Sergio Abranches

Why the Durban Platform is a political breakthrough, but a dismal outcome in the light of climate science?

The second part of the question is far easier to answer. Negotiators in Durban have agreed to review the pledges for emissions reductions in the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol and Cancun Agreement by 2015 in the light of the fifth assessment report on the state of science, to be released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from September 2013. However, as the IPCC said on a press statement about COP17, “in its fourth assessment report published in 2007, the IPCC showed that a temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius could have a damaging effect on water supplies, biodiversity, food supplies, coastal flooding and storms and health.”

Additionally, the IPCC also states that:

“The fourth assessment report shows that emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming must fall by 2050 by 50-85% globally compared to the emissions of the year 2000, and that global emissions must peak well before the year 2020, with a substantial decline after that, in order to limit the growth in global average temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.”

From the standpoint of science Durban has decided on too little too late.

In the political realm, though, COP17 was a watershed. First of all, it closes a whole chapter of negotiations on commitment periods under the Kyoto Protocol. There will be only a second one, with fewer ratifiers than the first. COP18 will still have to decide whether it will end by 2017 or 2020. There has been no consensus on the end date, and the alternatives ended up within brackets. But the main point has been resolved: it will be replaced by a new “protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties”, no later than 2020. That’s the core decision contained in the Durban Platform.

The above expression is a political breakthrough, one that has been progressively taking shape since COP15, in Copenhagen. There, for the first time ever, the United States and the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) have agreed to offer quantified pledges for emission reductions under the United Nations Climate Convention (UNFCCC). They were voluntary, not legally binding, but they have been formally registered with UNFCCC”s Executive Secretariat. It was a major first step and, at the same time, a frustrating decision.

Much more was expected from the leaders of both developed, and emerging world powers. Besides, the leaders left abruptly, creating an authority gap, between the political summit and the official Conference of the Parties. A weak COP presidency and the resulting authority gap led the plenary to only “take note” of what the leaders had agreed. The Copenhagen Accord was noted as a political decision, but did not become an “official” agreement under the track of the Convention.

The second step towards the breakthrough was made in Cancun. The pledges under the Copenhagen Accord were adopted by the Cancun Agreement, that has also made official several other decisions made in Copenhagen, as well as some that were left to be finalized by COP16, in Mexico. In Cancun, the voluntary commitments became official ones, under the umbrella of the Climate Convention.

In Durban, negotiators from the United States, the BASIC group, and the European Union underlined the official nature of the Cancun Agreement, as a preparation of the groundwork for the Platform to launch the process leading to the new universal agreement with legal force applicable to all parties to the Climate Convention. In a nutshell, it was acknowledged by all relevant parties that these commitments are legal, although not binding. The difference: the Kyoto Protocol, besides being a legal instrument, explicitly states that the targets for the countries (“industrialized countries”) listed on its Annex I are mandatory. The Cancun Agreement is part and parcel of the Climate Convention, therefore it has legal status, but the commitments registered by the parties are voluntary, not mandatory.

Finally, the Durban Platform takes the decisive step: it commits all major emitters outside the Kyoto Protocol to the negotiation of a new agreement with legal force, under which all commitments will have the same legal treatment, although they could be quantitatively differentiated on the basis of each party’s capacities.

This is not an easy decision to make. Even before it is formally adopted it is likely to cause the countries to start planning domestic actions to enable them to meet the targets yet to be defined. It is unrealistic to imagine, as some environmentalists do, that a “top down approach”, by which a decision under the Climate Convention would bind countries to take actions, would ever work.

Even the Kyoto Protocol praised for its “legally binding” status has no enforcement mechanism. What enforcement mechanism could lead Canada to meet its targets for the first period of commitment next year? None at all. Even with UN officials stating that although outside the Protocol it still has the obligation, Canada will likely fail to meet its Kyoto target, and there will hardly be any consequence to its noncompliance.

