UN Climate Change Meeting Commences in Tianjin China

United Nations climate change sessions are well underway in Tianjiin, China. Two UN sessions are taking place from October 4 to October 9, 2010.

The fourteenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the twelfth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA).

In preparation for these two sessions, the Group of 77 and China, the African Group, the small islands developing States and the least developed countries met from September 28 to October 3, 2010.

The new Online Registration System for IGOs and NGOs will allow admitted organizations to electronically nominate individuals to attend sessions organized by the UNFCCC secretariat.

In line with the secretariat's efforts towards climate neutrality, the Information for Participants Brochure as well as the Side Events and Exhibits Brochure continue to be available in electronic format only. The secretariat encourages all participants to support this initiative by restricting printing.


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Ongoing Deadlock on Climate Treaty Despite Extreme Weather

Despite the death of thousands due to this summer's extreme weather, rich and poor nations cannot agree on a formula for emissions reductions.

One fifth of the country of Pakistan is under water. Roads, buildings, bridges, crops have all been washed away. With no clean water to drink, cholera, diarrhea and other sicknesses are on the rise, threatening millions of people who have lost their homes and their livelihoods.

After the floods in Pakistan that destroyed 6000 villages and killed almost 2000 the country's Environment Minister Hameed Ullah Jan Afridi said that global warming was the main cause.

In Russia 562 fires covering over 80,000 hectares (nearly 200,000 acres) created unbearable smog in Moscow. Morgues have been overflowing as the death rate in the Russian capital has doubled to more than 700 people a day prompting the country's President Dmitry Medvedev to say, ‎"what is happening now in our Central Regions is evidence of this global climate change." He also said, "All countries, including developed and developing countries, should reach an agreement [on climate issues]”.

Although individual weather occurances cannot be taken on their own as scientific corroboration of global warming, when put together as a whole the case is very convincing. It is no coincidence that most of the hottest years on record have occured in the last decade. According to an analysis by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), some of the warmest years on record are 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2009. It should come as no surprise that January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record.

The first half of 2010 is the warmest since records began in the 1850s. These first six months of 2010 broke records on four continents and included some of the hottest temperatures ever recorded on earth. On May 26, Pakistan logged a mercury reading of 128.3 degrees Fahrenheit (53.5 degrees Celsius) the highest ever recorded in Asia.

Recently, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) reported that water temperatures reaching as high as 93 degrees Fahrenheit in Southeast Asia's Andamann Sea have led to a large die-off of coral reefs off the coast of Indonesia.

The growing body of evidence is increasingly irrefutable. We have reason to believe that the globe is at risk yet rich and poor nations continue to disagree about how to divide greenhouse gas emissions-reductions.

Despite the veracity of global warming, efforts to make progress on an international climate change treaty are being stiffled by what can only be described as post-colonial gridlock.

If deadly floods and choking fires are not sufficient to spur movement on climate change, one wonders exactly what it will take to cause nations to act.
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Lowering Expectations for UN Climate Negotiations

Conflicting positions are undermining efforts to find agreement on greenhouse gas reductions. Delegates at the recent climate talks in Bonn made no progress on binding targets to reduce carbon emissions, nor were they able to agree on a deal to replace the soon to expire Kyoto Protocol.

The climate change talks began with a document called "A Shared Vision for Long-Term Cooperative Action." The problem is, there is no shared vision and insufficient cooperative action. Delegates at the Bonn conference had to contend with a wide range of competing provisions.

Some less developed nations want to see developed nations assume their share of the carbon space. They argue that industrial countries have 16 percent of the world's population, but they occupy 74 percent of the carbon space. They further argue that each country’s historical carbon emissions should be taken into account. Although this would allow poorer countries with large populations to build their economies, wealthier nations have already dismissed the idea. A global deal to limit GHGs is also being impeded by China’s resistance to compliance monitoring.

As the world's largest economy and biggest producer of emissions, the lack of legislation in the US is another major impediment to progress on a climate change treaty. Although the recession and the vote for change inspired unprecedented international cooperation last year, the collaborative international mood was short-lived and has subsequently subsided.

Politically motivated misinformation has eroded American support for comprehensive climate and energy legislation and this has also dampened efforts to find agreement on a global climate change treaty.

Although last year’s Copenhagen Accord made some progress reducing emissions, the accord was never formally adopted and as such, it is non-binding. Developing nations appear to be reversing their positions by suggesting that their Copenhagen carbon reduction commitments were voluntary, while emissions targets for industrial countries are binding.

Tianjin, China will host a final preparatory meeting in October before the summit in Cancun, Mexico at the end of the year. Although we are unlikely to see a global treaty before the 2012 climate summit in South Africa, we can still see agreements on financial assistance and technology transfer.

The Kyoto Protocol is due to expire in 2012 and international disagreements obscure the urgency of binding agreements to manage climate change. Although some delegates have begun considering the possibility of extending the Kyoto Protocol until a replacement can be developed, we also need a binding agreement that addresses the rapidly growing emissions of developing countries.

For three years the world has unsuccessfully pursued an elusive formula that could pave the way for an international climate change treaty. Last year there were high expectations, this year, already low expectations have been lowered further still.
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This article was originally published in GWIR on Wednesday 11 August 2010.

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