Climate talks in Doha are in full swing and attention is again focused on whether the world's nations can agree to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The process has often contained more deadlock than breakthrough. But in the spirit of optimism, we've examined three compromise deals that might move the world forward - and what different countries think of them.
Kyoto 2
The
Kyoto Protocol, is the set of policies that
created the first binding global emissions reduction target. Kyoto
requires the nations with the most developed economies, including
the UK, to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by
five per cent on 1990 levels in the period 2008 to
2012. It does not put any binding targets on
developing countries, including India and China.
The Protocol is due to expire at the end of this month. So
what next? The first option being explored at Doha is to extend the
Kyoto Protocol - an idea known as
Kyoto 2 (or 'Commitment Period
2').
The European Union (EU) supports the idea, and
has committed member states to a greenhouse gas
reduction of 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, with an offer to
increase this to 30 per cent by 2020 if other major industrialised
countries sign up to binding agreements. The Alliance of Small Island States
(AOSIS) is also committed to the idea, and
Australia recently declared
a Kyoto 2 target of a 5 per cent reduction
in emissions on 1990 levels by 2020.
Finally, China, India, Brazil and South Africa -
collectively known as the BASIC countries - are
committed to extending the Kyoto Protocol.
However, this is with a big condition - that they continue to be
classified as developing countries, and are therefore excluded from
any binding commitment to reduce emissions. The BASIC countries
also call for
more emissions cuts from the developed
countries.
Not all nations want an extension: New Zealand,
Canada,
Japan and
Russia are all refusing to commit to any
Kyoto 2 target. Canada prefers
less stringent domestic targets, while Japan
declared at the Cancun summit in 2010 that it will not sign a Kyoto
extension "
on any conditions or under any
circumstances". New Zealand announced the
plan to withdraw from the Kyoto process on
the same day that Australia announced its Kyoto 2
target.
A leaked document shows that Russia is potentially preparing
the ground for a regional cap-and-trade scheme in the absence of a
Kyoto 2 commitment,
according to Reuters.
The United States signed the original Kyoto protocol in
1997, but
congress didn't ratify it. While the US
claims to have made "
enormous efforts" to reduce its emissions,
President Obama will not sign any extension to the Kyoto Protocol
if India and China continue to be classified as developing
countries - and even if the President did sign, it's unlikely that
congress would ratify it this time around.
Getting countries to agree to extend the Kyoto Protocol has
been a challenge in the past, and it appears that little has
changed. The general consensus is that a Kyoto deadlock seems
pretty likely.
Durban Platform
If creating a new Kyoto-style agreement to cover emissions
until 2020 is too tricky, another option is to try for a
longer-term goal.
At the UN talks in Durban last year, delegates agreed to
the
Durban Platform for Enhanced Action which
stated that either a "protocol, legal instrument, or legal outcome"
to cut emissions would be agreed by 2015, to come into effect by
2020.
The EU and India held late night talks on the final day to
reach an agreement on the wording of the
platform. It sidesteps some of the Kyoto
baggage, suggesting a new deal that contains legally binding
emission reductions targets for all countries, not just the richer
ones.
But this new deal relies on the developed countries agreeing
to extend the Kyoto Protocol. Since this is proving the sticking
point, it's not impossible that the Durban Platform will be
derailed in Doha.
Wedging the emissions gap
Another policy solution might be to wedge the gap between
current emissions trends and the necessary reductions to limit
global temperature increase to two degrees through the
implementation of 21 major initiatives.
The idea of this approach was proposed by the
consultancy Ecofys
, and published in the journal
Nature Climate Change earlier this
year.
Source: Ecofys, Wedging the Gap
The major initiatives include policies that target the
emissions from companies and other polluters, emissions savings
from so-called special sectors such as aviation and agriculture,
implementing energy efficiency measures, changing energy supply,
and tackling air pollutants.
The authors calculate that taken together, the measures they
propose would deliver more emissions cuts that those pledges by
governments under the current UN framework.
One advantage of the proposal is that it's not just
governments that can participate to cut emissions. Businesses or
NGOs could sign 'an umbrella covenant' which others could then sign
up to. The authors claim that such a deal would provide the
'combined leadership' necessary to solve climate change that is
currently lacking in the UN talks.
But there is no guarantee that the umbrella covenant would
be any less problematic than negotiating the Kyoto Protocol has
proved. It essentially replaces one system with another, albeit
promising greater emissions reductions. The idea is that this
approach would make it easier for deals to happen by expanding the
pool of actors which can make them - but that's a rather untested
assumption.
It's certainly the case that international climate diplomacy
remains fairly intractable. There is gradual progress in the
development of new policy ideas and attempts to work around
deadlocks - but the next few days will demonstrate whether this
progress is happening fast enough.