The next big big big meeting will be CoP-14 in Poznan, Poland this December. Here the big Transformer (to borrow my metaphor from last week) will come together to battle the evil forces of climate change. It's legs (AWG-KP and AWG-LCA) and it's arms (SBSTA and SBI) should be familiar components to you all by now!

In the interim there will be a key meeting of the AWGs in Accra, Ghana this August. They have pushed a lot of work there from this session, so it will be a veeeeery long week! We hope to be there in some capacity to be able to share with you the struggles and stories and hopefully successes on the road to Poznan and (eventually) Copenhagen

Poznan will be momentously important. In a few weeks, the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, in partnership with TakingITGlobal will be formally launching applications to join the Canadian Youth Delegation to this meeting. For more information stay tuned, and don't hesitate to contact us. We will be working very closely with other youth delegations and hope to make a very big impact.

For now, thank you VERY MUCH for reading. It has truly been a pleasure, and I hope this has been useful.

Klimaliebe fur alle,

-PJ

Well, things here at the UNFCCC are wrapping up… at least here in Bonn. CAN- International took the opportunity in the last few hours of the negotiations to hold a press conference reflecting on the last two weeks. PJ and I will be wrapping up our own reflections in the next week – we have a pretty big backlog of podcasts and posts to get up and will continue to work on those when we’re back in Canada. It’s been an amazing opportunity to be here, thanks for watching along with us. Keep checking back for those podcasts and other updates.

Anyway, back to the Press Conference…

Bill Hare of Greenpeace International spoke about the big picture – what do the events of the last two weeks mean for the next stages of the Kyoto protocol and what needs to happen for the process to be a success.

Overall, the parties have failed to make any progress any nearly all the agenda items – steps which are vital for the negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009 to be a success. In particular, Annex 1 actions for the next period and new mechanisms to aid participation by developing countries were lacking. Bill Hare warned that unless the pace increases and political roadblocks are removed quickly, there is a major risk of failure.

At every stage there have been low points, but in his fifteen years of experience the agenda has never been bigger while the progress has never been slower at these kind of negotiations in terms of substance.

This delay, he stated, is due to a pattern of unconstructive tactics, the “usual suspects,” Canada, Australia, the US and Japan, are objecting to straight-forward proposals, nitpicking, and generally attempting to slow negotiation and prevent real progress. He called on these countries to put forward constructive proposals that will solve big problems such as bunker fuels and developing country engagement rather than pushing for all old loopholes that were fought against in the creation of the Protocol.

The next speaker was Cynthia of the Nairobi based NGO the African Centre for Technological Development on issues of adaptation. Speaking as a citizen of a developing country, she reiterated that the process has been very slow progress and the we need action now to be ready for the development of the next stage.

In regard to the amount of funding allocated address adaptation needs in developing countries she noted that there have been two positive proposals. Both Norway and Switzerland have put forward concrete proposals for discussion. A disappointment has been that other developed countries haven’t really responded or put forward alternatives. Whatever plan is eventually adopted; it must be ensured that developing countries will be the ones that actually benefit from the adaptation funds.

Li Yan of Greenpeace China spoke about the productive proposals that developing nations have made over the last two weeks. These creative and constructive ideas on how to meet urgent need for mechanisms for tech transfer and investment are examples of the initiative that developed countries need to take. She highlighted Mexico’s ideas regarding a world climate change fund and Brazil’s ideas for tech transfer.

Catherine Gutman of WWF International closed the opening statements with a call for more leadership and political attention. She warned that it can’t be left to bureaucrats to work through these difficult decisions. There were very good ideas in week one, but week 2 lost momentum and ambition. In particular, the European Union’s participation was insufficient. The EU has an opportunity to build a positive dynamic with developing countries and send a strong political signal.

Media presence was up for this press conference and included all the major news wires. Maybe the most interesting thing about their questions is what they reflect about what the media see as being of interest to their readers. Notably, they asked about possible alternative processes to include the more reluctant parties to the process… The G8 summit will be taking place in Japan this July and is merged with discussion of the Major Emitters Meetings (MEM, such an innocuous acronym for such as insidious idea), reporters inquired whether the ENGOs were optimistic about the outcome of the meetings and whether they could form an alternative process to engage the major emitters…. And the answers were “no” and “no”.

For all its flaws, the UNFCCC process gets the major emitters and the “victim states” at the table together. Without the constant reminder that failure to take action on climate change will result in the loss of some countries and devastating impacts for others, targets for major emitters would likely be less ambitious and therefore less effective. Winston Churchill has been quoted as saying that “… democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried”. As with democracy, this may be a flawed process, but the best we’ve got. Equally, it is also up to participating countries and their citizens (that’s you), to guide the process to a positive outcome.

So, after their huddle, delegations reported that they COULD NOT reach consensus on considering CCS in the CDM. Therefore, this agenda item remains unagreed and will be forwarded to the next meeting of the SBs. (Poznan in Dec)

I'm not entirely sure how this differs from the text itself, which was also proposing to put it off till Poznan.

Alas.... this is sure to remain a heated issue.

On that topic, the rumour is that talks on Article 9 (the Review of the Protocol) went until 5:30am this morning and still couldn't reach consensus. It might be a very spark-filled afternoon in the SBI.

Tune in then!

I just stepped out for a moment and all of a sudden everyone is fighting about Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). This was discussed throughout the week and the Chair has presented her conclusions. Apparently some countries are NOT down with the get-down.

I'm not entirely sure what's going on here but, whatever it is, Qatar has said it will not support it. The Umbrella Group (Australia, Canada, US, NZ, et al) is mad too, but they will support the compromise.

Drama!

Okay, I've gotten my bearings a bit. They are discussing whether or not CCS can be included in the CDM. The text proposed (http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2008/sbsta/eng/l10.pdf) is basically a non-decision. It says the parties agree to consider the issue further in Poznan this December.

The EU has also said it will support. Micronesia is down. Barbados (for AOSIS) is currently taking the Umbrella Group to task for claiming that "a few parties" - those that do not support CCS - are taking away their rights to learn more on it. Not only is that barb unfortunate, he says, but also inaccurate. Dear Umbrella Group, "I suggest an informal Side Event would be a good place to learn more about these issues." Ah, Barbados, I love you!

Okay, since there is no agreement, the chair just told delegates to talk it out for 30mins at the back of the room while everyone else moves on with the agenda.

Updates when they happen

The EU is now also expressing its slight disappointment that other developed countries didn't come ready to put numbers on the table. The Ghana meetings will be a lot of work, but the EU is committed.

Antigua and Barbuda, for the G77/China, strongly supports the Chair's call for a new spirit and a new approach. They expressed a bit of concern over developed countries trying to bring in matters that fall outside the AWG-KP's mandate. We have an incredible amount of work to do. We must not let our timetable slip.

China "has to point out" that this group is working at a very slow pace, especially regarding targets for industrialised countries. We need to be able to show 'necessary political will' by Accra so that we can move forward.

Indonesia, amongst other things, emphasizes that nuclear should NOT be included in the CDM. Holla back!

.. . . . . . . . .


P.S. Chris' speech is now posted on our Project Page. Check it out! http://projects.takingitglobal.org/cydbonn/docs/