Subsidiary Body for Saving the Climate Talks?

In a joint action this morning, YOUNGO and the Climate Action Network (CAN) put pressure on parties to move forwards the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) process, that has been virtually held hostage by Russia for the past week.

In some aspects, SBI has been reduced to an acronym, with discussions in the public corridors centring around “will-it-or-won’t it-happen”, as delegates were waiting for the SBI plenary to resume.

The answer this morning was that the SBI plenary indeed resumed, in hope that an agreement to disputes can be found and the actual work can begin. But it is important to look beyond the acronym and remind ourselves of the key agenda points that are essential to progress in the climate talks, and why substantial delay in the SBI’s work is damaging towards a potential 2015 legally binding climate agreement:

Loss and Damage

A work programme that considers approaches to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Developing countries have stressed again during these round of talks of the devastating impacts they are already facing due to climate change, so it is imperative to move forward discussions on a comprehensive, inclusive and strategic responses under SBI.

NAMAs

Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) are a set of policies and actions that countries undertake as part of a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A particularly important task of the SBI is to also examine the information in the national communications and annual inventories of emissions and removals of GHG submitted by Parties in order to assess the Convention’s overall effectiveness. This includes information on national circumstances, vulnerability assessment, financial resources and transfer of technology, and education, training and public awareness.

Review

SBI assesses and reviews the effective implementation of the Climate Convention and its Kyoto Protocol, which is currently the is the only legally-binding global agreement on climate change.

The SBI also reviews the financial assistance given to non-Annex I Parties to help them implement their Convention commitments. These parties are mostly developing countries, including those that are recognized by the Convention as being especially vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change, including countries with low-lying coastal areas and those prone to desertification and drought.

Within the context of vulnerable countries, work on the 2013–2015 review of the long-term global temperature rise limit is crucial as at the current 2°C set limit there are countries that fear the possible threat of extinction.

A Tug of War

The action by civil society illustrated these points through a “Tug-of-War”, with Russia on one side pulling back the process, and other parties trying to pull the agenda items closer to discussion.

SBI chair Tomasz Chruszczow expressed at the start of today’s opening plenary, “We are all eager for solutions to be found for the SBI work to start, and the world is watching us”, and as Russia, Ukraine and Belarus continued to dig in their heels, Fiji called on the Chair to take personal action, in an “attempt to save the countries of the world”. Singapore received applause from the plenary as they also looked to break the SBI agenda deadlock and warned of the risks of creating an adverse precedent in future should they go ahead with Russia’s suggested agenda.

Russia relented that proposed “provisional” solutions from the SBI chair were not transparent, and went as far as likening the UNFCCC to a “haunted house”, where parties needed turn on the light of transparency. Chief Russian negotiator Oleg Shamanov called for emotions to be set aside and dismissed the notion that they were blocking the process; instead suggesting that examples such as US and Canadian refusal to join the Kyoto Protocol was akin to the climate processes melting like the Arctic ice sheet.

Continual instance by Russia for the “need for consensus”, for the process to go “beyond the looking glass”, and rejection of the SBI Chair’s proposed solutions brought the talks to a halt. Essentially, through the introduction of a single agenda point on procedural and legal issues relating to decision-making by Russia, a key track in the climate talks has been delayed for the next 5 months.

Whilst the other negotiating tracks have seen progress, SBI talks will now reconvene on Friday only in order to close the session and resume in Poland for COP19. UN climate Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres is reported to have said that she hoped the experience would be remembered when delegates next met so that talks could progress and and they could improve the ‘manner of their work’.

Given the lessons from the past week, perhaps at the next meeting parties should propose the introduction of a Subsidiary Body for Saving the Climate Talks (SBSCT).

Pictures of the Civil Society action follow: