On the Road to Copenhagen

On the Road to Copenhagen

22 January 2009
Ecoal, January 2009, Volume 67

The latest UN Climate Change conference was held in Poznan, Poland, at the beginning of December last year. The meeting covered two key issues: negotiations for a new agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012; and the continued negotiations on whether carbon capture and storage (CCS) should be included as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects.

The conference was the fourteenth meeting of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-14) and the fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP-4).

The meeting was well attended with around 10,000 people registered for the two weeks of negotiations. However, the meetings are becoming increasingly unwieldy and now have a total of six separate processes including:

• the bodies of the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol;
• two subsidiary bodies focusing on implementation and science / technology; and
• two processes established to negotiate a new climate change agreement, one under the UNFCCC and one under the Kyoto Protocol.

Negotiations under the Bali Roadmap

The meetings were an opportunity to continue negotiations on the “Bali Roadmap” which was agreed at the December 2007 climate change talks. The Bali Roadmap states that a new agreement must be negotiated by CMP-15 in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the end of 2009. The negotiations are held under two processes:

• the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) under the UNFCCC. The AWG-LCA negotiation has a broad mandate and includes all Parties under the UNFCCC, including the United States.
• the Ad Hoc Working Group on further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP). The AWG-KP has a much narrower focus and is only charged with agreeing new targets for developed countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

As expected, the negotiations in Poznan were slow and limited progress was made. Partly this is because there is no negotiating text available, precluding Parties from entering into serious negotiations. With the exception of the EU which had already put some numbers on the table prior to the meetings (-20% reduction from 1990 levels by 2020 with the possibility of extending this to 30% if other key countries sign up to an agreement), most developed countries are refusing to discuss future commitments.

Another factor contributing to the slow progress at Poznan was the absence of substantive input from the US delegation. President-elect Barack Obama had made it very clear that there is only one US Administration in place at a time and therefore only sent observers to the meeting. It is unlikely that there will be any significant movement in this process from either developed or developing countries until the US are actively participating in these meetings and other Parties can gauge their ambition.

Emissions Targets

Whilst there was limited discussion on individual national targets there is a significant focus on what the global level of ambition for emissions cuts should be. In both the AWG-LCA and KP there were repeated references to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report’s 450ppm CO₂eq stabilisation scenario. This scenario requires a -25 to -40% cut in emissions for developed countries as well as a substantial deviation from business-as-usual emissions from key developing regions by 2020. The apparent coalescing of countries around this scenario implies that Parties will seek a de facto target of limiting global temperature rises to no more than 2°C.

While serious negotiations have yet to commence, Parties are taking these meetings very seriously and are developing clear positions. Developing countries are pressurising developed countries to announce mid-term emission targets for the period to 2020 from 1990 baselines while steadfastly refusing to discuss any emissions cuts themselves. There is considerable uncertainty in the role that international credits will play in helping countries meet future targets. For example, should a -25 to -40% developed country emission reduction target be allowed to include international credits or should these credits be counted as a developing country effort?

India seems to be taking the hardest line of all developing countries saying that a per capita emissions principle was the only satisfactory approach, questioning the commitment of developed countries and commenting that developed countries should not be surprised if no agreement is reached in Copenhagen.

The EU said that newly-industrialising countries need to reduce their emissions from business-as-usual by -15 to -30%. This is significant as it is the first time that developed countries have articulated the commitments they believe developing countries need to make.

It is very unlikely that a comprehensive new deal will be in place by the end of next year. To begin with there will be no substantive US engagement in the process until mid-2009, limiting other Parties willingness and ability to make firm and ambitious commitments. Furthermore, the AWG-LCA and AWG-KP are moving forward at different rates with the more complex AWG-LCA still at an information gathering stage. In reality it was always expected that getting an agreement in place by December 2009 was too ambitious and Yvo de Boer, the UNFCCC Executive Secretary, noted a few years ago that the timeline allowed the process to slip by a year and for a new agreement to still be in place by the end of 2012.

CCS & CDM

The issue of CCS and whether it should be eligible for inclusion under the Clean Development Mechanism was included on the agenda of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). This issue is contentious and has been under negotiation since December 2005 when the CMP was first asked to rule on the eligibility of CCS for crediting under the CDM. The latest negotiations followed a decision made at CMP-2 in Nairobi which established a two-year process under the SBSTA to enable the CMP to make a decision on this issue in Poznan. The process included the opportunities for both Parties and observer organisations to make submissions on a series of legal, technical and policy issues related to the inclusion of CCS as CDM projects. These submissions were distilled into two Synthesis Reports by the UNFCCC Secretariat in an attempt to address the concerns of Parties (WCI made two submissions to this process which were incorporated into the Synthesis Reports).

In Poznan the topic was first discussed during the SBSTA plenary and in common with previous meetings there was considerable interest from Parties on the issue. A clear majority of Parties offered very strong support for CCS to be included in the CDM while a smaller number of Parties – led again by Brazil – opposed this position. The positions of the Parties were broadly similar to previous meetings.

Countries supporting CCS in the CDM included many North African and Middle Eastern Parties, Canada, Norway, EU, Japan and Australia. Arguments for the inclusion of CCS focused on the reality that fossil fuels make up 80% of primary energy demand, will continue to do so for the foreseeable future and that CCS is essential if the objectives of the UNFCCC are to be reached. Norway noted that they have used CCS technologies for over 12 years but that the technology has to be used in developing countries. Algeria highlighted the CCS project that they host at In Salah and said that they could not continue to support this project voluntarily and so need CDM to enable the costs to be recovered. Australia drew attention to the launch of the Global CCS Institute, the A$100 million support it will receive and the need for CCS to be deployed globally. France spoke on behalf of the EU and proposed a CCS pilot phase where CCS would be eligible for inclusion as CDM projects. The pilot phase would be limited in both time and volume of credits that could be claimed for stored CO₂.

Parties opposed to CCS in the CDM were led by Brazil and supported by Jamaica, Venezuela and Micronesia. The concerns put forward by these countries were that CCS is an unproven technology, CCS is incompatible with the CDM - which should only be used for energy efficiency and renewables projects - and raised concerns over liabilities, leakage, transboundary movement of CCS, etc.

The SBSTA could not reach a decision at this meeting and this prevented the CMP, as the higher body, from addressing the issue and means that this will now be discussed at the next meeting of the SBSTA.

The outcome of this meeting could be considered a success for opponents of CCS in the CDM. However, it has generated significant anger from countries supportive of CCS. This was expressed very forcibly by a number of countries including Australia, Norway, Japan and the EU. Saudi Arabia made a specific comment that success on agreeing a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen is dependent on CCS being included in the CDM and noted that their minister would be raising this issue with other ministers. A number of other Parties have also signalled their intention to raise this at a ministerial level. This high-level interest did lead the CMP to request that the CDM Executive Board assess the implications of including CCS in the CDM and report back with its findings at CMP-5 in Copenhagen.

The widespread realisation that CCS is essential if climate change is to be addressed coupled with the willingness of a number of Parties to refer this issue to their ministers can be taken as an encouraging sign for CCS.