At too quiet climate negotiations
Posted on 03. Aug, 2010 by Florent Baarsch in Adopt a Negotiator, France
Margaret, the LCA Chair
In the article I wrote yesterday, I gave a quick summary of the ongoing negotiations in Bonn. After two days of discussions, the image of these talks is now clearer. After the really intense KP plenary session of Monday morning, the delegates participated in a workshop about mitigation targets, and the different aspects of the negotiations on emission reductions. Following what has been said today by the Chinese delegates, this workshop was really helpful and useful to the negotiations. But let’s be honest, this workshop was really terribly technical…
In the other working group (AWG-LCA) a major event happened in the evening when some of the delegates were having fun at the traditional opening ceremony. The Russian delegation decided to walk out of the negotiations because the proposal of spin off groups made by the chair of the group was not clear enough. In other words, they asked the secretariat to submit a real document to the negotiators in order to explain how and when they are going to work on the different topics. This was finally resolved this morning when Margaret took the floor and she invited the delegates to read the schedule of the next four days. After quick and clear discussions the delegates agreed on the schedule and started working…. on Tuesday, one day later…
As they maybe thought that the next drafting sessions were going to be really rough and that the parties were going to discuss a lot, they decided to kick NGOs and observers out of the sessions. Such a pity. I now always have this feeling that when the negotiations are really interesting the delegates decide to restrict the access to the talks. One of the reasons why they do not want to open to doors to observers it is also because some countries “play” a role in the open negotiations and sometimes in the closed discussions they can accept compromises that are not always the position they were proudly defending.
Even if we can see some progress in these negotiations here in Bonn- they have started drafting a text, they have decided to discuss the really important issues (such as the gap between the two commitment periods) - the process is still so slow. From now, there are just four weeks left before Cancun, and if we carry on working at this rhythm, it is really not sure that we will get a consolidated text. The spectre of Copenhagen is still in everybody’s mind and a lot of delegates understand that we are not negotiating fast enough.
However, some parties can take advantage of this slowness, for example Japan which said yesterday that its emission reductions targets were not for the Kyoto Protocol. China and some other developing countries highlighted this point several times today.
Are we just negotiating slowly, or are we trying to kill the Kyoto Protocol? That is the question.
Thanks @Anna Collins for correcting this article.