Climate change negotiations

Each year, countries that are party to the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meet for the annual climate change conference (Conference of Parties). From December 7-18th Denmark will be the host. The focus of negotiations in Copenhagen will be the need to create a new agreement that will take effect in 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period expires. It took nearly eight years to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and the Copenhagen conference represents almost the last chance to agree on a new agreement if it is to be approved and ratified prior to the expiry of the binding commitments in the Kyoto Protocol in 2012.

From Montreal to Copenhagen
At the 11th Conference of Parties in Montreal in December 2005, the parties agreed to establish a two-track negotiation process towards a new climate agreement. One track would comprise of a global dialogue on future long-term climate co-operation with the participation of all countries including the United States and major developing countries such as China, India and Brazil. The other track would deal with the post-2012 commitments of the 37 industrialised countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

The first track, the global dialogue, functioned for the first two years as a forum for countries to exchange experiences and views, rather than as a negotiation process.

COP13 in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2008 took place shortly after the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had released its fourth major report on the state of the climate. The conclusion of the report was clear: signs of global warming are unequivocal, and the increasing temperatures recorded over the last 50 years is with great certainty due to increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. These were conclusions that proved impossible for the parties to ignore and led to crucial steps forward being taken at Bali.

With the adoption of the Bali Action Plan, countries have agreed on the need for a new agreement – and that it must be made quickly if the effects of climate change are to be minimised. The end date for this agreement is 2009 in Copenhagen.

The road to a new agreement
The Bali Action Plan set up a negotiation process with the aim to lead to a new agreement. Countries could not agree on a single comprehensive negotiation track, so negotiations continue to run along two separate tracks:

1. Future commitments for industrialised countries (Annex 1 countries) under the Kyoto Protocol
2. Long-term cooperative action to enable the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention.

In addition to deciding a process and an end date, countries have identified a common vision and four building blocks that will serve as the main elements a future agreement must be built upon.

• A shared vision for long-term cooperative action, including a long-term global goal for emission reduction • Increased efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
• Adaption to climate change: support for adaptation to climate change, in particular the poorest and most vulnerable developing countries that will be hardest hit by climate change.
• Technology development and transfer: the intensified development, transfer and dissemination of climate-friendly technology is a prerequisite for achieving significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions
• Financing and investment: the need to finance a new agreement focusing on adaptation and technological development. Includes a mix of both market-based instruments and public funds.

2008 has been “the year of ideas” – a year in which all countries have had the opportunity to make suggestions about what a new agreement could look like. Year 2009 will be “the year of negotiation”, in which countries enter into genuine negotiations on concrete proposals.