Det har vært nye forhandlinger under FNs klimakonvensjon den siste uka, hvor man har fulgt opp resultatene fra Københavnmøtet. Det er lyspunkter, men også mye som er bekymringsfullt, heter det i dette referatet fra Norges forhandlingsdelegasjon.

- For første gang siden København har vi nå forhandlet om konkrete forslag til løsninger og beslutninger, sier Norges forhandlingsleder Aud Lise Norheim. Imidlertid viser det seg at avstanden mellom partene i forhandlingene er nesten like stor som før Københavnmøtet.

Spesielt bekymringsfullt er det at noen land nå ser ut til å gå bort fra den politiske enigheten som ligger nedfelt i Københavnavtalen, samt spørsmål man tidligere har hatt enighet om. Vi har også et klart inntrykk av at enkelte land har interesse av å trenere forhandlingene, forteller Norheim. Dette har blant rammet forhandlingene om redusert avskoging i u-land, hvor Norge har arbeidet aktivt gjennom flere år for å få en internasjonal mekanisme på plass.

Videre har det vært problematiske diskusjoner om systemer for å måle, rapportere og følge opp utslippsreduksjoner i u-land. Et viktig spørsmål her er balansen mellom kravene til rapportering og revisjon av i-landenes forpliktelser, og å få innsyn i u-landenes tiltak. Norge har lagt vekt på at vi må få en bedre og mer systematisk oppfølging av u-landene, samtidig som vi også ser at det må stilles strengere krav til i-landene i en ny avtale.

På den positive siden har man for alvor startet diskusjonen om utforming av en ny juridisk avtale. For Norge er det svært viktig at vi har en juridisk forpliktende avtale, som ikke kan legges til side ved første korsvei. Mange land deler Norges syn om at Kyotoprotokollen må suppleres med en bindende avtale for store utslippsland og for USA.

Det er lite realistisk å få på plass en slik avtale i Cancún. Høyst sannsynlig vil man kunne få enighet om et knippe konkrete beslutninger som tar for seg de enkelte forhandlingsspørsmålene. Det vil da være nødvendig at man får et tydelig mandat om å sluttføre en juridisk bindende avtale året etter.

　

Dim Prospects for Climate Accord

Heat waves and deadly floods notwithstanding, an effective global climate change treaty is not on the horizon, Sara Kuepfer Thakkar comments for ISN Security Watch.

Delegates from 190 countries gathered in Bonn last week for the UN Climate Change Confererence in preparation for the sixth meeting of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which will take place in Cancun, Mexico this November. In Cancun, world leaders are expected to craft a follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012.

Yet already four months prior to the Cancun Summit, hopes for reaching a binding global climate accord are dwindling rapidly among negotiation insiders.

Clearly, the (perhaps overblown) global optimism prior to last year’s Copenhagen Summit, reinforced by hopes that newly elected US President Barack Obama would finally lead the world into a new, environmentally more responsible era, has all but vanished.

Despite Obamas support in principle for US action on climate change, the US Senate, trapped in the grip of special-interest groups and public campaigns against climate science led by powerful corporate interests, has so far dwarfed any attempts to pass climate legislation. The latest signal in this direction came on 22 July, when the US Senate abandoned efforts to pass a comprehensive climate change and energy bill. And if the Republicans gain new seats in the mid-term elections later this year, as widely predicted, the prospects for climate legislation in 2011 or 2012 continue to look dim.

Although climate change is a global problem, US policy on the issue will be crucial to move things forward. As long as the historically largest emitter of greenhouse gases fails to make a clear commitment to cut emissions, big developing countries like China and India are unlikely to move on this front.

Developing and developed nations again clashed in Bonn, this time on the issue of forest offsets - ie, the use of carbon markets to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).

Last years Copenhagen Accord endorsed the idea of creating market incentives through REDD and forest carbon trading, and developed nations have remained keen on implementing such a system. If a multilateral cap-and-trade agreement, modeled on the Kyoto Protocol but this time including developing nations, came into place, it would allow wealthy countries like the US to ‘cut’ their emissions not by actually reducing their own CO2 consumption but by buying carbon credits from other countries.

A July visit to South Americaby US Special Envoy for Climate Change, Todd Stern, has raised suspicions that the US is eying its forest-rich southern neighbors to do just that.

When visiting Peru this summer, Stern reportedly sought to secure collaboration between the US and Amazon Basin countries to create an ‘Amazon REDD’ program, which would eventually allow the US to purchase carbon credits from Amazon Basin countries to offset US greenhouse gas emissions at home.

However, carbon offsets are extremely difficult to both verify and quantify. Also, they can provide convenient loopholesfor polluting nations to hide their actual increasesin greenhouse gas emissions behind a veil of mathematical complexity.

Furthermore, REDD would only compensate a country for those forested areas it was already planning to clear. It is a system that is ultimately based on hypotheticals that are impossible to adequately quantify.

Looking for easy solutions in other countries backyards seems to be the current tactic adopted by wealthy nations. Yet although the idea that wealthy nations monetarily support forest conservation efforts in poor countries is commendable, it should not become a way for developed states to avoid cutting their domestic emissions.