Last Update: 01.06.2011

UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, 6 to 17 June 2011

Background information

1) What will be the major topics at the Bonn conference?

The next climate change conference will take place in Bonn from 6 to 17 June. It will be the first round of in-depth discussions about a future climate protection architecture within the formal UN context following Cancun. In addition, the technical (subsidiary) bodies of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol will convene for their regular meetings.

These negotiations about a future regime will continue to take place in two parallel working groups, one under the Kyoto Protocol and one under the FCCC, and they will deal on the one hand with the implementation of the decisions taken in Cancun (Cancun Agreements) and on the other hand with topics still under discussion after Cancun. This includes in particular the question of how the reduction pledges renewed by developed and developing countries in Cancun are to be set in a legally binding way. Negotiations under the Kyoto Protocol are about legally binding reduction targets for the developed countries, whereas the legal form of the results under the FCCC has not been decided upon.

Work on issues like mitigation, adaptation, financing and technology is to prepare the ground for decisions which will have to be taken at the climate change summit in Durban (South Africa, COP 17) at the end of the year. The European Union is prepared to sign a new, legally binding climate protection agreement, although it is not overly optimistic that this will be achieved. Neither the internal situation in the US nor the debates in the large newly industrialising countries China and India give reason to expect such an agreement. There is still no agreement as to the possible details of such an agreement and from the practical side there is as yet no specific text to be negotiated. Like in Cancun the most probable result in Durban will be a well-balanced package of decisions. Therefore, a balance between implementation and further development of the agreements as well as between and within the topics of the two negotiation lines is called for.

2) Why do we need a revamp of the climate protection architecture?

As yet the Kyoto Protocol only stipulates emission reduction commitments for a first commitment period from 2008 to 2012. Moreover, the emission reduction commitments apply only for developed countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Thus the emission reduction commitments do neither apply to the US, which has decided against ratifying the Protocol, nor to all developing countries, including those with particularly fast rising emissions. In addition, the emission reduction target in the Kyoto Protocol - 5% by 2012 compared with 1990 - is in no way adequate in view of the latest scientific findings. We will need a significantly more demanding climate protection architecture which involves all countries in an appropriate way, i.e. in relation to their responsibility for climate change and their available capacities, in the efforts to increase climate protection.

3) What was achieved in Cancún?

In Cancún (Mexico) the 16th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 16) and the 6th Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol took place from 29 November to 10 December 2010. Negotiations centred on issues concerning the future of international climate protection, in particular for post-2012 times after the end of the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period. At the last climate change conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 only political agreement on a joint document, the Copenhagen Accord, was achieved by a group of countries but not the agreement being striven for on a comprehensive regime of mitigation, adaptation, technology and financing under the umbrella of the United Nations.

In Cancún, a UN decision officially recognised the 2°C target for the first time. The Cancún package included mitigation action by developed and developing countries, the establishment of a Global Green Climate Fund and arrangements on adaptation to the consequences of climate change, forest conservation (REDD), technological cooperation and capacity building in developing countries. A procedure was agreed to review which additional measures will be needed to meet the two-degree target. Moreover, basic agreements were made regarding the transparency of countries’ climate protection activities (measurable, reportable and verifiable - MRV). Developed countries pledged to mobilise 100 billion US dollars annually from 2020 onwards for climate protection measures in developing countries. According to current forecasts the reduction targets and measures promised in Cancún will clearly fall short of achieving the target set, i.e. to limit the global temperature increase to 2°C compared with pre-industrial times. However, the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that beyond this threshold the risks of climate change will no longer be manageable and hardly financeable. Germany and the European Union aim at a comprehensive, ambitious and legally binding UN climate protection agreement which will ensure that the 2°C threshold is not crossed and that there is fair burden sharing among the countries. In light of the Copenhagen experience, such a comprehensive agreement can only be achieved by a process in which the various elements of the negotiations are decided upon one after the other and then merged. The Cancun Agreements, a "balanced package of decisions", paved the way for setting up and extending international climate protection architecture. The agreements reached in Copenhagen are thus turned into official decisions, further developed and operationalized. This package restored the confidence in the negotiation process of all those involved.

