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: Jonas Parello-Plesner, European Council on Foreign Relations

There are a couple of certainties about Cancun. It will not bring a global deal. The US will try to focus the agenda on a lack of transparency in China’s emissions control efforts — to cover the fact that the US also brings nothing substantial to the table and is stuck in an anachronistic, fuel-guzzling economy and mindset. Chinese negotiators will arrive with their usual arguments, but equipped with better PR techniques for making sure they aren’t seen as the game stopper — the real lesson they took away from Copenhagen. The poorer countries will clamour for more aid for both mitigation and adaption to climate change. The EU’s credibility among other key players will be slightly dented by its current internal skirmishes on moving from 20 per cent to 30 per cent reductions by 2020. At the end of these two weeks in Mexico, those who aspire to a global deal will be directed towards 2011 and South Africa, and few will believe that it can happen there either. Finally, the summit will be a lot warmer than Copenhagen, and the general world temperature will continue to rise, as the scientists keep telling us.

The conclusion is that big global deals are off – at least for the time being. That’s the short, and somewhat depressing, summary. Read more…

Author: Peter Sheehan, Victoria University

The COP15 meeting at Copenhagen in December 2009 has been a watershed in international climate negotiations, both in terms of outcomes and of our understanding of the problems involved in reaching agreement. Widely regarded as a failure because no universal, binding agreement to reduce emissions was achieved, it did produce two notable outcomes: a shared commitment to hold peak global warming to less than 2⁰C and the provision by many countries, under the framework of the Copenhagen Accord, of new commitments to reduce future emissions. It also sharpened debate about what type of agreement should be aimed for – top down or bottom up, legally binding or not, and so on.

As observed in the East Asia Forum by Dr Stephen Howes, COP15 collapsed under the weight of inflated expectations. Read more…

Author: Junichi Fujino, NIES

It is highly likely that there is going to be a gap between the Kyoto Protocol commitment period (2008-2012) and the commitment period thereafter. Industrialised countries such as Japan and the United States are facing difficulties passing climate change bills. Under such circumstances, it will be difficult to expect an agreement on a post-Kyoto framework at the 16th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP16) in Cancun, Mexico. Even if the international community were able to agree on one at COP17 next year, it would nonetheless be difficult to obtain a sufficient number of ratifications for it to enter into force in 2012.

One Chinese energy expert stated recently, in conversation on the topic of China’s target for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, ‘China has played the card of reducing emissions regardless of what other states do. The United States has not yet passed the bill through Congress. Japan’s plan is conditional, leaving its actual emissions cut uncertain. Now it is your turn to play a card.’ Read more…