PHM-Exch> A 'low ambition' outcome at Doha climate change conference

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: South Centre <south at southcentre.org>

No. 20,         10 December 2012
SOUTHNEWS is a service of the South Centre to provide information and news
on topical issues from a South perspective.
  See full article in the South Centre’s website: www.southcentre.org.
 A 'low ambition' outcome at Doha climate change conference
*By Martin Khor, Executive Director of the South Centre, Doha, 9 December
2012 *

[Excerpts]
The annual UN climate conference concluded in Doha last Saturday (8
December) with “low ambition” both in emission cuts by developed countries
and funding for developing countries.

Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted
many decisions, including on the Kyoto Protocol’s second commitment period
in which developed countries committed to cut their emissions of greenhouse
gases.

Many delegates left the conference quite relieved that they had reached
agreement after days of wrangling over many issues and an anxious last 24
hours that were so contentious that most people felt a collapse was
imminent.

The relief was that the multilateral climate change regime has survived yet
again, although there are such deep differences and distrust among
developed and developing countries.

The conflict in paradigms between these two groups of countries was very
evident throughout the two weeks of the Doha negotiations, and it was only
papered over superficially in the final hours to avoid an open failure.
But the differences will surface again when negotiations resume next year.

Avoidance of collapse was a poor measure of success.  In terms of progress
towards real actions to tackle the climate change crisis, the Doha
conference was another lost opportunity and grossly inadequate.

The most important result in Doha was the formal adoption of the Kyoto
Protocol’s second commitment period (2013 to 2020) to follow immediately
after the first period expires on 31 December 2012.

A saving factor in the Kyoto Protocol decision is the “ambition mechanism”
put in by developing countries, that the countries will “revisit” their
original target and increase their commitments by 2014, in line with the
aggregate 25-40% reduction goal.

A second major criticism of the Doha decisions is the lack of funds to be
provided to developing countries to take climate actions.

The lack of a credible finance commitment led to an outcry by developing
countries on the plenary floor.  This lack of funds curtails their ability
to undertake actions to combat climate change, especially since they have
agreed in the 2010 Cancun and 2011 Durban Conferences to take on more
mitigation efforts.

A positive decision made in Doha was to prepare for the setting up by next
year’s Conference of an “international mechanism”  to help developing
countries deal with loss and damage caused by climate change. This also
resulted from intense negotiations.


This reveals how much lacking in the spirit of international cooperation
that the United States and some other developed countries have become.

They are no longer willing to assist the developing countries, and
incredibly are even objecting to the principles of the Convention being
applied to negotiations to set up a new agreement that will be under the
Convention.

More than anything else, this shows the tragic paradox of the Doha
conference. It succeeded in adopting many decisions and kept the
functioning of the multilateral climate regime alive, but the actual
substance of actions to save the planet from climate change was absent, as
was a genuine commitment to support the developing countries.
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