AD HOC GROUP ON CLIMATE CHANGE NEGOTIATIONS TO RESUME AT BONN, 22 OCTOBER
Press Release
ENV/DEV/449
UNEP/12
AD HOC GROUP ON CLIMATE CHANGE NEGOTIATIONS TO RESUME AT BONN, 22 OCTOBER
19971021 BONN, 17 October (UNEP) -- The Ad Hoc Group on the Berlin Mandate starts its eighth and last session here on Wednesday, 22 October, under great pressure to finalize as much text as possible for a new agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries.The Group's Chairman, Raul Estrada-Oyuela (Argentina), has produced a Chairman's text containing the shortest and most streamlined version yet of a future agreement. Based on this text, delegates from some 150 countries will try to hammer out by 31 October a draft instrument containing legally binding targets and timetables for emission reductions. They will also try to develop a text on a series of related issues, such as possible regimes for emissions trading, joint activities and internationally coordinated policies and measures.
"The Chairman's text is a good basis for significant progress in Bonn", said Michael Zammit Cutajar, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. "The prospect of a United States proposal for targets and timetables joining those made by the European Union and Japan has set the negotiations alight."
As of several days ago, the United States had not submitted a proposal for specific targets and timetables. The United States delegation may, however, bring such a proposal to the Bonn meeting, following a recent White House conference at which various policy options were aired.
Three weeks ago, Japan -- which, as host Government of the Kyoto Conference, has a central role to play in finding a consensus -- proposed that developed countries reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide by 5 per cent, measured as an average over the period from 2008 to 2012. This target, however, could be lowered for individual countries according to various formulas involving gross domestic product (GDP), per capita emissions, and population trends. Thus, most developed countries could opt for a lower target. For example, one calculation would produce targets of some 2.5 per cent for Japan and the United States.
The European Union has proposed cutting emissions of the same gases by 15 per cent by the year 2010. The Alliance of Small Island States was pushing for 20 per cent reductions in carbon dioxide emissions by 2005. The reference year for all the reductions proposed so far would be 1990.
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Targets and timetables are closely linked to several other critical but unresolved issues. One of these concerns flexibility in how emissions cuts are made. Governments must decide: Should a target be expressed as a certain level to be achieved by a specific date, or as a "budget" to be achieved over a period of several years? Should it be possible to "bank" any overachievement in a given period for future use, or to "borrow" -- with a penalty charge -- from the next budget period to cover underachievement during the current one? Should developed countries be allowed to achieve part or all of their committed emission reductions "offshore", at less cost, through joint implementation or emissions trading?
Another issue concerns differentiation. Governments must determine whether the same target will apply to all developed countries or whether each developed country will have an individual target that reflects its economic profile -- including "emissions intensity of GDP", for example. Supporters of differentiation argue that individual targets would help equalize the economic costs to each country for achieving its target. The Japanese proposal allows for differentiation.
These issues have all been extensively discussed over the past seven sessions of the Ad Hoc Group. At the end of its previous session in August, Chairman Estrada said: "We are leaving Bonn today with the various options fully articulated and clarified for all to see and understand. When we come back for our final session in October, governments will be well positioned to choose among them."
Under the Convention, developed countries have agreed to take measures aimed at returning their greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. At the first session of the treaty's Conference of the Parties in 1995, the international community recognized that stronger measures were needed to minimize the risk of climate change. The Ad Hoc Group on the Berlin Mandate was established to negotiate new developed-country commitments for the post-2000 period. The Group was also charged with advancing the implementation of existing commitments by both developed and developing countries.
Two other subsidiary bodies of the Convention will meet during the period of 20 to 29 October at the Beethovenhalle in Bonn: the Subsidiary Body for Implementation and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice.
For more information, please contact: Michael Williams, UNEP Information Unit for Conventions, Geneva. Phone: (41-22) 979-9242/44; fax: (41-22) 797-3464; e-mail: mwilliams@unep.ch. Official documents and other materials are also available in English on the Internet at http://www.unfccc.de.
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