Politics hardly moves ahead of the facts. It is not a proactive process. It is a responsive one. Politics responds to active interests in economy and society. It seldom reflects even the “inactive majority” or the majority of “public opinion”. Political decisions respond to “active interest groups”, to economic constraints and inducements, and to the domestic correlation of power. Countries that show greater ambition of emissions reductions also have greater active political support from domestic economic and social forces to policies aiming at coping with climate change. Their domestic policies are usually more ambitious than their multilateral commitments.

If one looks at China’s domestic policies to reduce emissions and other forms of pollution, one will easily see that they are far ahead of what Chinese lead negotiators are willing to commit to at the Climate Convention.

Politics, in this sense, consolidates what countries are ripe to commit to at the multilateral level. The approach that really counts, and leads to progress in the negotiations under the Climate Convention is the bottom up one.

What is meaningful and relevant about the Durban process is that over the last three years major developed and emerging countries have become readier to admit to the possibility of a single climate change regime encompassing them all. The US, China, India, and Brazil said that much several times during COP17, and signed into it at the end. This outcome was not guaranteed at the outset of the climate talks. It was the result of intense negotiation and consultation. Negotiators have likely had to obtain a specific mandate from their leaders, in mid-game, to go as far as they’ve gone.

What will happen next will depend on what happens inside each of these countries. The focus of pressure should be domestic politics, rather than diplomatic undertakings. Not that the COP process doesn’t matter. It does, very much. But its main function is not to shape climate change policies to be adopted domestically. It is to consolidate progress on domestic climate change policies at the multilateral level, adding cross-country constraints and global transparency to the agreed actions. This enables, for instance, a network of domestic and global civil society organizations to join forces to act as watchdogs, to ensure that policies are in line with targets. It does make a difference to have a global accounting system for greenhouse gas emissions, and to have a global registry for quantitative targets for emission reductions. These outcomes would strengthen the multilateral regulatory system, and would also give more punch to domestic pressure from civil society and opposition parties in overseeing their government’s implementation of climate change policies.

The year 2015 has become a new milestone for global climate change politics. Two crucial decisions shall be taken at COP21, if the Durban Platform is to be completed. Firstly, the review of the emission reduction commitments to seek coherence with the 2 degrees Celsius target. As pointed before, it is absolutely sure that the new IPCC report will show a serious gap between committed actions and warming trends. If parties are to take their commitments seriously, they’ll have to revise their targets upwards for the period 2015-2020. Secondly, they’ll have to decide on the new “protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties” to be adopted no later than 2020.

The political engine is set to move. The pace and destination it will take will depend on the evolution of domestic economic and social forces over the next three years. Another important factor will be the domestic interplay of interests, and the power of pressure and advocacy groups. Bilateral and multilateral politics do have a role, but never a dominant one. Competition and coalition among nations and groups of nations, also help in shaping decisions. They’ll help to pave the way to future outcomes. But they do so by responding to domestic interests and projecting them on the global arena.

Sergio Abranches

Every delegate is saying the same words here in Cancun. All press briefings and all plenary statements include the same set of keywords to login into the general conversation: balanced package, compromise, transparency. But the deal is depending on the words that have not been said. Unsaid words have become the core password to an agreement.

Keywords need to be clearly defined. This is one the hardest tasks delegates are tackling right now. A goal, can be a “target” – i.e. legally binding – or an “action” – i.e. voluntary, although both can be equally quantified, reported and monitored. Each term or acronym has to be turned into an operational concept.

Take, for instance, the new words for transparency in the vocabulary of the Climate Convention: ICA – International Consultation and Analysis. This was an idea that emerged out of the creativeness and improvisation during the tough and tense negotiations between president Barack Obama and prime-minister Wen Jiabao, on a BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) meeting in the last hours of the Copenhagen Summit. Indian prime-minister Manmohan Singh and Brazilian president Lula da Silva intermediated the talks on transparency, contributing formula after formula that could lead to an understanding. To each formulation Obama agreed to, China would said no. Until they reached the “international consultation and analysis” solution. To that Wen Jiabao said yes. And that’s all they agreed upon about transparency in Copenhagen. Now, everybody has to agree on what these three words entail.

