TckTckTck and OneWorld are in stunning Doha, Qatar for the UN Climate Talks (also known as COP18) from November 26 - December 8. As delegates from 194 countries gather to work on a fair, ambitious and legally-binding global climate deal, we'll be tracking their progress right here.
Storified by TckTckTck ·
Sat, Dec 01 2012 14:49:04
Arab Climate Activists to March in Doha, Climate Change is the subject of Qatar's first public protest.. history in the making
Right now a crowd of about a thousand people is marching along the Doha corniche calling for climate action. It's the first march of its kind in Qatari history. We're inspired and honoured to be a part of it.
And Doha, Qatar's first-ever climate march begins!
Thousands of activists to attend historic march in Doha calling for climate action. Saturday at 8.00am at Cornish Park, Sheraton Roundabout
Latest Headlines
Doha COP responds to new UN status of Palestine
COP President cancels announcement of Week 2 Agenda
Qatar hosts historic march for climate action
Saturday 1615: I know that we should be concentrating on the approaching ministerial stage of the Doha climate talks but I can't resist sharing the
Third World Network account of bad-tempered negotiations that took place last Wednesday.
Under the title: "AWG-LCA Heated Exchanges at Informal Consultations," TWN's Director of Programmes, Chee Yoke Ling, informs us:
Delegates and observers in the meeting room next door later remarked that they could hear US chief negotiator Jonathan Pershing's distinctive voice that was raised on several occasionsIt's clear that the Saudi Chair received a sound handbagging by US,
Japan, Switzerland and others in a manner described as "unbecoming of the Annex 1 parties."
These detailed TWN accounts of negotiations are part of the furniture of UN conferences, a valued point of reference for participants. Like her colleagues, Chee Yoke Ling scrupulously adheres to a deadpan style in order to retain the trust of all concerned.
But there's a hint of relish in this account, akin to the provincial hack covering a grisly murder after years of "granny's purse snatched" headlines. After 3500 words of dutiful recording of the exchanges, Chee Yoke Ling reverts to her dispassionate self with the conclusion:
No substantive discussion took placeWhen the history of these troubled UN negotiations comes to be written, this document will be prima facie evidence that our national representatives have indeed been guilty of fiddling while Rome burned.
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Saturday 1505: Yesterday's landmark decision by the UN General Assembly to
award non-member observer status to Palestine has already been recognised by the Doha UNFCCC climate conference, perhaps the first UN institution to act on the news.
From the
Earth Negotiations Bulletin report on yesterday's COP proceedings we learn that:
In the late evening stocktaking plenary, COP18 President Al-Attiyah welcomed Palestine to the conference.... "I am very happy that, from today, your seat changes."
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Saturday 1435: Friends of the Earth International has given its first press conference at the Doha COP.
There was a useful update on rumours that Germany is pressing the European Union to increase its emissions pledge from 20% to 30%, regardless of objections by Poland.
Ann Kathrin Schneider of FoE Germany explained that the source of this story was a TV interview given by the German environment minister about a week ago.
She expressed the view that it would be legally possible for the EU to take such a step but it would require the support of other powerful European countries, for which there is no current evidence.
Furthermore, it appears that even the German government is not in support of the idea, leaving the minister isolated.
As EU lead negotiator Artur Runge Metzger said yesterday, Peter Altmaier is due to arrive in Doha in next couple of days and can answer the question himself.
Meena Raman of FoE Malaysia reported on yesterday's negotiations on how the richer countries will deliver their climate finance promise of $100 billion pa by 2020. The G77/China Group has put forward a proposal of an interim target of $60 billion by 2015 (rising from current level of approx $10 billion). This was rejected out of hand by Japan and US.
Meena said that "for developing countries finance is a make-or-break issue for Doha."
On the topic of make-or-break issues for developing countries, FoEI speakers raised the prospect that agreement for a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol will not be regarded as sufficient for its own sake. The pledges for emissions reductions so far on the table are so inadequate that the Kyoto Protocol might "not be worth the paper it's written on."
