United Nations Climate Change
Conference
Durban, South Africa, 28 November – 9 December 2011
Cop 17 was hosted by the Government of
South Africa and will take place at the International Convention
Centre (ICC) & Durban Exhibition Centre (DEC).
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change recognizes that
the per capita emissions of the developing countries are relatively low and that
they will inevitably increase to meet the demands of development. These
agreements therefore require developed countries to reduce their emissions in
an adequate and timely manner, but impose no such requirement on
developing countries. The developed countries, which are part of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, are also required
to contribute financial resources and Transfer technology to enable developing
countries to slow down the growth of their emissions.
Disregarding their treaty obligations, the developed countries are refusing to take
on emission reduction commitments o anything approaching the required
scale. The developed countries are now demanding that the developing
countries must take on legally binding emission reduction commitments under a
new treaty, regardless of the fact that their past and, in most cases, present
per capita emissions are a fraction of those of developed countries.
Therefore, the Durban conference is very crucial with regard to the commitment
of the Governments to protect nature, which has reached its limit of carbon
emissions which affects millions of people around the world.
MMS representative Celine Paramundayil was an observer-participant
for COP 17 at Durban, South Africa for the first week of the conference.
Dr Ann Braudis and Celine Paramunda at COP16
COP 16
The United Nations Climate Change Conference took place in Cancun, Mexico, from 29 November to 10 December 2010. It encompassed the sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP16) and the sixth Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP6). After the not so successful conference in Copenhagen last year ,all eyes were focused on Cancun for a global consensus on the emission cut.
Women’s leadership in Cop16: The Executive secretary Ms Christiana Figueres, Cop16 president Espinosa and many women leaders including the first lady of Mexico played key role for the conference. In a side event on Gender and CC the Good news was announced about the agreement to include gender equity principles in the main text. Women’s voices are heard.
Minster of environment Finland talked about the role of political empowerment of women, they have 40%women MPs and majority ministers are women, hence equal participation in voting right job etc. various quotas are rightly used and economically also there is balance in Finland. We need well informed women who know how to make use of the technology to alleviate poverty. We can improve gender equity and cc by putting finance in the hands of such women. Women will have to be in the center of green economy. Women cannot be empowered in isolation, its critical to include all parties for green economy.
In various ways, the Cancun meeting was more transparent and inclusive than the Copenhagen conference a year ago: more countries were included in the Green Room meetings, there were many consultations, and informal sessions open to all were held to inform participants as to what was happening. The Cancun conference suffered an early blow from Japan's announcement that it would never ever agree to making another commitment under the Kyoto Protocol. Its first commitment will end in 2012.
In fact, the developing countries made a lot of concessions and sacrifices in Cancun, while the developed countries managed to have their obligations reduced or down graded. The Cancun text also obliges developing countries to report on their national emissions every two years as well as on their climate actions and the results in terms of emission avoidance.
These are all new obligations, and a great deal of time was spent in Cancun by the developed countries (especially the United States) to get the developing countries to agree to the details of MRV and ICA.
Out Come decisions - UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, dubbed as "the Cancun Agreements", adopted were 1.To reduce Green House gas emission by all countries and
2. To set up a green climate fund of $100 billion by 2020 to finance adaptation and mitigation in vulnerable, poor and developing countries. In general, the main sources would be carbon trading based on a fixed carbon price per ton, carbon taxing, carbon taxation of international transportation and the reallocation of funds that currently subsidize fossil fuels.
Many countries, both developed and developing, expressed support for the two texts Following are some examples:
The US said that the text was not perfect but it provided a good basis to move forward. China said that Parties had demonstrated good political will for a balanced result. The texts provided a sound basis for future negotiations. India said that Parties could confidently look ahead and approach the challenge of climate change in a spirit of constructive compromise. Zambia thanked Mexico for lifting the spirits from the depression of Copenhagen and for restoring confidence in the multilateral process. Brazil said that the document was balanced in essence although not perfect and there was a sense of realism and pragmatism.
Bolivia raised strong objections to the adoption of both the documents since the Kyoto Protocol paper did not guarantee a second commitment period. It implied a list of pledges that would lead to a 4 degree global temperature rise. It could not go along with a text with these two features, as it would make us responsible for genocide ecocide. Bolivia would not accept a document, which means a temperature increase that puts human lives close to death.
In conclusion Cancun may be remembered in future as the place where the UNFCCC's climate regime was changed significantly, with developed countries being treated more and more leniently, reaching a level like that of developing countries, while the developing countries are asked to increase their obligations to be more and more like developed countries.
A careful analysis will find that its text may have given the multilateral climate system a shot in the arm and positive feelings among most participants because there was something to take home, but that it also failed to save the planet from climate change and helped pass the burden of climate mitigation onto developing countries.
Nature will not wait while we negotiate. Science warns that the window of opportunity to prevent uncontrolled climate change will soon close. The time for waiting, while keeping one eye on everyone else, is over. The world - particularly the poor and vulnerable - cannot afford the luxury of waiting for the perfect agreement.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
In spite of the tight security all over, there were 1000s of people gathered to protest. We did get a chance to visit the Climate village depicting the rich culture of Mexico and enjoyed the Spanish music concert as part of the cultural events.
For detailed news ref : www.unfccc.int