In spite of frantic last-minute efforts by American and British negotiators who wanted a deal, the COP6 negotiations on climate change broke off without agreement on November 25.
For Canadian business and the Canadian negotiators, no deal was better than a bad deal.
From my perspective, the final result was not a surprise.
The first week involved meetings of government officials from nearly 200 countries working on the formal negotiated test to implement the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.
There were also sidebar events organized by business, environmental and other organizations recognized by the process. When the negotiators’ work came to an end, there remained about 2,000 brackets (passages in dispute), including key parts.
In the second week the ministers took over, under the disciplined eye of Jan Pronk, the Dutch Minister. Further progress was made on a summary text (overview), which Pronk presented to the ministers.
This text was not acceptable and Canada, like many other countries, demanded a number of changes in areas critical to our interests like mechanisms (offsets, credits and trading) and sinks (carbon storage in forests and agricultural soils). In the final hours, the U.S. and Britain attempted to broker a partial deal, which was rejected by France and some other European parties.
The negotiators, while making significant progress, simply ran out of time. Ironically, the convention centre had to be cleared late Saturday for an auto trade show.
Significant differences remained between the European Union and the Umbrella Group (U.S., Canada, Japan,and Australia) especially on compliance (enforcement) and sinks. In addition, there were differences demonstrated between the developed and developing world of several billions of dollars in the level of new aid for climate change and development projects.
Here is what I feel contributed to this result:
* Too much was left to the final hours after two all-night negotiating sessions;
* The issues were so complex and interconnected that many wanted all of them settled before they were agreed to any;
* Many negotiators do not understand the science of sinks and sequestration or how market mechanisms work;
* European countries wish to meet targets by emission cuts while North America wants a mixture of emission cuts and carbon capture and storage (least-cost options);
* Many developing countries have unrealistic expectations of how much aid they can leverage out of developed nations for a settlement;
* The formal negotiating text was still a mess;
* While the semantics of the negotiations involved climate change, the real forces driving national positions were economics, trade and competitiveness. There are ways I believe we can move forward. It’s essential that we take the time to get it right because the consequences could be huge.
* Canada must get proper provisions for market-based mechanisms and carbon sinks;
* Canadian interests must continue to refine the Canadian negotiating position with Ottawa;
* Planning is under way to reconvene COP 6 in May with informal negotiations early in New Year;
* National and regional initiatives will continue to go forward, including offset projects and emissions trading;
* In the private sector, the search for least-cost options will continue with offset credits, emission trading and capital stock renewal;
* Europeans still believe they will have sufficient countries ratifying Kyoto, and that it will go into force in 2003.
While many in North America are uncertain, there is a growing business opinion that a Kyoto-type agreement is highly likely in the coming decade.
(Bob Page is Vice-President of Sustainable Development, for Trans-Alta. He was part of the Canadian delegation at The Hague.)
