Focus for climate-change talks shifts towards Buenos Aires

By Tim King

Date: 04/11/04

WITH ratification by Russia of the Kyoto Protocol almost out of the way, attention in the climate change debate is now turning towards Buenos Aires.

It is there that the next Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change will take place, on 6-17 December.

The last three days of the talks are classified as "high level", to be attended by government ministers.

The COP 10 talks, as they are familiarly known, will constitute an intermediate staging post. They will not culminate, as some of the predecessor rounds have, in breakthrough negotiations. But they will be an opportunity to shape the terms of the debate for future horse-trading.

"We don't yet know what will be agreed at COP 10," said one EU source. "There are still some countries that are a little hesitant."

The talks take on an extra urgency and intensity now that it is clear that the Kyoto Protocol will enter force early next year (the date is calculated as 90 days from when Russia's ratification is received).

"The mood will certainly be enhanced by the fact that Russia has signed," said a Commission official.

Jennifer Morgan, director of the World Wide Fund for Nature's climate change programme, said: "Buenos Aires is about reinvigorating and bringing urgency into the discussions that have been absent for the past couple of years."

The EU, she said, would have a clear credibility problem" because its national allocation plans for emissions trading were too weak.

"The EU needs to be in Buenos Aires demonstrating that it is serous about this problem," she added.

One of the effects of Kyoto ratification will be to create a new acronym: next year will see the MOP 1 talks, or the first Meeting of the Parties. Some observers believe that MOP 1 might be brought forward to July, others that it will not take place until the fourth quarter of the year. But either way, there is new momentum in the international talks.

For months now, climate change specialists have been discussing the post-2012 regulatory regime.

The Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period covers 2008-12. But battle is beginning in earnest about what promises different countries should make for regulation after 2012.

The European Union has set itself a target of deciding on its post-2012 strategy at its Spring 2005 summit. Traditionally, the Spring European Council is about competitiveness and the Lisbon Strategy for reform. The inclusion of climate change talks is deliberate. The agenda of economic liberalization is now supposed to be linked to the concept of "sustainability".

What the EU will be discussing, between now and the Spring, is the extent to which the EU should take a lead.

Some member states, notably the UK, are arguing that the EU ought to be blazing a trail. Other states are less enthusiastic, fearing that the EU will put itself at a competitive disadvantage to rival economies.

Whether the European Commission will push the agenda is also up in the air.

A big issue in the post-2012 debate will be the extent to which commitments should be demanded of developing countries. Another issue is the extent to which to make 2°C a target in world climate change talks. The EU has already decided that its policy goal should be to limit average global temperature increases to no more than 2°C, but it is not clear whether it can persuade other countries to adopt that goal.

Nor is it certain, pending further scientific research, what the practical effects of such a policy objective would be.

The agenda for COP 10 is deliberately vague. The ministerial section will take the form of a series of panel discussions. The first will be an assessment of the convention after 10 years, subtitled "accomplishments and future challenges". It will be there that the EU could begin playing an influential role.

Preview of the tenth Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is to take place on 6-17 December 2004 in Buenos Aires. The last three days of the talks were classified as 'high level', to be attended by government ministers.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Meetings: COP 10 http://unfccc.int/meetings/cop_10/items/2944.php

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