Chairing the session, Asad Rehman of FoE UK said:
we will not collude with a seond commitment period if that period is neither ambitious nor genuineThis scenario may be put to the test. Earlier in the presentation, Ann Kathrin Schneider said: "we have very low hopes that ministers will raise their pledges but we will try."
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Saturday 1230: The
COP President was scheduled right now (1230) to present the agenda for the second week of the Doha climate talks.
The press conference schedule doesn't exactly strike the right tone for ministers on their way to Doha for the negotiations:
His Excellency Fahad Bin Mohammed Al-Attiyah will lay out the agenda for the final week of COP18Cancelled
Heather and Josh sum up Day 5 and look forward (that's not quite the right phrase!) to the endgame of the talks next week
Friday 19.35: Presenting a vision of "What an Obama administration 'climate reset' could look like" was the goal of the US Climate Action Network press conference which has now concluded.
This
was an opportunity to call to account the president for his promise to
act on the "destructrive power of a warming planet" made in his victory
speech earlier last month.
And Hannah Bristol of SustainUS
reminded us how the votes and activism of young people - naturally
concerned about climate change - were considered to be highly
instrumental in Obama's victory - further grounds for expectation that
the Doha COP presents the opportunity for a first instalment on that
debt.
My previous post recorded some of the ways that the US
delegation could contribute to a much more creative negotiating
environment without invoking the spectre of Congressional approval. The
consistent thread of the speakers was a plea to be helpful rather than
obstructive.
Is it really too much to ask for detail on how the
commitment to 17% emissions reduction by 2020 will be achieved and how
it might conceivably be ramped up both before and after that date? Why
not support the proposal, reiterated here by David Waskow of Oxfam US,
for a pledging conference in 2013?
The COP shouldn't be a punch and judy show where life is a series of episodes ended by bashing your partner over the head.
Alden Meyer, Director of Policy and Strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, closed the session with a clear message:
We're
expecting big things from the president. We're hoping he will make this
a centrepiece of his inaugural address at the end of January and will
indicate to the American people that he hears their voices and wants to
provide real leadership in the next four years.
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Friday 1830: We're
watching a hyper-intensive press conference put together by Sustain US
and the US branch of the Climate Action Network. It's halfway through a
one hour session which has the great idea of making recommendations for
what the US negotiating team could do here in Doha to break the deadlock
in the talks but, crucially, without requiring Congressional approval.
Great presentations from 5 very diverse speakers. Here's my provisional understanding of what they're suggesting:
1.instead
of trashing the Convention's principle of common but differentiated
responsibilities, why not commit to a process of reconciliation on how
the principle can be taken forward into the new climate agreement from
2015
2.support the underlying institutional capacity building
that the UN process has painstakingly put together - for example, the
Technology Centre
3.commit to continuation of at least current
levels of climate finance and back more enthusiastically the process of
searching for innovative financing, especially through aviation and
shipping.
The panel is now taking questions from journalists in the United States. Let's hope the US negotiators here are listening in.
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Friday 1755: The lead negotiator for the European Union has just given a helpful, if somewhat alarming, summary of the state of progress into Day 5 of the Doha COP.
Artur Runge-Metzger explained that there are three texts that negotiators have to knock into some sort of shape by next Wednesday when their ministers get to work. And there must be even progress on all three. If one falls behind, they all topple over together.
He outlined significant concerns in relation to the preparation of each of the texts. And more concern that they will hold together in the necessary equilibrium. Not a rosy picture!
Work on the Kyoto Protocol is struggling, not so much with the text but with some legal technicalities on moving into a second commitment period, for which the necessary meeting failed to happen.
On the new overarching agreement to be reached by 2015, no text has yet been presented to talk about. And the text for areas relating to the 2007 Bali Action Plan has been rejected out of hand.
If all these intricacies can be sorted out, then, as Mr Runge Metzger put it, "only the main political issues are left."
It's beginning to feel like Friday afternoon.
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Friday 1705: The media has just heard a formal presentation from the African Group of Negotiators for the first time at COP18.
