At Bonn, Picking Up The Pieces Of The Climate Talks

The U.N. climate talks groaned back to life from their post-Copenhagen hangover last week, as negotiators descended on the picturesque West German city of Bonn. The mood was generally dour, rich-poor country tensions flared, and discussion was marred by discord and division - what else is new?

The bottom line - barring a miracle, we won't see a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty in 2010. U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said so himself in a remark about the talks' shifting goal posts: "We reached an agreement in Bali (in 2007) that we would conclude negotiations two years later in Copenhagen, and we didn't. The finishing line has now been moved to Cancun, and I wouldn't be surprised if the final finishing line in terms of a legally binding treaty ends up being moved to South Africa," in 2011.

De Boer warns, though, that if countries don't make substantial progress on the big issues by this year's December conference in Cancun, the U.N. process will be terminally derailed. This means that the world's climate diplomats can savor the prospects of another grinding and sleepless year (or two).

The talks were light on substance and heavy on procedure: How many meetings before Cancun? What to do about the Copenhagen Accord? Do we insist on an all-or-nothing global deal or make progress on what we can agree on?

The first issue: whether or not the Copenhagen Accord should serve as the foundation of this year's negotiations. The U.S. and the E.U. want to build on it, most everyone else - including China - wants to scrap it.

This one was actually resolved, sort of. Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe, the chair of the main working body, cut through the drawn-out debate by announcing she would draw up whatever negotiating text she thought best, while taking the accord into account. Well played.

To jog your memory, the Copenhagen Accord was the last minute deal cobbled together by the world's major emitters in the frantic final hours of December's failed conference. All told, the accord does rather little: It sets an aspirational goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius by 2050 and promises $30 billion in "quick start" in aid from 2010 to 2012 to help the poor adapt to climate impacts, with this figure jumping to $100 billion by 2020. It does not set mid-term goals or say anything about emissions caps.

110 of the UNFCCC's 192 countries have endorsed the non-binding political agreement. Taken together, their voluntary pledges for climate action - assuming they were actually implemented - would probably still leaves us with a catastrophic 4 degree rise in temperatures. To be fair, though, this is the first time the world's major emitters have ever committed to concrete actions, so the accord should be seen as the milestone that it is. As the saying goes - treaties don't save the planet, actions do.

The second issue, which was far from resolved, will shape 2010's negotiations in significant ways. Developing countries, the U.N., and many advocates are saying the talks should focus on making progress on essential "building blocks" - namely financing, transparency, and deforestation. These are issues on which there is already substantial agreement, and which could be implemented independently of a broader treaty.

The U.S., which sees these issues as interwoven and inseparable, still favors an all or nothing approach. Basically, the Obama administration won't commit to funneling mitigation and adaption funding to developing countries without a guarantee, in the form of an emission cap, that they will move aggressively to cut their own emissions. Of course, the overarching dynamic of these negotiations would be much less conflictual if the Senate wasn't tying Obama's hands by obstructing clean energy and climate legislation.

The building block boosters have a point: Given how sensitive the issues are, and how contentious the talks have become, insisting on a comprehensive treaty will likely lead to stalemate, and thus to failure. In Copenhagen, negotiators were close to a deal on the REDD anti-deforestation scheme, but were stymied when the final treaty failed to materialize. If the bar is set too high, we'll never get around to implementing anything. On the other hand, we can't afford to delay action on issues we mostly agree on.

So this piecemeal approach could very well be the most practical way to get the process moving again. And by focusing on concrete steps to help the poor and save forests, it could also help rebuild the trust, shattered by the 11th hour backroom deals that spawned the Copenhagen Accord, that is an essential prerequisite of any global deal.

During the talks, a confidential document detailing the Obama administration climate strategy for the coming year was leaked to the press. Among other things, the document underscores Obama's intention to push the accord and the all-or-nothing approach to the talks. This risks alienating poor countries further even that the U.S.'s recent announcement that they will deny climate aid to Bolivia and Ecuador for boycotting the accord.

To have a passing chance of making Cancun count, both sides of the rich-poor divide need to work out their differences and get to work. Same goes for the U.S. Senate.

Photo credit: WWF