August 2007
The United Nations on 31 July-2 August 2007 held its first ever General Assembly debate on climate change, marking the rapid rise of this global phenomenon in the international agenda. Everyone agreed the problem is real and serious, but there are wide differences on how to tackle this crisis. See below a three part report on the debate.
1. UN debates climate change (1)
2. Developing countries' vies at climate debate (2)
3. Bush plans own climate change (3)
UN DEBATES CLIMATE CHANGE(1)
Climate change climbed another rung up the global agenda when the United Nations General Assembly held its first ever plenary debate in New York on “Climate Change as a Global Challenge” on 31 July – 2 August 2007.
Many speakers stressed that climate change has emerged as the major environment crisis of our times, but it must be dealt with in the context of development.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said climate change was finally receiving the very highest attention that it merited. The Arctic was warming fast, threatening the region’s people and ecosystems. It also imperiled low-lying islands and coastal cities half a world away, while glaciers retreated and water supplies were put at risk.
For countries in dry lands, climate change will worsen desertification, drought and food insecurity, he said, warning: “We cannot go this way for long. We cannot continue with business as usual. The time has come for decisive action on a global scale.”
“Climate change has many aspects, but it is fundamentally a development issue,” said General Assembly President, Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa. “What is at stake is the fate and well-being of our planet.”
The General Assembly debate is the start of a series of landmark meetings, especially a UN climate change event on 24 September to be attended by heads of government in New York, and a meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bali on 3-14 December.
The UN wants to continue as the central venue for international negotiations and agreements on climate change issues. This is somewhat threatened by an initiative by United States President George Bush to set up a alternative framework for ‘top emitting countries.’ The US is a party to the UNFCC but not to its Kyoto Protocol.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, developed countries committed to reduce their Greenhouse Gas emissions, with targets up to only 2012. Negotiations will start soon on a post-2012 agreement. A major question is whether developing countries will also have to commit to reducing emissions in the new deal.
Harvard University scientist John Holdren said that climate disruptions (due to carbon dioxide emissions) were already causing serious harm, including increased floods, droughts, heat waves, wildfires and severe tropical storms.
The question is to avoid catastrophic interference. There will be a global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius even if the Greenhouse gas concentration can now be stabilised.
There is chance of reaching a ‘tipping point’ if the rise is above 2 degrees. To avoid that, emissions must peak by 2015 and fall after that.
The scale of the problem is large because 80% of energy use is from burning fossil fuels. In 2005 CO2 global emissions totaled 28 billion tons. Tropical deforestation accounted for 4 to 12 tons of CO2 a year. Neither the energy system nor the drivers of the problem can be changed easily.
Sir Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics said if we do nothing, there could be at least a 5% loss of world national income due to climate change. Timely action could drastically reduce that risk, at a cost of 1% of GDP. The cost of timely action is much less than the cost of inaction.
During the debate, the Group of 77 and China (representing developing countries) highlighted many problems preventing a solution, and made an eight-point demand on the developed countries.
The rich countries should meet their commitments to reduce their Greenhouse Gas emissions, and should provide funds and transfer technology to developing countries so they can better adapt to the effects of climate change, said the G77.
Many developing countries spoke on how climate change would affect them and asked for quick and fair solutions.
“It is unfortunate that the industrialised countries are responsible for the bulk of emissions but the poorer nations which did nothing to cause the problem are most exposed to its effects,” said Malaysia, which also called on the rich countries to transfer climate-friendly technology to developing countries.
In a hard-hitting statement, India said that any agreement on climate change should not place new conditions on developing countries’ growth. Equity would mean that till excessive amounts of gasses have been soaked up, the developed countries ought to be held down to less than a per capita equal share.
China said the ‘luxury emissions’ of rich countries should be restricted while the ‘emissions of subsistence’ and ‘development emissions’ of poor countries should be accommodated.
India, China and Brazil said that in a new post 2012 agreement, the developed countries should make further emission-reduction commitments, but the time was not yet ripe for developing countries to commit themselves to quantitative targets. However the developing countries could formulate national plans to combat climate change.
Many African and Caribbean countries stressed they were already suffering the effects of climate change and called for urgent and effective action immediately.
There were differences of views among developed countries. The European Union was the most forthcoming, proposing global targets to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees centigrade and to cut global emissions by 50% by 2020 (compared to the 1990 level).
The EU said that developed countries should collectively reduce their emissions by 30% by 2020 and by 60-80 per cent by 2050 (compared to 1990 levels). In Japan’s view, global emissions should be cut by half by 2050.
