Topic:

CEPS Commentary on Climate Change Policy: A First Assessment of Buenos Aires

Subject:

Climate change

Country:

Argentina

Type:

Case report

Date:

17 November 1998

Reporter:

Christian Egenhofer,
(Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy
Studies, CEPS)
Place du Congrès 1,
B - 1000 Brussels
E-mail: cegenhofer@ceps.be

News item:

The Fourth Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, known as COP-4, finished its business on the morning of 15 November in Buenos Aires with the adoption of an action plan which has already been designated BAAP (Buenos Aires Action Plan). Was the conference a "success", as proclaimed by Germany's new Green Environment Minister Trittin, or was it a "fiasco", as denounced by the French daily Le Monde in its Sunday/ Monday edition? Even environmental NGOs seem to have different opinions regarding the BAAP. For example, the World Wide Fund for Nature has welcomed the outcome, while Greenpeace claims it to be a failure.

What was decided? The BAAP sets the year 2000 as the deadline for the completion of work on a number of critical areas for controlling global warming, to include:

• Financial mechanisms which will assist the developing world to respond to the demands of a changing climate
• Further work on mitigation policies and measures
• Development and transfer of technologies
• Rules governing the Kyoto (flexible) mechanisms with priority given to the CDM
• An undertaking to discuss supplementarity, ceilings, long-term convergence and equity with respect to the Kyoto mechanisms.

For those involved in the negotiations in Kyoto or in the Bonn meeting in the spring of 1998, or even for those who have bothered to read through the Kyoto Protocol, the results can hardly come as a surprise. Rather than blaming the Buenos Aires conference for not having achieved much, it should be realised that the real mistake was to have called for another conference so soon after Kyoto. The sheer work, of both a political and technical nature, to be undertaken between Kyoto and Buenos Aires simply proved too much to be accomplished in that short interval of time. In that sense, Buenos Aires was certainly a mistake. It would be wrong to assume, however, that the negotiators had not in their wisdom foreseen this. As early as the Bonn meeting, they identified as the main objective to keep the momentum going. In light of this aim, the conference must be judged a success. Nothing is lost; rather, on the contrary, as in the words of Lars Georg Jensen of the Word Wide Fund for Nature, Buenos Aires represents "another small turn on the rudder of the climate change supertanker".

1. The most important decision is the adoption of  the BAAP which sets a firm deadline of 2000 for implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, including among other flexible mechanisms, supplementarity and assistance to developing countries. Most significantly, however, negotiators or Parties as they are called have realised that firm deadlines can only exert their real pressure if the negotiations are undertaken at the level at which decisions can be taken, i.e. the political level. Hence, the decision to have more frequent international meetings at the political level to give guidance to civil servants who have proved unable to advance both at the Bonn Meeting and in the first phase of COP-4. This has the side-effect – whether fully realised or not – that the so-called "political level" will have to take responsibility for progress or the lack thereof and will not be able to hide behind technical issues. Whether this will speed up negotiations or facilitate results remains to be seen. In any case, it will increase transparency and political responsibility, thereby making lobbying as well as analysis of the next negotiations, e.g. COP-5, easier and perhaps judgements more consistent.

2. Buenos Aires has taken the hype out of the discussions on emissions trading which will be still some time off not at least due to its sheer complexity. It has confirmed merely what is already in the Kyoto Protocol, that the clean development mechanism (CDM) which can operate already as of 2000 will get priority. But this was already conventional wisdom long before COP-4, at the latest at the Bonn Meeting.

3. That most of the other points were postponed until 2000 and beyond is not dramatic and was to be expected as well. With the exception of the CDM which, as we have said, can operate as of 2000, no firm timetable existed that would have forced negotiators to reach an agreement. No one with the slightest familiarity with international negotiations would expect anything at all to be decided in the absence of a firm timetable? This has now been rectified in Buenos Aires by setting exactly the deadline that is needed to achieve results.

4. Argentina's commitment to a voluntary emissions reduction plan to be presented at COP-5 could help deflate domestic opposition to ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in the US, especially if some other developing countries might follow as seems likely. In part, such a move can be explained as the "price to pay" for the privilege of hosting the event and has confirmed what the Japanese learned in Kyoto, that hosting a COP does not come free. Nevertheless, Argentina's move had been prepared previously and did not come as a surprise. Accommodation of the US concern to involve the developing countries seems to have come within reach. The US in return has documented its constructive role by signing on to the Kyoto Protocol.

In conclusion, COP-4 accomplished what was desired as a minimum. It keeps the momentum. Real decisions are supposed to be taken by 2000. The first "hard" decisions on the Kyoto Protocol, e.g. on CDM and supplementarity, are indeed not necessarily needed before. It did not jeopardise US ratification, as some may have feared and others hoped. Argentina's move for a voluntary commitment and the EU's relatively toned-down role allow for ratification. US signature of the Kyoto Protocol during COP-4 witness this. COP-4 has strengthened the role of the political level, i.e. the ministerial level in further negotiations. Whether this will be enough or whether the real "tough" decisions should be delegated to the heads of government remains to be seen. In short, whether one likes it or not, COP-4 has made clear that the key to successful climate change negotiations rests with the US.