Durban Conference: Time for Africa to Raise Alarm

Activists at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen called on rich nations to support poor countries to reduce their emissions., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Durban Conference: Time for Africa to raise alarm

Monday, 03 October 2011 00:00
Zimbabwe Herald

This December, activists and world leaders are meeting in Durban, South Africa for the United Nations climate conference.

They seek to negotiate and formulate a balanced and comprehensive treaty to erase the misery at Copenhagen and Cancun that ended only in partial agreement and acrimony.

This provides a convenient platform for Africa and other developing countries to raise alarm at the direction that the UN negotiations are taking and have taken since Kyoto in 1997.

As a matter of social justice, Africa should be able to arm-twist the conference and have its voice heard.

The continent has felt the damaging effects of global warming and climate change more than any other continent while developed countries, who pollute the most, continue shifting goalposts in emission reduction pledges and funding adaptation programmes.

The cutting of emissions in global warming-causing gases must be a very deep if the world target of curbing temperature increases at a maximum 2 degrees Celsius is to be achieved.

The current gaps in pledges and real action from developed countries are far from satisfying these targets.

The effects translate into severe droughts, floods, heat waves, famine and hunger, etc, which will be felt more at household level than at national and international level and mostly in Africa.

The Durban conference comes at a time when parties need to agree on the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which comes into force after 2012.

The first period that has been running over the past four years ends in December 2012.

Kyoto is the only legally binding instrument committing nations to tackle emission reduction in an effective manner.

Analysts say: "There is need to preserve the Kyoto Protocol and its stringent rules for monitoring reporting and verification, its flexible mechanisation and compliance system.

But despite these seeming positives, Kyoto has largely failed to yield the desired outcome.

Big emitting countries like China and India have been reluctant if not willing to commit to serious reduction pledges while the US and the EU have been a drag to the climate negotiations.

For instance, on the US$30 billion pledged by the parties for mitigation and adaptation under the first period of commitment only US$12 billion has been availed.

This has impacted negatively on mitigation and adaptation programmes in Africa and other least developed countries.

Zimbabwe has also complained of challenges in accessing funding for its climate change initiatives.

The chances that negotiations will reach a successful outcome in Durban to consolidate and strengthen the climate change framework must be hinged on the level of political will that parties can exhibit, analysts say.

"Legal and political commitments are required from both developed and developing countries on emissions reduction as pushed by countries such as Japan, Canada and Russia.

"While little more than a year to go before the end of Kyoto's first commitment period, it appears likely that they will be a gap of indefinite duration before the establishment of any new legal commitments limiting greenhouse gas emission," according to a new paper released by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements.

"Even if the Kyoto Protocol parties agreed at the Durban conference this year to an amendment establishing a second commitment period - an extremely improbable outcome - there is virtually no chance that sufficient countries would ratify the amendment in time for it to enter into force before the end of 2012".

There are increasing fears that developing countries if left unchecked will grow into dangerous emitters.

They must, therefore, come to the party and show credible commitment to cutting their own emissions to within acceptable levels.

According to some estimates, emissions from developing countries will rise faster over the next two decades "that even if developed countries were to phase out their greenhouse gas emissions completely, global emissions will still be higher in 2030 than today".

The lack of emission targets for countries such as the US and China under the Kyoto agreement has been of major concern to other world climate change partners.

Where as the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period required EU member states to cut the emissions by 8 percent relative to 1990 levels, by 6 percent for Japan, nothing of that nature was asked from countries like Russia and India, and other smaller developing countries.

Such disparities in targets have caused serious divisions amongst the parties.

To try and remedy the situation, the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements has postulated three possible outcomes for the Durban conference and beyond.

The first scenario represents the minimal outcome: no agreement in Durban on a Kyoto Protocol second commitment period, minimal progress in elaborating the Cancun Agreements, and no decisions about the long-term direction of the regime.

The second scenario represents a politically ambitious outcome, in which the Kyoto Protocol parties agree to a second commitment period and convention parties agree to a mandate to negotiate a legally binding agreement that addresses the emissions of countries without the Kyoto targets.

Finally, the third scenario represents an intermediate outcome, establishing a transitional regime aimed at the development of a legally binding agreement.

The three scenarios, however, will not get the job done if they function independently.

The complexity of the Kyoto Protocol, which has only about a quarter of commitments to reduce world emissions, compounds the problem.

"The future of the protocol thus seems doubtful at best," says the Harvard Project.

"Even in the most optimistic scenario, a new round of emissions targets could not be agreed in time to prevent a legal gap between the first and second commitment periods."

What is the way forward?

"A possible middle ground would be to establish a transitional regime that will be political in nature, but that could evolve over time into a legally binding regime.

"A political second commitment period would establish a parallel process under the Kyoto Protocol, thereby keeping it alive so that it can fight again another day," according to the paper.

That is the possible and probable global response to limiting greenhouse gas emissions. How will Africa respond?

The continent should assert its position in Durban, which will see those countries responsible for causing global warming in climate change committing to releasing money to finance home-grown mitigation, adaptation and transfer of technology programmes.
God is faithful.

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