However the United States did not give any targets, neither did it state its interest in joining a new UN deal for the post-2012 period. It confirmed that President Bush would convene a meeting of leading economies to establish a framework that would complement the UN process.
The US, Japan and Australia wanted developing countries (at least the leading ones) to undertake binding commitments in a new agreement, while the EU was more ambivalent about this.
The General Assembly debate has thus kicked off the global discussion on what to do about climate change, especially on negotiating a new phase of commitments to take effect after 2012.
The talks on this topic will be complex and difficult, as so much is at stake, environmentally, economically and socially.
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(2)Developing countries' vies at climate debate
Many developing countries made statements at the United Nations debate on climate change held on 31 July-2 August 2007. While all of them recognised the severity of the climate change problem, there were differences of views and emphases on what needs to be done. (Second of three reports)
The three-day UN General Assembly thematic debate on climate change which ended on 2 August with the Assembly's President calling for an "equitable, fair and ambitious global deal" under the United Nations to deal with the climate crisis.
"We now have the momentum, what we do with it is more important," said Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa of Bahrain, in concluding remarks at the end of the General Assembly's first-ever plenary on climate change. "We need to ensure that we agree on an equitable, fair and ambitious global deal to match the scale of the challenges ahead. With strong political leadership, when we meet in Bali, a clear and achievable solution to combat climate change will be within our grasp."
She said that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was the appropriate forum from which to move forward, and other initiatives should compliment or reinforce those ongoing negotiations. Key meetings of the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol will be held in Bali this December.
She called on the entire international community, and especially rich nations, to support disadvantaged countries struggling to cope with the myriad social, environmental and economic impacts of global warming.
"The science tells us that industrialised countries are most responsible for the problem, but the consequences of climate change will be felt by the poorest, who are least responsible for it," she said, adding that inaction on climate change would only magnify the existing inequalities between developed and developing countries.
Describing climate change as "an issue of economic development, as much as one of global justice and equality", Sheikha Haya emphasised that business as usual would not only deepen the inequities between rich and poor countries, but between men and women, as well. Developed countries must do more by setting ambitious targets.
Developing countries faced difficult challenges, managing them effectively required institutional and human capacity-building, and they needed international support. Urgent action is needed to strengthen the capacity of the least developed countries to address mitigation and adaptation.
The General Assembly debate was held on 31 July to 2 August, starting on the first day with two expert panel discussions, and continuing with statements from governments on the theme "national strategies and international commitments to address climate change."
The debate was aimed at raising awareness and momentum for action, ahead of the Secretary-General's high-level event on climate change in New York on 24 September and the intergovernmental negotiations in Bali.
During the debate, more than a hundred countries (most of them represented by Ambassadors or senior officials from capitals) spoke. Pakistan's Environment Minister presented a statement on behalf of the G77 and China, listing obstacles to progress and eight requirements for the way forward.
Many other developing countries made statements, some with more specific points and demands. While all of them recognised the severity of the climate change problem, there were differences of views and emphases on what is required to be done.
Several developing countries made it clear that in a new post-2012 international climate regime, there should not be binding commitments on developing countries to cut their Greenhouse Gas emissions. There should be adequate commitments from developed countries to cut their emissions, and provide adequate financial resources and technology transfer to developing countries.
However, some developing countries, especially from small island states, made statements that implied that developing countries that are significant emitters should also make reduction commitments.
There were also important differences in nuance and emphasis among developed countries that spoke, with European countries making specific commitments on emission reductions by 2020 and 2050, and firmly supporting the UN as the forum for negotiating a new post-2012 agreement.
At the beginning of the second day's debate on 1 August, a special Climate Change envoy of the Secretary General, former Chilean President, Ricardo Lagos, surprised the meeting, posing the question whether a new category of developing countries should be established in the context of negotiating a post-2012 climate regime.
Reporting on his discussions with leaders of various countries, he said: "I asked is it possible to have a new agreement that is more sophisticated ten years on, with a new category of countries, not yet developed but with a degree of growth, is it possible to make a category based on per capita income, different from low-income countries."
Several delegates, speaking privately, said they wondered whether Lagos was reflecting his own personal views, and whether it was appropriate to put forward this controversial question, since he was acting as special envoy of the Secretary General.
Many developing countries are opposed to a ‘new category’ of developing countries being referred to, let alone being established, as they see this as linked to demands that some developing countries be required to undertake binding commitments, including for emissions reduction. In the Kyoto Protocol, only developed countries (listed in Annex 1) are required to undertake reduction commitments.
