Climate change: Leadership as key to the Copenhagen conference

Climate change is a change in the distribution of weather over periods of time that range from decades to millions of years. The UN Climate Change Conference that will hold in Copenhagen between December 7 and18 this year has been a major event on the UN calendar on climate change since its last major conference […]

Climate change is a change in the distribution of weather over periods of time that range from decades to millions of years.

The UN Climate Change Conference that will hold in Copenhagen between December 7 and18 this year has been a major event on the UN calendar on climate change since its last major conference in Bali in December 2007.

The UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has the highest universal membership with its 192 Parties. The UNFCCC is the parent treaty to Kyoto Protocol which itself has 184 signatories. Under the Protocol, highly industrialized countries have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. The ultimate objective of both the Convention and the Protocol is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent further human interference which has proved to be the major contributor to climate change.

When the 2007 conference took place it was one of the series of steps meant to prepare the ground for another treaty that will replace the Kyoto Protocol by 2012. Some progress was made then, but as it was pointed out, negotiations of a new treaty is a process that has to continue until Copenhagen arrives. Those negotiations have been in UN’s focus till now. Series of meetings have been taking place, the latest being the negotiations that ended days back in Bangkok, Thailand. Conveners called it a meeting on what needs to constitute ‘bricks and mortars’ of the historic Copenhagen conference.

In that wise, Parties present made progress on issues of adaptation, technology transfer and capacity building. They also reached agreements on technical issues such as forests and land use, how to assess the global warming potentials of new green house gases and the number of options for strengthening the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism.

The Bangkok negotiating session however failed to have clarity on the issues of finance and the need for developing countries to undertake additional actions to limit their emission growth and adapt to the inevitable effects of climate change. There is also lack of agreement on the issue of the mid-term emission reduction targets for industrialized countries.      

While the UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, reported that ‘a will has emerged in Bangkok to build the architecture to rapidly implement climate action but significant differences remain,’ more negotiation talks will take place in Barcelona, Spain, between November 2 and 6.

It is back at home however that the negotiators have to carry out the major part of their job. This is to get their political leaders to give them the nod to complete work on the negotiations.

It is a good thing many of these leaders promised on the podium of the UNGA last September that they were as ready as President Obama to cooperate. The need for all leaders to give their negotiators the go-ahead is supported by the five basic objectives that Copenhagen will clinch. The December Conference will ensure enhanced action to assist the most vulnerable countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The other is that after Copenhagen will ensure that there is clearly agreed ambitious global emission reduction targets for industrialised countries.  In addition, it will have nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing countries with the necessary support. Added to this is that financial and technological resources will be scaled-up with a mechanism put in place to ensure that fund is generated automatically over time to deal will climate change issues.

Finally, the Copenhagen deal will create an equitable governance structure to manage funds for adaptation and mitigation that addresses the need of developing countries.   

These are far reaching targets and as Yvo de Boer pointed out, ‘bold leadership must open the roadblocks around the essentials of targets and finance that the negotiators can complete their journey.’ With much that is built into this for developing nations, it is hoped that political leaders in Nigeria and in the African continent are giving serious attention to the coming Copenhagen Conference as well as positioning themselves to effectively execute the treaty that will emerge from it.     

Ajibade, a consultant writer, lives in Abuja.  [email protected]