What kind of COP has it been ? Durban wrap-up post

It’s taken me two weeks to find enough time and energy to write a Durban wrap-up post, because it’s been pretty crazy ever since I flew back from South Africa and, well, Christmas dinners have a tendency to send me into intellectual lethargy. But it’s ok now I’m back J

COPs are useless, but not having them would be worse

Most people have never heard of the COP, and most people probably can’t be bothered to learn what it is. Considering the level of media coverage the whole UNFCCC process has gotten since the run-up to COP15 and the lack of tangible results on the climate front (the Bali Roadmap, Copenhagen Accord, Cancun Agreement and now Durban Platform have done nothing to curb international GHG emissions) we shouldn’t be surprised that most people consider this an “expensive waste of time” as a South African man I met at the airport today put it.

It is true that the negotiations process is deeply flawed and has failed thus far to deliver any meaningful outcome. Global GHG emissions have jumped last year like never before (LINK) meaning that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has never been higher and that we are headed to potentially catastrophic levels of climate change. It is also true that “rich” countries (whatever that means today) are dragging their heels on the disbursement of the climate money they legally owe developing countries and that the utterly dysfunctional US political process is turning a once leading country into a rogue nation on climate issues. Nonetheless, I still think it would be incredibly foolish to ditch the whole thing.

Why? Many reasons actually. First, it is crucial that countries continue to meet on a regular basis to discuss these issues. When one sees how complex and multi-facetted these negotiations have become, one can only be glad that governments meet often to discuss them. That being said, it poses strong logistical issues for poor nations. One example: at my hotel in Durban, I met ¾ of the Tajik negotiating team i.e. 3 people. France’s team had more than 30 people, and the US team probably around 100. It is hard to play at the same level when there’s such a huge difference in firepower. But it doesn’t mean that small countries should just stop coming to the COP, however small their influence is. And they have proven to be extremely powerful players when they unite in a negotiating group (G77, AOSIS etc).

Second, as I wrote in a previous post, negotiations are not the whole thing at the COP. It is difficult to fathom the sheer quantity of debates, discussions, information sharing or networking that takes place in an event like this one. Like all international fora, a COP is great at creating bridges between people and organizations. If I take my meaningless personal example, I have met extremely interesting people from all around the world and had a couple of really enlightening discussions. Of course I’ve also met a lot of career/money-driven, bullshit-prone (usually business, but not uniquely) people. But I’ve also met people from all stripes with a genuine commitment to solving or adapting to the climate crisis. And I think it’s great and really useful that these people get to meet every year and share their findings or experiences. This is not going to solve the whole climate crisis of course, but when governments get their s*** together and decide to move on it, they’ll find people with the expertise and the know-how ready to act on the ground.

Which brings me to a general feeling I had all along this COP. During these ten days, many people have expressed their frustration at the political process deemed to slow and incapable of delivering anything useful. It seems to me that everyone is ready for action except governments. People are discussing a “second’ track of action which would bypass the UN process at launch widespread mitigation and adaptation actions at the local level. In my opinion, this is essential because whatever is decided via the UNFCCC will have to be implemented at the local level. So they might as well get started right now. However, I am still convinced that if we want to achieve the economic and social transformation that is necessary, the international community has to agree on a treaty that would put a high price on carbon emissions. Even the private sector is begging for just that! As long as there is no global carbon price, the economic incentives to invest massively in R&D and in new technologies will be too small.

The Durban Platform: more questions, not a whole lot of action

I was not optimistic about the outcome of COP17. I think countries are still too far apart on the main issue of who’s got to do what, and that China and India are definitely trying to buy time before they are considered as major emitters that need to take on heavy emissions reduction efforts. But let us not fool ourselves; this is not why negotiations are so painfully slow. It’s because Annex 1 (rich) countries are not doing their share of the effort. One example: last year, the growth of US emissions was larger in volume (!) than that of India (I got this from a presentation by the always ferocious and rarely wrong Sunita Narain). This explains why Todd Stern, lead negotiator for the US, had so much trouble convincing the press here in Durban that the US was serious about mitigation. Another example: a recent study by the Stockholm Environment Institute showed that the pledges made by developing countries in terms of emissions reduction were superior to those of developed countries, even though the latter have a legal obligation under the UNFCCC to bear a heavier reduction burden in the name of the holy principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” (seriously, for developing countries it’s like a mantra). So no wonder why developing countries are not exactly ready to commit to an agreement that would limit their development space.

Nonetheless, after double overtime and much wrangling, we got the Durban Platform. Basically, countries have agreed to find an agreement by 2015 that would bind everyone in a single treaty. The EU has been pretty successful at bringing top players together on this, and this is a positive development. Another positive development is that the Platform recognizes that there’s a pretty massive gap between countries’ pledges and we actually needs to be done to address climate change. But huge questions still remain: will major emerging countries accept legally binding reduction targets? Will industrialized nations accept to up their level of commitment? There’s also the issue of the legal status of the future agreement. The Platform states that Parties should come up with « a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties ». If the EU, the USA, India and China were able to agree on that, it seems to me that they may have had a very different interpretation of what that legalistic jargon actually entails. We’ll see next year at COP18 Dubai (!).

I’ve read somewhere a diplomat who sadly described the UNFCCC process as “incremental forever”. I think it describes pretty well the feeling you get when you follow international climate negotiations. It’s at the same time discouraging, because you very easily get the feeling that nothing ever changes (except the chemical composition of the atmosphere),  but at the same time, considering how huge the issues are, any kind of movement is most welcome.