Author: Peter J. Wood, ANU

The UNFCCC COP16 climate conference has come to a successful conclusion with a series of decisions that are known as the Cancún Agreements. On the morning of the final day, there were tense moments, and it was unclear whether there would be much progress at all. But after the draft texts were circulated, the Mexican Foreign Minister, Patricia Espinosa, convened an ‘informal plenary’ where she said that in these texts, every Party had been listened to, and after two hours for people to examine the texts, the plenary will reconvene. There was then sustained applause and a standing ovation. From that moment on, there was a great sense of hope that there would be a positive outcome.

The main decision results from the work of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action. Read more…

Author: Peter J. Wood, ANU

In the final days of the COP16/CMP6 Conference, the negotiators at Cancún are currently trying to negotiate a ‘balanced package’ – also known as a ‘six-pack’, which combines progress on mitigation, transparency (measurement, reporting and verification – or MRV), adaptation, finance, technology, and REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation). The Mexicans are extremely determined to get some sort of outcome from the conference – both for the climate and for multilateral negotiations. They so far seem to have been quite confident in the way that they have facilitated the negotiations, and there seems to be much more trust in the Mexicans from the parties than there was for the Danes last year.

What is uncertain is how ‘good’ the decisions will be – in terms of criteria such as ambition (including capacity to ramp up ambition later), efficiency and equity; how detailed the decisions will be; and whether there is sufficient consensus to get a package of decisions at all. Read more…

Author: Peter J. Wood, ANU

Proposals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by putting a price on carbon are presently stalled in both the United States and Australia.

In the United States, one of the key drafters of a bipartisan climate bill, Senator Lindsey Graham, has recently dropped out of the effort to back the bill over a dispute with the Senate on immigration reform legislation and because of problems arising from the gulf oil spill. Prior to the spill, the bill aimed to get support from wavering Senators by encouraging the expansion of offshore drilling—this is now not politically possible. Read more…