COP-18 Doha

Last week, ministers from 50 countries convened in South Korea for a “Pre-COP” meeting to prepare for the upcoming UNFCCC conference in Doha, Qatar (COP 18). Ministers confirmed their commitment to negotiate a new international climate framework by the end of 2015, as outlined in the Durban Platform agreed to at COP 17 last year.

While the Durban Platform gave new momentum to multilateral climate negotiations, the emissions gap remains large: The greenhouse gas reductions countries are currently willing to commit to don’t add up to the global reductions needed to limit warming to 2° C above pre-industrial temperatures. It’s clear that leaders need new ways to increase ambition enough to close this gap and reinforce the UNFCCC.

In this context, we are seeing a renewed interest in “clubs” – smaller groups of countries coming together to act on climate change, complementing the UNFCCC process. The question, though, is whether such clubs can make real progress toward closing the emissions gap.

This post was co-authored with Wendi Bevins, an intern in WRI’s Climate and Energy Program.

On September 25, the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice (MRFCJ) signed a Memorandum of Understanding, formally launching the “Climate Justice Dialogue.” This initiative aims to mobilize political will and creative thinking to shape an equitable and ambitious international climate agreement in 2015—one that ensures environmental integrity and protects the communities most vulnerable to climate change.

The State of International Climate Negotiations

It’s now a full 20 years since adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is designed to stabilize “greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” Despite important steps forward in Cancun and Durban, governments acknowledge that their combined efforts in reducing greenhouse gas emissions are insufficient to limit a global average temperature increase to 2°C.

The U.N.’s current round of climate change negotiations continues this week in Bangkok. While the last intersessional in Bonn yielded more lows than highs, the Bangkok talks have the potential to make real progress and set the tone for COP 18 in Doha, Qatar later this year.

The Big Picture

As with any U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) session, negotiators will need to manage political controversies while trying to make progress across a large volume of complex, technical issues. The political debates will likely center on ambition and equity, specifically countries’ collective will to speed emissions reductions in order to hold global mean temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The negotiations in Bonn earlier this year were acrimonious, with Parties pointing fingers over their respective failures to cut emissions in line with science. This, coupled with the recent controversial remarks from the United States on the need for a more “flexible” agreement, creates a delicate environment going into this latest negotiating session. On the technical front, the challenge is to conclude talks on three major, long-standing issues before the clock runs out at the end of this year.

Two weeks ago, my girlfriend and I left Washington for two very different dates with international climate action. She headed to Indonesia to work with women farmers who are reintroducing native, drought-tolerant crops in order to build resilience to climate change. I, on the other hand, went to Bonn, Germany for the most recent round of UNFCCC climate change negotiations. The contrast could not have been starker. I spent 10 days watching with astonishment as countries bickered over committee chairs, agendas, and footnotes. There were highs in Bonn, too, as I outline below, but overall the atmosphere at this session was one of mistrust and reluctance.