Can the Bonn climate talks cure the post-Copenhagen hangover?

When climate change negotiators travelled to Bonn in April for their first meeting since the Copenhagen Climate Conference (COP15), it wasn't an entirely happy reunion. The much criticised Copenhagen Accord had not only failed to meet the moral, scientific and legal benchmarks called for by activists, but also undermined the consensus-based negotiating process of the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) - generating huge mistrust between rich and poor states. Perhaps no surprise then that in the immediate aftermath of the Danish summit, discussions were characterised by acrimony and frustration as delegates struggled to agree on a way forward.

But with less than four weeks of negotiating time left between now and the next Conference of Parties (COP16) to be held in Mexico at the end of the year, the latest round of talks can ill afford to allow past failures to fester. Delegates have once again gathered in Bonn this week, charged with agreeing new texts which will form the basis for future negotiations. So can they get the climate talks back on track?

The COP texts vs. the Copenhagen Accord

One of the big questions hanging over the Bonn talks is how (or whether) the Copenhagen Accord should be incorporated into future UN negotiations. Following fierce objections from countries that were angered by a process that had excluded so many voices (indeed, had actively re-asserted the  power imbalances that had brought climate injustice about) and by the lack of ambition embodied in the two and a half page document, the official negotiations concluded in December by merely 'noting' the Accord. The US, which originally brokered the agreement in collaboration with the so-called BASIC negotiating bloc (Brazil, South Africa, India and China), is adamant that the document's standing should be recognised and that its elements should be operationalised. In stark contrast, countries including Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba are strongly opposed to the Accord's inclusion in the UNFCCC process.

The Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) is the body charged with facilitating the continued implementation of the UNFCCC beyond the end of the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period in 2012. Following the collapse of talks in Copenhagen, and in the face of continued disagreement between the nations ('Parties') taking part in April's Bonn meeting, the body's Chair, Margaret Mukahanana Sangarwe, was invited to prepare a new text to facilitate fresh negotiations. It was implicitly agreed that she would draw on the most recent report of the AWG-LCA (presented at COP15), the Copenhagen Accord and also additional submissions from the Parties.

Sangarwe released the new 'facilitating text' two weeks before negotiators arrived in Bonn for the June meeting, and Parties used the opening days of the talks to respond to the document. The statements exposed familiar rifts between rich and poor countries. The Umbrella Group (comprising the US, Japan, Australia, Russia, Canada, New Zealand and others) indicated they were satisfied that the Copenhagen Accord had been incorporated into the text. The G77 welcomed the Chair's efforts but cautioned that discussions would have to resolve 'gaps and inconsistencies'. Bolivia argued that the text prioritised the Copenhagen Accord and failed to reflect its own submissions which had been forged at the People's Climate Summit in Cochabamba. Yet despite these differences, the opening LCA plenary appeared to represent a relatively positive start: whilst there is no doubt that the text will go through many changes, the Parties at least seemed eager to get down to the business of negotiation. The Chair is likely to present an alternative version of the draft over the weekend for the Parties to discuss during the second week of the talks.

Side-by-side analysis of the Copenhagen Accord and previous COP texts reveals substantive differences between the documents. Most importantly, the Accord does not contain a concrete global (collective) emissions reduction goal, nor emissions reduction goals for developed countries - elements which are being negotiated in the UNFCCC process. The monitoring, reporting and verification processes (MRV) of mitigation actions are also being hotly debated, whilst campaigners are concentrating on the issue of finance for poor countries after the Accord pledged funding but failed to specify its source or form.

