Doha, 2012 Dec 8th: The latest round of UN Climate Change negotiation has not successfully seized the opportunity to keep the world within the 2 degree temperature rise limit. As a result, leaders of the world have failed in Doha to achieve what science requires to keep the planet within safe boundaries. After a delay of almost one day, the Doha Conference of 18th COP to UNFCCC and 8th CMP to Kyoto Protocol passed a Doha Package at 7 pm local time, Dec. 8th 2012. While the planet warms, and extreme weather events become the norm globally, governments continue to delay real commitments and actions in the multilateral UN process. Chinese NGOs feel disappointed about the result.
Jiayi Xu, Climate Change Program Officer of Institute for Environment and Development said, "As the key point of the nexus, the result of Doha Conference means compromising on reality and is irresponsible to the future." Civil society organizations from China worked closely with each other at this conference, acting actively both inside and out of the negotiation room.
"Doha did succeed in streamlining the process and the politics for the international climate negotiations, via adopting the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, putting an end to Bali Roadmap and launching the work plan for the post 2020 international climate deal", pointed out by Lina Li, Climate Policy Specialist of Greenovation Hub, "However, in fact, there is no ambition increase from the Cancun and Durban emission reduction targets, or specific numbers for mid-term finance for developing countries to respond to their urgent need for climate change adaptation and loss and damage, nor on closing the 'trust deficit' among countries. "
Regardless of the result of international negotiation, due to the concern of energy security, environmental pollution control, resource constraints, and strategic direction of realizing "Ecological Civilization" and "Beautiful China", China's action on emission reduction needs to further break away from international negotiation rather than depending on the pace of negotiation progress. "China's domestic emission reduction calls for more efforts and ambition", said Jianjun Tu, Chinese Energy and Climate Program Director of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Several international organizations have published their latest scientific reports recently. The Emission Gap Report by UNEP points out that the gap between the pledges made by all the countries on the table and requirement of keeping the temperature rise under 2 degrees is as large as 8-13 billion tonnes. The latest report of World Bank further alerted, "Unless urgent actions are taken, the global temperature will increase 4 centigrade or more by the end of this century… which will bring disastrous adverse impact to coastal cities and poor people." Right within the 2nd week of Doha negotiation, the Philippines experienced its 16th devastating floods of this year which led to tens of deaths and hundreds of thousands more leaving their homes. These are all painful costs paid by normal people because of delay of actions of the governments.
Against such harsh reality, however, the climate negotiations are going farther from the requirement of science. Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Russia walked away from the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, following the USA to become ship-jumpers. These are all irresponsible developments. We call for these countries to raise their ambition!
"Although there was insuffient effort by developed countries in KP's first commitment period and going forward in the near future, developing countries need to consider the interest of the whole, bearing in mind the common goal of 2 degrees, to keep on making efforts for combating climate change", said Fuqiang Yang, Senior Advisor of Natural Resources Defense Council。 "Emerging large developing countries need to further realize their role in international climate issues and actively participate in the progress of shaping the future climate regime, to promote a fair, ambitious and legally binding deal in 2015, via their influences and concrete actions."
Kyoto Protocol reached second commitment period in struggle
After 8 years' negotiation, the preparation for the second commitment period has realized its political conclusion, though at a substantive level it is no longer very meaningful for emission reduction. EU insisted on its target of 20% emission reduction on 1990 levels, even though it has already accomplished 18%. Australia even set its target almost the same at its 1990 emissions. All these facts increase the danger of continually locking in high emissions and pollution up to 2020. To change this, a sense of urgency is a great need, as the IEA already warned the world that the window of action might close at 2017.
As the only top-down legally binding protocol with quantified emission reduction targets, a weakened Kyoto Protocol plays a far-from-sufficient reference for the new global deal. NGOs feel unsatisfied about major countries, especially developed countries, for not expanding the substance of the Kyoto Protocol, instead landing in such a weak second commitment period.
Bali Roadmap officially closed
Since 2007, the negotiation track on Long-term Cooperative Action has progressed in areas such as emission reduction, adaption, finance and technology. A Doha decision that brought back all elements of Bali Roadmap to the text is important but it did not conclude with full effectiveness. Most of conclusions are about operationalization of institutions and procedures that are already in pace.
Because of the lack of confidence of emission reduction, it is expected that adaptation will become more difficult and poor countries and people will need more money to address the damage caused by disasters that could not be avoided. Although the USA and other developed countries were strongly against the issue, the conference has come to an agreement on furthering its work on loss and damage and setting up an international institution on it by COP 19. How these issues evolve in the future, link highly with the fairness of the international climate system.
Finance is severely insufficient
Developing countries, especially the least developing ones，are not only facing the increase of costs for mitigation pledges and MRV requirements, but also the rising cost for loss and damage as well as adaptation. However, the conference has not come up with a satisfying solution for finance, one of the most crucial issues in the negotiations. A few EU countries announced their climate finance budgets for next year, yet the developed countries as a whole did not give clear mid-term finance commitments for 2013-2015, which casts a shadow for parties' mutual trust and future negotiations.
In addition, the transparency and integrity issues also need to be dealt with. Take 2010-2012 fast start finance as an example: although developed countries claimed that they had accomplished their pledge of 30 billion dollars, according to the report from Oxfam, there are still controversies over the actual accomplishment: e.g. only one third of the money is additional new money and only less than a half is grants (others are loan), and the money put for mitigation and adaption were 4 to 1, which is extremely imbalanced.
Durban Platform made a work plan for next year
The new negotiation track of the Durban Platform was decided last year, including both raising short-term ambition before 2020, and arrangement of the post-2020 international climate agreement to be reached by 2015.
After negotiation for a year including disputes and settlement of the schedule and several rounds of round table informal exchange of ideas, Doha has reaffirmed its mandate and made a work plan for 2013. Despite the uncertainty of the future, it is the first time in history that all the major emitting countries have agreed to join a global binding climate agreement.
Equity is one of the key issues for Durban Platform, which should be the bridge for promoting ambition rather than inaction. Openly discussing as well as implementing the principles of equity is an important and urgent task for all countries.
The climate change negotiation has ended its journey in Doha this year, and the new round will be back in cold Warsaw of Poland. In every year's negotiation, we hear the words "next year will…, next year may…", but just as the delegate of the Philippines reminded ministers and negotiators at the QNCC, all countries should join hands with more efforts and actions. Time is limited, if not now then when?
