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Durban climate talks

Following the conclusion of COP17 in Durban, global cooperation on climate change can become smoother and (hopefully) more effective in the coming years. The Durban outcome is a set of good decisions at a time when good decisions are unfortunately not enough to change the path we are already following -- towards global warming of around four degrees above pre-industrial temperatures. Want to hear more? Check this out.

Recent warning from the International Energy Agency that the world will pass the point of no return for irreversible climate change by 2017 if the current direction is not changed demonstrate that from here on, avoiding more than two degrees warming will take extraordinary work and decisions, not just good ones. The 194 countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have set up crucial infrastructure for finance and adaptation that will be able to make world of difference for people that are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change  -- which is already devastating lives and killing hundreds of thousands of people each year. The Durban platform consolidates international cooperation, takes important steps towards greater action in the medium term, and establishes important multi-lateral institutions to deal with the increasingly severe and unpredictable impacts of climate change.

To keep two degrees within reach will require effort beyond that already agreed to, and that's why the ambition process and the scaling up of climate finance, is going to be so important in the coming three years as we head towards the next major turning point, after AR5 and the 1.5 review are completed, and we adopt (fingers crossed) a new protocol with more mitigation, more finance, and more rigour.

CANA supports its members to keep the Australian Government accountable for its actions on the international stage. For a taste of what we do there, here's Director Georgina Woods updating OneClimateTV on the situation early in the second week.

You can support CANA's work at the international climate talks by giving a one-off or a regular donation here.

We know that once we pass the two-degree threshold of warming, we will no longer be in a position to prevent the more intense “weather on steroids” that the IPCC is predicting.

Details of the Durban platform

Finance and adaptation

Developing countries need our help to adapt to changes to weather systems already being caused by global warming, including reduced agricultural production, more intense extreme weather events, and salt-water inundation of crops and homes in low-lying islands and river deltas. Australia, and the rest of the developed world, has committed to providing support for national adaptation programs of action. Investing now in actions that protect coastal areas from erosion, change agricultural practices and increase disaster preparedness will greatly reduce the harm to people and ecosystems from future climate change, and be far less expensive than helping communities after disaster strikes and crops fail. We also need to see mitigation of greenhouse pollution in developing countries, and that requires financial support that has already been promised.

The Durban meeting has set up the Green Climate Fund. This Fund will be a major institution for providing financial support for mitigation in developing countries, and will complement the Adaptation Fund and the Least Developed Country Fund in supporting adaptation planning and action. The importance of international support for adaptation and mitigation cannot be underestimated. Without it, much of the mitigation actions promised by the developing countries could not occur. In a four degree future, support for adaptation and responding to loss and damage caused by climate change could literally save the lives of millions.

The COP has now also decided to conduct a work program on long-term finance, which will include workshops and will be led by two co-chairs, to be appointed by the COP President, who will provide a report on the work program to COP18 in Qatar. This is something that should have happened last year in Cancun, and again, is crucially important if we are to quickly mobilise the $100 billion per year in climate finance support by 2020 promised in the Copenhagen Accord.

Mitigation and transparency

Now that Australia has legislation in place to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and catch up to other parts of the world, it’s time for us to commit to our fair share of the global effort to cut pollution.

The Cancun Agreements established a shared commitment to limiting global warming to below 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures, but the commitments so far pledged by countries worldwide will not achieve this modest goal. We are now set to have an independent Climate Change Authority that will recommend emissions reductions targets for Australia, but before that occurs, Australia will take part in the process agreed in Durban to raise the ambition of everyone's mitigation targets.

The decision that the process of the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (DPEA) "shall increase ambition" is very good news, given that implementation of the pledges put forward and captured in Cancun would likely lead to global warming of four degrees above pre-industrial temperatures.

They have agreed that the process will be informed by the Fifth Assessment Report, which will come out a year ahead of the deadline for adoption of the outcome of the DPEA and also by the review of the adequacy of the two degree goal.

The Kyoto Protocol and long-term cooperative action

The future of the Kyoto Protocol was set to be a defining question of the Durban Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.  Australia received great international acclaim in 2007 when we finally ratified the treaty, ten years after it was created. The ability of the international community to secure a global agreement to avoid runaway climate change is bound up with the future of the Kyoto Protocol. In Durban at the end of this year, Australia needs to be ready to undertake new commitments under that treaty.

Together, the United States and China produce more than 30% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, but neither will be expected to take binding commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. The actions of these countries will in large part determine the effectiveness of the global response to climate change, and they need to demonstrate leadership at Durban by being part of a decision to create a new treaty to which they will be party. The parties that take commitments under the Kyoto Protocol account for another third of the world’s greenhouse pollution, so getting the Kyoto countries to act together with the US and China will go a long way towards meeting the world’s goal of limiting warming to less than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

The DPEA has decided to adopt a legal outcome of its negotiations un 2015, which will be applicable to all parties. There is still no certainty that the outcome to be adopted in 2015 will be a treaty, but it is established that all countries will be part of a single agreement.

Background: the Cancun Agreements

The Cancun decisions include:

• A recognition that warming needs to be kept to below two degrees and a decision to undertake a review of this global goal between 2013-2015 in light of updated science, looking at whether to increase this goal to 1.5 degrees.
• A decision to set a global 2050 emissions reduction goal next year in Durban
• Establishment of a Cancun Adaptation Framework, with many tasks allocated to it, establishment of an Adaptation Committee, and initiation of a process to help least developed countries prepare national adaptation plans
• A work program to consider how to address loss and damage.
• Mitigation contributions from developed and developing countries to be captured in (separate) INF documents (basically, a background information document without legal status).
• The decision notes these targets and actions “to be implemented” by parties, and decides to undertake technical work on understanding the assumptions behind these pledges
• Establishment of framework decisions on transparency for mitigation commitments and actions outside the Kyoto Protocol for developed and developing countries, and a work plan to develop guidelines etc for this.
• A framework decision to begin action to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation that has the forest-protection groups smiling.
• Deferral of decision on establishing new market mechanisms till this year.
• Locking the Copenhagen finance commitments into a COP decision (both fast-start and the $100 billion per year by 2020 commitment)
• A decision to establish a new Green Climate Fund, including some details on the make-up of its governing Board, an invitation to the World Bank to serve as interim trustee of the Fund, establishment of a transitional committee to operationalise this decision. The committee will have 40 members, with 15 members from developed country Parties and 25 members from developing country Parties, and we’re expecting that Australia will participate.
• A decision to establish a technology mechanism, and the bodies and entities that go along with that.
• A request that the LCA Working group, which is mandated to continue now, will also “continue discussing legal options” next year.

There is also a CMP (Kyoto) decision and an additional decision on LULUCF. 

If you are a member of CANA, you can view CANA's updates from Cancun (and all UNFCCC sessions) on the member's only section of the site.