Where COP18 Talks Are At

Week one of negotiations at the United Nations climate change conference (COP18) in Doha, Qatar have drawn to a close with disappointingly little to show for it. Ministers will arrive tomorrow to continue  negotiations with the hope of making substantive progress towards the finalisation and implementation of the Durban Platform. The negotiations around Long-Term Cooperative Action (LCA), focussed on emissions not caught under the Kyoto Protocol, continued despite the perceived lack of ambition and commitment to financing under this stream. Small island nation states, the least developed countries and members of civil society warn that this could be a make or break issue for the conference.

In the weeks leading in to COP18 the Kyoto Protocol was a particularly contentious issue with Australia’s reluctance to agree to a second commitment period and New Zealand’s last minute withdrawal. Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC Christiana Figueres expressed her confidence in progress made on Kyoto, and the inertia that is plaguing other negotiation streams has spared the Kyoto discussions. Instead, the ongoing issue is what to do with unused emissions credits when talks are transferred from this stream to the integrated Durban Platform. Due to changes in economic conditions, some countries such as Poland and Russia have exceeded their emission reduction targets and want to transfer their surpluses to the new phase of Kyoto, a maneuver which is being referred to as locking in the “hot air”.

LCA consultations have been continuing with the same uneasy tune that emerged on day two of the conference. Animosity began earlier in the week over the Chair’s draft text. Developed countries maintain that work under the LCA stream is complete and thus the Chair’s text was not only in breach of process (which requires party consultation) but unnecessary. To the contrary, developing countries are reluctant to transition to the integrated platform, which wraps LCA up this year and moves all negotiating streams to the Durban Platform with the hopes of producing a global binding deal in 2015, without an increase in ambition and commitment to climate funding. Small island states stressed a need for clarity as to when money for adaptation will be delivered and expressed disappointment that there has been no real progress with ambition despite the fact that the real impacts of climate change have increased.

The integrity of the climate finance delivered is also under heated debate. Reports that loans from the Fast Start climate financing period, plus money issued to deliver other development projects, were counted in full as climate finance has sparked concerns about the long term financing commitments being negotiated. The money delivered during the Fast Start period was meant to be new and additional to existing aid commitments, and given as grants without condition. Now, as countries move towards long term financing commitments, developing countries as well as non-government organisations such as Oxfam are calling for climate finance to be defined under the LCA and for a common reporting system to be developed and agreed upon.

The positive news story of the week is the progress that has been made around the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP). This new platform integrates the current negotiating streams and creates a process to achieve a legally binding treaty in 2015. Discussions have been constructive and focused on bridging the ambition gap between current emission reduction commitments and what the science tells us is needed to keep global warming within two degrees. It is one of the few negotiation streams that is characterised by a sense of good will and common purpose. It is likely a text will be prepared for the ministers on Monday.

With developed countries reluctant to put money on the table in Doha, and developing countries declaring its absence a deal breaker, it will be up to the ministers arriving to broker a compromise. It is unclear how the issue of surpluses will be resolved under Kyoto, but in the interests of COP18’s overall objective to keep global temperature warming below 2 degrees, it would be a well received gesture of good faith if all parties agreed to enter the new Durban Platform with a clean slate.

The COP President and UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres have consistently stressed the need to finish the climate talks on time – no mean feat if the ins and outs of Kyoto’s second commitment period, LCA text and the Durban Platform text are all to be cemented by Friday. One week remains to resolve the raft of complex problems associated with climate finance, leaving Ministers with their work cut out for them if talks are going to stay on track to achieve a global climate deal in 2015.

By Sophie Trevitt, photo by Laura Owsianka.