Encyclopedia
The
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international environmental
treaty produced at the
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development , informally known as the
Earth Summit, held in
Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The treaty aimed at reducing emissions of
greenhouse gas in order to combat
global warming.
The treaty as originally framed set no mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions for individual nations and contained no enforcement provisions; it is therefore considered legally non-binding.
Rather, the treaty included provisions for updates that would set mandatory emission limits. The principal update is the
Kyoto Protocol, which has become much better known than the UNFCCC itself.
The FCCC was opened for signature on May 9 1992. It entered into force on March 21 1994. Its stated objective is "to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a low enough level to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."
Annex I and Annex II Countries, and Developing Countries
Signatories to the UNFCCC are split into three groups:
- Annex I countries
- Annex II countries
- Developing countries.
Annex I countries agree to reduce their emissions to target levels below their 1990 emissions levels. If they cannot do so, they must buy emission credits or invest in conservation.
Developing countries have no immediate restrictions under the UNFCCC. This serves three purposes:
- Avoids restrictions on growth because pollution is strongly linked to industrial growth, and developing economies can potentially grow very fast.
- It means that they cannot sell emissions credits to industrialised nations to permit those nations to over-pollute.
- They get money and technologies from the developed countries in Annex II.
Developing countries may volunteer to become Annex I countries when they are sufficiently developed.
Developing countries are not expected to implement their commitments under the Convention unless developed countries supply enough funding and technology, and this has lower priority than economic and social development and dealing with
poverty.
Some opponents of the Convention argue that the split between Annex I and developing countries is unfair, and that both developing countries and developed countries need to reduce their emissions. Some countries claim that their costs of following the Convention requirements will stress their economy. These were some of the reasons given by
George W. Bush,
President of the United States, for doing as his
predecessor did and not forwarding the signed
Kyoto Protocol to the
United States Senate.
Annex I countries
Annex I countries :
Australia,
Austria,
Belarus,
Belgium,
Bulgaria,
Canada,
Croatia,
Czech Republic,
Denmark,
European Union,
Estonia,
Finland,
France,
Germany,
Greece,
Hungary,
Iceland,
Ireland,
Italy,
Japan,
Latvia,
Liechtenstein,
Lithuania,
Luxembourg,
Monaco,
Netherlands,
New Zealand,
Norway,
Poland,
Portugal,
Romania,
Russian Federation,
Slovakia,
Slovenia,
Spain,
Sweden,
Switzerland,
Turkey,
Ukraine,
United Kingdom,
United States of AmericaAnnex II countries
Annex II countries :
Australia,
Austria,
Belgium,
Canada,
Denmark,
European Union,
Finland,
France,
Germany,
Greece,
Iceland,
Ireland,
Italy,
Japan,
Luxembourg,
Netherlands,
New Zealand,
Norway,
Portugal,
Spain,
Sweden,
Switzerland,
Turkey,
United Kingdom,
United States of AmericaU.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was opened for signature at the 1992
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development conference in
Rio de Janeiro . On June 12, 1992, 154 nations signed the UNFCCC, that upon ratification committed signatories' governments to a voluntary "non-binding aim" to reduce atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases with the goal of "preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference with Earth's climate system." These actions were aimed primarily at industrialized countries, with the intention of stabilizing their emissions of
greenhouse gases at 1990 levels by the year 2000; and other responsibilities would be incumbent upon all UNFCCC parties. The parties agreed in general that they would recognize "common but differentiated responsibilities," with greater responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the near term on the part of developed/industrialized countries, which were listed and identified in Annex I of the UNFCCC and thereafter referred to as "Annex I" countries.
On September 8, 1992, President Bush transmitted the UNFCCC for advice and consent of the U.S. Senate to ratification. The Foreign Relations Committee approved the treaty and reported it October 1, 1992. The Senate consented to ratification on October 7, 1992, with a two-thirds majority vote. President Bush signed the instrument of ratification October 13, 1992, and deposited it with the U.N. Secretary General.
According to terms of the UNFCCC, having received over 50 countries' instruments of ratification, it entered into force March 24, 1994. Since the UNFCCC entered into force, the parties have been meeting annually in
Conferences of the Parties to assess progress in dealing with climate change, and beginning in the mid-1990s, to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
COP-1, The Berlin Mandate
The UNFCCC Conference of Parties met for the first time in
Berlin,
Germany in the spring of 1995, and voiced concerns about the adequacy of countries' abilities to meet commitments under the Convention. These were expressed in a U.N. ministerial declaration known as the "Berlin Mandate", which established a 2-year Analytical and Assessment Phase , to negotiate a "comprehensive menu of actions" for countries to pick from and choose future options to address climate change which for them, individually, made the best economic and environmental sense. The Berlin Mandate exempted non-Annex I countries from additional binding obligations, in keeping with the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" established in the UNFCCC even though, collectively, the larger, newly industrializing countries were expected to be the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gas emissions 15 years hence.
COP-2, Geneva, Switzerland
The Second Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC met in July 1996 in
Geneva,
Switzerland. Its Ministerial Declaration was adopted July 18, 1996, and reflected a U.S. position statement presented by
Timothy Wirth, former Under Secretary for Global Affairs for the
U.S. State Department at that meeting, which
- Accepted the scientific findings on climate change proffered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its second assessment ;
- Rejected uniform "harmonized policies" in favor of flexibility;
- Called for "legally binding mid-term targets."
COP-3, The Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change
The
Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted by COP-3, in December 1997 in
Kyoto,
Japan, after intensive negotiations. Most industrialized nations and some central European economies in transition agreed to legally binding reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of an average of 6 to 8% below 1990 levels between the years 2008-2012, defined as the first emissions budget period. The United States would be required to reduce its total emissions an average of 7% below 1990 levels, however the Bush administration refused to ratify the protocol arguably because the U.S. Senate would have rejected it anyway.
