Cook Islands needs the Kyoto Protocol

L - R Mii Matamaki, Peter Taivairanga, Myra Moeka'a-Patai of the Cook Islands

 28 November, 2012, Doha, Qatar - The Cook Islands is lobbying for a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol at the UN Climate Negotiations, the first commitment period runs out at the end of this year.

A second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol will help bring the level of greenhouse gas emissions to a peak before the year 2020 to limit global warming below 1.5 degrees which is what the Cook Islands is calling for, along with other 44 island nations under the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).

“The Cook Islands would obviously like to see a second commitment period in place because the KP is the only international agreement that has robust mechanisms and a strong compliance system to ensure that countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions,” said Myra Moeka’a-Patai, the Head of the Cook Islands delegation.

“It’s a concern for us as we don’t see anything better in place.  A lot of the Annex 1 countries have opted to bring their commitments under the United Nations Framework for the Convention on Climate Change, but this Convention doesn’t have any compliance or legally binding target agreements.”

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement under the United Nations Framework to the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  It legally binds industrialised countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5% below the 1990 level between the five-year commitment period of 2008 to 2012.

The 1990 level is that of the greenhouse gas emissions recorded in the year 1990 and the five-year period 2008 to 2012 is the first commitment period.

“When the Kyoto Protocol was developed there was recognition the industrialised countries had a historical response.  As they went through the industrialised process first, they have been polluting for a longer time period so it was recognised that they would take the first steps,” said Ms. Diane McFadzien, the Climate Change Adaptation Adviser at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).  McFadzien is also on the Cook Islands delegation providing technical support and advice.

“Since that time the economies of other large countries have grown, raising their emissions to similar levels, which is one of the reasons why some countries aren’t committing to a second period, or ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.  They feel it’s not fair they have to take actions when others with similar emission levels are not taking action.”

During the UN Climate talks in Doha, the Cook Islands are taking part in the negotiations, hoping to bring about a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. 

“I think for us we really need to put a second commitment period in place, the island states are the most vulnerable to the climate change impacts despite only contributing to less than 1% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions,” said Moeka’a-Patai.

“We must remain hopeful.”

The Kyoto Protocol became a legally binding treaty on 16 February 2005, it came into force after two conditions were met;   it was ratified by a minimum of 55 countries and; it has been ratified by nations accounting for at least 55% of emissions from what the Protocol calls “Annex 1” countries – 38 industrialised countries given targets for reducing emissions, plus Belarus, Turkey and now Kazakhstan.

Statement delivered by Nauru on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) at the Opening Plenary, 18th Conference of the Parties, Doha, Qatar

26 November, 2012

Ambassador Marlene Moses, Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States

"Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Nauru has the honour to speak on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States, a coalition of 44 members particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

AOSIS associates itself with the statement made by Algeria on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, The Gambia on behalf of the Least Developed Countries, and Swaziland on behalf of the African Group.

Mr. President, 

At the outset, please allow me to congratulate you on your election to the presidency and to thank the Government and the people of the State of Qatar for their warm reception. Let me also assure you of our support and our constructive engagement in these negotiations as we seek to ensure a successful outcome here in Doha. 

Mr. President, 

Twenty years ago, in recognition of the dangers of climate change, we came together as a global family and negotiated the UNFCCC. It was then a truly ambitious agreement – the product of a time when humanity seemed ready to tackle the greatest challenges of our generation. 

We agreed that those with the greatest responsibility for the problem and greatest capability to address it would take the lead. It was recognized that developing countries would need assistance, particularly the most vulnerable among us. And we set as our objective, not to slow, not to delay, but to prevent dangerous interference with the climate system.

At its heart, the Convention was a pact we all made to safeguard the lives and life prospects of present and future generations. As we convene here in Doha at what is an important crossroads in our global effort to combat climate change, it is appropriate to reflect on whether or not we have realized our noble ambitions. 

It is difficult to answer in the affirmative when only one month ago, Hurricane Sandy hit our brothers and sisters in the Caribbean and in the United States, resulting in dozens of deaths and billions of dollars in damage, and reminding us that we are all in this together. Many island communities have been experiencing the impacts of more frequent and more intense extreme weather effects for some time, but when the tragedies occur far away from the media’s spotlight, they are too easily ignored or forgotten. 

