中国碳论坛China Carbon Forum
Cancún Summit, COP 16: A Brief Overview
January 2011
Expectations
The Cancún Climate Change Summit, COP 16, took place in Cancún, Mexico from 29 November to 10 December 2010. The negotiators faced many challenges picking up from the widely-criticised Copenhagen summit.
Copenhagen, COP 15 (7 December to 18 December 2009), was under considerable pressure from the international community to deliver a legally binding document to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The end result, however, was the non-binding Copenhagen Accord1, a two-page agreement which states that future temperature rises should be limited to 2°C, but included no emission targets. This deal was far from any global agreement on replacing the Kyoto Protocol (due to expire in 2012) and was largely seen as a failure of global cooperation.
Before the Cancún talks even began, any high expectations fell after several key people, including UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon and UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres, expressed little hope for reaching any new binding deal at Cancún, and urged to reach a modest agreement instead.2
The major challenge facing Cancún was to transform the Copenhagen Accord into a working plan of action. Many hoped that Cancún would be seen as a turning point in climate change negotiations.
Outcomes – the deal reached
The Cancún talks resulted in the Cancún Agreement3, which received a lot of praise from delegates compared with the Copenhagen Accord. However, the international reaction to the talks was mixed; many politicians hailed it as a milestone in global climate negotiations, while many scientists and green campaign groups reported that it lacked substance.
The following is a brief summary of the major deals reached:
Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission cuts – Pledges4 made by individual countries to cut GHG emissions by 2020 in the Copenhagen Accord were formally introduced into UN documentation. The extent of pledged cuts varied from country to country. Developing countries also agreed to start researching how they could start to cut emissions, but made no pledges. It should be noted that scientists believe that the current pledges will still lead to at least a 3°C temperature rise5,6, far above the accepted “safe-warming” level of 1.5–2°C.
Kyoto Protocol – Its fate, including whether there would be a second phase, was deferred until Durban, COP 17 (28 November – 9 December 2011).
Green Climate Fund – The creation of a global fund to help tackle climate change was approved; it will support programmes, policies and other activities in developing countries. It will be run largely by developing countries, under the eye of the UN. No amount of funding was officially agreed upon, although many ministers from developed countries repeated their promise of raising US $100 billion by 2020. Developed countries also took note of the fast-start finance agreed upon at Copenhagen last year to raise US $30 billion by 2012.
REDD7 (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) – Formal backing was given to stop and reverse destruction of forests, given that deforestation currently produces 15% of the world’s carbon emissions. Rich countries will pay poorer countries not to destroy forests. Details surrounding the REDD scheme are still limited, especially regarding whether or not developed countries can use it to offset their emissions. No scheme would start until 2013 at the earliest.
Carbon technology – The idea of setting up a mechanism to allow sharing of low carbon technology between developed and developing countries was agreed upon. A technology executive committee (TEC) and a climate technology centre (CTC) are due to be established.
Inspections – Countries have agreed to allow for verification of their emission cuts. The monitoring, reporting and verification will depend on the size of a country’s economy. However, who will be responsible for and carry out the inspections is yet to be decided.
New market mechanisms – Existing market mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol are International Emissions Trading (IET), Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI), which allow emissions to be traded or offset. The establishment of new, larger-scale market mechanisms were deferred until Durban. However, this will also include discussions surrounding current proposals with regards to CDM (e.g. whether to include carbon capture and storage (CCS) and nuclear-based activities) as well as non-market based mechanisms such as carbon taxes.
The question that remains to be answered is whether Cancún has provided enough building blocks to pave the way to a new global treaty at Durban.
International reaction and comments
The general consensus was that Cancún was a success compared with Copenhagen and was a sign of international cooperation. UK Climate Change Minister Chris Huhne said that he believed “a global deal on climate change was now back on track”8. On the other hand, the Global Wind Energy Council commented that Cancún was only counted a success because of the extremely low expectations going into the talks.
“Cancún may have saved the [UN] process but it did not yet save the climate," said Wendel Trio, Greenpeace International Climate Policy Director9. Friends of the Earth shared a similar view, commenting that “the outcome is a weak and ineffective agreement, but at least it gives us a small and fragile lifeline.”10
Looking forward
Cancún put the global climate change negotiations back on track after the disappointing outcome at Copenhagen. However, the toughest decisions remain to be addressed in Durban or beyond.
Durban will need to close the gap between the emission cuts to date and the much deeper cuts analysts say are required to meet the minimum “safe-warming” level of 2°C. Other issues that need to be addressed following on from Cancun include funding for the green climate fund; where, when and who will organise the TEC/CTC; who will carry out inspections; and what form the REDD scheme will take. Perhaps the toughest challenge will be resolving the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, which must be decided upon at Durban, as the Protocol expires in 2012. As it stands, Russia and Japan have announced that they would not sign a second phase unless both the US and China were also legally bound. It will be interesting to see where the US and China stand later this year.
It remains to be seen whether COP 17 in Durban can produce a real action plan. Many analysts are stressing that whether a new global deal can be reached in Durban will depend on the decisions of individual nations during 2011.
References
1 “Copenhagen Accord, Draft Decision -/CP.15.” UNFCCC, 2009. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf
2 “Ban Ki-moon urges nations to reach modest climate deal.” Climate Change in Mountains at COP 16, 2010. http://cop16.mtnforum.org/node/6147
3 “Outcome of the work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention, Draft Decision -/CP.16.” UNFCCC, 2010. http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_16/application/pdf/cop16_lca.pdf
4 “Appendix I – Quantified economy-wide emissions targets for 2020.” UNFCCC, 2010. http://unfccc.int/home/items/5264.php
5 “Cancún Climate Talks – Keeping options open to close the gap.” Climate Action Tracker, 2010. http://www.climateactiontracker.org/briefing_paper_cancun.pdf
6 “The Emissions Gap Report.” UNEP, 2010. http://www.unep.org/publications/ebooks/emissionsgapreport/pdfs/GAP_REPORT_SUNDAY_SINGLES_LOWRES.pdf
7 “UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries.” UN-REDD, 2010. http://www.un-redd.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=gDmNyDdmEI0%3d&tabid=587&language=en-US
8 “Cancún breakthrough puts climate deal back on track - (Press Release).” Department of Energy & Climate Change, UK, 2010. http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn10_127/pn10_127.aspx
9 “EU gives cautious welcome to outcome of Cancún talks.” The Parliament.Com, 2010. http://www.theparliament.com/policy-focus/agriculture/agriculture-article/newsarticle/eu-gives-cautious-welcome-to-outcome-of-cancun-talks/
10 “Cancún talks: Friends of the Earth analysis.” Friends of the Earth, 2010. http://www.foe.co.uk/news/cancun_final_analysis_26431.html
“The outcome wasn't enough to save the planet, but it did restore the credibility of the United Nationsas a forum where progress can be made."
Alden Meyer, Union of Concerned Scientists