Tensions Rise in Cancun
Posted on 07. Dec, 2010 by joannadafoe in Canada
Tensions rise into the second week of the UN climate change meetings in Cancun. The draft text for the two negotiating tracks, Long Term Cooperative Action (LCA) and the Kyoto Protocol (KP), were released this weekend with mixed reviews by delegations.
The LCA text reviews main components of a balanced package agreement including: reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries (REDD), finance, capacity building, nationally appropriate mitigation strategies for developing countries, and more. This track is intended to determine a framework of action on climate change beyond 2012 when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires. You can see the online text for the LCA text here.
My preliminary look at the draft negotiating text shows what happens when you build negotiations on the goal of a “balanced package” – a term that is sufficiently vague to accommodate different and competing goals. Pages 16 and 17 of the draft text outline options for a global climate fund. One bracketed option calls for an open bid procedure to find a trustee of the fund, while another option calls for default World Bank trusteeship. By mid-week, these binary options bracketed in the text must somehow be reconciled.
Another significant development in the negotiating text is the removal of wording that anchors negotiations around a 1.5 degrees Celsius warming threshold. Previous versions of the text included the scientifically sound goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degree Celsius and bringing greenhouse gas emissions concentrations below 350 parts per million. The majority of negotiating states hold an official position of a 1.5 degrees target but this is now absent in the draft text.
The differences in opinion toward the draft LCA text were made clear over the weekend. The European Union praised the draft text as a good starting point to build the rest of negotiations, while Bolivia charged the draft outcome as unbalanced and neglectful of indigenous peoples rights. High-level ministers arrive in Cancun early this week, radically limiting time for substantive negotiation.
Under the Kyoto Protocol track, an important announcement by Japan changed the conference dynamic when it declared itself autonomous from any extension of the Kyoto Protocol. While Japan received significant pressure to soften its stance, the wallflower delegations of Russia and Canada silently affirmed this position. Without an extended legal mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the ability to reach a balanced package is at risk. The success of the Kyoto Protocol impacts other negotiating issues in Cancun such as finance and adaptation agreements.
As the window of time to remove the brackets on proposed text diminishes, negotiators perform under higher pressure. Many delegates who are in this role because of their passion for their issue spend all of their waking hours marred in procedural frustration, which we see expressed through emotional plenary interventions.
The urgency for resolve was captured perfectly by a meeting I had last weekend with the UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiania Figueres. Figueres explained the weight she carries on her shoulders as part of a generation that will leave a diminished planet for the future. She went on to say that, in spite of the challenge for collective action, negotiators have “the moral responsibility to make sure we’re doing the absolute best that we can.”
Negotiator Tracker - Joanna Dafoe
Joanna is an advocate for climate leadership on both the UN and community level. She attended the Montreal, Bali, and Copenhagen climate meetings with the Canadian Youth Delegation. Outside the UNFCCC, Joanna has been active in the UN Commission on Sustainable Development where she attended the 16th and 17th sessions as a youth representative. Currently living in Sweden on exchange, she calls Edmonton and Toronto her home. read more»
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