Kyoto Protocol second commitment period remains elusive

Even as scientific evidence mounts on worsening climate change, developed countries are not willing to meet their legal obligations to make deep greenhouse gas emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol.

Chee Yoke Ling and Hilary Chiew

BY the end of the most recent round of climate talks in Bangkok (30 August to 5 September), there was no movement from developed countries to increase the level of their ambition with regard to emissions reduction - the low pledges, subject to many conditions, made in Durban, South Africa last December remain unchanged.

The first commitment period for emission reductions under the Kyoto Protocol ends on 31 December 2012, and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) has been negotiating since 2005 to reach a new set of targets to commence on 1 January 2013.

The seventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 7) that met in Durban failed to finalise the details of the second commitment period and another year was given to do so.

The outstanding issues carried forward from the Durban CMP 7 include the following: the length of the KP second commitment period (five  or eight years); quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives (QELROs), converted from the pledges made by Annex I Parties; implications of the carry-over of assigned amount units (AAUs) from the first commitment period; access to the KP mechanisms for Parties that are not participating in a second commitment period; and legal issues to ensure the smooth transition from the first to the second commitment period.

Delegates at the Bangkok meeting worked in two groups: a contact group that exchanged views on the outstanding political issues and way forward, and a spin-off group on numbers/text, including QELROs, options of AAUs carry-over and the review (of second commitment period QELROs). The spin-off group was co-facilitated by Jrgen Lefevere (EU) and Sandea de Wet (South Africa), and it continued discussions that started in May in Bonn when the AWG-KP reconvened after Durban. 

There were also informal consultations (continued from Bonn) by the AWG-KP Chair Madeleine Diouf (Senegal) and the Vice-Chair Jukka Uosukainen (Finland) on the legal and procedural issues relating to transition to the second commitment period.

The additional meeting in Bangkok was aimed at resolving the outstanding issues so that the AWG-KP can successfully complete its work at the next CMP in Doha, Qatar in December 2012. The AWG-KP started its work in 2005, but the reluctance of several developed-country Parties to comply with their KP obligations, as well as Canada's withdrawal from the Protocol altogether, has resulted in years of delay. At the same time, Japan and Russia are not participating in the second commitment period (CP2). Australia, Monaco and New Zealand as well as Kazakhstan and Ukraine (economies in transition that are Annex I Parties) have not submitted their QELROs yet.

(Observers say that a gap between the end of the first commitment period - 31 December 2012 - and the beginning of the next period is increasingly inevitable since it will take time for ratifications to the amendment of the KP incorporating the second commitment period. In addition, some Parties will need to undergo domestic legislative steps to implement their international obligations. Different Parties and groups of countries have submitted proposals to avoid/address such a gap.)

A meaningful KP second commitment period was part of the package that led to the acceptance by developing countries of the 'Durban Platform' decision to start a new ad hoc working group to work on an agreement to be effective from 2020. Developing countries expressed disappointment over the substance and pace of the Bonn negotiations at the closing of the May plenary of the AWG-KP.

Severe disappointment

The situation did not change at the Bangkok meeting, with none of the outstanding issues closer to resolution.

During the closing plenary on 5 September of the AWG-KP's informal additional meeting, the African Group expressed severe disappointment over the lack of movement by Annex I Parties in raising the level of ambition for emission reductions. A joint statement by the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) lamented that the environmental integrity of the KP, which is the only legally binding treaty, is eroding before our eyes. A group of 23 developing countries in a joint statement described the KP as being in an extremely sad state of affairs that bodes ill not only for the future of the current climate regime but, even more so, for the lives and prospects for better and more sustainable living conditions of the billions of people that their countries represent.

An informal paper dated 5 September was circulated in Bangkok, the 'Vice-Chair's non-paper on possible elements for a Doha decision adopting the Kyoto Protocol amendments'. This is an updated version of the non-paper circulated by the AWG-KP Vice-Chair in May, and contains proposals from several Parties and groups of Parties placed under the following headings: preamble; adoption of the amendments contained in the annex to the decision (on the commencement date and length of the second commitment period); urging Parties to ratify the amendments in an expedited manner with a view to facilitating their prompt entry into force; provisional application; any additional language related to legal continuity; operational and technical continuity; any outstanding consequential revisions of the previous CMP decisions, including by linking to any outstanding work under the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA); other.

A second updated paper at the end of the Bangkok meeting was from the work of the spin-off group, titled the 'Co-facilitators' non-paper on proposed amendments to the Kyoto Protocol' with two options from the December 2011 Durban decision 1/CMP.7 and a third received from AOSIS dated 14 May 2012. This paper contains, among others, options for a table of the QELROs for each Annex I Party that will replace the current one in Annex B to the Protocol. The numerous conditions attached to many pledges/QELROs are also listed.

There is widespread concern that the ambition level of those Annex I Parties that have submitted the range of figures is not high enough for a meaningful CP2. ˙According to the AOSIS submission, the aggregate reduction for participating developed countries (relative to 1990 levels, and for a five-year commitment period ending in 2017) should be 33%, if the rules proposed by AOSIS are implemented.˙ However, AOSIS estimates that the actual aggregate reduction of participating countries for the five-year period (based on figures supplied by these countries) would only be 23%, thus falling far short of what is needed. Moreover, the EU continues to prefer an eight-year period for the CP2, a period that AOSIS, LDCs and the African Group fear will lock in very insufficient reductions until 2020.

With fundamentally no progress made on the outstanding issues in Bangkok, CMP 8 in Doha thus promises to be very difficult. At the closing plenary of the AWG-KP on 5 September, Chair Diouf announced that she will prepare a text that captures the discussions so far for Doha. This will be available by October to enable Parties to give proper consideration domestically. She added that at the ministerial meeting in Seoul (South Korea) in the second half of October ministers will be able to consider this text in preparation for Doha.    

Chee Yoke Ling is Director of Programmes at the Third World Network. Hilary Chiew is a senior researcher with TWN.

*Third World Resurgence No. 264/265, August/September 2012, pp 17-18