India has a fair idea on this issue, and has circulated a “non-paper” describing the procedures to be labeled as ICA – International Consultation and Analysis. U.S. Chief negotiator wants to know the level of detail to be reported and to whom: a panel of experts? Can other countries make questions, ask for clarifications? It seems that India is ready to say yes to all. So is China. Word is that the three have already reached an agreement on ICA and are about to announce it. A Brazilian diplomat told me that there still are some refinements needed for consensus to be reached. But the Brazilian solution is not very different from what has apparently been agreed upon the other three. To Brazil, ICA should parallel MRV, the monitoring, reporting and verification procedures under the Kyoto Protocol. On his first press briefing Xe Zhenhua, China chief negotiator, said that ICA should have the same frequency of MRVs, and could ask no more than MRVs asks from Annex I countries (Kyoto Protocol). He also said that China and India have already reached consensus on the subject of mechanisms of transparency.

This is the way to go. Specify each set of terms. Put the specifications on paper. Hope that all would add up to a consistent, systemic agreement on climate change. If the parts make an acceptable whole, they would have to agree whether it will become a legally binding agreement or not.

If negotiators agree that the package is to become a legal agreement – either a new Protocol or a Treaty – that will not happen in Cancun. There are hundreds of minute details to deal with, great many specifications to be agreed upon. It may take another year or two of tough drafting before we can have a new global legally binding climate change agreement.

China has already said it has no objection to sign a legally binding agreement. The U.S. said that “the ultimate goal is to reach a legally binding agreement”. Brazil said that “if the package is strong, yes, we should turn it into a legally binding agreement. If decisions are weak, no, we should not crystallize weak compromises on a legal document.” India has not said whether it would enter a legally binding accord. Japan wants a new legally binding agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. All groups representing developing countries as well as developing countries with advanced economies (BASIC, for instance) say the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol is a sine qua non for a new agreement.

Will we have a legally binding deal? Will it be a strong, sufficient deal as far as the science of climate is concerned? The answer is no. Not now. Not in the near future.

Why, then, keep negotiating this impossible deal in the Climate Convention? For two main reasons. First of all, it is a forum where the key issues necessary to design global effective action on climate change can be professionally, technically and politically discussed and negotiated. Secondly, the fact that all countries interact trying to develop a shared view about key climate change issues and are exposed to a high volume flow of cross-information represents an important driver for domestic change. Dialogue and exposure help to increase awareness and knowledge about the possibilities and advantages of tackling climate change and moving towards a low-carbon society. The interaction among countries also creates many opportunities for bilateral and multilateral arrangements regarding specific areas of cooperation on climate change. Delegates are exposed to global and domestic civil society organizations and feel the pressure for action. Entering into conflict resolution situations is an important element of the process of global confidence-building. In short, these demanding days of talks and deals are important to domestic decision-making.

A multilateral institutional setting, and a global legally binding accord on climate change will play an important role in putting together into a coherent whole the legal domestic decisions on climate change. Only a multilateral registry with comparable measurement and reporting procedures will allow all to assess whether their combined action will be sufficient to prevent a climatic catastrophe.

An assembly of more than 190 disparate countries will hardly deliver a strong deal on such a complex matter as climate change. But it provides an institutional setting that help countries to better understand what are the stakes, the costs and benefits of action and inaction and becomes a strong driver for domestic change. These talks have already helped many countries to advance on domestic climate change policies through cross-pressure and cross-fertilization over the years. Afterwards it will provide an adequate institutional setting for the formalization of domestic goals into a multilateral registry of domestic and international legally binding emissions targets.

The unsaid words on which the world depends to tackle climate change will first have to be pronounced in each country’s own language, and legalized by each country’s political system before we can have a strong and binding global accord. And to get there the climate change talks under the UNFCCC are an indispensable tool.

Sérgio Abranches

The BASIC meeting in Rio has had many new developments, but they were not mentioned in the official Joint Statement. Ministers from the BASIC countries shared a growing sentiment that it is unlikely that a second period of commitment to the Kyoto Protocol will ever be agreed by parties to the climate talks. This sense that the Kyoto Protocol is no longer a feasible route will likely change their negotiation strategy in future global climate meetings. India was rather clear about the need fort such a change, proposing that they should, from now on, work towards a single, inclusive global climate change agreement. This was one of the many turns in the discussions among ministers and negotiators that was not in the Joint Statement issued at the end of the meeting.

