Decoding Durban: Deal or no Deal? Deal, for a Deal Later (Part 1)

In Durban the stunning landscape did not bless the United Nations climate change conference (COP 17) with a beautiful ending but did make again spurning escape for polluters. After an overnight’s wrangle on the very last day of ‘extra time’, it came up with a ‘compromised’ deal which was based upon a proposal by Brazil. The last-minute deal commits the European Union and a few wealthy countries to a second commitment period after the main provisions of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012; all countries to negotiating a new “[global] protocol… or outcome with legal force” effective by 2020; and developed nations to financing the Green Climate Fund (GCF) that helps developing ones with climate change adaptation and is slated to be operational by the same year. Only transitional in nature, it is a solution that seeks to fill the vacuum period before Kyoto II. But given the poor track record of previous summits, would this deal again be another ‘dud cheque’ as are the Kyoto Protocol and the Bali Roadmap? What are the implications to driving the world to a period of low-carbon growth? A closer look at this deal can tell us how many critical questions remain unanswered. It is indeed a deal studded with uncertainties.

 

Diverse reaction to Durban Package

Opinions about the conference are diverse over the past week. Pessimists including the heads of many NGOs say ordinary people have once again been disappointed by the governments having reneged on their promises and the global climate regime being no more than a voluntary deal that is postponed for a decade. In contrast, optimists including South African Foreign Minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who chaired the conference, and our Energy & Climate Change Secretary, Chris Huhne, say the Durban package agreed is a “historic milestone” or a “diplomatic success” mainly because this round of negotiations has managed to bring the three top emitters – the United States, China and India – on board a roadmap that provides a good steer to securing an overarching global treaty.

The world may be sick of some of these bureaucratic tones. In fact, a post-2012 climate deal is long overdue as its negotiation was supposed to be completed by the end of 2009 in accordance with the Bali Roadmap agreed in 2007. Just a minor breakthrough in 2011 should not warrant too much complacency amongst delegates. When humans are aware of the ravages of climate change that are increasingly visible and tangible such as the recent floods in Italy, Thailand and Australia, many of us should ask, “how many more ‘milestones’ need to be built or ‘breakthroughs’ made before we have some good odds to agree an authentic legally-binding treaty in the years ahead?”

Rather than overstating or understating the impacts of Durban Package, a fairer comment is uttered by Lord Stern, the author of Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, who said “it doesn’t move quickly enough but it’s a significant step forward… [as] it could provide us with the platform for that acceleration”. His comment on the outcome of the Durban summit – ‘deal for a deal later’, on one hand, acknowledges that the progress of renewing the Kyoto Protocol or forging a new global climate deal is still far from what is needed to combat the ever deteriorating climate condition and what was agreed in the Durban conference hall is rather symbolic; On the other hand, he actually indicates that this postponement will only be worthwhile if countries from now on endeavour to reach a binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

Is this deal another ‘dud cheque’?

Every December, there is a climate wrestling event. Since the Bali Summit in 2007, different parties have entered into intense disputes regarding any binding emissions reduction targets. The Copenhagen Summit in 2009 did not end up with anything substantial but an impasse or what New York Times called a “murky end”. Not beyond our expectation that the Durban Conference in 2011 has not salvaged such international negotiations out of predicament. Given that the emissions reduction targets in the Kyoto Protocol, the Bali Roadmap and the US$100 billion Green Climate Fund (first initiated in Copenhagen) agreed years ago have not been seriously implemented, will the Durban Package become a ‘dud cheque’ at the end of the day? Will we be still waiting for the ‘train’ for a new global climate treaty on the ‘Durban Platform’ in 2015?

The deal looks fine at the first glance. However, devil lies in details. A closer look at the so-called agreement tells us how the diplomats have been evading numerous key issues and leaving them untouched for next year forever. We can analyse the Durban Package from four perspectives:

Commitment to emissions reduction

Emissions reduction targets remain the thorniest issues in international climate negotiations. Delegates in Durban finally agreed to an important principle: both developed and developing countries will be responsible for emission curbs. It matters because the Kyoto Protocol, the only binding agreement to curb carbon emissions today, confers differential treatment for rich (Annex I) and poor (Annex II) countries. Not even ratified by the United States, it relies on voluntary emissions cuts from emerging economies such as China and India that accounts for around 60% of global emissions nowadays. Based upon “common but differentiated responsibilities”, the negotiations on legally binding emissions reduction targets for all countries have been going on for long time where emerging economies, especially China, did not like “numbers” to be included in an agreement over the past couple of years. Reduction efforts that exclude the top emitters mean very little. This overarching principle is therefore a breakthrough anyway of the international climate negotiations being almost stalled until after the Cancun summit in 2010.

