As Durban starts, hopes lie with the EU to save the Kyoto Protocol

28 November 2011

Delegates to the UNFCCC today begin two weeks of climate talks at the Conference of Parties (COP) 17 in Durban. At the same time, the International Energy Agency has recently released a report warning that if the the world does not have an international agreement effectively in place by 2017, the door to limiting temperature rise below 2°C will be closed forever. Currently, there is a screaming gap between science and political will. Nature’s limits have long been known and the urgency is evident, but the negotiations have nonetheless moved into the slow lane.

Durban is not expected to be the Big Bang that would put the UNFCCC talks and science on the same page again. Most governments seem to have accepted a step-by-step approach. For Durban this means that this COP is expected to advance on three sets of issues:

1) Further elaboration of the Cancun Agreements; e.g. on transparency measures and operationalising the Green Climate Fund, the Adaptation Framework and the Technology Mechanism; 2) Things that were left unresolved in Cancun must be addressed, mainly mitigation (i.e., emissions reduction) ambition and sources for delivering the agreed $100 billion of climate finance; and 3) the most difficult of them all: reaching agreement about the future of the Kyoto Protocol and the legal form of the future climate treaty. It is in this third area where the EU may ride the wave of success and play a central role.

The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2012, which is intensifying negotiations on reaching agreement on legal form in Durban. Securing a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol has been named as the key outcome of Durban by most negotiating groups, as well as the incoming COP17 South-African Presidency and the UNFCCC executive secretary Christiana Figueres.

The Kyoto Protocol was a major success of European climate diplomacy, which took years to negotiate, refine and ratify and securing its continuation should be very much in the EU’s own interest too. Agreeing to a second commitment period requires very little from the EU, as its own climate and energy legislation already covers the bloc’s climate commitments until 2020.

In using the Kyoto Protocol as an effective lever, the EU can also shift the spotlight back onto the other big emitters. The Kyoto Protocol provides a benchmark for a global legally binding instrument for all, and abandoning it would put countries blocking progress in the driver’s seat. Without an unambiguous and concrete commitment from the EU, the future of the Kyoto Protocol - and that of the multilateral system of the UNFCCC - is in danger.