Ministers gear up for deal in Doha

...As Climate Talks enter homestretch
 The international climate change talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, have entered the second and final week, which promises to be interesting with high-level ministerial sessions scheduled for Tuesday, December 4, 2012 onwards.
Certainly, readers need to be reminded of some key occurrences of the first week, including a controversy over the US$30 billion “fast start finance” package pledged in Copenhagen, Denmark by developed countries in 2009.
Developed countries, CSOs clash over ‘fast start finance’: The first major controversy of the ongoing talks was recorded last Tuesday when developed nations claimed they had delivered in excess of the $30 billion “fast start finance” they pledged to give to developing countries.
Australia, Canada, Japan, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, USA and EU reportedly announced at a fast start finance side event held on Tuesday, November 27 2012 that they had successfully delivered the pledged US$30 billion and even exceeded it by US$3 billion over the period 2010 to 2012. 

But representatives of civil society organisations from Africa at the on-going eighteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 18) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) say they are dismayed.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, November 28 2012 by the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), the representatives described the developed countries’ assertion as “both inconsistent with the principles on which the Fast Start Finance is to be delivered and not supported by facts on the ground.”
The statement claimed that only US$23.6 billion of the US$30 billion promised was honoured. “In addition, most of the funds are loans and not grants. The announcement on Tuesday, November 27, 2012 confirmed our suspicion that the fast start funds are not new and additional but had already been pledged before the COP15. Recent research has further revealed that they include official development assistance (ODA) and that most of the funds went to mitigation and not adaptation, which is the priority for African countries.”
The fast start finance was noted in the Copenhagen Accord as developed countries’ commitment to providing developing countries with an enabling finance package for the 2010-2012 period for enhanced action on mitigation (including Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, REDD), adaptation, technology development and transfer and capacity building.
A cardinal principle is that progress in delivery of fast start financing will help demonstrate that developed countries are willing to meet their commitments and thereby building confidence in the international negotiations.
Speaking on the developed countries’ statement, Mithika Mwenda, the Coordinator of PACJA, said: “This is totally unacceptable and demonstrates lack of integrity in the negotiations, thereby promoting mistrust in the already fragile multilateral negotiations. Where have the billions mentioned suddenly come from?” 
Also during the week, Africa’s chief negotiator set goals for COP18: the African Press Organization (APO) reported last Thursday that the Chair of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN), Mr Dlamini Emmanauel, had expressed cautious optimism at the outcome of the ongoing UN climate conference in Doha, Qatar, but emphasized that effective presence at working sessions by delegates from Africa would be critical.
In the first formal meeting with Dr Fatima Denton, the Coordinator of the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC), based at the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the chief negotiator said what Africa brings home from Doha would depend on a clear mastery of the issues by the negotiators, the APO reported.
“As we move towards the Ministerial level, it is clear that our delegates need a better grasp of the issues, and not just the position that other partners hold on those issues, but why they hold them”, he said.
“You see, if we are not present during the discussions; or, if we do not show a clear understanding of the issues, we would neither be able to lead them nor infuse our position into the final documents of the Conference”, he said. Earlier, Emmanauel warned that any future agreement coming out from Doha should be more than just a “mitigation deal”.
Also, during  the past week the UNFCCC had said decision texts would be ready for high-level ministerial meeting: The UNFCCC Secretariat issued a statement on Wednesday, 28 November 2012 indicating that governments attending the conference had successfully launched negotiations and would work “to get decision texts ready or as complete as possible for the attention of the high-level ministerial part of the meeting from December 4.”

Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary. Pic credit: google images.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, signed the statement, saying “Work has been launched as scheduled in all the negotiating bodies and governments have shown commitment here to achieve the objectives of this important conference, which must set the stage for a new leap in global ambition to respond to climate change.”
She asserted: “Let us remind ourselves again, here in Doha, that international commitments to cut greenhouse gases and deal with the impacts of climate change are higher than they have ever been yet are still not sufficient to prevent the global average temperature rising beyond the 2 degree centigrade target that governments themselves have agreed to,” she said.
This was written for the "Understanding Climate Change" column of the Public Agenda and published today, Monday December 3, 2012. You may visit www.publicagendaghana.com for more.