COP9 Backgrounder

"The Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Accordingly, the developed country Parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse affects thereof."

The UNFCCC is, as its name implies, a 'framework' convention, and envisages subsidiary legal instruments (e.g. protocols) to effect those goals. It originally had a non-binding target, which called for industrialised countries to bring their emissions back to 1990 levels by 2000. Recognising that this was inadequate, the Parties to the convention established a process in Berlin in 1995 to negotiate a protocol with binding targets and timetables "as a matter of urgency" by 1997. The result was the Kyoto Protocol, agreed in December of 1997.

The Kyoto Protocol specifies legally binding targets and timetables for reductions of greenhouse gases by the developed countries listed in Annex B of the Protocol, amounting to a nominal 5% reduction of emissions by 2008-2012 relative to 1990 levels. 84 countries signed the Protocol and 120 have ratified or acceded (see table) the latest being the Philippines on October 23, 2003. These include the member states of the European Union, Canada, Japan, China, India and Brazil. The Protocol requires that 55 countries, accounting for 55% of the CO2 emissions from Annex B (industrialised) countries ratify in order for it to enter into force. Having already passed the first step required of a minimum of 55 industrialised countries ratifying, those interested in protecting the climate must wait for the Russian Federation to ratify, which will put the Protocol over the emissions threshold and it will enter into force. Despite repeated promises by Russian President Putin and Prime Minister Kasyanov over the past year or so, at the recent World Climate Change Conference in Moscow, President Putin put out mixed signals about Russia's intentions. As Russia has now entered the 'silly season' in the run-up to elections for the State Duma in December, to be followed by Presidential elections in March, not much is expected to happen until that process is complete.

The United States shows no sign of re-entering the Kyoto process, at least as long as the Bush administration is in power.

What's on the table at COP 9?

The formal process of the climate negotiations is all but 'on hold' while the 120 countries who have ratified the Kyoto Protocol wait for the Russians to decide whether or not they are going to live up to the repeated promises they have made for the last 18 months. At the same time outside of the negotiation halls, public and scientific concern about the increasing evidence of climate change impacts in the world around us add to the urgency of rapid forward progress on tackling climate change. While there are some hopeful signs, such as some positive momentum in the post-Johannesburg Earth Summit renewable energy debate, and some signs of large quantities of intelligent American life outside Washington, they need to be translated as soon as possible into rapid and dramatic emissions reductions. At the moment, that process is held hostage by Moscow.

Key issues at COP 9

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report (TAR):
What is Dangerous Climate Change?

The primary and ongoing obligation on countries signatory to the Climate Convention is to prevent dangerous climate change. With the publication of the IPCC's Third Assessment Report in September 2001, we have new and up-to-date information on the likely extent and impacts of climate change. Since then, floods in Europe, a global drought, extreme weather, collapsing ice sheets and the wholesale meltdown of the Arctic have given rise to concerns that the climate may be changing even faster. There has been much dithering since the TAR's publication, but it seems that the COP is ready to make a decision on how it is going to use this information.

It is the obligation of the Convention Parties to come to the fundamentally political decision as to what is 'dangerous' climate change. Pertinent questions arising out of the TAR:

- Is the meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet dangerous, leading as it would to several meters sea level rise?

- Is putting 300 million more people at risk of malaria dangerous? 50-120 million more people at risk of hunger? 100 million more people at risk of coastal flooding? More than 3 billion people at risk of water shortage? Are these dangerous?

- Are significant damages to crop production in tropical and subtropical countries, which could among other things reverse agricultural self-sufficiency progress in many developing nations, dangerous?

- Are losses of unique ecosystems and substantial damage to coral reefs dangerous?

