Bangkok Climate Change Conference | Latest Burning Issue

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The conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change recently ended in Bangkok

It needs to be accompanied by a supportive framework in the form of a rulebook that:

Binds the developed countries to their funding pledges.
Provides support for capacity building.
Transfer of green technologies on liberal terms.

What were the outcomes of the meet?

The purpose of the meet was to draft a rulebook for the Paris Agreement ahead of a crucial international conference in Poland in December.

- But it ran into difficulties over the issue of raising funds to help poorer nations.
- Negotiators meeting in Bangkok have just concluded another round of climate talks. The key aim was to whittle down a series of lengthy documents into a set of clear options for politicians to choose from when they meet later this year.

the conference will include sessions of the three UNFCCC subsidiaries – Subsidiary Body for Implementation, the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice and the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement. The conference, which convenes at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok, aims to facilitate a timely completion of the work programme under the Paris Agreement.
Setting the rules
The Paris Agreement on climate change was struck in 2015. By 2016, it had been ratified by enough countries to bring it into force, but it will only apply from 2020.
The talks last week, which ended on Sunday evening, aimed to continue hammering out its finer details, known formally as the “Paris Agreement work programme” (PAWP) and informally as the Paris “rulebook”. This instruction manual must be finalised by the end of this year.
Good progress was reportedly made in areas such as carbon markets, but progress stalled in some others.
Disputes included whether rich and poor countries should include the same types of information in their climate pledges, how developed countries should report on their contribution to climate finance, and where to include the sensitive issue of “loss and damage” in the rulebook.
We’ll need it not only to guide a country’s action on the ground and help them to enhance their NDCs [Nationally Determined Contributions, or country climate pledges] by 2020, but also to really hold accountable parties who commited to adopt those rules by this time.”
There was a lot to get through, with slow progress in the previous negotiating session in May in Bonn having led to this additional Bangkok session being scheduled.

Paris pledges

- A key element of the Paris rulebook is to set out the rules for how countries should format their climate pledges, known as NDCs.
- Key issues include whether guidance should cover mitigation (emissions reductions) alone, or also adaptation, climate finance and “loss and damage”; and how accounting for mitigation actions would best allow their impact to be understood.
- To achieve about 40 per cent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel based energy resources by 2030, with the help of transfer of technology and low cost international finance, including from Green Climate Fund.
- To create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.
- Some developed countries led by the U.S. are unwilling to commit to sound rules on raising climate finance.
- Earlier, U.S. under the Trump administration, has rejected the Paris agreement in which the rich countries pledged to raise $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Most significant was a dispute over whether rules on NDCs should be common to all or split into differentiated versions for developed and developing countries. This “two-tier” rulebook, pushed by China and its allies, would mean some elements would only be compulsory for developed countries
Another issue was how often the NDCs should be updated. Options on the table included five years, 10 years,

TRANSPARENCY

This “transparency framework” covers a range of issues, including methodology for reporting on national greenhouse inventories, tracking progress, climate change impacts, adaptation and the support provided by developed countries to poorer nations.

Finance

Climate finance to help developing countries meet their obligations was, as always, a key sticking point at the talks.
Concerns from developing countries relate to current flows of finance, which they say is not yet high enough to meet a promised $100bn per year by 2020, as well as the position of finance in the rulebook, where there are several points of dispute.
One key dispute is over the predictability of financial flows from developed to developing countries
Developing countries argue a process for this reporting is crucial to help them plan effectively for climate action.
Hanging over the finance discussions was also the pending replenishment of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), an important vehicle, diplomatically, for delivering climate finance. The GCF has come under criticism after its latest board meeting failed to approve any new projects amidst reports of antagonistic relations between donor and recipient countries.

Carbon markets

- Negotiators are also discussing whether to repurpose the existing Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Paris framework.
- The CDM was established under the Kyoto Protocol to allow projects in developing countries to earn emission reduction credits.
- The Paris Agreement also recognises the importance of “non-market” tools, such as sharing technology, for how countries cooperate with each other
- With the conclusion of the Bangkok talks, COP24 is the next (and final) opportunity to complete the details of the Paris rulebook.

However, there will also be other opportunities ahead of this during some of the key events listed in the table below.
For example, the Global Climate Action Summit will be taking place in California this week and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is due in October
An international meeting in Bangkok fell short of its aim of completing fruitful preparations to help an agreement be reached in December on guidelines for implementing the 2015 Paris climate change agreement.