Despite the Accord's failings, vulnerable countries may have to tread carefully in calling for more ambitious goals. Following the People's Climate Summit, Bolivia and its allies in the Latin American ALBA group have increased their demands for a just and equitable agreement (whilst continuing calls for the Kyoto Protocol to be maintained as the only existing legal instrument that binds developed countries to quantified emissions reductions). Beyond the problem of the Accord's lack of ambition, countries such as Bolivia are reluctant to accept its incorporation for political reasons - fearful that it will set a precedent whereby powerful countries can simply impose their agenda on the UN process. The incoming Executive Director of the UNFCCC, Christina Figueres, has said she shares their concerns, but analysts are divided on the impact of the ALBA group's position. Whilst some activists hope that Bolivia's approach will open up a space to discuss more ambitious measures in an international forum, others fear it may cause the talks to stall. This would lend credence to suggestions that the UNFCCC is 'broken' - and in turn risk the entire dialogue moving elsewhere (with no guarantees that less powerful countries' interests would be represented).

'It's the emissions, stupid' - the question of ambition and the 'gigaton gap'

Copenhagen was the first time that world leaders had endorsed the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. For many vulnerable countries, even a 2 degree average temperature rise would herald disaster. The bad news is that the emissions pledges made under the Copenhagen Accord would not even limit global warming to a 3 degree Celsius rise. Activists are therefore keen to see the pledges made under the Accord transformed into ambitious targets within the UN process.

Global emissions are currently estimated to be 45-47 gigatons (Gt) annually, having risen from 36GT in 1990 (despite efforts to limit them through the Kyoto Protocol). If this 'business as usual' trajectory continued, emissions would be set to hit 58Gt annually by 2020. Current pledges under the Copenhagen Accord will see them reach between 48 and 54Gt. To limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius, they need to be reduced to 40 gigatons in that time period, and then proceed to close to zero by 2050. It is the 8-14 'gigaton gap' between projected and scientifically required emissions by 2020 that needs to be fixed: a huge technological - and political - challenge.

The problem of inadequate ambition is amplified by a number of loopholes which mean that real emissions reductions can be avoided. The so-called 'hot air' problem of the ex-Soviet states is one of the most well known of these. In countries such as Ukraine, the economic fallout following the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that emissions halved in the early 1990s, but under a trading system devised in negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol, these states are allowed to sell credits for every ton of carbon dioxide 'saved'. These 'paper credits' replace real emissions and, if traded, can undermine rich countries' reductions by about 1.5Gt annually. Another loophole is creative accounting of land-use and forestry emissions, which allows countries to hide their real emissions. This could result in additional allowances globally of around 0.5Gt a year. As well as calling for ambitious targets, campaigning groups will be looking for these issues to be depoliticised and addressed at a technical level in an effort to have the loopholes plugged in Bonn and at COP16 in Mexico.

Step 1 in dealing with any problem is to admit that you have a problem. If activists and vulnerable nations can push the Parties to formally recognise that the gigaton gap exists (something that the Umbrella Group have not yet managed), Bonn might represent a springboard for achieving more ambitious targets. Fixing the gap might then be achieved in workshops between Bonn and Cancun.

Finance - why the money matters

Money will be at the heart of the Bonn talks - partly because finance was given such a prominent place in the Copenhagen Accord. Finance has been a contentious issue throughout the UNFCCC process as rich countries have repeatedly failed to honour their commitments. Two loose financial pledges emerged from the Accord: $30bn 'fast start' funding to be distributed between 2010-2012, and a commitment to mobilise $100bn per year by 2020. Vulnerable countries need this support to help them adapt to the effects of climate change.

Leaving aside the fact that the pledged sums are almost certainly not enough (a recent World Bank study suggests that annual adaptation costs will be far higher than $100bn unless warming is limited to 2 degrees Celsius), the pledges raise a number of important questions concerning sources, from governance and reporting of funds. These issues will need to be tackled in Bonn and Mexico.

When it comes to the sources of the finance there is disagreement over the extent to which rich countries can include, as part of their contribution to the $100bn, funds moving through the private sector and carbon markets. Oxfam has argued that only public finance should be counted towards the $100bn total, as it alone can be relied upon to reach the most vulnerable populations who rarely represent attractive investment opportunities for the private sector. They also point out that calls from some rich countries for money transferred through the UN's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to be included would be a clear case of double counting. This money is 'used to deliver emissions cuts counted towards the targets of developed countries - not the extra reductions needed in developing countries'.

