It’s here! But are countries ready to negotiate and compromise?

By: Anna McGinn ’14

COP 17 begins on November 28, 7 days, 3 hours, 2 minutes and 35 seconds from now to be exact.  As exciting as it is that most of the countries in the world will be coming together once again to address the issue of climate change, I am not sure if the world is prepared to make an agreement which will have an impact, once again.  Looking a Kyoto alone, Bangladesh and the most vulnerable countries of the world are demanding a second commitment period for Kyoto.  China would support one as well, as long as they do not have to make any legally binding agreements.  Russia, Japan, and Canada say that they will not be agreeing to a second commitment period.  The UK and the EU as a whole also doubt whether an agreement can be reached.  It does not seem that these mentalities allow space for negotiation, not to mention compromise and agreement to some kind of emissions reductions.      

While countries are staking out their opposing positions before the negotiations begin, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is calling the international community to address the climate change issues “with [strong] political leadership and commitment during the climate change meeting in Durban on November 28.”   He goes on to say that “the minimum the Durban conference should be able to implement is what was agreed upon at Cancun last year.  That means they should launch the Green Climate Fund.”  It is imperative that clear guidelines and regulations are set up to implement the fund immediately.   He also stresses that a new international climate agreement needs to be reached to replace the Kyoto Protocol.    

Edna Molewa speaking about COP17

South Africa’s Environment Ministry hopes for accomplishments similar to that of the UN Secretary-General.  Despite the fact that they would love for climate negotiations to be extremely successful on their home soil, they know the reality is that “the whole world is quite aware that it will not be possible to get a legally binding agreement out of Durban, because there hasn’t been much discussion or agreement on what form that agreement would take, and there isn’t any kind of draft right now.”  Edna Molewa, the Minister for Environment and Water, went on to say that although a legally binding agreement may not come to fruition, they are “confident” that a “political agreement” can be reached to save the structure of Kyoto because it is the only “rule-based system [they] have.”  South Africa also sees the Green Climate Fund as a topic that needs to be a central aspect of the negotiations.

We can still hope, as I desperately want to, that this will be the year that countries realize inaction can no longer be prolonged.  But, realistically this does not seem to be the case because countries are still very divided by their different self-interests.  Let’s hope that at the very least that the expectations of both UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the South African Environmental Ministry are achieved or surpassed because something substantial needs to start coming for these conferences now.