But big roadblocks remain in the way of an effective agreement as United Nations climate talks open in Durban
DURBAN, South Africa (AlertNet) – As if to remind negotiators of what is at stake, heavy unseasonable thunderstorms killed eight people overnight in Durban on the eve of the latest round of United Nations climate talks, which started Monday in this tropical Indian Ocean city.
Such extreme weather is what “we are seeing all over the world,” warned Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and prompt action is needed to keep climate change from “spinning out of control,” she said.
But there was little confidence in Durban that consensus could be reached on several key issues in the path of effective action to curb climate change, particularly whether to extend the Kyoto Protocol, the only current binding agreement to reduce climate-changing emissions.
Most nations at Durban see the Kyoto Protocol as the backbone of efforts to curb emissions, even though neither the world’s biggest traditional emitter – the United States, nor the new largest emitter – China, are part of the agreement, which focuses on large, developed emitting countries.
Most poorer nations at the talks have indicated they will not sign any new global treaty to reduce emissions – particularly their own emissions – unless the Kyoto Protocol remains in place.
But Canada, Russia and Japan – major signatories to the Kyoto Protocol – have all said they will not support extending the treaty beyond the expiration of its first period next year.
“If this decision (on the Kyoto Protocol) is not resolved, the outcome of other issues in the negotiations will be extremely difficult,” warned Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, the South African head of the meeting, in an opening statement.
Efforts to put into operation a Green Climate Fund aimed at helping poorer vulnerable countries adapt to the effects of climate change and adopt a low-carbon development model also face a political struggle, particularly over how funds will be dispersed and how both donors and users will be made accountable.
SOUTH AFRICA'S SKILLS
Still, “South Africa has a lot of experience in getting divergent political views together and winning compromise,” dating from when it negotiated an end to the apartheid era, said Saleemul Huq of the International Institute for Environment and Development.
Others weren’t quite so optimistic.
Climate agreements reached in previous negotiations in Cancun and in Copenhagen are “a story of saving face. It is not a solution,” warned President Idriss Deby of Chad, who spoke at the opening of the negotiations.
Until effective agreements are reached, “the behavior of the industrialised world imperils the entire world,” he said. “It is a danger that will not spare the rich nor will it spare the poor, although the poor are most exposed to it.”
President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, in his opening address, noted that “for most people in the developing world and in Africa, climate change is a matter of life and death.” The problem is already driving worsening droughts, floods and conflict in Africa, he said, as well as serious weather-related problems across many regions of the world.
Patricia Espinosa, the Mexican foreign secretary who ran last year’s climate meeting in Cancun, hinted on Monday that one way forward at the Durban talks may be simply to reach agreements that most – but not all – countries support.
“Consensus doesn’t mean unanimity,” she said in a press briefing. Moving ahead may mean the negotiators have to “take decisions and afterward search for the most agreement possible.”
Nkoana-Mashabane said that low levels of ambition remain a “severe concern” at the talks, particularly when action to address climate impacts is urgently needed. And trust between negotiating countries remains “fragile,” she said.
“We are under no illusion this conference will be an easy process. But we are optimistic,” she said.
(Editing by Rebekah Curtis)
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