COP-4, Buenos Aires
COP-4 took place in
Buenos Aires in November 1998. It had been expected that the remaining issues unresolved in Kyoto would be finalized at this meeting. However, the complexity and difficulty of finding agreement on these issues proved insurmountable, and instead the parties adopted a 2-year "Plan of Action" to advance efforts and to devise mechanisms for implementing the Kyoto Protocol, to be completed by 2000.
COP-5, Bonn, Germany
The 5th Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change met in
Bonn,
Germany, between October 25 and November 4, 1998. It was primarily a technical meeting, and did not reach major conclusions.
COP-6, The Hague, Netherlands
When COP-6 convened November 13-November 25, 2000, in
The Hague,
Netherlands, discussions evolved rapidly into a high-level negotiation over the major political issues. These included major controversy over the United States' proposal to allow credit for carbon "sinks" in forests and agricultural lands, satisfying a major proportion of the U.S. emissions reductions in this way; disagreements over consequences for non-compliance by countries that did not meet their emission reduction targets; and difficulties in resolving how developing countries could obtain financial assistance to deal with adverse effects of climate change and meet their obligationsto plan for measuring and possibly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In the final hours of COP-6, despite some compromises agreed between the United States and some EU countries, notably the United Kingdom, the EU countries as a whole, led by Denmark and Germany, rejected the compromise positions, and the talks in The Hague collapsed. Jan Pronk, the President of COP-6, suspended COP-6 without agreement, with the expectation that negotiations would later resume. It was later announced that the COP-6 meetings would be resumed in
Bonn,
Germany, in the second half of July. The next regularly scheduled meeting of the parties to the UNFCCC - COP-7 - had been set for
Marrakech,
Morocco, in October-November, 2001.
COP-6 "bis," Bonn, Germany
When the COP-6 negotiations resumed July 16-27, 2001, in
Bonn,
Germany, little progress had been made on resolving the differences that had produced an impasse in The Hague. However, this meeting took place after President George W. Bush had become the U.S. President, and had rejected the Kyoto Protocol in March; as a result the United States delegation to this meeting declined to participate in the negotiations related to the Protocol, and chose to act as observers at that meeting. As the other parties negotiated the key issues, agreement was reached on most of the major political issues, to the surprise of most observers given the low level of expectations that preceded the meeting. The agreements included:
- Flexible Mechanisms: The "flexibility" mechanisms which the United States had strongly favored as the Protocol was initially put together, including emissions trading; Joint Implementation ; and the Clean Development Mechanism which allow industrialized countries to fund emissions reduction activities in developing countries as an alternative to domestic emission reductions. One of the key elements of this agreement was that there would be no quantitative limit on the credit a country could claim from use of these mechanisms, but that domestic action must constitute a significant element of the efforts of each Annex B country to meet their targets.
- Carbon sinks: Credit was agreed to for broad activities that absorb carbon from the atmosphere or store it, including forest and cropland management, and revegetation, with no over-all cap on the amount of credit that a country could claim for sinks activities. In the case of forest management, an Appendix Z establishes country-specific caps for each Annex I country, for example, a cap of 13 million tons could be credited to Japan . For cropland management, countries could receive credit only for carbon sequestration increases above 1990 levels.
- Compliance: final action on compliance procedures and mechanisms that would address non-compliance with Protocol provisions was deferred to COP-7, but included broad outlines of consequences for failing to meet emissions targets that would include a requirement to "make up" shortfalls at 1.3 tons to 1, suspension of the right to sell credits for surplus emissions reductions; and a required compliance action plan for those not meeting their targets.
- Financing: Three new funds were agreed upon to provide assistance for needs associated with climate change; a least-developed-country fund to support National Adaptation Programs of Action; and a Kyoto Protocol adaptation fund supported by a CDM levy and voluntary contributions.
A number of operational details attendant upon these decisions remained to be negotiated and agreed upon, and these were the major issues of the COP-7 meeting that followed.
COP-7, Marrakech, Morocco
At the COP-7 meeting in
Marrakech,
Morocco October 29-November 10, 2001, negotiators in effect completed the work of the
Buenos Aires Plan of Action, finalizing most of the operational details and setting the stage for nations to ratify the Protocol. The completed package of decisions are known as the Marrakech Accords. The United States delegation continued to act as observers, declining to participate in active negotiations. Other parties continued to express their hope that the United States would re-engage in the process at some point, but indicated their intention to seek ratification of the requisite number of countries to bring the Protocol into force . A target date for bringing the Protocol into force was put forward: the August-September 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in
Johannesburg,
South Africa.
The main decisions at COP-7 included:
- Operational rules for international emissions trading among parties to the Protocol and for the CDM and joint implementation;
- A compliance regime that outlines consequences for failure to meet emissions targets but defers to the parties to the Protocol after it is in force to decide whether these consequences are legally binding;
- Accounting procedures for the flexibility mechanisms;
- A decision to consider at COP-8 how to achieve to a review of the adequacy of commitments that might move toward discussions of future developing country commitments.
COP-8, New Delhi, India
October 23 – November 1 2002
COP-9, Milan, Italy
December 1 – 12 2003
COP-10, Buenos Aires, Argentina
December 6 – 17, 2004
COP-11, Montreal, Canada
The most recent conference of the parties, COP-11, was held in
Montreal,
Canada, . This consisted of concurrent meetings of the 11th meeting of the parties to the UNFCCC, and the first meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
See also at the UNFCCC.
COP-12, Nairobi, Kenya
To be held on 6 - 17 November 2006.
See also
Nations Unies...
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