No specific emissions reduction targets have been agreed in the previous climate change conferences. As such delegates did not agree to a set of numbers either in Durban this year but to start negotiations on binding targets next year, despite the efforts of the EU and island states. Thus, the world is still staying in the phase of voluntary emissions reduction (VER) as of Copenhagen summit 2009. As a makeshift to ‘buy time’ before Kyoto II comes into light, the extension of the Kyoto Protocol to 2017 is a way to put aside the sword above it for a while. Even so, it is unlikely to keep global temperature rises to within 2°C above pre-industrial levels – the point at which scientists warn that catastrophic climate change would be irreversible. In fact, the Protocol, signed up by just over 30 countries excluding China and the US, covers only less than 15% of global carbon emissions. Data from the UN’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre shows that in 2008 the total amount of carbon emissions from the top three polluters – China, the United States and India – combined accounted for almost half the global emissions.  

The current voluntary pledges, according to the UN Environment Programme, is indeed 40% short of what is required to combat climate change; and, as the Union of Concerned Scientists suggests, may now be leading the world to the nineteenth century level +3.5 - 4°C in 2100. As early as in 2007, the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) already issued a stark warning on the possible devastating impacts to humanities. If we hurdled the 2°C threshold we risk the collapse of Amazon forest and the thawing of the permafrost with the former losing a very important carbon sink, and the latter causing a mass exodus of lots of methane. If we stride beyond 3°C we would be at temperatures beyond the range of any human experience. It would involve mass migration because the water cycle we learnt in primary school will cut shorter and run faster, and we will be stricken by huge droughts, floods, hurricanes and so on. The world should also drastically change its trend of energy investment before 2017, warned the International Energy Agency. In lieu of costing 1% of the world’s GDP estimated in his review in 2006, Lord Stern estimates it would now cost 2% extra to embark on this low-carbon industrial revolution for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Any further procrastination of emissions reduction efforts is, thus, very dangerous and costly.

To set global emissions on a trajectory that will limit global warming to 1.5-2°C, the industrialised countries need to cut their greenhouse gas emissions to 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 while developing countries need to limit their rapid emissions growth to around 15-30% below projected business as usual levels in 2020. Global emissions will have to peak by 2020 at the latest, be cut by at least 50% of 1990 levels by 2050 and continue to decline thereafter. Even the delegates agreed in Durban to begin real negotiations on this in 2012 the writer doubts if the ‘big three’ and other emerging economies, who are used to be the most reluctant to make concessions, would accept such significant percentages of emissions reduction to be enforced by 2020. Attributable to the profound obsession of politicians with infinite (high-carbon) economic growth, sadly, their positions are not going to change anytime soon unless their and the people’s mindsets are completely changed. It will potentially result in non-delivery of this year’s promises in Qatar next year. An important reference is: To avoid a fine of US$14 billion for its carbon emissions having expanded by 30% at 1990 level due to oil sands development, Canada has right after the Durban conference tendered its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol – the only binding climate treaty; and claimed that it is not the solution to global climate change. With the likelihood of Russia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand ‘getting infected’, so the very first question left unanswered is “how many countries will really ratify and implement Kyoto II after 2017?”

The composition of the ‘Durban Platform’

As a response to the EU’s proposed roadmap, the conference agreed to set up the “Durban Platform for Enhanced Action” to develop post-2020 emissions reduction proposals applicable to all Parties to the UN climate convention by the end of 2015. Afore-mentioned, it is a breakthrough to have reached a universal agreement that the future deal will commit both the global north and the south to legally binding emissions reduction targets starting from 2020. The history of international climate negotiations had been tantamount to the contradictions between developed and developing nations on the share of emissions reduction responsibilities. This is undeniably an important principle set in the Durban deal, but we should not take it at face value.

