Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
U.N. climate process in emergency ward
Old rifts between negotiators of rich and poor countries re-surfaced at UN climate talks last weekend, posing a question mark over the continued usefulness of meetings held at least twice a year, and which can be traced back to the signing of the UN Climate Convention on Climate Change in 1992.
Is it now time to end those talks, which are focused on delivering a global climate deal to succeed the present Kyoto Protocol after 2012?
It could be argued that their last big breakthrough was the signing of Kyoto in 1997. Possible alternative processes include more streamlined meetings of ministers and leaders, to agree emissions cuts and funds to help the poor face a warmer world.
The UN process was thrown into focus by a Copenhagen climate summit last December which failed to deliver an “agreed outcome” on a new global deal, as promised by environment ministers two years earlier.
About 120 world leaders flew into Copenhagen to sign a deal, but found 87 pages of rather indecisive documents riddled with square brackets, indicating unresolved choices for example on emissions targets.
It had taken negotiators two years to produce those texts, at six additional, meetings of one- or two-weeks in Bonn, Germany and in Bangkok, Barcelona and Accra, which cost $30 million, according to the UN climate secretariat. Costs included the flights, hotel accommodation and daily allowances paid to negotiators from least developed countries, as well as the rent of the venue and security.
The $30 million excludes the costs of scheduled meetings through 2008-2009: the Danish government allocated $62 million for the two-week Copenhagen summit. In addition there were two previously scheduled two-week meetings in Bonn, Germany and one two-week ministerial session in Poznan, Poland.
Possibly the reason for the deadlock is that the countries putting up the money realized that there is little chance that even billions given to China and the others would make the slightest difference in the climate. Carbon dioxide emissions will continue to grow, and that may or may not make a difference in the climate, but the money is just not going make a noticeable difference.