of acknowledging that they are the ones responsible for the problem, is to push the burden onto developing countries. This is an injustice.

They are trying to push climate change mitigation onto the BASIC countries in particular with the argument that their emissions are growing considerably hence they are responsible for a lot of the climate problem. Historical responsibility is not considered, as the developed countries argue that they can’t be responsible for the actions of generations before them, and what matters is emissions today. The US is saying that China’s absolute emissions today are bigger than their own, yet on a per capita basis, US emissions are still much greater than China’s. They are also not considering their historical responsibility, and this is fundamentally unfair.

What developed countries are also doing, instead of meeting reductions domestically, is to basically buy them from developing countries. This is possible with market mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism in the Kyoto Protocol. Instead of effecting domestic emission reductions, developed countries can pay developing countries to mitigate for them. On paper they meet their obligations, but actually the emission reductions are made elsewhere. Developing countries are trying to expand the market mechanisms and introduce new ones.

What developed countries are also trying to do is to use accounting loopholes that will allow them to show on paper that they have reduced emissions, when in reality, they have not made these emissions reductions.

They are also trying to deny finance and technology transfers to developing countries. What of the $100 billion that was first mentioned in the Copenhagen Accord? This is basically re-programmed aid money and it is not a pledge to give $100 billion, it is a pledge to help mobilise $100 billion, and that would include mobilising it from developing countries.

Developed countries have also been trying to push the problem of adaptation back onto developing countries. They are really not going to pass on the finance and technology, but instead leave the problem to developing countries to deal with themselves.

All of this plays out in the climate negotiations and has crystallised into the fight over what kind of emissions reduction system we should adopt. Up until this point we have always had a system of legally binding international commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. Countries came together under the UN to say this is what we need to do because the science calls for it and we will negotiate as such and have an international agreement because it is an international problem. There is already a system for accounting, review, reporting and compliance and all of this is agreed and binding internationally.

However, what is happening now is that the US is promoting a system of bottom-up domestic pledges. They are pledging to reduce their emissions by around three per cent based on 1990 levels. They are resisting common accounting, reporting and review rules, and instead talk about “the sunshine of transparency”. They do not envisage a system with international compliance but a reliance on domestic legislation. However, it is clear that they are not going to have any climate legislation in the near future, so they can’t even promise that their pledge will be in domestic legislation, they merely state that this is what they are pledging to do domestically.

What is happening now is that the discussions have shifted. Countries like Canada, Russia and Japan are using the US as an excuse and have said that they will not commit to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. Instead, developed countries are pushing for a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, and the new treaty that they want will likely legalise a domestic pledge and review system. This is now the fundamental fight that is playing out in the climate negotiations over the Kyoto Protocol.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS AND AFRICAN AGENDA

Thank you Chair.  I am speaking on behalf of the Climate Justice Network (CJN)

Environmental sound and socially just technologies, that respectfully integrate traditional forms of knowledge and livelihoods, are part of the solution to the climate crisis and they need to be supported.

Instead, “technology transfer” in these negotiations is seen as a way for large companies to showcase their products, gain global market access and protect their patent monopolies.  Technology transfer should help developing countries access to the technologies they need to confront the climate crisis, a crisis ironically caused mostly by these same companies and industrialized countries.

An agreement on technology in Cancun that is not precautionary will launch untested and high-risk technologies on the global market place: carbon capture and storage, biochar, industrial plantations and other forms of so called “bio-energy”. Multinational companies are stockpiling patents on “climate-ready crops”, undermining the ability of small-scale farmers to adapt and strengthen their own resilience to climate change by making them dependent on multinational seed corporations. This new push for industrial agriculture and the corporate grab on biomass  will increase, not decrease, greenhouse gas emissions.

To prevent dumping of dangerous technologies and new patent monopolies on the South, any new Technology Mechanism must have the mandate to evaluate the social and environmental impacts of new climate technologies and to fully include civil society, Indigenous Peoples and affected communities in its deliberations.  All bodies that will constitute the Technology Mechanism must be directly accountable to the COP and must have clear mechanisms for transparency and public participation. Intellectual property on all forms of life and on technologies to confront climate crisis has to be radically challenged.

- More informations and reports on the subject: http://www.etcgroup.org/en

- Official side Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI): http://unfccc.int/documentation/documents/advanced_search/items/3594.php?rec=j&priref=600005946#beg

Thank you Chair.  I will speak on behalf of the Climate Justice Now network (CJN).

Environmentally sound and socially just technologies that integrate and respect traditional knowledge and livelihoods are part of the solution to climate crisis and need to be supported.

But often, “technology transfer” in these negotiations seem rather to be a way for big companies to expand their markets and patent monopolies.

An agreement on technology that is not precautionary will result in the release of untested and high-risk technologies: carbon capture and storage, biochar, more industrial plantations and monocultures and other forms of so-called “bio-energy”. Multinational companies are stockpiling patents on “climate-ready crops”, undermining the ability of farmers to adapt to climate change, by making them dependent on patented seeds. Increasing industrial agriculture and this corporate grab on biomass will increase, not decrease, greenhouse gas emissions.

Therefore, a new Technology Mechanism must have the mandate to evaluate the social and environmental impact of technologies and to fully include civil society, indigenous peoples and affected communities. All bodies must be transparent, accountable to the COP, and have clear mechanisms for public participation. Intellectual property on all forms of life and on technologies to confront the climate crisis should be abolished.