The BASIC ministers’ joint statement still stresses the importance of the

“two pronged approach, which envisages, on one hand, an ambitious and comprehensive outcome for the negotiations under both the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action under the UNFCCC and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments by Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol.”

Another important sentiment the ministers have shared in their private conversations was that the notion of “historical responsibilities” and “equitable burden sharing” could hardly lead to legally binding responsibilities for developed nations’ past emissions, especially regarding the pre-industrial and early industrial times. CO₂ was not even regarded as a polluting emission at the time. This sobering view has also been concealed by the almost meaningless diplomatic jargon of the communiqué.

“A global goal for emission reductions should be preceded by the definition of a paradigm for equitable burden sharing. They emphasized that equitable access to carbon space must be considered in the context of sustainable development, the right to which is at the heart of the climate change regime, and which demands the implementation of ambitious financing, technological support and capacity building.”

Quantified comparable pledges

What the ministers in Rio have really concluded even though tentatively was that developing nations with advanced economies will have to adequately quantify their share of the burden to curb emissions. To do that they agreed to take the initiative to develop a model to assess their pledges registered under the Copenhagen Accord. A group of high quality experts was present to the discussions and will continue to meet in order to work towards this common assessment. Although there was some opposition to the idea, especially from the Brazilian side, they decided that experts should attempt to make all BASIC pledges comparable, and equally measurable, reportable and verifiable. Ideally, they should try to find a common base to convert all pledges to a single measure.

This goal of comparable pledges on a single base was particularly defended by India and South Africa. China gave it a reluctant support at the end, probably conditional on deliberation by the Chinese top leadership. Brazil didn’t veto the initiative, although opposed to it. The general feeling, however, was that the Brazilian government will give no material support to the group of experts.

South African experts have presented what appears to be a very interesting preliminary model, considering multiple indicators. There was a general feeling that it could serve as a starting point for the development of  a methodology to assess the pledges and measure their real implications for the continued economic and social development of the countries. The South African minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Buyelwa Sonjica, stressed her country’s great interest on this technical work.

Less words, more numbers

What became clear from the discussions is that the BASIC countries will have to abandon rhetorical demands and start to table sound technical proposals at climate talks. Instead of saying, as they still do, that their contribution to the global goal of emissions reductions cannot impose restrictions to their development goals, they will have to show the real effect of their pledges on their economies. The Joint Statement still refers to the “equitable access to carbon space in the context of sustainable development”, but they all know this has become an empty phrase. Very soon they will have to put actual numbers on the table to add value to this demand in future negotiations. This quantification of pledges, their requirements and impact will also be necessary to assess the financial needs of these larger developing economies to contribute to global emissions reductions efforts. Finance is an important issue for South Africa and India. China and Brazil would be able to finance most of their own climate change programs, especially on their initial stages.

That is what is in between the lines of the joint statement, when it says that the ministers

“underlined the need for further collaboration among BASIC experts on this issue, with a view to understanding the economic, social, scientific and technical implications of equitable access to carbon space and strengthening a common consideration of this matter.”

MRVs

China’s top climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, has caused some surprise when he proposed that the methodology for MRVs (measurable, reportable, and verifiable actions) should be discussed and developed by the group of experts. MRVs will be on the agenda of the next meeting to be held in Beijing in October. This is another area where there is a considerable distance between what the BASIC countries actually think and what they keep saying in public.

The Joint Statement says that the ministers

“noted the distinction between MRV of emission reduction commitments by developed countries, which is related to compliance and comparability, and MRV of nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) by developing countries, which is related to transparency. Ministers emphasized that work on the MRV of international support must advance urgently, including through the development of common procedures for the reporting of finance. They underscored that only supported NAMAs should be subject to international MRV, in conjunction with the MRV of international support, while non-supported NAMAs will apply a domestic MRV. International consultations and analysis of information regarding non-supported actions would be useful to enhance transparency, through a multilateral technical exchange under the UNFCCC.”

