E3G

chinadialogue: In Accra, the fog slowly lifts

By Jennifer Morgan

At the recent UNFCCC Climate Change Talks in Accra, Ghana, Jennifer Morgan writes about her thoughts on the progress of negotiations for chinadialogue, due to be concluded in Copenhagen at the end of 2009. This meeting, the third of its kind this year was attended by over 1600 participants.

In Accra, the fog slowly lifts
Recent climate-change talks in Ghana helped to elucidate some of the progressive proposals – and potentially difficult areas – for future international negotiations. Jennifer Morgan sees a hard road ahead.

A complex set of negotiations are underway as countries aim to create a stronger and more comprehensive agreement on tackling climate change. At United Nations-led climate-change talks in Bali, Indonesia last year, nations agreed to launch a new round of negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). A set of parallel-track negotiations under the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol, whose first set of targets run out in 2012, now aims to conclude in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The elements of this post-2012 agreement will be based on the “Bali Action Plan”, which lays out the elements for a shared vision of a low-carbon economy, increasing countries’ efforts on mitigation (emissions reductions), climate-change adaptation, technology cooperation and finance. At the same time, countries party to the Kyoto Protocol have also been in detailed negotiations since December 2005 on strengthening Kyoto Party industrialised country caps in the treaty. Not having ratified the Protocol, the US is only an observer to these talks. These negotiations are also scheduled to end in December 2009. Since Bali, countries have now met three times, with the latest meeting wrapping up in Accra, Ghana on August 27, 2008.

The weeklong Accra meeting included two workshops on sectoral approaches and measures to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. The talks also delved deeper into some promising proposals from parties in the area of finance. There were concerns expressed by green groups and some about the slow pace of negotiations and the urgent deadline for action, but many have noted that some progress was made in Ghana.

A deeper understanding of different countries’ positions began to emerge, as did new some options to be negotiated in important areas. The chair of the UNFCCC Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperation Action outlined a detailed process to ensure that a negotiating text is being formulated, if not on the table, by the end of the next meeting in Poznan, Poland, in December 2008. These are all small steps needed to move towards actual agreement, but they do not yet reflect the transformational changes that scientists are warning we need in our economies and societies.

Many of the most progressive proposals that came out of the talks were in the area of finance. The action plan says that there is a need to address “enhanced action on the provision of financial resources and investment to support action on mitigation and adaptation and technology cooperation”. Improved access to adequate, predictable and sustainable financial resources is a crucial issue in the design of an agreement. The UNFCCC estimates that developing countries need between US$28 billion and $67 billion in additional investment and financial flows by 2030; a figure that far exceeds the Convention’s current financial mechanism and points to the need for new means to generate revenue for mitigation, adaptation, technology transfer and reducing emissions from deforestation. Norway proposed that this could be met by auctioning a percentage of each industrialised country’s emission quota and placing it in a fund. For instance, auctioning 2% of this asset could generate an annual income of between US$15 billion and $25 billion. The amount of funding needed could determine the percentage or number of allowances auctioned.