In a hard-hitting statement, India's Ambassador Nirupam Sen said that action on climate change has to be based on science and not treating it as a post-modernist religion. A precautionary approach can be taken in the absence of scientific certainty but environmental concerns should not become additional conditionalities on growth in developing countries. As the Rio Declaration recognised, standards set in one society can have adverse impacts if applied in countries at different development levels.
India then spoke on the issue of ‘large emitters’, a classification that it said does not exist in the UNFCCC or any other UN agreement, yet appears surprisingly in several recent UN documents. The developed countries have externalised the problem (effects of pollution) onto the developing world and also wish to externalise the cost of the solution.
The greenhouse gas concentration is due to developed countries' emissions and Annex I countries will continue to contribute more to emissions in future also. Strict equity would mean that till excessive amounts of gasses have been soaked up, the developed countries ought to be held down to less than a per capita equal share.
Major polluters certainly do not include developing countries like India with small carbon footprints in per-capita terms, said Ambassador Sen. India's greenhouse gas emissions of 1 ton per annum is a quarter of the global average of 4 tons, and 4% of the US, 12% of the EU and 15% of Japan.
India proposed principles for realistic next steps. It said that "the time is not ripe for developing countries to take quantitative targets as these could be counter-productive for their development processes."
The burden sharing must be fair, taking account where the primary responsibility rests; no strategy should foreclose development possibilities of developing countries, and stabilisation goals and targets should be made at the UNFCCC.
India said that the developed countries should take on substantially larger emission reduction targets than the 5.2% in Kyoto I and complete the negotiations on this by 2008/9. Adaptation needs to be resourced without diverting funds meant for development. The resources for adaptation should be of a similar magnitude as for mitigation and it should realize resources from the entire carbon market.
Clean technology should be made affordable for developing countries, and the intellectual property rights regime should balance rewards for innovators with the common good of humankind. There should be collaborative R&D between developed and developing countries. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) should be expanded to include programmatic approaches.
China's Ambassador Liu Zhenmin said that China would be the biggest victim of climate change, given its large population and low per-capita income. The ‘luxury emissions’ of rich countries should be restricted while the ‘emissions of subsistence’ and ‘development emissions’ of poor countries should be accommodated.
The principles of common but differentiated responsibilities (CDR) and of equity form the basis of international cooperation. Efforts to address climate change should be conducive to sustainable development.
Technology is decisive to mitigation and adaptation, and there should be cooperation in R&D for new technologies but also in disseminating and using existing technologies, making them affordable and accessible to developing countries. "Developed countries need to adopt policies that rise above short-sighted and narrow business interest, support early implementation of UNFCCC technology transfer provisions and develop effective technology transfer and cooperation mechanisms."
Ambassador Liu elaborated on China's measures to tackle climate change, including reducing energy intensity by 47% between 1990 and 2005, accounting for an accumulated emission reduction of 1.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide. China's per capita CO2 emissions are still low, or less than one third the average level of developed countries.
There are 42 million poor people in China and to improve living standards of its 1.3 billion people, China's ‘development emissions’ may inevitably increase. As a major manufacturer, China's products are enjoyed across the world but China itself bears mounting pressure of ‘transferred emissions’. These two factors must be taken into account when focusing on China's emissions, said Ambassador Liu.
Brazil's Director General for Environment in the Foreign Ministry, Luis Machado, said that contrary to what other speakers said, there is no expiry date for the Kyoto Protocol and Brazil considers the protocol as a cornerstone of the international climate change regime. He called for equity and fairness in the regime and in distribution of responsibilities.
This distribution lies on two fundamental facts - the historical responsibilities of developed countries, and the greater vulnerability of developing countries. These two elements are at the core of the CDR principle. However, this principle does not exempt any party of its responsibilities.
Said Brazil: "In this global effort, binding quantitative reduction commitments by Annex I countries should continue and should be deeper in the second commitment period. Developing countries would not be expected to take on such commitments now, but there should be incentives for them to take measurable and reportable actions for reducing emissions, suited to their national needs and circumstances."
It added that this was why Brazil in 2006 (at COP-12) presented a proposal to create financial incentives to support national efforts to reduce emissions caused by deforestation. This idea can be expanded to other sectors, providing finance and technology to support actions by developing countries. It hoped that Bali would set clear time-tables and processes to conclude negotiations by 2009.