But in their conversations the ministers have shared the conviction that the Copenhagen pledges won’t escape being submitted to some MRV procedure still to be agreed upon. They know that to “non-supported NAMAs” that were registered as official pledges under the Copenhagen Accord will apply something more than “a domestic MRV”. They therefore concluded that the best thing to do is to be proactive and forward a methodology that could meet the terms of the Copenhagen Accord. That’s the true meaning of the phrase “international consultations and analysis of information regarding non-supported actions would be useful to enhance transparency, through a multilateral technical exchange under the UNFCCC”.

It was agreed that a starting point to develop this new form of MRV to meet the Copenhagen Accord requirements could be the procedure already adopted to review the national communications of emissions. National communications are reviewed by a group composed of representatives of the developed and developing countries, an UNFCCC technical official, and an independent expert.

It is interesting that the Joint Statement does not explicitly mention the Copenhagen Accord, although most of the technical issues they have agreed to pursue are associated to the pledges made under the Accord. The only mention to Copenhagen is indirect and related to finance.

There is no reference to Copenhagen when the Statement informs their position on MRVs, and the communiqué does not convey transparently what they have really concluded about  the need to develop an MRV methodology to meet the Accord’s transparency requirements. This was an issue arduously negotiated between President Obama and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in a historical meeting of the BASIC countries at the last hours of the Copenhagen Summit. Obama and Wen Jiabao discussed for a couple of hours the MRV issue and reached an agreement with the active intermediation of India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Brazilian President Lula da Silva. It is a good sign that the Chinese government is trying to honor what they have agreed. The relevant line of the Accord in this regard reads

“Non-Annex I Parties will communicate information on the implementation of their actions through National Communications, with provisions for international consultations and analysis under clearly defined guidelines that will ensure that national sovereignty is respected.”

BASIC+

A side issue with some disruptive consequences for the geopolitics of climate change talks was whether they should move towards a BASIC+ arrangement. That is, whether other countries should be admitted as voting parties to the group. Indonesia, for instance, seems to aspire becoming a full member. The ministers have shown strong concern that such an idea could raise great difficulties with G-77 countries. South Africa’s minister, Buyelwa Sonjica, was particularly concerned that any expansion of the group could raise dissatisfaction among other parties. Since Copenhagen, the South African government has been under considerable pressure from African Union countries because of its participation in the BASIC. The living example was of the G-8 being superseded in many relevant issues by the G8+5 and, ultimately, by the G-20.

Although the BASIC countries are also a part of the G-77 all of them have it clear that their interests are becoming increasingly differentiated from the interests of the majority of other member states. They decided to maintain the BASIC original formation and to have observers and discussants at all their meetings, without decision-making power. This time, one of the invited observers was Venezuela. Yemen, now holding the G-77 chair, was also present and will be invited to all forthcoming meetings. The ministers have also agreed to always have observers from the small-island States, AOSIS, and from the African Union. Other developing countries would be invited when they could contribute to the debate of central issues in the agenda. In Beijing, for instance, one of these issues will be the impact of climate change negotiations on the international market. Argentina has been leading discussions on this issue within the G-77 and will be invited to Beijing.

Eppur si muove

There has been small, but significant, progress in the meeting of  the BASIC countries in Rio. Far more than the official Joint Statement has conveyed. Progress and consensus are stronger at the expert level. At the political level there still are important differences on the degree of conviction of each country regarding these new views. India and South Africa seemed far more convinced of the need for a change in attitude and negotiation strategy. China seems to be moving forward more cautiously. Brazil is far more reluctant to accept any change.

Jairam Ramesh, India’s Environment Minister, made a compelling defense of the benefits of giving more transparency to these shared views. He would like them to show in the communiqué. But Brazilian officials preferred a noncommittal phrasing of the joint statement.

Ramesh has also manifested his government’s willingness to lead the BASIC group into an effort to bridge the gap between them and the United States. He has also called the BASIC countries to reach out to develop countries like France and Germany that hold similar views to their own about global climate change.