The Chair of the Group, Mr Dlamini Emmanauel from Swaziland, expressed his negotiating position in the context of the "dire need for a lot of people in Africa." He used the language of "survival" and "extinction" to communicate the importance of the Doha COP.to the continent.
"This process is our only hope; without it we go back to the jungle and we know the rules of the jungle. Those who are the weakest go extinct. Africa is the most vulnerable to climate change and will go extinct first."
The African Group is calling for a tolerance threshold of 1.5 degrees of global warming..This means that countries in the Kyoto Protocol should increase their pledges so that emissions are cut by 40% by 2017, and that the richer countries outside the Protocol should make comparable pledges.
Mr Dlamini conceded that "progress at the negotiations is not such to make me over-optimistic of the outcome....the level of trust is not sufficient." He expressed frustration that the richer countries give assurances that climate finance will continue after the end of the fast start period in 2013 but refuse to put figures to their promises.
All is not lost: "we're still all at the table and we're still all talking," he said
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Friday 1615: The
LDC Group of negotiators has announced its strong support for the idea of an International Mechanism for Compensation and
Rehabilitation.
This suggestion was formally presented yesterday
in a report by an NGO triumvirate of WWF, ActionAid and CARE. The
proposal tackles a range of issues dealing with the loss and
damage caused by climate change.
It's controversial, especially
the use of that word "compensation" which will set the lawyers
twitching. Nevertheless, the spokesperson said of the proposal for a new
International Mechanism that "it's very core for LDCs to be undertaken
here in Doha."
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Friday 1510: Christiana Figueres, head of the UN secretariat for climate change, delivered
a tough message to climate campaigners at her press briefing earlier today.
Challenged
to explain why UN climate negotiations advance at such glacial pace in
relation to scientific imperatives, she expressed some sympathy for the
politicians. To paraphrase Christiana's reply, science responds to the
test tube, politicians respond to electorates.
Countries are
doing as much as they currently can under the public support/pressure
that they have. I don't see perhaps as much public interest - support
for governments to take on more ambitious and courageous decisions Fair
point but campaigners will say there's this little thing called
leadership which has defined our history and for which the future
patiently awaits.
Friday 1425:
2 be or not 2 be
That is still the question, despite the gloomy talk at the Doha COP about 4 degrees of warming. The
latest update from the Climate Action Tracker delivers a welcome tonic to flagging activists.
"Two
degrees is feasible. It's possible, but we have to start now, not wait
until 2020 to act," said Bill Hare, head of Climate Analytics. The
Climate Action Tracker is a science-based tool which evaluates the
emissions reductions pledges made at international climate talks.
"Many
scenarios that simulate the global economy and associated energy system
can....limit warming to below 2 degrees," is the latest verdict of the
Tracker. It even holds open the possibility of 1.5 degrees, the
threshold that the most vulnerable countries want to see in a new global
agreement.
This optimism is tempered by painful political
realities. "Few countries have policies in place to meet their pledges
and even fewer have sufficiently ambitious pledges," warn the scientists
behind the Tracker's projections.
Far from responding to these
imperatives during the first half of the Doha COP, negotiators continue
to behave as rabbits frozen in the headlights.
"Unless there's
divine intervention, there is nothing that will change the profile of
emissions any time soon," said Alden Meyer, who has followed the talks
for the Union of Concerned Scientists for two decades.
You can read the full update from the Climate Action Tracker
here.
Here's a chance to question the boss of the UN secretariat running the Doha talks.
You could ask Christiana what she can do to support proposals to increase women's participation in the work of the UNFCCC
or you can question why Anjali Appadurai, one of the most effective voices in climate activism, has been locked out of the Convention Centre on flimsy grounds?
Friday 1200: Interesting article here posted by Chris Lang who produces the website redd-monitor.com. REDD is the plan for protecting tropical forests by paying countries (and communities if they're lucky) not to chop them down.
Chris is pointing out that this big idea only works if global warming is kept under control. Rising temperatures and dryer conditions will destroy the forests without bothering with a chainsaw. Hence his headline.
If the guy whose website depends on the existence of REDD chooses to write this article, that's a sign that the UN talks are off course in a big way.
