Walrus on ice floe; Greenpeace tour investigating climate change effects, Chukchi Sea, Alaska.
"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.
----------------------------------------------------
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.