A recently published COP15 briefing guide from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), a London-based non-profit research institute, offers five possible outcomes from the COP15 negotiations beginning next week in Copenhagen.
If you know little about the climate change negotiations process, this briefing is a very good place to start.
Beyond the headlines of country emissions targets, and the much less-voiced need for genuine assistance to the developing world, lies the fact that as a community of nations — friend and foe alike — a new international agreement on how we will tackle climate change is in the works. And will be until one is agreed upon.
The 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) , which came into force in 1994 with 192 Parties (nations) including the United States, is an evolutionary process.
On the 15-year road to Copenhagen, the Parties have ushered in the Kyoto Protocol, the first treaty attempt at binding global emissions targets, and today we’re seeking its improved successor.
What will its form take?
This briefing lays out the issues, the players, the hot topics and possible outcomes in concise style, and importantly to Third Planet, comes from the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) an independent non-profit research institute working in the field of sustainable development since its launch in 1971 by one of our all-time favorites, Barbara Ward (1914-1981). (Barbara Ward, an economist, wrote Spaceship Earth in 1966, co-authored Only One Earth: The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet with René Dubos in 1972, and wrote many other books on sustainable development. She was considered a pioneer in sustainable development long before the term came into popular use.)
The following comes directly from the IIED briefing.
Governments gather in Denmark in December 2009 for what is perhaps the most important meeting since the end of the second world war. December is the deadline they have set themselves for agreeing on action to tackle climate change, and the COP15 conference in Copenhagen is where hopes are high that a new global deal can be struck …
Negotiators in each [Ad Hoc Working Group] track must agree [to the] text for parties to the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol to adopt at COP15. Whatever happens, COP15 will have a fundamental impact for years as some of its possible outcomes are legally binding and others are not. – iied Briefing, November 2009
These are the five possible outcomes as seen by IIED:
- No agreement. COP15 could end without agreement, with the expectation that talks resume in 2010.
- A decision or set of decisions. This is the weakest agreed outcome, but could be combined with one of the following stronger outcomes.
- A political ‘implementing agreement’ that is not legally binding and through which each state decides its own goals and how to reach them according to domestic laws. This is favoured by the United States, but opponents say that unless the targets are internationally binding, and there is a compliance mechanism to enforce them, such an agreement will be flouted. Developing nations also fear that national approaches could allow developed nations to use domestic laws to discriminate against their exports if their production entails emissions.
- A single new legally binding agreement (Copenhagen Protocol) that replaces the Kyoto Protocol and includes additional issues such as adaptation to climate change impacts. Such an agreement could include mitigation commitments for the United States, plus actions for major developing nations.
- Two protocols. An amended Kyoto Protocol that improves on what has already been negotiated plus a new legally binding agreement as described above. Most developing nations want this.
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Download the excellent IIED Briefing here:
http://www.iied.org/climate-change/media/cop15-for-journalists-guide-un-climate-change-summit