Ambassador Francis Butagira of Uganda, on behalf of the Africa Group, elaborated on how Africa is most at risk from global warming, with threats to livelihoods, health and food security, including decline in crop productivity by 50% by 2020. The Group called on developed countries to fulfill their mitigation commitments, and to transfer climate friendly technology to developing countries, and to provide finance and capacity building to Africa. The CDR principle must be upheld.
On process, the Africa Group said that the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol are the key instruments to address climate change, based on sustainable development principles. "Attempts to encroach on this mandate through over-emphasised linkages with security, good governance, humanitarian or similarly politicised connotations are not the proper course of action," warned the Group.
Grenada's Ambassador Angus Friday, on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), said that climate change is the single most important threat to development, security and the territorial existence of small island states, which have been the "unwitting food tasters in a royal court that is being slowly poisoned by climate change." A 1-degree rise alone in temperature presents critical dangers to small island states. For example, it will lead to significant loss of tuna and dolphin stocks for many states.
Over the years, AOSIS had said that the devastating impact of climate change is already being felt by small island states where environmental refugees are being moved from their homes because of sea level rise, and houses, coral reefs, fish stocks and tourism are all affected. The expressions of goodwill at conferences on this topic have not been translated into programmes on the ground.
On mitigation, it was very disappointed by the decline in public funding for R&D into renewable energy and clean technologies and asked for a reversal. On adaptation, AOSIS called for immediate operationalising of the new adaptation fund under the Kyoto Protocol.
Belize, speaking for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), stressed the extreme vulnerability of the region to climate change. The region's priorities for a post-2012 regime are substantial and legally binding emission reductions in the shortest time frame possible, and significant increases in resources for adaptation for developing countries, especially small island and low lying coastal developing countries. It urged all Annex I countries and the major emerging industrialised developing countries to agree to an aggressive mitigation regime for post-2012 aimed at achieving a less than 2 degree temperature rise.
Saudi Arabia said that developing countries that are energy exporters are in a unique situation where they are negatively impacted by climate change and also by the response measures designed to address it. It asked for caution to assure that mitigation actions do not create market distortions leading to unstable energy supplies that would in turn disrupt the development process.
It was surprised by references by others to the ‘new climate change regime’ and the meaning it implies, as there is already a 17-year-old regime. It referred rather to building a new level on the existing framework convention and the Kyoto Protocol, which should continue with the same objective, principles and foundations.
It added that deeper emission cuts will have an adverse effect on fossil fuel energy exporting countries, and the adverse impact will spill over to all energy users. There is thus an obligation to carefully design measures that minimize the impact.
Highlighting the climate change challenge for Africa, Namibia's Ambassador Kaire Mbuende said that more than 70% of the continent's people were dependent on subsistence agriculture. Agriculture, however, was threatened by frequent droughts and floods. Africa might lose $25 billion in crop failure due to rising temperatures, and another $4 billion from declining rainfall. Thus, the basis of existence for a large number of people was threatened.
Senegal's representative drew attention to his region's weather disturbances, which had affected water systems and caused droughts and desertification. They had impacted the groundwater level and the quality of the soil. In the rainy season, floods had destabilised harvesting cycles. The most striking manifestation of climate change could be seen in the completely altered coastline, which affected the entire region and hampered economic development. Parts of the land were below sea level and were only protected by sand dunes, and building infrastructure to protect coastal areas would require extra financing.
Cuba's Ambassador, Ileana Mordoche, stressed the central role that the General Assembly should play in the global debate on climate change, as the issue demanded both a comprehensive political outlook and a global assessment in a specialized body. The Security Council, which had debated the issue a few months ago, was an organ with a limited membership. It was neither representative nor very transparent and did not have the mandate or the necessary expertise to properly address the matter.
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(3)Bush plans own climate change
US President George Bush has invited a number of ‘major economies’ and the United Nations to a meeting in September to develop a framework on climate change. Although the meeting aims to complement the global agreement under the UN, the nature and timing of the meeting opens questions as to whether the US initiative will be a building block or stumbling block to the UN process.
United States President George W. Bush is organising a conference on climate change for leaders of "major economies" on 27-28 September in Washington, just three days after a ‘high-level event’ at the United Nations on climate change to which heads of states and governments have been invited by the UN Secretary-General. (see earlier two reports)
The clash of the two events is the latest sign that the US President is planning to establish a global framework for dealing with climate change that could be inside or outside of the UN system.