Such principle of ‘fairness’ is two-sided. Some say it neglects the historical responsibilities for emissions and creates uncertainties as to whether the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” agreed in Kyoto conference 1997 would stay as it is in future negotiations. From 2020, emerging economies including China, India, Brazil and South Africa will be legally bound to achieve their committed emissions reduction targets. People have to remember that over 90% of greenhouse gases accumulated in the atmosphere have been emitted from wealthy countries since the early years of industrialisation; and the carbon emissions per capita of emerging economies are not more than a small fraction of that of countries across the Atlantic Ocean. Countries of rapid growth have made already great efforts in emissions reduction. What they could do now is to escalate what they proposed in 2009 – reducing carbon intensity per output unit instead of the total amount of emissions – to the legal level. It is not possible to require some poor regions in China, India and Brazil that are off the electricity grids to reduce any emissions in real terms, is it?

Ordinary people cannot know if this ‘breakthrough’ was achieved with hidden agenda. Indian delegates have reported that they were threatened to sign up this agreement lest they would lose international financial support to tackle the impacts of climate change to its vulnerable people. The future climate treaty will only be considered ‘fair’ if wealthy countries, especially those in North America, present a concrete and timely solution to low-carbon technology transfers and financial assistance that they are legally bound to implement by certain dates, which is unfortunately not the case at the moment. For that reason, the membership of the ‘Durban Platform’ will be the determinant of the acceptability of the new emissions reduction plans in new rounds of international negotiations. Will there be one representative from each of 194 countries or one from each regional bloc? A proposal inclined towards either developed or developing camp is doomed to rejection in the upcoming conferences. So, the second question left unanswered here is “which countries will compose the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action?”

The legality of the ‘outcome’ due in 2015

Added to countries’ commitment to emissions reduction and the composition of the ‘Durban Platform’ which are questionable, the legal form of the ‘outcome’ the negotiation of which is due to be completed by the end of 2015 is another factor leading to the Durban deal becoming a ‘dud cheque’. In the text of the agreement, ‘Kyoto II’, to be developed by the ‘Durban Platform’, will be “a new protocol, another legal instrument or agreed outcome with legal force”. Rather than using the words “legally binding”, the precise meaning of “outcome with legal force” is far from clear. It is likely that it would be interpreted by polluters reluctant to reduce emissions for the sake of economic development in a way different from what we are thinking. In order words, this ambiguity may have actually been the price for tying in China and India; and provided a good escape for those ‘climate criminals’. A thought-provoking comment on this is from Samantha Smith of WWF International - “[The delegates] haven’t reached a real deal. They watered things down so everyone could get on board”.

Even if the words “legally binding” was used in the agreement text, we should question how “binding” the “outcome” would be. The fact that Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol, the only binding climate treaty, can tell us that a simply “legally binding” agreement be not the silver bullet to the emissions reduction because of a structural problem – international anarchy. Big polluters can always choose to withdraw from any treaty, whether binding or not, if they think it is not in their politico-economic interest to maintain such commitment. Therefore, if world leaders really want to avoid the Durban deal from becoming an empty promise they should aim at an outcome which is binding to the extent that provisions regarding arbitration and sanction systems similar to those in the World Trade Organisation will be included.

Politics of the Green Climate Fund

First proposed by the US Secretary of State in Copenhagen Summit 2009 (COP 15), the US$100 billion Green Climate Fund should be the lubricant between the developed and developing nations. It has not moved forward since then other than a few meetings held by the transitional committee before the Durban summit. But its official establishment in the Cancun summit 2010 (COP 16) at least signifies poor countries are able to receive financial support to tackle climate change at some point of the time. The trouble now is that any large fiscal transfers between the north and the south in time of austerity are unrealistic. When the US and many European countries are facing overwhelming public debts, will state leaders be willing to commit billions of public money to climate programmes in developing countries that have nothing to do with their voters at least for the time being? Thus, nobody can tell at the end of the day how much money can be raised internationally for the GCF.

The GCF will mobilise US$100 billion a year to aid developing nations reduce emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. COP 17 agreed to a facility lending to private sector initiatives such as projects to preserve forests (which will be discussed in the next section). Similar to the considerations of a banker, a loan from the Fund must be results-based. To increase the flow of private investment and make the Fund sustainable, there must be an internationally accepted framework for achievement evaluation, that is, ‘MRV’ (measurement, reporting and verification) in climate negotiation language. So, in this aspect there are another two questions left unanswered: (1) “How many countries will promise and be prepared to finance the Green Climate Fund?” (2) “Which countries will ‘develop a common system for measuring, reporting and verifying emissions reduction’?” After all, whether the Durban deal will really turn out to be a ‘dud cheque’ is uncertain.

Part 2 is coming soon!

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