One of the major differences between the TAR and the IPCC's Second Assessment Report from 1995 was the higher range of global mean projected temperature increase during the course of this century, from 1.0 - 3.5ºC, to 1.4 - 5.8ºC. But, the impacts of the upper end of this range were not assessed by the IPCC. For Greenpeace and our colleagues in the Climate Action Network, we have staked out our position in favour of a maximum peak of temperature rise as less than 2ºC increase from pre-industrial times. For more details see "Preventing Dangerous Climate Change"

Sinks in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)

When the CDM was first created, it was hailed as a breakthrough in promoting both greenhouse gas emission reductions AND providing a functioning mechanism for fostering sustainable development. The basic premise was and is that industrialised countries could pay for projects in developing countries which reduce greenhouse gases and receive credit for them against their own emissions reduction targets. This would achieve the dual goals of reducing emissions and providing technology and financial transfer to promote sustainable development. But the CDM debate has been plagued for the past five years by the efforts of a few countries to contaminate it with unsustainable technologies and practices. Thankfully, nuclear power was excluded from the CDM in 2001. However, the debate surrounding the issue of carbon sinks in forests continues, and will be the major technical issue at COP 9. (See "Note on Sinks" below) Greenpeace has and will continue to oppose the use of carbon sink credits in the Kyoto Protocol; but given that it appears inevitable that some will be used, at least in the short term, we insist that the rules be as strict and as scientifically and ecologically rigorous as possible, and include social and environmental criteria in the project rules.

Say 'No' to the Canadian 'Insurance Approach', and the proposal on Cleaner Energy exports

Canada now recognizes, as we and others have been saying for years, that sinks projects are in fact 'non-permanent'. To deal with this issue, they propose to have sinks projects 'insured', although they have yet to offer a concrete example of how this would work in practice. Beyond that, the problem with their proposal is that the insurance period is finite, i.e., no less than 10 years, and after that the disappearance of the sink via harvest, fire, pestilence or whatever, is no one's responsibility. This is yet another proposal for a loophole which should be rejected.

Also, in 2002, Canada formally proposed that it be allowed carbon credits for the sale of 'clean energy' (such as hydroelectric power and natural gas) to its southern neighbour, the United States, which would supposedly displace 'dirtier' energy generated from fossil fuel power plants in the United States. Greenpeace, along with most of the parties, reject this proposal for a number of reasons: one, it would allow for a dramatic increase in Canada's emissions; two, there is no evidence that this these energy exports and their related emission reductions are additional, i.e., anything other than business as usual; third, under Canada's proposal there is no way to verify that any emission reductions will in fact take place; and finally, it undermines the Kyoto architecture by giving credits to Canada for potential reductions outside its boundaries - without applying the formal project approval procedures relating to monitoring, verification and compliance which have been negotiated over the past five years; and gives Canada credit for negotiating such a deal with a non-Party to the Kyoto Protocol, the United States. The Canadian 'Clean Energy' proposal is totally unacceptable. It is on the agenda again for COP9, and Greenpeace urges the Parties to reject it again.

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Note on Sinks: Under the terms of the Kyoto Protocol certain kinds of land use change and forestry activities which can sequester carbon are allowed to be counted toward meeting emissions reduction obligations under the Protocol. The theory is that if a ton of carbon is stored in a tree (a so called 'sink' for carbon) and hence removed from the atmosphere, then a country would be allowed to add a ton of carbon to its allowed emissions of carbon from the burning of fossil fuels. This whole theory that creating 'sinks' in forests, plants and soils, whereby carbon dioxide is taken out of the climate system to offset higher fossil fuel emissions is, according to Greenpeace, quite wrong. Unfortunately, carbon stored in trees is not permanently removed from the atmosphere and there is a high probability that the ton of carbon counted as stored in the tree will find its way back into the atmosphere eventually. The result of this is that the burden of reducing emissions is simply shifted to future generations.

The main point, however, is that the use of sinks must not divert any political and financial resources away from the primary task: to reduce emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. Sinks do not even "buy us time", as some have argued. If the industrialized countries do not achieve major emission reductions in the near term, we may lose our ability to avoid dangerous climate change, by anyone's definition. The goal of the Protocol is to reduce emissions, not to create mechanisms for avoiding reductions. Greenpeace seeks to minimize the use of sinks in the Protocol as much as possible, and notes that a number of countries have already pledged that they will not take advantage of this loophole.