Environmental NGO Perspective on Outcome of COP-6.5

Katherine Silverthorne

Just a few short months ago, many in the Bush administration declared the Kyoto Protocol dead. This diagnosis was based on the assumption that if the United States refused to participate in the treaty, the rest of the world would follow. Recent events in Bonn show that this was a "fatally flawed" assumption and that the rest of the world is not prepared to walk away from the Kyoto Protocol. In fact, it appears that the manner in which the Bush administration chose to abandon the treaty and the administration's failure to produce a plan that could be portrayed as a credible response to climate change, may have actually galvanized support and momentum for the treaty nationally and internationally.

After the dramatic failure of negotiations in The Hague in fall 2000 (the Sixth Conference of the Parties, or COP-6), many were skeptical that an agreement could be reached in Bonn. However, the negotiations in Bonn saw the emergence of a new dynamic and a new level of cooperation among groups with divergent interests. The chair of the Group of 77 and China (G-77) received a standing ovation when he characterized the result as the "victory of multilateralism over unilateralism."

A crucial factor of the success achieved in Bonn was the leadership of the developing countries. Under a very strong chair, the G-77 was able to ensure that developing countries were included in the chairmanship of all of the key working groups. The G-77 and the European Union (EU) sustained the momentum of the negotiations and pushed for completion of an agreement. Another new dynamic was the crumbling of the once almighty Umbrella Group. At the end of the negotiations, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand and Norway all moved away from fellow Umbrella Group member the United States by saying that they intend to ratify the agreement, and Japan stated that it wants to see the agreement come into force by 2002.

The World Wildlife Fund and others in the environmental community welcomed the agreement, noting that it will give countries enough clarity on Kyoto Protocol rules so they can now begin their ratification processes. While the agreement is not everything the environmental community had hoped for, it creates a sound architecture for achieving emissions reductions in the near term and in subsequent commitment periods, and sends a clear signal to the marketplace that greenhouse gas emissions must be part of the calculation in making investment decisions.

There is still important work to be done in Marrakesh at COP-7, where countries will complete the task of incorporating the political deal struck in Bonn into legal texts and decisions of the COP. This work is well underway and indeed almost completed on many issues. The environmental community will continue to monitor this process to ensure that key issues from the political deal, which are crucial for the environmental integrity of the treaty, are retained. In particular, it will be important to ensure that the strength of the agreement on the need for binding compliance is reflected in the legal texts.

To achieve the goal of entering the treaty into force by 2002, 10 years after the original climate change treaty was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, countries must begin to ratify the Protocol now. The Protocol requires that the treaty be ratified by 55 countries representing emissions equal to 55% of developed country emissions in 1990 in order to enter into force. More than 35 countries have already ratified the treaty but they are primarily low-emissions countries. The key countries that must now ratify the agreement are the members of the EU, the central and eastern European countries in the CG-11, Russia, and Japan.

For the Kyoto Protocol to have the long-term emissions reductions necessary to address climate change, it will be essential for the U.S. to ratify the treaty. There is significant public support for ratification in all three major national parties and growing momentum for action in Congress. The final agreement that was adopted in Bonn reflects much of what the U.S. was seeking over the past 4 years of climate change negotiations. There is an expanded role for carbon sequestration to offset emissions, and there is no quantitative limit on the use of market mechanisms to achieve a Party's emissions reduction objective. Indeed, it is unlikely that the U.S. could ever hope to get the rest of the world to agree to anything closer to its position. Failure to grab this opportunity now will mean that U.S. companies cannot participate in the global emissions trading market established under the Protocol. Recent economic analysis by the Tellus Institute shows that the U.S. can still achieve its Kyoto Protocol target at a net economic benefit. The longer the U.S. waits to join the regime, the more expensive this will become for it.

Katherine Silverthorne is senior policy officer of the Climate Change Campaign, World Wildlife Fund-US, and a co-chair of the Section's Committee on Climate Change and Sustainable Development.