It is unlikely that these changing views will be mature enough and find sufficient common ground among the BASIC countries to lead to a different attitude at COP16, in Cancun. But some of the sentiments they’ve revealed are likely to emerge more publicly in Mexico. It is likely, for instance, that they will have more technical proposals to table. It is also likely, but less probable, that their insistence upon a second phase of commitment of the Kyoto Protocol will recede to some visible degree, helping faster progress on the AGW-LCA towards a more inclusive global agreement some time in the near future. The signs of a paradigm shift on the BASIC countries’ climate change politics are becoming clearer.

Sergio Abranches

While the U.S. and the European Union embraced the Copenhagen Accord with no reserves, the BASIC countries said the Accord is not legal. The only legal instrument they accept is the Kyoto Protocol. Does it really matter if they adhere and record their quantitative voluntary actions? Is this an important divide between developed and emerging powers?

I feel increasingly inclined to answer no to both questions.

Let’s be practical. The Kyoto Protocol is legal, but its targets were set so low that they became utterly ineffective. The U.S. didn’t ratify the Protocol. The BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) are “non-Annex I” parties, meaning they have no binding obligations.

As a result, the Protocol has a very partial coverage of total GHG emissions. Being legally binding made almost no difference to the trajectory of emissions or to the behavior of the Parties to the Protocol. To the BASIC countries, the legal character of the Kyoto Protocol serves only to make it sure they have no legal obligations, because they do not belong to the Annex I. The U.S. will never ratify it. There has been little progress in the negotiations regarding its Phase 2. The Post 2012 Kyoto Protocol will not have China, Brazil and India among Annex I countries, and without the U.S. as well, it will remain a poor instrument to tackle the global climate change threat.

Now, let’s look at the Copenhagen Accord. With the adhesion of the U.S., the European Union, Canada, Australia, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa it covers most of the global GHG emissions. Add Japan and Russia, and it reaches the level of emissions that, if appropriately regulated, can do the job of preventing a climactic cataclysm. This select group of countries represent most of global political, economic, and scientific power as well.

The Accord is not legal indeed. It is political. With all these countries saying they’re politically committed to its terms, and publicly recording their voluntary actions to reduce emissions, it, nevertheless, gets substance and relevance. All of them are recording quantitative goals. To call them binding targets or voluntary actions seems so far a matter of lesser importance. Just look at what happened to Kyoto’s binding targets. To me it is more important that, for the first time, the U.S., China, Brazil, and India are making political commitments for emissions reductions. And they come with a number attached.

These targets still fall short of responding to scientific requirements. But the Accord also provides for performance reviews to conform actions to the requirement of maintaing global warming near 2^oC. This is already more than the Kyoto Protocol has accomplished. It has also resolved some decade long deadlocks on finance and technology transfer.

What the Copenhagen Accord lacks, the Kyoto Protocol also doesn’t have: a working enforcement mechanism. We are far from having an adequate framework for global climate governance. And we will have to eventually arrive at one.

The Copenhagen Accord can move forward along two different tracks. The first one, would be to enter the diplomatic track of the Climate Convention. Its terms and targets/actions would have to be transcribed into an official document tabled by the Working Group on the Climate Convention (AWG-LCA) to be unanimously approved by the plenary of 192 countries, hopefully during COP16, in Cancun, Mexico.

The alternative route would be to keep going on its own. The countries that have adhered to the Accord would continue to negotiate an appropriate and acceptable legal statute. Negotiations should also address the governance regime that would make this statute enforceable and policy-relevant.

The first road seems to be the harder one. The history of the Climate Convention has showed how difficult it is to reach consensus within such a large and heterogeneous group of countries.

The Copenhagen Accord has gained some new substance with the adhesion of the “carbon powers” of the world. A smaller group of countries, even if a polarized one, is more likely to reach a meaningful agreement than a large group of more than 100 nations with disparate interests.

The convention plenary is so divided that it is even hard to form polarized coalitions within it. What we’ve seen in Copenhagen was the fractionalization of previous clusters of countries, as the likelihood of an agreement increased. That’s how the G77 and China broke down, the BASIC, the AOSIS, and the African block replacing it. These three blocks have proved to be far more politically productive than the G77.

That the Accord is still alive, in spite of the frustrations it has raised at the dismal closing of COP15, seems a good omen. A global climate change deal is still possible.