ICW Daily from Bonn - Day 1

August 10th to 14th marks the informal consultations of the UN climate convention (taking place between the more formal sessions of Bonn 2 and Bangkok). Previous sessions concluded by producing a lengthy and largely messy 200 page ‘revised negotiating text’.

This intersessional hopes to get some serious work into motion. It aims to bring to the table, some concrete solutions for medium-term mitigation and financing, and to reduce the length of the 200-page document, making the document legally sound and good enough for Copenhagen.

Headline News

New Zealand announces the adoption of a highly inadequate and very conditional 2020 target of 10% to 20% below 1990 levels at the Plenary session of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations opening session today.

New Zealand was awarded first prize for Fossil of the Day by the Climate Action Network International. Sara Shaw, co-chair of CAN-I mitigation group said ‘these kind of low targets from Annex-I won’t achieve the emission reductions needed to avoid dangerous levels of climate change’.

Key Issues of the Day

As of today, there are 118 days left to ‘seal the deal’ in Copenhagen, as a UNEP addage goes. Therefore, making the text more concise and robust is in everyone’s interest. The chair of the working group urged Parties to seriously work towards consolidation and convergence of the text in the coming week.

The second working group meeting of the day was on Technology and Capacity Building, one of the main pillars of the Bali Action Plan. The aim of this meeting was to begin the process of identifying areas of ‘convergence’ in the text among Parties, and at some later stage, agree on pieces of the text to be left in and left out.

The chair reminded parties that ‘this is your text not mine’, and that taking ownership for it would help in moving the discussions forward.

Most Parties that took the floor complained about the length and illegibility of the text, including G77+ China, Gabon, Belize, the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), Columbia, and Ghana. Sure enough, Parties also brought up the issue of ‘divergence’ on key issues – the need to identify the key issues and points on which Parties disagreed with one another.

Parties including G77 + China (of which India is a part), thought that the text that they had suggested was not included in the ‘revised negotiating text’, and if it was, was no longer recognizable as ‘their own’. G77 and China form a major negotiating block in the United Nations, and use the block to articulate and promote the collective economic interests of countries of the South.

The G77 + China, Ghana and Gabon posed substantial questions, asking why they were still working out the ‘what’ after ‘fifteen years of discussing ‘what’, and had not yet moved on to the ‘how’. They asked why developed countries were only talking about the non-substantial but ‘convergent’ issues of ‘technology information’, ‘innovation centres’ and ‘R&D centres’ but not raising issues about the key issues of financing, technology transfer and capactity building in the true sense.

The Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) also chimed in their agreement with the questions the G77+China raised.

Focus on GoI

On moving forward on consolidating the text, India stuck to its position previous stands, saying any paragraphs and text that was inconsistent with the Bali Action Plan and the UNFCCC should be eliminated. This would make the process of shortening the text quick.

India also asked to bring to attention the fundamental interpretation of ‘technology transfer’ and what it meant to developing as opposed to developed countries. Mr. Gosh said that this basic difference in understanding implied that the interpretation of ‘technology transfer’ by either side was completely different.  While Non Annex I countries see technology transfer as affordable access to technology, and as a UNFCCC method through which purchase of IPR rights and capacity building for further innovation, Annex I countries want to use this as a ‘crowbar to force open developing country markets’.

As for cooperation for technology transfer, he said there was scope for collaboration not in marginal technologies, but in ‘transformational technologies’ including biomass, solar and adaptation technologies – in deployable and cost-effective renewable energy technologies that can ‘fully replace fossil fuels for all times’.

As a final word, India suggested the formation of a ‘Global Collaborative Partnership’ that would enable the transfer of technology and capacity building that would in turn allow local innovation to address issues locally.

The Chair was cautious towards India’s suggestions, saying that the negotiations needed to be wary of a North-South divide, and that the text and country positions are not ‘irreconcilable’.

Pakistan, G77+China, and Ghana lent support to India’s point on a fundamental difference in interpretation, and support for action in tandem with the Bali Action Plan and the Kyoto Protocol.

Check these links for more on the UNFCCC and the COP15 process.