As we embark on our negotiations over the next few weeks, we must keep in our minds and in our hearts the victims of Hurricane Sandy, many of whom are still trying to put their lives back together, and the countless other members of our global family who are impacted by climate change. 

Mr. President, 

This conference is about nothing less than preserving the fundamental integrity of the climate change regime, and that must begin with a strong second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol is the legal embodiment of the commitment made by Annex I Parties to take the lead in addressing climate change. It is only because of the promise of a second commitment period that the developing world agreed to enter negotiations under the Durban Platform on a new legal agreement “applicable to all.” 

Bringing all countries under one protocol is a fundamental change in the regime with potentially far reaching implications, but it was also part of a larger package. If the developed world shirks its responsibility, then there will be no chance of a meaningful legal agreement under the Durban Platform.

But a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol cannot be a second commitment period in name only - it must be ambitious and it must be credible. 

AOSIS Leaders met in New York two short months ago and adopted a Declaration reaffirming our positions on the Kyoto Protocol. Our Heads of State and Government have agreed that a credible second commitment period must include more ambitious QELROs from Annex I Parties, a 5-year commitment period, provisional application, flexibility mechanisms limited to those Parties taking on internationally legally binding mitigation commitments, and lastly, strict limits on the carryover of surplus AAUs, as proposed by the G77 and China. 

The offer from partners currently on the table is deeply inadequate in ambition, would subvert the integrity of the international regime, and thereby jeopardise the entire Durban package. If developed countries cannot live up to their current obligations, how can we have any confidence in a future agreement. 

Mr. President, 

The UNEP Gap Report makes it clear that ambition must be raised urgently. The gap is growing! The world is on a dangerous trajectory that will take us to over 3 degrees of warming and we are running out of time to change course. This is why AOSIS has proposed a comprehensive workplan to continue enhancing mitigation ambition over the next two years. The agreement to undertake such a workplan was another critical element of the Durban package and essential to allowing AOSIS to join consensus. It must remain a central priority for our work here in Doha. 

An outcome in Doha that does not include a substantive set of workplan activities for 2013 to increase pre-2020 mitigation ambition is one that AOSIS cannot accept. As we have said before, a failure to close the pre-2020 mitigation ambition gap would have profound implications for the scale, scope and nature of the necessary commitments and obligations under the new Protocol we have committed to adopt in 2015. An intensive and concerted effort to close the gap must start here in Doha.

Mr. President, 

Long-term finance was the missing element of the Durban package and it must not be forgotten in Doha. Developed countries have committed to mobilize 100 billion dollars per year by 2020 to fund adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. We need concrete commitments towards fulfilling that promise. As it now stands, the Green Climate Fund is an empty shell and the fast start financing period will conclude at the end of this year. 

AOSIS calls for a commitment by developed countries to ensure that there is no gap in the provision of scaled-up, new and predictable climate finance to developing countries after the end of the fast start finance period. In this regard, we call for the commencement of a second fast start-like period from 2013-2015. We also call for common accounting rules to ensure that these funds are truly new and additional. This is critical given the urgent and immediate needs of developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. 

Mr. President, 

Lastly, establishing an international mechanism to address loss and damage from the adverse effects of climate change has long been a priority of AOSIS. It takes on even more urgency in light of the low mitigation ambition reflected in current pledges, the worsening of climate impacts, and the inadequacy of international support for adaptation strategies in vulnerable countries. AOSIS has made a concrete proposal on a mechanism for loss and damage and we look forward to agreeing to establish such a mechanism here in Doha. 

Mr. President, 

AOSIS is here to ensure that our rhetoric is reflected in our actions. How can we accept an outcome that lacks environmental integrity and pat ourselves on the back for having reached an agreement that fundamentally jeopardises our future? The letter and the spirit of the Convention must guide our work here in Doha. We must be able to look our children and grandchildren in the eye, and tell them that we fought to protect a safe and prosperous future for all. 

Thank you, Mr. President."

Pacific islands ask for another five year commitment under the Kyoto Protocol

Solomon Island delegation - Ambassador Colin Beck on right

26 November 2012, Doha Qatar, UNFCCC COP 18 - Pacific island countries are calling for a second five-year commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol.  They unite with the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in Doha, Qatar to negotiate this as the first commitment period runs out at this end of this year.