4) Which expert negotiating groups are convening in Bonn?

Two subsidiary bodies (SBI and SBSTA) are convening in Bonn, dealing with technical questions, for example regarding transparency, adaptation, technology and capacity building. This year the budget of the Climate Secretariat for the next two years is also to be decided upon. The package for a future climate protection agreement will be elaborated in two working groups.

In the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) countries negotiate, chaired by Daniel Reifsnyder (USA), on the emission reduction contributions of non-Kyoto developed countries, in particular the US, and on the contributions of developing countries. Further topics on the agenda are adaptation to climate change, mitigation and adaptation technologies and the investments and financing needed for this regime. This group was set up in Bali in 2007. In Cancún the mandate of the group was extended by one year.

The Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG KP) negotiates, chaired by Adrian Macey (New Zealand) on the future emission reduction commitments of developed countries which are Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. This group was set up in 2006. At the Bali conference it was decided to base further deliberations on the target reduction corridor for developed countries proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), i.e. a 25 - 40 per cent reduction by 2020 compared with 1990.

As well as emission reduction commitments, technical issues are once again the major focus. Among other things it is to be decided how particularly forests (land use, changes to land use, forest management, LULUCF) in developed countries are to be credited to the reduction targets, how to deal with emission allowances that have not been used by the end of the first commitment period and how to deal with a potential gap following the expiry of the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. Rules and regulations have to be clearly understood in order for countries to establish their reduction targets based on them. There are already draft texts available for these negotiations which will be adapted to the respective status of negotiations.

5) What happed so far in the negotiation process?

a) What is the Bali Action Plan?

The 13th Conference of the Parties (COP 13) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 3rd Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (MOP3) in 2007 culminated in the adoption of the Bali Action Plan. In this Action Plan the Parties to FCCC agreed to negotiate on issues such as concrete commitments and contributions from all countries to emission reductions (including a reduction of deforestation), adaptation, technology and financing up to and beyond 2012. Originally, these negotiations were to be concluded at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) in Copenhagen.

b) What happened in Copenhagen?

The community of states convened for the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen from 7 to 19 December 2009. The goal was to make binding decisions on the central elements of a new climate protection agreement. However, this goal was not achieved. In Copenhagen a group of representatively selected heads of state and government only managed to draw up the Copenhagen Accord (CA) during the very last two negotiation days. This Accord is a political declaration, to which 140 countries have now committed themselves. It defines some central components of future international climate protection policy. The plenary of the climate change conference, i.e. the assembly of all 194 Parties to the FCCC, took note of this text and made it one of the basic elements of the negotiation process. Compared to the goals Germany and the EU were aiming at with the Copenhagen conference the result achieved is sobering. Nevertheless it marks a first step which needs to be followed by more.

The positive aspect of the CA is that this is the first time a large group of developed and developing countries has agreed on the 2°C limit. In principle, all other specific targets can be derived from this target. Other positive elements are the transparency demands with regard to measures undertaken by the developing countries and the pledges on financial support. However, the Copenhagen Accord lacks a commitment to a legally binding agreement as the negotiation target and a clear schedule by when this has to be accomplished.

It was decided in Copenhagen that the negotiations in the two parallel working groups on future climate policy under the FCCC and the Kyoto Protocol should be continued on the basis of the texts negotiated at working level in Copenhagen at least until the next COP in Mexico and to decide there on the results.

c) How will the international negotiations proceed?

A first negotiation session in Bangkok in April this year decided on the negotiation agenda for this year. In addition to the preparatory session in Bonn another preparatory meeting will take place in autumn. The next climate change conference will take place in Durban, South Africa, from 28 November to 16 December 2011.

