The Cancun Summit - Atasi Das

The United Nations Climate Change Conference was held in Cancun, Mexico from 29 November to 10 December 2010. The convention included the sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP), the sixth Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), the thirty-third sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), the fifteenth session of the AWG-KP and the thirteenth session of the AWG-LCA. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international treaty on containment of global warming.

The Cancun convention: an overview
Intense diplomatic negotiations finally hammered out the Cancun Accord, towards containment of adverse climatic changes, in face of objections from Bolivia- barring one, all 194 participant countries endorsed the Cancun agreement.
In 2009 the UNFCCC had failed in its attempt to seal the Copenhagen climate Accord (the first major global attempt since the Kyoto protocol) as five countries had vetoed the decision. Biggest GHG emitters like China and the USA had been at loggerheads regarding the issue of measuring, reporting and verification of emissions.

At the onset of the Cancun summit, Japan had refused to be a signatory to any extension of the Kyoto Protocol (due to expire in 2012) citing that the countries listed in the Protocol are responsible for less than 30 percent of the global emissions,so simply upping the mitigation targets would not solve the problem. Russia also had similar reservations. Other countries were miffed with the Japanese reaction, as they feared that the Japanese withdrawal would trigger off a series of similar reactions and strangulate the only binding global emission reduction treaty. Developing countries like India and China hinted at adhering to some form of binding emission targets but insisted on the extension of the Kyoto Protocol for the signatory industrialized nations.
The Kyoto Protocol provides the legal set-up for the multibillion-dollar worth “Clean Development Mechanism carbon offset market”, the inter-governmental trading of carbon credits and the legally binding country-specific emission targets. [The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement adopted in 1997, which became effective since 16 February 2005, whereby signatory developed nations pledged to lower their GHG emissions in 2008-2012 by at least 5.2%, as compared to the 1990 existent levels. Instruments adopted under the Kyoto Protocol include Emissions Trading, the Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation.] Over 300 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide or equivalent was exchanged in 2005 via carbon markets.
The draft decision of the Ad Hoc Working Group on long-term Cooperative Action under the Cancun Convention has endorsed deeper cuts in carbon emission levels but has shied away from incorporating a mechanism towards attainment of the pledges made by the different countries. The convention has observed that as per the Fourth Assessment Report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, the world needs substantial cuts in its global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for containing the hike in global average temperature levels below 2°C, as compared to the pre-industrial levels.
The draft document envisages addressing climate change related issues like adaptation, mitigation, technology development and transfer, capacity building and financing through co-operation on a global scale, on the basis of “equity in accordance with common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”.

The Conference recognized the need for support programmes for the developing countries, which were weathering the adverse effects of climatic changes alongside pursuance of the twin objectives of sustained economic growth and poverty eradication. Developed countries have been asked to pitch in with substantial emission cuts and provision of requisite technology, finances and capacity-building to their developing counterparts.
The convention has also decided to establish the Cancun Adaptation Framework towards enhancing concerted effort on adaptation. Emission abatement measures adopted by developing countries will be subjected to international scrutiny if they are funded by developed nations.
The lion’s share of the multilateral funding towards adaptation will now be channelized through the newly set up Green Climate Fund, which will be the “operating entity” of the Convention’s financial machinery. The World Bank will be the interim trustee of the Green Climate Fund.
The Fund will mobilize USD 100 billion annually by 2020 for assisting the developing countries with their efforts at low-carbon development and will also protect them from the adverse impact of climatic changes.

In conformity with the Bali Action Plan the funds meant for developing countries may be garnered from public, private, bilateral and multilateral sources. The Fund’s governing board will have equal representation from both the developed and developing countries. A Standing Committee has been established for helping the Conference of the Parties with its financial functioning.

At COP 15, the pledge from the developed nations was to raise and disburse at least 30 billion dollars annually. Critiques accuse the richer nations of channelizing money meant for aid into use as loans.

Worldwide deforestation of forests accounts for around 18 percent of the global GHG emissions; COP 16 has asked the developed nations to finance forest saving initiatives of the developing countries, in a unique form of "carbon exchange”. Experts have criticized the initiative by observing that this arrangement will enable the developed countries to continue with their polluting ways and the developing countries in their endeavour to garner some additional money via this scheme could ultimately end up depriving the local communities of their means of livelihood, for retaining the national carbon stock.

Analysis
Modern day industrial and economic activities emit voluminous amount of Greenhouse gases, which push up the ambient global temperature. Reduction of emissions encompasses deep seated changes in the whole gamut of economic activities covering energy, transportation, industry and agricultural sector and also soil, forest and waste management, to name a few.
Scientists warn that if global warming crosses the threshold limit it would trigger off catastrophic climatic changes like drought, desertification and a rapid rise in the sea level- with the current trend of rising emissions and no binding global deal on that, the prospect of a four-degree hike in global temperature within this century may soon become likelihood.

The driving force behind the UN led negotiations on climate has been the potential business opportunities for the private sector in the nascent “green economy” e.g. in the relatively new techniques of carbon capture and storage systems. A carbon market is a framework of exchange for carbon shares, which are rights of GHG emissions. The regulatory authority imposes a cap on the level of permissible emissions. In the firm level, organizations whose emissions are below the set cap can sell their excess emission permits to ones who have crossed the limit. The idea is that if companies need to pay up for excess pollution they would take measures to reduce pollution. Demand and supply of the carbon shares determine their prices. The flip side is that the polluters may simply continue buying the permits instead of installing costlier eco-friendly modes of production. Carbon Market investment activity has gained in momentum in banks, hedge funds and brokerage firms worldwide, in recent times.

Conclusion
The Cancun Accord has salvaged the Copenhagen agreements into an official U.N. decision; it has reached a consensus on a temperature target of 2ºC, agreed on a system of MRV, forestry, land usage, technology transfer and adaptation and incorporated a climate fund for both the developed and developing nations. The irony is that the national pledges for emission reduction made under the Copenhagen Accord are inadequate for reaching the 2ºC temperature target set at the Cancun summit and the Cancun pact is not a legally binding one, it merely creates a framework towards narrowing down the gap between the national pledges and the set temperature target.

Climate is a shared resource but given the wide spectrum of political, economic and technical views of the developed and developing countries on growth strategy and resource utilization, a stringent international agreement satisfying all parties seems unlikely. The UN system of climate negotiations is a diplomatic process and albeit a slow one, but any day better than a no-deal situation.

We can sum up in Chief US negotiator, Todd Stern’s words that, and the deal is far from perfect but still a “good basis for moving forward". It remains to be seen, whether COP 17 at Durban, South Africa ushers in a new dawn for the Blue Planet, or our biggest and most powerful nations still remain mired in complex political and economic dilemmas.