Global Deal investigates new pathways in the international politics of climate change. Read more
Global Deal is a joint project of openDemocracy and E3G. Global Deal is financially supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

Part of the openDemocracy Network
About Global DealGlobal Deal investigates new pathways in the international politics of climate change. Read more Global Deal is a joint project of openDemocracy and E3G. Global Deal is financially supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. ![]() Receive Global Deal NewsGrab the Global Deal RSS FeedGlobal Deal NewswireOr join the Global Deal mailing listEnter your name and email address below to join our mailing list and become a member of openDemocracy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Global Deal Widget
Want this on your site? Copy this code into your HTML
tags in Global Deal |
What's love got to do with itAs we reported on Sunday, Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Climate Change Convention, has been urging countries to focus on process not substance. He wants countries to focus on ‘tools and instruments' here at Bali, and leave tough talk about targets for a later meeting. ‘A marriage contract is the culmination of a love affair,' he says, ‘not the topic of discussion on the first date.' Speaking for Climate Action Network Europe today, Matthias Dowe argued that we have moved far beyond the flush of first love. 'These parties have been dating for over fifteen years.' Like the Europeans, the NGOs believe that ‘a process, even if it has a clear end date, needs substance if we are to conclude a coherent agreement on the future of an international climate regime.' That means sticking to the approach recommended by an ‘ad hoc working group' that was set up in 2005 to look at long-term climate stabilisation.
At its fourth meeting, in Vienna in July,
the group underlined the need for ‘urgency' in addressing climate change and
gave some idea of what that might look like. According to its final report:
The AWG
recognized that the contribution of Working Group III [of the IPCC] to the AR4 indicates that
global emissions of greenhouse gases need to peak in the next 10 to 15 years
and be reduced to very low levels, well below half of levels in 2000 by the
middle of the twenty-first century.
The group referred to 25-40 percent cuts for developed countries ‘as a group' on 1990 emissions levels by 2020. It also noted concerns that even such stringent cuts might not be enough to save some small islands. The NGOs want all this to be included in the roadmap, plus a clear indication that countries are committed to agreeing a ‘legally binding instrument' within two years following Bali. Dowe recognises how tough this will be for the US, which is currently around 16 percent over 1990 levels:
The range being
talked about is for the group as a whole. What will be needed is to develop
criteria for how these cuts will be shared out among the group. That would have
to take into account financial and technical capacity, historical emissions and
other criteria.
All
of which is a roundabout way of saying that the US will probably need a
sweetener if it is ever to be bought on board...
Post new comment |