Germany, together with South Africa, invited a representatively selected group of 35 countries to an informal ministers' meeting in Berlin on 3 and 4 July 2011. During the Petersberg Climate Dialogue II ministers are to discuss the political package for Durban, thus providing political orientation for the negotiations. At the same time they are to strengthen cooperation on the implementation of applied climate protection. Like last year, the items on the agenda can be summarised to cover both acting and negotiating.

6) Why are international climate negotiations taking place at all?

Climate change requires immediate action

Climate change is predominantly caused by human activities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which published its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, leaves no doubt about this fact. The International Energy Agency has just reported that in 2010 the annual increase in greenhouse gas emissions was higher than ever before. Moreover, the latest climate research findings give reason to fear that climate change is moving even faster than the IPCC assumed. Only if the trend in emissions’ development can be reversed by 2020 will it be possible to keep climate change at a just about manageable level. The positive news from the IPCC is that we have the necessary technologies at hand to achieve this trend reversal, most recently documented by the IPCC report on renewable energy sources.

Green New Deal

An integrated energy and climate policy, investments in energy efficiency and the expanded use of renewable energies not only reduce emissions, they also lower dependence on energy imports, raise net investments at home, create jobs and help stabilise financial markets. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the former chief economist of the World Bank Lord Nicholas Stern and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner are among those who have recently drawn attention to these many positive effects. An ambitious global climate regime also contributes to securing current and future successes in the fight against poverty. Already in 2006 Lord Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, demonstrated in a detailed economic analysis that the costs of unchecked climate change far exceed the costs of climate protection. Unchecked climate change will cost between 5 and 20 per cent of global GDP, whereas active climate policy will cost only around 1 per cent. Climate change is destabilising countries, in particular those that are already unstable today. The 2007 report of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) expresses the opinion that climate change harbours the risk that further regions of the Earth will become ungovernable. It is also because of these facts that the Nobel Committee decided to award the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, in two equal parts, to the IPCC and former US Vice-President Al Gore.

Developed countries bear the main responsibility for climate change

From an historical point of view the developed countries (Annex I countries) are responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, absolute emissions in developing countries (non-Annex I countries), in particular in newly industrialising countries with rapid economic growth such as China or India, are strongly increasing. Without additional policies they will exceed emissions of developed countries in a little over a decade. Nevertheless, their per capita emissions will remain well below those of developed countries. In order to keep climate change within manageable limits, the global temperature rise must not exceed 2°C; this was also acknowledged within the UN framework in Cancun for the first time. This means that emissions will have to be at least halved by 2050 compared with 1990 levels. Developed countries, which bear the main responsibility for climate change, must reduce their emissions much more significantly than they have done so far. Developing countries, in particular those whose emissions will grow considerably in the coming years, have to contribute to a future climate regime according to their capabilities and clearly decouple their economic growth from emissions growth. In the long term, climate protection measures in both developed and developing countries will lead to per capita emissions worldwide converging more and more as countries pursue a common climate protection target.

Parties must have confidence in the negotiations

Developing countries fear that their economic development might be hampered by strict climate protection measures that are introduced too quickly. Developed countries are worried about the competitiveness of their industries in sectors in which companies have direct competitors from developing countries with less ambitious climate protection commitments. In Bali all countries acknowledged their common responsibility to take measures to combat climate change. With the measures agreed upon in Cancún countries have specified, for the first time on an international level, their contributions to combating climate change.

 

International solidarity for developing countries

Developing countries cannot bear on their own the considerable costs of climate protection measures in their countries. In Cancún it was decided to mobilise 100 billion US dollars annually as of 2020. 30 billion are to be available as a fast start from 2010 to 2012. The developed countries will report on this at the climate change conferences. In view of the vast volume of financing needed, the future climate regime must establish a new financial architecture that steers private and public funding towards climate-friendly investments. Without substantial, predictable financial support for developing countries it will not be possible to successfully involve them in a global 2°C strategy. The European Union is contributing 7.2 billion euros to the fast start in 2010 to 2012, with Germany’s share amounting to 1.26 billion euros.