“What we need as of the 1^st of January, in a few weeks time, is we need to see credible second commitment reduction levels, as the key to our survival in the Pacific is an ambitious reduction in greenhouse gas emissions,” said H.E Ambassador Colin Beck, the UN representative from the Solomon Islands.

“I think the problem facing the Pacific is beyond the Pacific to address, it needs a global solution and this is where we need to work with everybody that wants to work to save humanity.”

A second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol will help bring the level of greenhouse gas emissions to a peak before the year 2020 to limit global warming below 1.5 degrees, the goal behind the Alliance of Small Island States.

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement under the United Nations Framework to the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  It legally binds industrialized countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5% below the 1990 level between the five-year commitment period of 2008 to 2012.

The 1990 level is that of the greenhouse gas emissions recorded in the year 1990 and the five-year period 2008 to 2012 is the first commitment period.

Negotiations opened today in Doha, Qatar at the 18^th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, it has already been a busy week for the Pacific as they strategise and plan a way forward as part of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).

“It was agreed in the Kyoto Protocol that there would be future commitment periods with the second one starting in 1 January next year,” said Ms. Diane McFadzien, the Climate Change Adaptation Adviser at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).

“A second commitment period provides certainty.  While there are countries that have made voluntary pledges to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, having a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol provides an official verification and measurement system in place to work with the countries reducing their emissions.”

The Kyoto Protocol became a legally binding treaty on 16 February 2005, it came into force after two conditions were met;   it was ratified by a minimum of 55 countries and; it has been ratified by nations accounting for at least 55% of emissions from what the Protocol calls “Annex 1” countries – 38 industrialised countries given targets for reducing emissions, plus Belarus, Turkey and now Kazakhstan.

Pacific fights for survival at COP 17

ilNewslink:  http://www.acp.int/content/pacific-fights-survival-cop17

Deputy Director-General of SPREP, Mr Kosi Latu, delegate at ACP COP 17 Preparatory Meeting

 Brussels, 29 November 2011/ ACP Newsdesk: On an international scene fixated with the global financial crisis and the tangle of creating effective and sustainable development policies, Pacific nations join the UN’s COP17 climate change summit this week in Durban, South Africa with a very clear and basic focus – the survival of their peoples.

At a recent technical meeting in Brussels, delegates from Africa, Pacific and the Caribbean called for a “bold and innovative” approach to the global talks, looking towards a united ACP position on climate change.

For some Pacific members in particular, the issue is especially critical. The outcomes of COP 17 - convening 28 November to 9 December - could spell significant implications on their future as independent nations.

“It is true we have to look at with development, poverty reduction and building green economies. These are very important in addressing climate change. But for us in the Pacific it’s more than that,” said Deputy Director General of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP) Mr Kosi Latu, who presented the region’s position in Brussels mid-month.

“I’m talking about the survival of our peoples in the sense that due to climate change impacts, we stand to lose our land, our histories and cultures, our nationalities.”

The evacuation of entire seaside communities in Pacific countries due to climate change impacts have been widely publicised by local media, such as the cases of the Cateret Islands in Papua New Guinea and Tegua Island in Vanuatu, dubbed as the world’s first “climate change refugees”.

The governments of Tuvalu and Kiribati have also considered the bleak option of relocating their populations to neighbouring countries, even as increased flooding and storm surges across the region have cause damage to crops and infrastructure, as well as loss of life.

“It gives us the chills,” Samoan representative Josephine Stowers Fiu told ACP peers. “We’re talking about the lives of our people – what is going to happen in the next five, ten, twenty years. We need to push forward with a more stringent approach to seeking a legally binding agreement [on the global reduction of green house gas emissions].”

But selling the urgency of this message has been easier said than done, even amongst regional partners that make up the 79 members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States. While all agree on the need for a global binding agreement to be finalised in Durban, key differences have also emerged on a specific priority focus on the climate change debate.

“Sustainable development and poverty eradication are the priorities to Africa,” stated Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, Chair of the African Group.

Representing the largest sub-group in the ACP including 33 Least Developed Countries, the African region is primarily concerned with equitable resource sharing, climate change financing, capacity building and technology transfer.

