The Melting Iceberg

EXTRACT OF THE DAY

Conclusions COP 14

The Conference ended at 3 a.m. today with an agreement on the adaptation fund (which would have legal capacity). No consensus was reached on "share of proceeds".

The UNFCCC press release:

The United Nations Climate Change Conference - Poznań, Poland ended Friday with a clear commitment from governments to shift into full negotiating mode next year in order to shape an ambitious and effective international response to climate change, to be agreed in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.
Progress was made in the area of technology with the endorsement of the Global Environment Facility’s "Poznań Strategic Programme on Technology Transfer". The aim of this programme is to scale up the level of investment by levering private investments that developing countries require both for mitigation and adaptation technologies.
"We will now move to the next level of negotiations, which involves crafting a concrete negotiating text for the agreed outcome," said the President of the conference, Polish Minister of the Environment Maciej Nowicki. Parties agreed that a first draft of the text would be available at a UNFCCC gathering in Bonn in June of 2009.
"In addition to having agreed the work programme for next year, we have cleared the decks of many technical issues," President Nowicki said. "Poznań is the place where the partnership between the developing and developed world to fight climate change has shifted beyond rhetoric and turned into real action," he said.
In that spirit, at Poznań, the finishing touches were put to the Kyoto Protocol’s adaptation fund, thereby enabling the fund to receive projects in the course of 2009. Parties agreed that the fund (CDM), fed by a share of proceeds from the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism and voluntary contributions, would have a legal capacity granting developing countries direct access. UNFCCC/CCNUCC Page 2
However, Parties were unable to reach consensus on scaling up funding for adaptation by agreeing to put a levy on the other two Kyoto mechanisms, Joint Implementation and Emissions Trading.
Together with decisions aimed at streamlining and speeding up the CDM, Parties asked the CDM Executive Board to explore procedures and methodologies that would enhance regional and sub-regional distribution of projects. Parties also asked the Board to assess the implications of including carbon capture and storage projects and extending the eligibility criteria for afforestation and reforestation projects.
A key event at the conference was a ministerial round table on a shared vision for long-term cooperative action on climate change. "Governments have sent a strong political signal that despite the financial and economic crisis, significant funds can be mobilized for both mitigation and adaptation in developing countries with the help of a clever financial architecture and the institutions to deliver the financial support," said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
"We now have a much clearer sense of where we need to go in designing an outcome which will spell out the commitments of developed countries, the financial support required and the institutions that will deliver that support as part of the Copenhagen outcome," he added.
Countries meeting in Poznań made progress on a number of issues that are important in the short run - up to 2012 - particularly for developing countries, including adaptation, finance, technology and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
In addition , the conference discussed in detail the issue of disaster management, risk assessment and insurance, essential to help developing countries cope with the inevitable effects of climate change.
Governments meeting under the Kyoto Protocol agreed that commitments of industrialized countries post-2012 should principally take the form of quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives, in line with the type of emission reduction targets they have assumed for the first commitment period of the protocol.
Including the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (7 - 18 December), at least four major UNFCCC gatherings will take place next year, the first two in Bonn, Germany (29 March - 08 April and 1 - 12 June) and the third in August/September.
About the UNFCCC
With 192 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has to date 183 member Parties. Under the Protocol, 37 States, consisting of highly industrialized countries and countries undergoing the process UNFCCC/CCNUCC Page 3
of transition to a market economy, have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.
About the CDM
Under the CDM, projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries and contribute to sustainable development can earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits. Countries with a commitment under the Kyoto Protocol buy CERs to cover a portion of their emission reduction commitments under the Treaty. There are currently more than 1240 registered CDM projects in 51 countries, and about another 3000 projects in the project registration pipeline. The CDM is expected to generate more than 2.9 billion CERs by the time the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012, each equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide.