Tianjin meet to try to reduce climate disputes

NEW DELHI: Two months away from the year-end UN climate summit in the Mexican resort town of Cancun, countries appear to have given up the idea of a binding climate treaty this year. The focus now is on narrowing down differences and providing the framework for an agreement, perhaps in South Africa next year. There is a growing understanding among leaders and negotiators across the world that the absence of progress at Cancun would have deleterious impact on the future of the multilateral climate negotiation process. It is with the aim of achieving even a small measure of progress that representatives from 190-odd countries will embark on a week of meetings from Monday in the north-eastern port city of Tianjin in China.

At the penultimate meeting before the UN climate summit in Cancun, negotiators will work towards arriving at an agreement on key issues in the negotiating texts. The chairs of the two tracks of the negotiations, the Kyoto Protocol and the Bali Action Plan, have indicated this intention in their respective notes.

The chair of the Bali track, or the ad-hoc group on long-term co-operative action, has stated that the outcome of the discussions would be a set of decisions by the conference of parties or general assembly of countries. This should come as a relief for the advanced developed countries like India and China. These countries have been concerned about attempts to bind the advanced developing countries in an agreement.

The chair of the Bali track, Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe of Zimbabwe, has indicated issues on which she would like consensus or narrowing down of differences. This includes a long term global goal, broad contours of the new provisions for measuring, reporting and verification for industrialised countries, and guidelines for international consultation and analysis for developing countries. Fast track finance, the REDD plus and technology are other issues where there is an expectation that there is some progress.

Discussions on the Kyoto track will aim to “narrow down options” on four main areas—aggregate and individual emission reduction of industrialised countries, the duration of the second commitment period of the protocol beginning in 2013, the base year for considering emission reduction numbers and the methodologies of calculating the reductions. The group will also consider legal issues including amendment to compliance regime, review provisions.

Ahead of the meeting at Tianjin, UN climate chief Christine Figueres called on governments to compromise on concrete steps towards a global agreement. “Governments will need to cut down the number of options they have on the table, identify what is achievable in Cancun and muster political compromises that will deliver what needs to be done at Cancun,” Ms Figueres said.