The poverty of Africa's position at the Climate Change Convention negotiations.

• Author: Mumma, Albert

I.

INTRODUCTION(1)

This article discusses Africa's position (or, more accurately in the author's opinion, lack of position) in the Climate Change Convention negotiations. The article argues that, perhaps more than any other global agreement in recent times, the Climate Change Convention negotiations are an amalgam of a bewildering array of diverse national, economic and environmental and other interests, objectives and perspectives all of which have sought, with varying degrees of success, to find expression in the Convention. Africa, so far, has failed demonstrably to articulate any position unique to it, and has therefore been largely marginal in the negotiations. The article explores some of the reasons for this failure and puts forward some suggestions which might be considered in the effort to improve Africa's position in the negotiations.

II.

BACKGROUND

1. The Phenomenon of Global Warming

   The advent of the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century -- with its reliance on the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy and the cutting down of forests to create farmlands -- marked a turning point in the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, along with certain other gases, such as water vapor, methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrous oxide, trap the sun's heat near the earth's surface and cause a rise in the global temperature. Carbon dioxide's contribution to this effect is by far the most significant. This warming effect has been referred to as a "greenhouse effect", hence the name "greenhouse gases" (GHGs). These gases occur naturally and perform a beneficial role: without them global temperature would be much lower than it is and the Earth would perhaps not be habitable.

   However the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) for energy generation and other human productive and consumptive activities including industrial, agricultural and waste disposal processes have led to a dramatic increase in human generated ("anthropogenic") GHGs. During the decade beginning in 1980 mainstream scientific opinion(2) came to the view that if the world (more particularly, industrialized countries) continued emitting GHGs at present rates both global average temperatures and sea levels would rise much faster than at any time in the history of human civilization. This view was formalized in a 1990 Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the United Nations Environmental Programme and the World Meteorological Organization established to study and report on the issue. However, the report pointed out that unequivocal judgments about the rate of increase could not be made for at least another decade.

   Global warming on the predicted scale would lead to serious stresses on the planet's ecological system, with far reaching economic, social and environmental consequences. Climatic zones might shift; sea levels might rise following melting of glaciers with serious impacts on low lying islands and coastal areas; rainfall patterns may change; disease carrying vectors may multiply or reappear and so on.(3) Further, the rates of change might be faster than the ability of some species to respond. But crucially scientific reports pointed out that there were (and continue to be) uncertainties and glaring gaps in the international community's knowledge about the nature and extent of impacts that significant global warming could bring about.

2. The Climate Change Convention

   Following the IPCC report the United Nations General Assembly established the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 1990. Its mandate was to negotiate a convention in time for signature at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. The negotiating committee met six times between February 1991 and May 1992 and successfully adopted the Climate Change Convention in time for the Rio Summit. 154 states and the European Community signed the Convention at Rio.

   The Convention did not commit states to specific limitations on GHG emissions. Agreement on that issue was not possible at the time. There was sharp disagreement among the big emitters of carbon dioxide, essentially the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Countries with large coal reserves and a dependence on oil, such as the United States, resisted the inclusion in the Convention of a timetable and a target for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions which western European countries, with relative less dependence on coal, favored. Consequently, the Convention confined itself to defining, as a long-term objective, the stabilization of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, and established a mechanism for future action to be taken as warranted by scientific evidence. This included a provision for periodic reviews of parties' commitments, with the first review set to take place at the first Conference of the Parties (COP) to be held one year after the Convention's entry into force.

   The Convention went into force two years later on 21 March 1994 following fifty ratifications, a record given the history of many international agreements.(4) The first COP took place in March 1995 in Berlin. Subsequent COPs have been held in Geneva in July 1996, in Kyoto in November 1997 and in Buenos Aires in November 1998. Since 1996 the Convention's secretariat has been based in Bonn, Germany. At the time of the Buenos Aires COP 176 states had become parties to the Convention, including all major economic powers (and major carbon dioxide emitters) -- the United States of America, Japan and the European Union countries -- as well as the major centers of population (and potentially big carbon dioxide emitters) such as China, India, Indonesia and Brazil.

3. The Kyoto Protocol

   The "Berlin Mandate," a decision of the First COP at Berlin, authorized a review of the adequacy of commitments of developed country [Annex 1] Parties to the Climate Change Convention with a view to strengthening these commitments. It was agreed at the outset that Developing Country Parties would not be required to take on new commitments under this review process. An Ad Hoc Group was set up which, during eight sessions produced a draft Protocol to the Convention. The Protocol was adopted at Kyoto, Japan on 11 November 1997 following days of round the clock negotiations. The Kyoto Protocol goes into effect only after 55 parties to the Convention which account for at least 55% of the total carbon dioxide emissions [the major emitters] have become parties to the Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol included several important provisions:

   (i) It established a target for industrialized countries requiring them to reduce their GHG emissions by 5% below 1990 levels by "the commitment period" 2008 to 2012 (Article 3(1)). (ii) It assigned to each industrialized country an amount of allowable GHG emissions during the commitment period which varies from 92% of 1990 emissions for some countries to 110% of 1990 emissions for others -- this "assigned amount" is the country's upper limit so that some countries will need to make larger reductions than others in order to stay within their limit (Article 3(7)) [Australia at 108%, Ireland at 110% and Norway at 101% may make increases, while New Zealand, Ukraine and Russia at 100% need not make reductions; EU countries got 92% while the USA got 93%]. (iii) It allowed the use of four market mechanisms in the efforts to achieve these targets: (a) emission trading among nations with legally binding GHG limitations -- this refers to trading in assigned amounts (Article 17); (b) joint implementation between nations with legally binding GHG limitations -- this refers to trading in assigned amounts through carrying out of projects in another developed country and earning emissions credits there (Article 6); (c) the Clean Development Mechanism -- this allows developed countries to carry out projects in developing countries and earn emissions reduction credits there; and (d) agreement among groups of developed countries to fulfill their commitments jointly -- this is best suited to economic groupings such as the European Union (Article 4). The negotiations leading to the Kyoto Protocol were long, drawn out and difficult, lasting into the early hours on the last day. This was primarily because the Protocol aimed to strengthen commitments and, unlike its parent Convention, impose binding obligations. Consequently, each party (or grouping of parties) strove to ensure that its particular interest was enshrined in the Protocol's provisions, and that nothing adverse to its interests saw the light of day.

   III.

   THE KYOTO PROTOCOL -- SELF INTEREST RULES THE ROOST

   The Protocol for the first time imposed binding commitments and reduction requirements strongly sought by those who argue that the international community must take immediate steps to stem the rise in global warming. At the same time it allowed the use of market mechanisms (or "flexible mechanisms") in meeting developed countries' commitments, which the United States particularly had always pressed for. For developing countries it made provision for the Clean Development Mechanism as the vehicle for their sustainable development and participation in the global effort to limit GHG emissions. Provision was also made for funds to assist developing countries "that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change to meet the costs of adaptation." At the insistence of Australia, the role of land use change in emission reductions was expressly recognized.

   The interests that carried the day in the Protocol were those that were advocated vigorously by Parties with most to gain from their inclusion. Developed countries won the right to take action "off-shore" thereby minimizing domestic political difficulties and small island states, and others considering...