An invitation letter for the ‘Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change’ was sent by Bush to leaders of other countries on 2 August. Invited are 11 representatives of developed countries (including the European Commission) and 7 representatives of developing countries, plus the United Nations.
The letter said that Bush will speak at the meeting, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will chair it.
Although the invitation letter implies that the meeting aims to contribute to a global agreement under the UNFCCC, the nature and timing of the meeting opens questions as to whether the US initiative will be a building block or stumbling block to the delicate UN process.
At present, the multilateral agreements on climate change come under the UN, namely the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol that is under the UNFCCC umbrella.
The Kyoto Protocol contains commitments by developed countries (known as Annex I countries) to reduce their Greenhouse Gas emissions by 2012 by certain percentages (as compared to 1990 levels), with each country allocated different percentages. Developing countries are not subjected to binding quantitative reduction targets.
As the present phase of the Kyoto commitments will be ending in 2012, most countries have agreed to launch negotiations for a new phase of emission-reduction commitments (for the post-2012 period) at the Bali meetings of the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol this December.
The US is a member of the UNFCCC, but has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Bush has challenged the rationale of the Protocol's differentiated approach to reduction commitments, and insisted that the US would only join an agreement in which developing countries that are major emitters of Greenhouse Gases are also obliged to reduce their emissions.
In the run-up to the G8 Summit in Germany in June, the US was under pressure from the European leaders to commit to a joint target for reducing G8 countries' emissions. To divert from criticisms, Bush on the eve of the Summit announced that he would launch a US initiative for a global framework, starting with a meeting of 15 top emitting countries before the end of the year.
There are fears that the US is challenging the UN process by starting its own process, with principles that may be different from what may be achieved at the UNFCCC. A major issue will be whether developing countries, or some of them, should be asked to commit to quantitative targets for emission reduction and if so, on what basis the developing countries are to be selected.
Countries with large populations, like China and India, are of the view that it is unfair for them to be subjected to binding targets, because their levels of emission per capita are still far below the levels of the developed countries, although their absolute total emissions may be large due to their population size.
The UN General Assembly last week held its first ‘thematic dialogue’ on the climate change issue, and it served a useful function of highlighting the problem and also enabling the countries to voice their current positions.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced that he was organising a high-level event on 24 September on the eve of the General Assembly's main meeting to which many heads of government traditionally attend.
Observers were of the view that the UN was positioning itself to continue as the venue for negotiating international agreements relating to climate change, and that the General Assembly dialogue as well as the 24 September event were planned as important building blocks to the Bali conference in December.
The US delegation mentioned the Bush initiative for a meeting of major economies, but did not mention the dates nor that the invitations were already on the way.
On 3 August (a day after the UN General Assembly dialogue ended), news agencies reported that a senior US administration official had announced that Bush was organising a climate change conference for 27-28 September in Washington.
A Reuters report quoted the official as saying that the meeting was "intended to pave the way for agreement by the end of 2008 on a long-term goal to cut greenhouse emissions".
The Financial Times on 4 August reported that Bush had not yet confirmed whether he will attend the UN climate change meeting on 24 September, although he will be coming to the General Assembly meeting.
The key question now is whether the Washington meeting is intended by the US to be an input into the UN process, or as a competitor and possible alternative to it.
The letter of invitation by Bush states that the US wants to collaborate with other major economies to agree on a detailed contribution for a new global framework by the end of 2008, which would contribute to a global agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change by 2009.
This implies that the Bush initiative seeks to stay within the UN context. However, the US administration is likely to hold on to its position that it cannot join a global agreement on climate change that excludes ‘major’ developing countries from binding commitments that developed countries are to undertake.
This is likely to face resistance from many of the developing countries that are invited to Washington.
At the just concluded General Assembly dialogue, China, India and Brazil made clear their view that developing countries should not be required to undertake binding reduction commitments in a post-2012 agreement, although they could contribute through national plans aimed at tackling climate change.
The developing countries as a group have also made clear that they consider the UN process to be the proper and legitimate one, and that any other processes must fit into its multilateral framework.
The G77 and China in its statement to the General Assembly dialogue emphasised that "any special events or initiatives, whether individual, national, regional or multilateral, should complement ongoing negotiations under the UNFCCC, which serves as the multilateral agreed structure within which the international community agreed to address the challenges of Climate Change."
Bush sent his letter of invitation (dated 2 August) for the Washington meeting on "Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change" to the United States (as host), the European Union (current EU President and European Commission), France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, Japan, China, Canada, India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa as well as the United Nations.
