Slow progress

Seven more multilateral meetings will take place to prepare the next Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen (UNFCCC) in December 2009. Things will have to speed up if negotiators are to have a treaty ready for ratification by then. The gap between north and south remains huge. Poor nations demand across-the-board emission cuts from rich countries, as well as financial aid to help the developing world adapt to climate change. Many industrialised countries still want poorer nations – especially China and India – to commit to binding emission cuts of their own.

In Bangkok in April, delegates from 162 countries came together to hammer out a roadmap for talks, following the COP in Bali in December. After a near collapse, Bali achieved an agreement to step up efforts towards a treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto protocol, which will expire in 2012. “Stalemate so far” is the assessment of Hermann Ott of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. “Canada, Japan and the US want developing countries to make substantive commitments.” But the rich world must put money on the table, Ott argues, to give those nations a chance to “leapfrog the fossil fuel age and help them reach the solar age”.

Ott acknowledges, however, that the world is heading for disaster should China’s and India’s economies continue to grow at breakneck speed, emitting ever more greenhouse gases. He says the rich nations should help them uncouple those trends.

Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UNFCC office agrees. Developing countries cannot be expected to take steps on their own and rein in emissions, he says, because they need to eradicate poverty. “We are not going to see major developing country engagement unless significant financial resources and technology flows begin to be mobilised,” says de Boer.

Like Bali, recent talks in Bangkok were in danger of derailing as poor countries balked at a Japanese proposal to set targets for industries-specific emission reductions instead of national goals. That approach would force steel plants and cement producers, for instance, to install new technology. Discussing this proposal, however, was postponed until a meeting in Ghana in August. Before, climate experts will gather in
Bonn in June to focus on issues of funding and technology. The year will wrap up with a major climate summit in Poland in December.

“It’s quite frightening to see how many issues have to be clarified this year,” says John Hay, chief spokesman of the UNFCCC. While he lauds the EU for its goal of reducing its greenhouse gases by 20%, industrialised countries over all need to get moving. Japan, a Kyoto signatory, is scrambling to meet its commitments under the treaty, but has not instituted any mandatory cuts yet. The world’s largest greenhouse gas polluter, the United States, has so far refused binding caps.

The USA seems to be changing its stance. President George W. Bush withdrew from Kyoto immediately after taking office in 2001. Last month, however, he proposed for the first time to cap US carbon emissions by 2025. Critics dismiss the lame-duck president’s proposal as “too little and too late”. Other countries are already exploring ways to cut their emissions below 1990 levels. It seems unlikely that much will change in the US before a new president takes office in January next year. The three main presidential contenders all support tougher action on climate change.

Will 2009 end with a new climate change treaty? Experts agree that the path remains uncertain and difficult. Marcelo Furtado of Greenpeace Brazil said after the Bangkok talks: “If we took all these hours to agree on a work plan, one can only imagine what will happen when the real negotiations take place.” Scientists agree that greenhouse gas emissions need to be stabilised within 15 years, and halved by 2050, to avoid the potential ravages of global warming for millions, such as increased storms, droughts and rising sea levels.

Thomas Marzahl