A High Level Advisory Group on Climate Financing (AGF) is currently exploring potential sources of revenue to achieve the level of finance promised at COP15. It is due to provide a preliminary report at the Bonn meeting this Saturday, although the outgoing Executive Director of the UNFCCC, Yvo de Boer, has suggested that it has not yet had time to come to significant findings. The AGF's members will be monitoring discussions in Bonn concerning issues such as aviation and transport to see whether there is scope to leverage innovative sources of funding from these sectors.

UN Climate Chief Yvo de Boer will be standing down after the Bonn meeting

Image by United Nations Photo

The form of climate finance is also a critical issue: will transfers be delivered as grants or loans? Campaign groups and vulnerable nations are clear that loans are not appropriate for adaptation: 'Offering a loan to help poor people adapt to climate change is like crashing into your neighbour's car, and then offering a loan to cover the damages' says Oxfam. In the midst of a global economic downturn, when many poor countries are being forced to cut critical services such as health and education in order to avoid a debt crisis, rich countries are trying to burden the most vulnerable nations with a climate debt for a situation they did not create. Whilst there may be some scope for loans to be used for mitigation programmes, Oxfam believe that this should represent no more than one third of total mitigation finance. Setting this limit is necessary, they argue, 'to ensure that sufficient mitigation finance for energy investments is available to countries who cannot sustain further debt, and to poor rural communities that do not currently have energy access.'

The Copenhagen Accord proposed the establishment of a 'Green Climate Fund' to oversee governance of the $100bn to be distributed annually. If the fund is created, negotiators from vulnerable nations will be looking to secure direct access to the finance - rather than having to work through bureaucratic and potentially restrictive implementing agencies. At the same time, countries contributing to the fund are keen for some level of coordination to avoid 'chaotic' deployment of the money. A related concern is the extent to which recipient countries will be able to participate in decisions on how the money is distributed and spent. Finally, campaigners see the creation of the Green Climate Fund as an opportunity to make climate financing more coherent - to ensure that financial support is distributed by a single transparent and accountable UN body, rather than the 30+ existing institutions. However the formation of this fund would be based on a COP decision (at the end of 2010) raising difficult questions for the governance of fast start funding, distribution of which is supposed to begin this year.

Finally, reporting on climate finances will be critical to ensure that pledged funds are actually transferred. Rich countries have a long record of promising climate finance, but then failing to deliver. The Copenhagen Accord states that 'the collective commitment by developed countries is to provide new and additional resources'. In practice however, these new and additional funds are hard to verify - and some countries seem to be recycling previously promised aid money. Resolving this lack of transparency will be critical in order for a global deal to be secured.

Rebuilding trust and curing the post-Copenhagen hangover

COP15 was characterised by a 'Copenhagen or bust' approach to the negotiations. Despite some significant progress in the run up to the conference (for example, on issues such as REDD, technology and adaptation), Parties wanted a total agreement before pushing ahead with individual components of the talks. The failure of the summit appears to have caused a rethink of this strategy, with officials indicating that COP16 will focus on the substance of an agreement rather than attempting to deliver a single legally binding treaty.

Restoring trust between the Parties will require the 'developed world' to live up to the promises they have made so far - 'if developing countries are given the ways and means to act on all aspects of mitigation and adaptation, it will establish firm ground for bigger ambition', de Boer has said. There also needs to be a clear definition of the end product that the Parties are aiming for. This means fundamental questions will need to be addressed in Bonn and Mexico: defining what legally binding means, defining a tonne of CO2, defining country commitments and gaining complete clarity on finance. Finally, trust will need to be restored in the UNFCCC process itself. Parties will need to be reassured that it is transparent and that there are clear principles on how the negotiations will be run. Most importantly of all, they will need to feel that progress is possible - that the contrasting agendas of vulnerable nations, emerging powers and rich countries can be reconciled within a consensus-based decision making process.