How not to tackle climate change and call it a success: the Durban package

13. December 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: climate change · Tags: , , , , ,

The official package deal of Durban consisted of 4 main documents, apart of several other decisions, most of them less critical, that have been adopted:

  1. A decision on the second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol 
  2. The LCA outcome: the partial implementation of the Bali Action Plan and the Cancun Agreements
  3. A Durban Platform for Enhanced Action: the decision to work towards a new “agreed outcome with legal force, applicable to all”
  4. The green climate fund

The package was officially sold to the world as a success, but having a closer look, it’s easy to see it doesn’t do what it is suposed to do, and it does what it shouldn’t do. More »

New Negotiation text in Durban full of dangers
Part 2: Carbon markets

07. December 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: climate change · Tags: , , , , , , ,

One of the longest chapters in the Durban negotiation text (cf pages 35 – 52), and with most ‘new’ ideas in it — in terms of legal text — is the chapter on “Various approaches, including opportunities for using markets, to enhance the cost-effectiveness of, and to promote, mitigation actions, bearing in mind different circumstances of developed and developing countries” (Chapter 1bv).

Why such a long title, and why do I even bother to retake it completely?

Well, it is important to state what the Bali Action Plan was looking for: ‘various approaches, to enhance cost-effectiveness and to promote mitigation action’. Many consider this chapter to be on carbon markets. But in fact, carbon markets are just a means of financing mitigation actions, and in order to consider them to be included in the various approaches they should demostrate to be cost-effective, and More »