Nele Marien (*)

The new text proposal for the Kyoto Protocol states that a second commitment period will be established. That seems good news; it was what everybody was waiting for.

But, a second commitment period for what? For the sake of having it? For the sake of carbon markets? For calming public opinion?
Let’s see the good points and the bad points of the actual proposal.

It establishes a second commitment period for five years. That’s good. But will it be real? Or is it just another false promise?

Adopting amendments or taking note of proposed amendments

Paragraph 3 generates a big confusion:

3. Takes note of the proposed amendments to the Kyoto Protocol developed by the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol as contained in Annexes 1, 2 and 3 to this decision;

Indeed, in Annexes are the proposed amendments. But, will the Climate Conference approve those amendments this year? Then why should the CMP “Take note” of the proposed amendments? The only correct thing to do if it wants a ‘secure’ a second commitment period, is to adopt the amendments now. All the rest are just vague promises. Indeed, nobody is bound by something that was just “taken note of”!

Some general objectives or legally binding numbers?

Next doubtful point is that the text ‘takes note’ of the ‘economy wide emission reduction targets’, but they are not yet converted to QELROs1. Legally speaking, the only basis of commitment is a QELRO, which is very well defined how to measure it. The ‘promise’ is to convert them during the next year in QELROs. Will this be done?

Securing the second commitment period, or trying to do so?

10. Requests the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) to aim to deliver the results of its work pursuant to decision 1/CMP.1 in time to complete its work by the eighth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

That sounds pretty much like the 1/CMP1 itself, which stated that the AWG-KP “shall aim to complete its work and have its results adopted (…) as early as possible and in time to ensure that there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods;”

Well, that was promised 6 years ago, and its fulfilment has been postponed so many years by now, and so many deadlines have been passed, that repeating the same language doesn’t sound very credible right now.

Why do we need a second commitment period?

The world doesn’t need a second commitment period of the KP just for the sake of it. It needs it, because ambitious and binding mitigation commitments are terribly needed. The IPCC stated in its last report that developed countries in aggregate should reduce between 25 and 40% of their emission level of 1990. That was back in 2007, since then climate change symptoms have worsened at unpredicted speed.

One of the major benefits of the Kyoto Protocol, is that it had a ‘top down” approach: first define what is the aggregated level of mitigation needed, and then see how to share the task among the developed countries. That is why article 3.1 of the Protocol states that parties shall “reduce their overall emissions of such gases by at least 5 per cent below 1990 levels”. It is striking that the proposed amendment just fills out this number with a big X. The Peoples Agreement of Cochabamba demanded that this number should be 50. If that is impossible, it should at least be something within the IPCC range.

So, pledging to reduce 13-17%2 is not an answer to the world’s needs. Stating you pledge to this, with a 1,5 degree or even a 2 degree goal in mind, is just fooling the public opinion. Those pledges lead to a 4-degree increase.

But it becomes even worse checking the proposed amendment to Annex B, where all pledges should be listed, and verifying that several countries are not offering their pledges for this KP process: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Russia, and of course the US will not be part of the second commitment period.

Carbon markets in the KP decisions

More than offering a climate solution to the world, the ‘signals’ for the carbon markets have been a main reason why, despite so much anti-Kyoto feeling amongst developed countries, they are now kind of implementing a second commitment period.

It is known already that in one of the complementary decisions to the CMP there will be an expansion of projects eligible for the carbon markets. “Carbon capture and storage” (CCS) projects will be one of them. Those are projects with huge costs, which will generate an enormous amount of carbon credits, which will make the carbon prices sink even further, thus lowering incentives for domestic reductions in developed countries. But the worst is that CCS is a very insecure system: storing greenhouse gases under the ground, but with tremendous risks that those will escape sooner or later.

The escape for those who don’t like Kyoto, but do like its markets

During the first commitment period, only KP-parties could make use of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs, that is, market units) in order to comply with their commitments. The definition of “Party” in the Protocol itself made that so: “Party” means, unless the context otherwise indicates, a Party to this Protocol. And then, the rules for acquiring CERs where only applicable to “parties”, according to article 3.12.

But now, in the “proposed amendments” an article 3.12 bis and 3.12 ter will be introduced. In those articles it becomes explicitly possible for all Annex I parties to the convention, to acquire CERs in order to comply with their commitments.

Furthermore, those articles speak on “Any units generated from any market-based mechanisms to be established under the Convention”. In other words, the whole discussion that is stuck under the 1bv chapter in the AWG-LCA, is being resolved here in one line.

And of course, the winners are those who don’t commit to mitigate, but do want the benefits.

A second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol: a victory or a deception?

It seems the actual proposal resolves various anxieties of developed countries:

  • they can tell their constituencies they are keeping the so demanded KP
  • they can blame developing countries if they don’t accept this
  • they can extend the markets into time, expand the eligible project types, give the possibility for non-KP parties to buy carbon credits, and start organizing a whole new set of market mechanisms
  • and finally, they escape from giving the real answer to the imperative question the world is posing on them: ‘What about the NECESSARY mitigation commitments?’

Would it be that fulfilling the wish of developing countries and social movements to implement a second commitment period, the totally insufficient mitigation commitments are just considered “a detail”?

(*) Nele Marien is environmental politics analyst. She was negotiator for the Bolivian Climate Change team from 2009 till November 2011
Original text: http://www.nelemarien.info/kp_victory_or_deception/

1 Quantified Emission Limitation or Reduction Objectives. Note as well that original KP language defined it as QELRCs: COMMITMENTS instead of Objectives.
2 and it are indeed the same old ‘pledges’ that have been on the table since Copenhagen. In footnote to the proposed annex B, it states: “Further information on these pledges can be found in document FCCC/SB/2011/INF.1/Rev.1.”, which is the document with pledges produced after Cancun.

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