– Pan-African climate alliance says regime being dismantled
The climate change talks in Bonn, Germany, have been placing little focus on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and more on land use and forests in Annex 1 countries and their role in emissions reduction and trading, much to the chagrin of some developing nations. According to the latest proposal yesterday by the Adhoc Working Group for Further Commitments for Annex 1 Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP), note must be taken of  land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) as they relate to emissions trading.
The proposal requests that the UN’s Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) initiate a work programme to explore ways of moving towards more comprehensive accounting of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by carbon sinks from land use, land use change and forestry, and to report to the Conference of Parties on the outcomes. It also calls for the SBSTA to develop and recommend modalities and procedures for possible LULUCF activities under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Some of the activities given were re-vegetation, forest management, cropland management, grazing land management, wetland management, and soil carbon management in agriculture. These proposals are all for Annex 1, or developed countries.
Precious little mention was made of REDD plus, other than that it should be included within a raft of measures aimed at the establishment of a fund for adaptation and capacity building, technology development and transfer for developing nations.
Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) is premised on a global climate agreement which includes REDD plus as an essential ingredient for climate mitigation and for sourcing funds for adaptation.
Developed nations dismantling regime
Speaking of the proposal, Augustine Njamnshi, a member of Pan African Climate Justice Alliance and of Climate Justice Now, said that it has become clear over the course of these negotiations that developed countries “are making a strong effort to dismantle and redesign the global climate regime.”
He said, “A number of Annex I Parties have said they will not commit to a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol – suggesting they intend to violate their legally binding obligations.”  Many developed countries are also opposing a science- and equity-based aggregate target under the KP. He was speaking at the closing plenary of the AWG-KP yesterday.
Njamnshi said that Annex 1 Parties should adhere to their commitments under article 3.9 of the KP. “Every day of delay will bring us closer to a gap. We cannot afford this,” he said.
He noted that some Annex 1 Parties are also seeking to migrate favoured elements of the Protocol, like market mechanisms, into a new agreement under the Adhoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) and to establish a system of voluntary pledges as envisaged in the Copenhagen Accord.
“Such a voluntary system offers no guarantee that the A1 global effort will be sufficient to curb climate change, or that the contributions of individual countries will be adequate and fair,” he said, adding “This is reflected in the paltry pledges offered by developed countries, which are far less than science and equity require.”
Njamnshi is of the view that the proposed Kyoto targets are “riddled” with loopholes.
“First, Annex I Parties are pushing to include weak land-use and forest accounting rules that would allow them to increase their emissions. This amounts to around 5 percent of the emissions of Annex I Parties in 1990,” he said.
“Second, upwards of 11 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent of surplus allowances (just under 90 percent of Annex I Party emissions in 1990) could undermine any Annex I effort,” he noted.
Thirdly, Njamnshi said that by using carbon markets to “offset” their emissions, Annex I Parties are shifting the mitigation burden to developing countries. “Issues such as non-additionality of Clean Development Mechanism projects allow Annex I Parties to pollute further,” he added.
Njamnshi said that measured against scientific analysis and the demands of developing countries, “the pledges and the weak rules proposed by Annex I Parties are insupportable.” He said that they are well below the 50 percent domestic cuts by 2017 required to ensure Africa’s survival and development.
He said that Annex I countries have a credibility gap which should be addressed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s next meeting in Tianjin China in October. “”Failure to address it not only threatens the prospects of millions of people, but also the prospects for a fair and equitable aggregate cuts by Annex 1 parties,” Njamnshi  stressed.
‘Good progress’ says Figueres
Speaking yesterday at the meeting, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana
Figueres said that governments have made progress towards deciding the shape for a “successful” result at the November/December UN Climate Change Conference in Mexico, but that they now need to narrow down the many options for action on climate change presently under negotiation.
According to many of the participants, the text of the negotiated agreement is becoming more bogged down with bracketed items rather than less complicated, as the aim of the meeting was envisaged to be.
The UNFCCC Executive Secretary warned that many countries had re-inserted
established positions into the texts, increasing the number of options for action, hence the many brackets. “To achieve desired outcomes in Cancún, governments must radically narrow down the choices on the table,” she said.
Figueres said that in Bonn, many governments said they believed a set of Conference of Parties decisions which would quickly operationalise key elements of the Bali Action Plan “would be an achievable outcome of Cancún.”
“This means countries could agree to take accountable action to, for example, manage and deploy climate finance, boost technology transfer, build skills and capacity to do this, and deal with adaptation, especially in the poorest and most vulnerable countries,” she said.