The Bonn agreement on the Kyoto Protocol was a significant political achievement for all 179 of the participant countries. Most of the difficult issues with which climate negotiators have wrestled for the past three years were resolved, although mid-morning on Monday 23 July I was wondering if Kyoto was going to collapse around our ears. We were knee-deep in technical detail and a potential deal, but still hadn’t quite cracked it. When, hours later, agreement was finally reached and then unanimously endorsed by the full conference, it was purely as a result of political imperative.
Indeed, this second part of the 6th UN Conference of the Parties on Climate Change was very much a political event. Talks had collapsed in the Hague last November and there was widespread concern that another failure would seriously damage the Kyoto Protocol.
We all felt that it was important to get political agreement on the four sticking points. First, carbon sinks, the temporary storage of carbon in forests and soils. Strict rules have been agreed on the extent to which countries can use these as ‘carbon credits’. Second, funding for developing countries. Developed countries have committed significant additional monies. The EU, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland agreed to increase their climate change funding to $410 million a year by 2005. Third, mechanisms such as emissions trading and the Clean Development Mechanism – using carbon-reducing projects in other countries as domestic carbon credits. Rules have now been agreed. Finally, compliance. Countries failing to meet domestic targets will have to restore the excess emissions and implement compliance action plans. It’s not often a gathering comes under such political pressure – and even despite this, the deal almost escaped our grasp.
The final package was a result better than any of us could have expected. It was broadly welcomed by the green lobby and means we finally have a legal structure in place on the Kyoto Protocol. It was a compromise, but it has teeth. Even taking into account the concessions we had to make on sinks, we estimate that Kyoto will still deliver real emission reductions – of about 1.6 percent – below 1990 levels for developed countries excluding the US.
I am also pleased that there is agreement with the US on some of the points of science and that they are developing further policy proposals in response. The US attended Bonn in an ‘observer’ capacity, promising to play a constructive role, which they did. But the Bonn agreement may well have surprised them. The US media have changed their tune and are calling for constructive alternatives to Kyoto and substantive domestic action. And there has been a flurry of activity on Capitol Hill: the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 19-0 in favour of the development of an alternative international agreement. There are also proposals for new bills to reduce US emissions. Bonn may prove to be an important catalyst.
So Kyoto is not dead. The political agreement reached in Bonn shows that it is alive and kicking. Domestic and international pressure on the US continues. So will action across the board on Kyoto. I hope that the Bonn agreement will now pave the way for Kyoto’s ratification and entry into force by 2002. And the UK’s domestic climate change programme will continue, reducing the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 23 percent by 2010, well exceeding our Kyoto target of 12.5 percent.