The atmosphere of doom prevails.
As was evident after the G77 press briefing, developing countries are extremely upset with the developments in Bangkok. With less than a day to go now all talks have shifted to what would happen in Barcelona.
It is clear that the political will and the message to move forward are missing in the developed countries’ delegations. As Sudanese ambassador Lumumba said today, it seems there is a no dialogues happening between the developed countries’ negotiating teams and their political masters back home. “It seems as if the generals do not trust their troops down here in Bangkok,” Lumumba commented.
12 October 2009, Bangkok | IST: 4:50p.m Albert Binger, Negotiator from Granada and Advisor to the Head of AOSIS
(Alliance of Small Island States) on Bangkok
Echoing the thoughts of G77 Chair Ambassador Lumumba of Sudan, Willis summarized the disappointments, but made sure he also highlighted the achievements of Kyoto Protocol so far. Ending on a hopeful note, Willis says that developed countries need to let go of overly technical discussions and take clear action possible to them at the moment, to make KP a success.
In the AWGLCA, there was again an attempt today by the developed countries to move certain texts from the KP into the LCA for discussion.
Venezuela led the developing countries’ protests against doing so. Venezuela said that these texts are directly from the KP and therefore should only be discussed in the AWGKP.
Qingtai talks about the Kyoto Protocol, developed countries’ effort to quash it and why it makes developing countries furious.
Listen to audio excerpts here:
Part I
"There is a concerted effort to put an end to Kyoto Protocol. It is clear that our partners in developed world are not interested in entering into serious discussions on targets for emission reduction"
Part II
"Some of the ideas coming from Bonn will lead to serious watering down of the common but differentiated responsibilities."
Part III
"We must go back to the basics as laid out in Bali and not agree to something made two months in advance to Copenhagen. This is no way to conduct negotiations"
Part IV
"You (the EU) want to replace Kyoto protocol and put the pieces into a new single legal instrument. And you say that by doing this you are saving the Kyoto protocol. To me this argument is incomprehensible."
07 October 2009, Bangkok | IST: 1:00p.m
It's China versus US, again.
Today morning in the Contact Group meeting on potential consequences, China again submitted text opposing the Carbon Tax proposals, more specifically the US proposal.
Here is what China's submission says:
"The Ad-hoc Working Group on Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) underlines that implementation of 2.3 and 3.14 of KP, A1 parties should not resort to unilateral measures against imports from developing countries, on the ground of protection and stabilization of climate. Such measures would violate the provisions and principles of the convention; in particular, principles underlined in 3.1 and 3.5."
The morning was also marked by some fireworks in a joint press conference of US, China and AOSIS. The lines seem clearly divided, but more on that later.
With just two more days to go, the negotiations in Bangkok remain deadlocked. It is becoming increasingly evident that the Kyoto Protocol is slowly dying away with almost all the Annex I countries turning away from it.
The negotiations in the AWG-KP are almost dead as no country is ready to commit to the second phase reduction targets. EU, which has for long been claiming a moral high ground, is the latest villain. Read more...
The International Energy Agency (IEA) today released the early excerpts of their special report ‘World Energy Outlook 2009’.
The report, titled ‘How the Energy Sector Can Deliver on a Climate Agreement in Copenhagen’, finds that investment in polluting technologies has been deferred significantly. As a result, CO2 emissions could fall in 2009 by as much as 3% - steeper than any other time in the last 40 years. Read more...
It seems that Indonesia has made a proposal for deviating from business as usual. Indonesia has said that it is ready to deviate 26 per cent below Business As Usual (BAU) scenario on its own. They have also said that they can go up to 41 per cent below BAU if adequate finances and technology is made available. Indians said that they were a little worried about such a proposal.
Venezuela has made a very interesting submission in the LCA. This proposal was basically meant to thwart the attempts of the US and the EU to get more offsets for reducing emissions and blurring the de-lineation between two ad-hoc working groups. The proposal says that to meet their Kyoto targets as committed under the AWG-KP, the Annex I countries should not use the offsets generated through processes, which are under discussion at the AWG-LCA. They can only use credits, which are generated through offset mechanisms under the Kyoto process. On the face of it, this seems to be a brilliant proposal. Apparently it was India’s idea and Venezuela submitted the proposal on behalf of many developing countries. Read more...
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With just two more days to go, the negotiations in Bangkok remain deadlocked. It is becoming increasingly evident that the Kyoto Protocol is slowly dying away with almost all the Annex I countries turning away from it. 
