Cancun Pact Creates Loophole for Industrial Countries
Cancun Agreement Preserves an Escape Hatch for Japan and Other Industrial Nations
Climatewire.net, Dec. 18, 2010
A
provision ensuring that industrialized countries can wiggle out of the
Kyoto Protocol after 2012 is hidden in plain view of a new climate
change agreement established in Cancun, Mexico, last week.
The line smothered in legalese appears to merely reference a section of the 1997 climate change treaty.
In
actuality, though, "recalling Article 20, paragraph 2, and Article 21,
paragraph 7 of the Kyoto Protocol," serves as a key reminder that no
country is obligated to take targets under the second phase of Kyoto.
Its insertion was essential in winning Japanese support for the Cancun
Agreements, experts close to the U.S., Japanese and European delegations
said.
"It's
kind of hidden in the document, but it's there," said Paul Bledsoe, a
senior adviser at the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center. "It's a
loophole for the parties not to have to enter the second commitment
period."
"They
weren't deciding anything new, but it was very important to Japan's
point of view that that [provision of Kyoto] be called out," said Elliot
Diringer, vice president for international strategies at the Pew Center
on Global Climate Change.
The
future of Kyoto -- which requires industrialized nations to
collectively cut greenhouse gas emissions at least 5.2 percent below
1990 levels between 2008 and 2012 -- was the central battle of this
year's U.N. climate conference. Japan declared it would not submit new
targets for the next five-year period that begins in 2012, sparking an
outcry among developing nations who insisted upon a rock-hard commitment
to a second phase of Kyoto.
The
key line is just one of many deft legal maneuvers strewn throughout the
Cancun Agreements -- and particularly in sections dealing with the
Kyoto Protocol -- that helped to satisfy 193 countries with the
exception of Bolivia last week.
"This
text is brilliant," Center for Clean Air Policy President Ned Helme
said the final night of the Cancun talks just before diplomats stood and
cheered final adoption of the agreements.
"It's really clever. Each step of the way, it's got a piece that's taken care of each person's thing," he said.
A
new Green Global Fund authorized by the Cancun Agreements, for example,
installs the World Bank as interim trustee at the United States'
behest.
But
it also does not give it control over funding priorities and decisions,
as per the insistence of developing countries. The phrase "common but
differentiated responsibilities" -- a phrase dear to developing nations
-- can be found on nearly every page. And the pact allows for, but does
not create, a market mechanism to help wealthy countries prevent
tropical deforestation in developing nations.
Something for everyone, but silence on Kyoto
The
agreement makes carbon capture and storage projects (CCS) eligible for
carbon credits under Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism -- something
that Saudi Arabia, Australia, Kuwait and Venezuela pressed for hard. It
even carves out a "special recognition" for Turkey and other
industrialized countries that are still transitioning to a market
economy yet remain poorer than their neighbors.
"This
document is a good step, actually," Turkish Environment Minister Veysel
Eroglu said, thumbing through the draft agreement minutes after it came
out Friday.
Turkey
was one of only two Group of 20 economic powers that did not embrace
the Copenhagen Accord drafted last year in Denmark. Eroglu said that was
because the Copenhagen text did not take the "special conditions" of
Turkey and other Eastern and Central European nations into account.
"When
we look at our greenhouse gas emissions, it is much lower than other
countries. It's half of the European Union countries and one third of
OECD countries. But we would like to go stronger, he said.
On
the Kyoto question, experts said the lawyers and diplomats who drafted
the Cancun Agreements found the only available middle ground: avoid the
issue entirely. "It decides nothing about Kyoto, which was the only
possible outcome," Pew's Diringer said. "It leaves all the options
open."
Diringer
described the solution as a three-part formulation spread across the
two Cancun Agreements that anchor emission reduction pledges countries
made last year in a formal decision "without either ensuring or
completely undermining" a second round of targets under the Kyoto
Protocol.
Diplomats
listed targets by developed countries and Nationally Appropriate
Mitigation Actions in different places, but the legal formulation for
both are identical. Meanwhile, Diringer added, by anchoring mitigation
pledges under a process for countries not part of the Kyoto Protocol --
which diplomats commonly refer to as the "Convention track" --
negotiators sent a signal that submitting targets for a second phase of
the Kyoto Protocol is not the only option available.
In
the hours after the Cancun Agreements were released in the form of
draft text, though, many environmental activists scouring the language
said it appeared to ensure a second Kyoto commitment period.
"This saves the Kyoto Protocol," Wendel Trio, international climate policy director for Greenpeace.
"It's
not a guarantee," he allowed. But, Trio said the Cancun Agreements call
for countries to raise their level of pledge ambitions, "For me it's
really an indication that they continue. I interpret this as developed
countries giving some kind of indication that they want to move forward
with a second commitment period without committing to it."
Some
developing country leaders, like Sierra Leone negotiator Oguniade
Robert Davidson agreed. "It's a first step toward a second commitment
period of the Kyoto Protocol," he said.
But
others noted that nothing in the agreement solves the fundamental
problem: The only countries that really want to see Kyoto live on are
the ones that are not obligated to cut greenhouse gas emissions under
it. "Kyoto is still in real trouble here," said Alden Meyer, director of
policy and strategy for the Union of Concerned Scientists. "All the
dynamics in this meeting go forward to the next. Nothing here is going
to change Japan and Russia's position."
U.S. remained aloof from Kyoto debate
Throughout the bitter Kyoto debate, the United States -- which is not a party to the treaty -- stayed studiously neutral.
"This is the area where the U.S. plays the least," U.S. Envoy Todd Stern said on more than one occasion.
Analysts
said the position was disingenuous -- since the U.S. refusal to ratify
Kyoto after all led to the confusion two-track mess countries are now
trying to reconcile -- but helpful to the U.S. strategy in Cancun.
"The
only thing the U.S. has going for it is that Kyoto isn't its issue and
no one thinks that it is," Michael Levi, a senior fellow at the Council
on Foreign Relations said early into the Cancun meeting.
"On
the one hand it allows cooler tempers to prevail in things involving
the United States. Even if the U.S. has ideas to break the logjam it
wouldn't get involved. It doesn't want to touch Kyoto with a 10-foot
pole," he said.
Even
after the Agreements were formalized in a 3:15 a.m. vote, Stern
sidestepped a question about whether the compromise effectively kills
Kyoto.
"I'm
not going to speculate on whether this is the end of the Kyoto Protocol
or not, he said. "There's strong feelings on both sides."
And
both sides say they have their work cut out for them in the next year.
Elizabeth May, head of Canada's Green Party described the Kyoto Protocol
as the only legally binding instrument available for ensuring that
nations reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the climate can't afford
for it to fall victim to economic concerns. Keeping it alive will be a
top priority in the next year before negotiators meet in Durban, South
Africa, for their 17th annual conference.
But
Bledsoe of the Bipartisan Policy Center said he doesn't see developed
countries being any more willing to commit to a second phase of Kyoto
next year than they are this year. Nor will 194 countries likely be able
to come to a consensus about how to balance new targets for emission
cuts.
He
called Kyoto "a valuable contribution for its period," but noted that
the emissions profile of the world heading into 2010 is far different
from what it was in 1997. "A second commitment period under the Kyoto
Protocol is not either politically or substantively adequate," he said.
The
question, though, is what would take Kyoto's place? Bledsoe argued that
countries should be willing to take that discussion out of the United
Nations and allow the big-emitting countries that are part of the Major
Economies Forum or G20 to resolve those questions.
Ultimately,
he said, the Cancun Agreements "papered over differences so we can get
an agreement this year. We've papered over the fundamental issue of
emission limits, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise."
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