Climate of Our Future

Ban Ki-Moon, UN secretary-general, at the Bali conference
Imelda V. Abano
18 December 2007
Source: SciDev.Net

[BALI] Countries have agreed a two-year ‘roadmap’ leading to a new climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2012.

After two weeks of negotiations at the UN Framework on Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) last week (14 December), 187 countries agreed to the strategy for future climate talks. These will culminate with a final agreed protocol at the UNFCCC to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009.

“We now have a roadmap, we have an agenda and we have a deadline. But we also have a huge task ahead of us and time to reach agreement is extremely short, so we need to move quickly,” said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, at the conference.

The roadmap outlines key issues to be negotiated.

Nations agreed that action is necessary to adapt to the negative consequences of climate change, such as droughts and floods.

A sticking point was whether or not the roadmap should call for developed nations to cut carbon emissions to 25–40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The United States had opposed the mention of such a target, on the grounds that they did not want the roadmap to predetermine the outcome of the negotiations on a post-Kyoto framework — a position shared by other countries such as Canada and Japan.

However, they compromised after specific figures were dropped from the final text — it now says developed countries should reduce emissions by at least half by 2050.

“The roadmap that has been agreed is a step toward an agreement that can address climate change risks to our planet,” UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon told SciDev.Net.

All nations should begin to address key challenges particularly on adaptation measures, transfer of technology and combating deforestation, Ban said.

Approval for the UN Adaptation Fund (see UN approves climate change adaptation fund) was a key part of the agreement.

Governments also agreed to kick-start a strategic programme to scale up investment for the transfer of both adaptation and mitigation technologies to developing countries.

The programme aims to create a better environment for investment in the sector, such as providing incentives to the private sector for technology transfer. The Global Environment Facility will look to establish this programme with help from the private sector.

The mandate of the Expert Group on Technology Transfer will be extended for a further five years. The Group was asked to pay particular attention to the assessment of gaps and barriers to the use and access of financial resources.

They will also begin working on performance indicators that can be used to regularly monitor and evaluate progress on the development, deployment and transfer of environmentally sound technologies.

Elsewhere in the roadmap parties agreed to develop a work programme to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. The programme will look into assessments of changes in forest cover and associated greenhouse gas emissions, and methods to estimate, and demonstrate, reductions of emissions from deforestation.

The size limit for small-scale reforestation projects will be doubled to 16 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide per year, to enable more projects to qualify for the UN clean development mechanism (CDM) and allow many more countries to take part.

The possible inclusion of carbon capture and storage as a CDM activity was also discussed for the first time. Parties agreed to formulate a workplan for this — to be taken further in 2008.
They also agreed to extend the mandate of the Least Developed Countries Expert Group, which provides critical advice on the adaptation needs of developing countries.