Deal, deadlock or derailment? Three things that could happen at Doha
Climate talks in Doha are in full swing and attention is again focused on whether the world’s nations can agree to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The process has often contained more deadlock than breakthrough. But in the spirit of optimism, we’ve examined three compromise deals that might move the world forward – and what different countries think of them.
Kyoto 2
The Kyoto Protocol, is the set of policies that created the first binding global emissions reduction target. Kyoto requires the nations with the most developed economies, including the UK, to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by five per cent on 1990 levels in the period 2008 to 2012. It does not put any binding targets on developing countries, including India and China.
The Protocol is due to expire at the end of this month. So what next? The first option being explored at Doha is to extend the Kyoto Protocol – an idea known as Kyoto 2 (or ‘Commitment Period 2’).
The European Union (EU) supports the idea, and has committed member states to a greenhouse gas reduction of 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, with an offer to increase this to 30 per cent by 2020 if other major industrialised countries sign up to binding agreements. The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is also committed to the idea, and Australia recently declared a Kyoto 2 target of a 5 per cent reduction in emissions on 1990 levels by 2020.
Finally, China, India, Brazil and South Africa – collectively known as the BASIC countries – are committed to extending the Kyoto Protocol. However, this is with a big condition – that they continue to be classified as developing countries, and are therefore excluded from any binding commitment to reduce emissions. The BASIC countries also call for more emissions cuts from the developed countries.
Not all nations want an extension: New Zealand, Canada, Japan and Russia are all refusing to commit to any Kyoto 2 target. Canada prefers less stringent domestic targets, while Japan declared at the Cancun summit in 2010 that it will not sign a Kyoto extension “ on any conditions or under any circumstances“. New Zealand announced the plan to withdraw from the Kyoto process on the same day that Australia announced its Kyoto 2 target.
A leaked document shows that Russia is potentially preparing the ground for a regional cap-and-trade scheme in the absence of a Kyoto 2 commitment, according to Reuters.
The United States signed the original Kyoto protocol in 1997, but congress didn’t ratify it. While the US claims to have made “ enormous efforts” to reduce its emissions, President Obama will not sign any extension to the Kyoto Protocol if India and China continue to be classified as developing countries – and even if the President did sign, it’s unlikely that congress would ratify it this time around.
Getting countries to agree to extend the Kyoto Protocol has been a challenge in the past, and it appears that little has changed. The general consensus is that a Kyoto deadlock seems pretty likely.
Durban Platform
If creating a new Kyoto-style agreement to cover emissions until 2020 is too tricky, another option is to try for a longer-term goal.
At the UN talks in Durban last year, delegates agreed to the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action which stated that either a “protocol, legal instrument, or legal outcome” to cut emissions would be agreed by 2015, to come into effect by 2020.
The EU and India held late night talks on the final day to reach an agreement on the wording of the platform. It sidesteps some of the Kyoto baggage, suggesting a new deal that contains legally binding emission reductions targets for all countries, not just the richer ones.
But this new deal relies on the developed countries agreeing to extend the Kyoto Protocol. Since this is proving the sticking point, it’s not impossible that the Durban Platform will be derailed in Doha.
Wedging the emissions gap
Another policy solution might be to wedge the gap between current emissions trends and the necessary reductions to limit global temperature increase to two degrees through the implementation of 21 major initiatives.
The idea of this approach was proposed by the consultancy Ecofys , and published in the journal Nature Climate Change earlier this year.
Image - Ecofys -wedging -the -gap (note)
Source: Ecofys, Wedging the Gap
The major initiatives include policies that target the emissions from companies and other polluters, emissions savings from so-called special sectors such as aviation and agriculture, implementing energy efficiency measures, changing energy supply, and tackling air pollutants.
The authors calculate that taken together, the measures they propose would deliver more emissions cuts that those pledges by governments under the current UN framework.
One advantage of the proposal is that it’s not just governments that can participate to cut emissions. Businesses or NGOs could sign ‘an umbrella covenant’ which others could then sign up to. The authors claim that such a deal would provide the ‘combined leadership’ necessary to solve climate change that is currently lacking in the UN talks.
But there is no guarantee that the umbrella covenant would be any less problematic than negotiating the Kyoto Protocol has proved. It essentially replaces one system with another, albeit promising greater emissions reductions. The idea is that this approach would make it easier for deals to happen by expanding the pool of actors which can make them – but that’s a rather untested assumption.
It’s certainly the case that international climate diplomacy remains fairly intractable. There is gradual progress in the development of new policy ideas and attempts to work around deadlocks – but the next few days will demonstrate whether this progress is happening fast enough.