  Outgoing UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer | Credit: UNFCCC
By IDN Environment Desk
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
(IDN) - Sanguinity mingled with scepticism as the latest round of global climate change talks concluded on June 11, with the UN's top official Yvo de Boer -- who is being succeeded by Christiana Figueres -- cautioning against bringing in "legal rigour" in the negotiations.
IUCN’s Claire Parker welcomed "the renewed spirit of cooperation and confidence governments showed in Bonn", Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) warned that U.S. intransigence was threatening vital progress in the talks.
However, Parker -- who headed the delegation of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) to Bonn talks -- said: ". . . the resumed efforts towards designing the architecture of the new climate regime are yet to yield concrete results."
The Bonn gathering was attended by more than 5,500 participants, including government delegates from 185 governments, along with representatives from business and industry, environmental organisations and research institutions.
In a farewell address to delegates, Yvo de Boer said: "The first issue is the ultimate outcome that you are working towards. For many, that way forward is a legally binding agreement. This seems like a strong point of convergence, but you know that the words 'legally binding' mean different things to different people. This is good, because it offers an opportunity to define the concept in much broader terms than internationally binding rich-country targets alone."
He added: "Legal rigour and ambition are, in and of themselves, not a sine qua non. Perhaps even the opposite. Rigorous sanctions combined with a lack of clarity on tools and incentives are more likely to engender caution than bravery."
Briefing the media on the Bonn talks, Yvo der Boer said "important progress towards concluding what was left incomplete at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen" in December 2009 had been made.
"A big step forward is now possible at Cancun (November 29 to December 10), in the form of a full package of operational measures that will allow countries to take faster, stronger action across all areas of climate change," he added.
The secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) explained in a statement for the media that progress was made at the Bonn meeting in fleshing out the specifics of how a climate regime can work in practice.
The Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) had undertaken detailed discussions on reducing greenhouse gases, adapting to the inevitable effects of climate change, the transfer of clean technology, reducing emissions from deforestation and capacity building, along with finance and institutional arrangements.
The chair of the negotiating group tasked to develop a long-term response to climate change had tabled a text that seeks to address the wider interests of all Parties, and was requested by Parties to the UNFCCC to compile a revised version by the next negotiating session in August in Bonn.
A second working group on future climate action, focussing on emissions reduction commitments for the 37 industrialised countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, also met in Bonn, said the UNFCCC secretariat.
In this group, countries started work on turning the emission reduction pledges that developed countries made since Copenhagen into targets that can be formally compared in a UN negotiating context.
The outgoing Executive Secretary called on the negotiators to begin an in-depth consideration of the legal nature of any new agreement or set of agreements. He also said that it was essential to take a "cold look" at the 76 emission reduction and emission limitation pledges that have been made by developed and developing countries since the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
All industrialised countries have pledged emission reduction targets, and 39 developing countries have pledged voluntary actions to limit their greenhouse gas emissions.
"The fact remains industrial country pledges fall well short of the -25-40 percent range the IPCC has said gives a 50 percent chance to keep the global temperature rise below 2 degrees," he said. "Take all current pledges and plans from all countries and we still won't stop emissions growing in the next 10 years," he added.
The pledges made by rich countries so far add up to about 12-19 percent of emissions over 1990 levels by 2020. Industrialized countries as a group have indicated their willingness to take on a -80 percent goal for 2050.
"I believe the future will deliver this goal," said Yvo de Boer. "But more stringent actions cannot be much longer postponed. Otherwise, the 2 degree world will be in danger, and the door to a 1.5 world will have slammed shut," he added.
DETRIMENTAL
"The position of the U.S. in the UN climate negotiations is becoming so detrimental that parties should consider reaching agreement on industrial countries emission cuts without U.S. agreement," according to FoEI.
U.S. influence has been felt in action which threatens the integrity of the architecture to tackle climate change through the UNFCCC process -- in particular proposals to collapse the current two tracks of the negotiations into one, said FoEI.
Friends of the Earth International is warning that Developed ('Annex I') countries including Japan and Russia are using the U.S. position as an escape hatch from strong, binding commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
The U.S. is wavering on taking 'comparable action' in one of the two tracks of the talks, in the strand under Long Term Cooperative Action. While they propose a system of voluntary pledges with no compliance regulation other rich countries are under the Kyoto-Protocol obliged to agree new legally binding emissions cuts from 2012 onwards.
"The U.S. has blocked progress at every turn during the last two weeks and negotiators and civil society are beginning to ask whether the U.S. is slowing progress to such a degree that it is worth waiting for them to come on board at all. They are pulling far too many strings behind the scenes, which is proving detrimental to the whole process," Meena Raman, of Friends of the Earth Malaysia, said
The two weeks of Bonn negotiations has also seen wrangling over rules for forestry in rich countries -- called LULUCF, or Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry -- which, if agreed, could see rich countries reap a windfall of over 400 million tonnes of emissions credits which would enable them to avoid taking strong action to cut emissions domestically, through investing in a massive rollout of renewable energy, for example.
Antje von Brook, Head of International Climate at Friends of the Earth Germany, said: "Ironically, all these loopholes in emissions targets which negotiators have been grappling with for the last two weeks -- from forestry, hot air and carbon offsetting -- were only inserted at the insistence of the U.S. in 1997 to try to get them on board with the Kyoto Protocol.
"Yet, now the U.S. is outside the Protocol and distancing themselves even further from agreeing strong, legally binding targets to cut emissions and other countries are accommodating this to a quite astonishing degree."
Kate Horner, of Friends of the Earth U.S., said: "President Obama must earn his stripes on climate change -- the US is more engaged in the process now, yes, compared to the Bush years, but appears to be engaging only with the intent of dismantling the architecture it has taken years to build to tackle the problem.
"The price is nothing less than condemning millions of the world's poorest people to a future coping with the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change."
NO TIME TO WAIT
"Not only did the Copenhagen summit not meet its objective of adopting a legally binding agreement, it also damaged confidence in the whole process," said Parker, head of the IUCN delegation.
"While a final global deal on climate change is not yet in sight, climate action cannot wait. April 2010 was the warmest month on record for land and sea temperature combined. Much deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions than the ones currently on the table are needed to keep global warming below 2°C. Failure to do so will lead to irreversible damage to livelihoods and ecosystems on which we all depend," IUCN warned in a note for the media.
It pointed out that after positive movements in Copenhagen, REDD (Reducing Deforestation from Forest Degradation and Deforestation) and REDD-plus (conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks) did not get the attention it deserved in Bonn.
"The adoption of a legally binding and ambitious international climate change regime is a crucial element in the global fight against climate change,” said Ninni Ikkala, IUCN Climate Change Coordinator.
"However, IUCN emphasizes that action on the ground, in rural communities and cities around the world, can and must be taken now, without waiting for international negotiations to reach a conclusion."
The next UNFCCC negotiating session is scheduled to take place August 2-6 in Bonn, followed by a second one-week inter-sessional meeting (precise date and location yet to be agreed) before the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun. (IDN-InDepthNews/11.06.2010)
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