For many ordinary South Africans the climate change conversation is still fairly new, and the nature and purpose of the COP17 climate change talks, which start in Durban next Monday, are a bit obscure.
This was illustrated by a remark the Cape Times overheard on a bus last week: “I only discovered the other day that COP stood for Conference of the Parties, but I don’t know who the parties are and what they are conferring about, except that it’s about climate change.”
Here is some basic information about the big meeting.
What is COP17?
Essentially it is a political meeting; a negotiating forum. Most world governments have accepted the scientific evidence that global warming is happening, mainly as a result of humans burning fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases. COP17 is the 17th annual meeting when world governments get together to negotiate tackling climate change. COP stands for Conference of the Parties, the parties being the 195 nations that signed the United Nations Convention on Climate Change.
What is the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)?
It is a United Nations convention that emerged out of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. World governments met in Rio, under the UN, to rethink economic development and find a path that would not continue to destroy, degrade and pollute natural resources. Several declarations and conventions emerged from the Earth Summit.
The UNFCCC was one. The ultimate objective of the UNFCCC is to get nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions, so that these gases stabilise at a level that will prevent “dangerous” climate change.
The aim is that this should be done in a time frame that allows ecosystems to adapt naturally, to ensure food production is not threatened and to allow economic development to continue.
How is the UNFCCC different from Kyoto Protocol?
The Kyoto Protocol was born out of the UNFCCC. The UNFCCC encouraged the 195 signatory nations to cut emissions, but encouragement was not enough.
The Kyoto Protocol was born to commit nations to cutting of emissions. That is the main difference between the two. The Protocol sets legally-binding carbon reduction targets and time-frames in which these must be achieved. The Protocol was finalised in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 and came into force in 2005. Nearly all nations that signed the convention have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, with the exception of the US.
However, the mandatory emission reduction targets do not apply to all nations, only to the 37 industrialised countries and the EU. These are often referred to as the “annex 1” countries.
Developing countries like South Africa do not have mandatory targets.
This is because the convention recognised that the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions were produced by the developed nations over the past 150 years since the Industrial Revolution.
Developing nations’ historic contribution is far smaller. So the protocol places a heavier burden on the developed nations, under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”. The US refused to agree to legally binding targets.
Why does the logo have COP17 and CMP7?
The COP is the main body of the UNFCCC. The CMP is the main body of the Kyoto Protocol. They meet together at the same venue every year.
Has the Kyoto Protocol made a difference?
The developed countries committed to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions by varying amounts, which averaged out to a 5.2 percent reduction below 1990 emission levels. They were to achieve this by 2012. But the Kyoto Protocol did not become international law until 2005, by which time the global emissions had risen substantially. The EU and some other nations were on track last year to meet their Kyoto targets, but many others were not. Between 1990 and 2009 global emissions increased by 40 percent. According to Robert Henson, the US and China – the world’s biggest emitters – churned out enough greenhouse gases to erase all the reductions made by other countries during the Kyoto period. China recently overtook the US as the world’s biggest emitter.
Does the Kyoto Protocol end in 2012?
No. The first phase ends in 2012. Ideally this would be followed by a second phase of deeper and more rapid cuts in emissions, in order to keep global warming to no more than a 2°C increase.
Many believed the second phase of protocol would be agreed to in the COP15 talks in Copenhagen in 2009, but this did not happen.
That means world governments still have to sort out what to do about the future of the Kyoto Protocol, in particular how to get deeper emission cuts from those industrialised countries, which had agreed to mandatory cuts under the first phase of the protocol.
Governments also have to work out and agree on how to deal with the emissions of the US, which refused to make mandatory cuts, and what to do about the emissions of the big economies of the developing countries – China, India, Brazil and South Africa – which did not have to make mandatory cuts under the protocol.
So far governments cannot agree. Some want to ditch the protocol.
What happens if they never agree and we carry on business as usual, emitting greenhouse gases at an increasing rate?
We will be in serious trouble. Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank, wrote in the Stern Review that ignoring climate change would damage economic growth, creating major disruptions to economic and social activity “on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression” of the 1920s. Ignoring climate change could reduce global GDP by 20 percent by the end of the century. To avoid this risk we should spend 1 percent of global GDP annually on tackling climate change – starting immediately. The report was published in 2006.
If climate change is so dangerous, and will cost economies billions of dollars, why can’t governments sort out what to do about cutting emissions?
There are many reasons. One is because cutting emissions means tackling the foundation of our global economy: fossil fuels. Moving to a low-carbon economy is possible, but not easy.
Powerful vested interests want to keep the status quo.
Another reason is the mismatch between the “life cycles” of politicians and the changing climate. Taking action to deal with climate change now is for long-term benefits, but political cycles are short-term.
Also, the world economy has changed since the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997, and some developing countries, not bound by the protocol, have become large and dirty economies: China, Brazil, India and South Africa. Some developed countries do not want to sign a second Kyoto unless these big developing economies – and the US – also make commitments to mandatory targets. A central issue is national interest: “If we have to spend money cutting emissions and you don’t, you have the competitive edge on us.” - Cape Times
Sources: UNFCCC and The Guardian