Meanwhile in the Caribbean, the focus has been on improved disbursements of the US$ 100 billion in climate change funding pledged by developed countries by 2020. While the region shares geographical similarities with its Pacific partners, concerns tend to focus on economic growth, rather than actual survival.

To compound this, new challenges have emerged with recent key geopolitical developments since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The global economic crisis is likely to dampen the push for more assistance. Meanwhile, emerging economies such as China, India, Russia, and South Korea are climbing the ranks as top ten global emitters. Yet under current agreements, they do not have the same emission obligations as those placed on developed nations.

“My big fear is that the financial crisis will negatively impact on the assistance we receive from developed countries. In fact, the question still remains whether these pledges will come as new funds, or simply the countries’ Overseas Development Assistance repackaged as climate change funds,” continued Mr. Latu.

While Pacific remains under threat of climate change effects, he has modest expectations for the outcomes of the Durban talks:

“Of course the aim for the Pacific region is to get a global binding agreement that will commit everyone to cut global emissions, but I am skeptical. At the very least however, we should at least finalise a concrete date for this to happen.”

The ACP climate change meeting in mid-November compiled a number of shared concerns to raise at COP17, including the need to limit the rise of the global surface temperature to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels by 2100 and for all Parties work to ensure that global greenhouse gas emissions peak by 2015.

ACP negotiators also called for disbursements of climate change funds to be resolved and mechanism in place for post-2012, when the first Kyoto Commitment Period ends.

"Climate change has been accepted as a reality - now we need the political will to make the necessary changes," added Mr. Latu. “We need radical solutions, and for us who are particularly vulnerable in the ACP Group – we need to be speaking with one voice.”

- Josephine Latu, ACP Press Attache

Climate change ministers meet in Beijing ahead of Durban summit

02 November 2011 Beijing (China Daily) --- Climate-change ministers from Brazil, South Africa, India and China, also known as the BASIC countries, have reached a consensus on a range of issues - including the Second Commitment Period of the Kyoto Protocol - a month in advance of a conference in Durban, South Africa.

 

"There must be a Second Commitment Period of the Kyoto Protocol," said Xie Zhenhua, China's top climate change official, after the Ninth BASIC Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change in Beijing on Tuesday.

"Countries should take action and put their promises into practice before 2020 and then further discuss the issues after that date on the basis of scientific analysis," Xie said.

The extension of the Kyoto Protocol became a major focus of climate change negotiations after some countries opposed the Second Commitment Period at talks in Cancun, Mexico, in 2010.

According to the protocol, developed countries are subject to binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions, while developing economies make their cuts on a voluntary basis. Japan, Russia and Canada have rejected an extension of the Kyoto agreement.

Xie said all countries are able to make proposals and suggestions, according to the principles of openness and transparency at the talks, but that all decisions should be based on the common understandings that the countries have reached in the past 20 years and the principles of equal, common, but differentiated, responsibility.

There is disagreement among the parties on whether or not to replace the Second Commitment of the Kyoto Protocol with a new protocol, a new instrument or a new system, said Alf Wills, South Africa's Conference of the Parties chief negotiator.

"What we hope to achieve, I think, is a common goal of all the BASIC countries and we hope to achieve a Second Commitment Period of the Kyoto Protocol," said Wills.

"It's the view of the BASIC countries that the rule-based system of the Kyoto Protocol provides the benchmark and the cornerstone for the future of a climate change regime or system that we would want to see," said Wills.

"We believe very strongly that there should be an extension of the Second Commitment Period of the Kyoto Protocol," said Jayanthi Natarajan, the minister of state, environment and forests of India.

Ministers agreed that the Durban talks should achieve a comprehensive, fair and balanced outcome, according to a joint statement from the BASIC countries.

A Second Commitment Period of the Kyoto Protocol is the "essential priority" for the success of the Durban conference, the statement said.

The ministers emphasized that financing will be another pressing priority in the negotiations when they meet in Durban.

They agreed that the conference should decide to initiate the operation of the Green Climate Fund, thereby ensuring adequate financial support for developing countries, and they urged the developed countries to capitalize the fund from their public resources.

The developed countries have already committed to provide a combined $30 billion as "fast-start" funding for the project and then to increase that figure to $100 billion annually between 2013 and 2020 to avoid a funding gap.