US Secretary of State John Kerry was expected to arrive in Lima (Peru) on Thursday – as previously reported by The New York Times and the BBC – and evidenced by his helicopter already on the ground in Lima Thursday afternoon, according to sources. This exemplifies the importance that “the Obama administration has placed on the outcome of United Nations climate change negotiations taking place” in Lima, as Coral Davenport of the New York Times correctly points out. Secretary of State Kerry, however, will not take part in the ‘lower level’ diplomatic negotiations itself, which renders his visit a symbolic gesture. Nevertheless, such gestures and illustrations of firm commitment to climate protection go a long way in international diplomacy and may influence bargaining positions of negotiators in the end.
From the outset, the world met in Lima with the explicit goal to negotiate a first draft text for Paris 2015 for governments to continue working on next year. These diplomatic negotiations are now entering the home stretch, which raises a twofold question: Where do the diplomatic negotiations stand and what are the prospects for Paris 2015? In this context, Matt McGrath reporting for the BBC defines nicely what the parties are trying to accomplish with respect to a draft agreement in Lima: “Here in Lima, the parties are trying to get the ‘elements’ of a deal together, which essentially means a chunky negotiating text with plenty of options still on the table.”
To get additional knowledgeable insight and a general update on the status quo of negotiations on Thursday, Breaking Energy spoke over the phone with Michael Jacobs who is at the negotiations in Lima. Mr. Jacobs is a Senior Adviser to the New Climate Economy and formerly Special Adviser to UK Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. He also was the UK negotiator for the Copenhagen Conference in 2009. “Negotiations are going reasonably well in a ‘UN-kind’ of way” – i.e. in spite of the parties seemingly “looking far from agreement” -, Mr. Jacobs said and went on to express his confidence that parties are “likely to reach agreement with a draft text to serve as basis” for Paris 2015.
Describing the mood at the conference as “very much relaxed” compared to his prior climate summit experience because “everybody wants an agreement” and recognizes, first and foremost, the importance of mitigation efforts, it is reasonable to expect the draft text to include provisions and language reflecting a ‘compromise’ with respect to the inclusion of sticking points – such as individual countries’ adaptation efforts as well as climate finance, in addition to mitigation efforts (see Breaking Energy coverage here) – in the initial draft text. According to Mr. Jacobs, given that decisions on those agenda items are only critical next year, they can all be included in the draft text for now; namely, tiered – based on importance to halting climate change – with mitigation efforts (emission reduction targets) being most important, followed by an optionality regarding adaptation targets, and finally with a simple mention of climate finance to be dealt with closer to 2020 given common budgeting practices.
Interestingly, while the New York Times identifies China as “hesitating about allowing outside monitoring of its emissions” and “[o]il-producing countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela (…) as quietly trying to block a deal behind the scenes,” Mr. Jacobs’ take on the status quo of negotiations is distinctly different. “No countries are spoiling. They all do want agreement. The mood among the negotiating parties is very much relaxed because the stakes are not high enough, [with contentious and unresolved issues] put all off until next year,” Mr. Jacobs stressed. In this respect, he elaborated on a couple of those unresolved issues, which he referred to as “monitoring, commensurate level of country effort, and sufficiency”.
As for ‘monitoring’, Mr. Jacobs explains that while the Lima draft text will include provisions on how to count and/or monitor emissions in some way, the “Common Monitoring and Transparency Report System” is on the agenda for Paris. He adds that most of the monitoring is done via satellite anyway, which consequently seems to make it a ‘phantom problem’. In terms of ‘commensurate level of country effort’, it is important to understand that the entire principal process is “bottom-up with no formal mechanism of enforcement” because – in his words – “countries cannot be forced to commit to a certain level of effort.” This means, in turn, that they have to commit to “any kind of effort they can live with” given their respective country-specific circumstances. And this leads right into his last point about ‘sufficiency’ and the necessity of all contributions/efforts to “globally add up” in order to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures.
Again, remember that this ‘bottom-up’ process only allows for informal mechanisms of ‘enforcement’ such as peer pressure or pressure from civil society along with a regular review process with regard to the pledged mitigation targets. “The hope is to get enough ambition into the system” in this way, Mr. Jacobs suggests. Further, it should not come as a surprise that the issue of a particular legal form for capturing post-2020 emission reduction targets has also been put off into next year.
The table below – based on work by the Australian Climate Change Authority – from the Australian Climate Institute gives an overview of “broad brush options” for how post-2020 national contributions could be treated in a new global agreement.
Options to Capture National Contributions in New Global Agreement: Legally Binding or Not?
Source: The Climate Institute (Australia)
In sum, even though the Lima climate talks are on the cusp of accomplishing their initial goal – a draft text for Paris 2015 – we are still relatively far from “striking gold” in terms of halting climate change – referencing here the title of Matt McGrath’s piece for the BBC “Will Kerry strike gold at Lima climate talks?”.
