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The 18th session of the
Conference of the Parties to the U.N.
Framework Convention on Climate
Change in Doha, Qatar, will
kick off Monday, Nov. 26. Photo
by: Arend
Kuester / CC
BY-NC
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The year’s biggest conference on
climate change kicks off Monday (Nov. 26.). Will anything get done this year?
World leaders attending the 18th
session of the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on
Climate Change in Doha, Qatar, will have a lot on their plate. They are
expected to, among others, lay out the rules governing the second commitment
period of the Kyoto Protocol and discuss financing for the Green Climate Fund.
“There are a lot of expectations
to come from Doha,” Fahad bin Mohammed Al-Attiya, chairman of Qatar’s National
Food Security Program and among the organizers in the conference told Al
Jazeera in an interview.
Second
Kyoto Protocol
The success of the conference
will depend on world leaders delivering on a number of outcomes. One of them is
ensuring the implementation of the second commitment of the Kyoto Protocol by
Jan. 1, 2013, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said in an interview with
Yale360.
“What governments need to do is
not to decide if there’s going to be a second commitment period” for “there
will be a second commitment period,” Figueres said.
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in
1997. But many have criticized it for failing to impose legally binding
emissions targets on developing countries and on the world’s largest
emitter — the United States.
Australia has recently announced
its intention to sign up to the second period of the protocol. The country will
be joining a select few that have agreed to stay on board until a new agreement
comes into effect in 2020. It remains to be seen, however, if the United States
will sign on to the protocol. There has been a renewed interest on addressing
climate change in the United States following post-tropical storm Sandy.
There will be “increased frustration
with the United States” if the Western nation “does not strengthen its
participation in the global climate regime,” Figueres said. The United States
was not among signatories to the first commitment period of the protocol.
Green
Climate Fund
Discussions on climate finance
will need to take note of two important things: resource mobilization and
transparency. A study in May called on
donors to provide detailed, accessible and timely data on climate finance.
Rich countries are expected to
come up with a plan to meet their pledge to provide $100 billion to developing
countries by 2020. Climate advocates should keep an eye on medium and long-term
financial pledges at the conference, which will include “some innovative
mechanisms to scale up,” Jennifer Morgan from World Resources Institute said in
a blog post.
While the Green Climate Fund has
finally found a home in South Korea, questions
remain on how will it operate and raise funds.
Other
tasks
World leaders attending the
conference are also expected to set out a work plan toward a new international
agreement that will replace the Kyoto Protocol by 2015.
Jonathan Shopley of the
CarbonNeutral Company, a business provider of carbon-reduction solutions, said “this means
starting all over again in the task of developing an international agreement —
learning from and correcting past mistakes, keeping the parts that work, and
filling the yawning gaps that made the Kyoto Protocol a flawed first attempt.”
There are calls for agriculture
to strongly figure in this year’s talks, too.
“Agriculture will be massively
impacted by climate change,” Head of CGIAR’s climate change, agriculture and
food security program Bruce Campbell said in an article published at
the Center for International Forestry Research. “We need to develop agriculture
that is ‘climate smart’ — generating more output without the accompanying
greenhouse gas emissions.”
But Campbell underscored the need
for the conference to settle the “big issues” first, such as climate finance
and emissions commitments, to “make progress on sustainable agriculture.
Bridging
the gap
There are fears among the
development community that this year’s conference may again result in disappointment. Skeptics
believe nothing will get done at the conference. Figueres said this is because
the general perception is that leaders just talk but “don’t make any decisions
that have a policy effect on action.”
“That is actually not the case,”
she said. “Over the past three years governments have actually progressed in a
slow but steady manner in constructing the international policy response to
climate.” But this is “clearly not” enough.
The U.N. climate chief noted the
importance of “bridging the gap” — not only between emission
targets and government pledges, but also between politicians and scientists.
“One reality is the reality of
what science is demanding and which we have to hold front and center as our
guiding light for our work here. We also have the obligation and the honor to
support the political process that governments are putting together to address
the urgency and the challenge that they have in front of them,” she said.
“Those two things are equally real … and it is our very challenging task to
encourage the closing of that gap.”
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