So, the annual UN climate negotiations have come to a close for 2011. But what actually happened there, and what does it mean for international action on climate change?
With not much media on the ground in Durban, and a hectic 48-hour ‘final day’ round of negotiations, there’s been a bit of confusion about the outcome. Here’s the lowdown from our policy director, Jane.
Durban wrapped up late on Saturday after a long push by Ministers and negotiators to finally broker a deal everyone was happy with.
The small island states, least developed countries, and the European Union were among those pushing hard to get a deal (while the US, Canada and many others were less willing to come to the table).
Crucially, the talks have delivered a timeline to design a new climate treaty covering all major emitters, including the US, China and India, no later than 2015, and to come into effect no later than 2020. This is the first time that countries have agreed to deliver a treaty on climate change that captures all their emissions reduction commitments in the one place.
Previously, the Kyoto Protocol covered only developed countries. This new treaty will cover all countries – this is a big step forward.
This means that the global community can now act be confident that when they implement domestic climate policies like Australia’s carbon price, they know that every major emitter around the world will be doing the same in the coming years.
There has also been agreement on getting money flowing into the Green Climate Fund so the world can start to finance adaptation and mitigation projects in developing countries.
Another key outcome from Durban is a deal to renew the Kyoto Protocol for a further 5 years – this is currently the world’s only legally binding emissions reduction treaty, and is due to expire at the end of 2012.
This all sounds pretty good right? Well, kind of. It’s a good step, however, it’s years too late. And, even if we agree to a legally-binding treaty now, with the emissions cuts that all countries have so far agreed to it will lead to 3-4 degrees of warming.
This was noted with “grave concern” in the Durban text, and countries have agreed to look at how they can reduce emissions more – to get us on a path to no more than 2 degrees of warming. However, whether this actually happens or not remains to be seen.
It has also been noted that the agreements around raised ambition will be informed by the next round of climate science reports to come from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2013-2015. For Australia, this would require raising our current target of 5% cuts in emissions from 2000 levels, to over 50% by 2020 if we are to play our fair share internationally.
Australia has not yet listed our emissions reduction targets in this new Kyoto protocol agreement, and we have until May 2012 to do so. We know now that ambition needs to be significantly higher if we are to get on track to less than 2 degrees warming. We also know now that all major emitters, including US, China and India, have committed sign on to legally binding emissions cuts to prevent catastrophic warming.
Major emitting countries showed us in Durban that they were ready to move. Now is the perfect time for Australia to raise our ambition, to kick start our renewables industry and to show our competitors and the world that we want to move out of the dirty industries of the past and to be part of the future global clean energy economy.
