Outcome of the Fourteenth Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and Fourth Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol

On the last day of the Poznań Conference, delegates were pleased to that the European Union has reached an agreement on climate change. The EU would stick to its pledge to reduce its emissions by 20% by 2020. The EU's climate change package, covering the period from 2013 to 2020, lays down rules for the third phase of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), details individual emission targets for EU member states in sectors not covered by the ETS, and contains a 20% target for renewable energy, a 10% target for biofuels and a 20% target for increasing energy efficiency by 2020.

Also the finishing touches were put to the Kyoto Protocol's adaptation fund, thereby enabling the fund to receive projects in the course of 2009. Parties agreed that the fund (CDM), fed by a share of proceeds from the Kyoto Protocol's clean development mechanism and voluntary contributions, would have a legal capacity granting developing countries direct access

But Parties were unable to reach consensus on scaling up funding for adaptation by agreeing to put a levy on the other two Kyoto mechanisms, Joint Implementation and Emissions Trading. The expected review and improvements in the third mechanism – Clean Development – also were not adopted.

While Barack Obama's victory in the US Presidential elections was a reason for optimism in Poznań, because of his positive stance on climate change mitigation, in Poznań the US was still represented by the Bush administration and remained relatively subdued during the official negotiations. Some felt that uncertainty about the US position in 2009 caused other countries to refrain from making significant political advances in Poznań, and few expect developing countries to make significant moves before developed countries have clarified their positions on emission reductions and financing.

Moreover, while many agreed that the Poznań meeting resulted in some progress and positive steps forward, the general feeling was that negotiators had not achieved any major breakthroughs. Agreement on the most critical issues, including mid- and long-term emission goals and finance, will not be reached before Copenhagen.

All Eyes on Poznań!

The much-awaited Poznań Conference which is supposed to offer a road-map to the final Copenhagen talks that decide the fate of post-2012 climate-change commitments, will conclude today in Poznań, Poland.
Poznań was intended to be a milestone, a landmark event that illuminated a new and shared vision for a new climate change regime. But in these times of global recession, it is proving hard to convince the involved parties to prioritize climate change. Rumblings are already being heard from the EU about adopting a more lax climate change policy in order to ease the economic burden on players already affected by the global economic downturn. The EU has been a leader in climate change mitigation efforts and its cap and trade system, which aims to reduce greenhouse gases in its industrial sector, is the largest carbon market in the world. Clean technologies from the developing world find funding and support from the EU carbon market. It also supports the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions internally, within the EU by making industries pay for each ton, which was above the designated limit, of carbon dioxide that they emitted into the atmosphere.
Even the EU today is cautious and hesitant to play a lead role in any action plan for slowing global warming. USA, under the Obama government, has pledged to reduce U.S. emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and then a further 80 percent by 2050. It remains to be seen how the Government will achieve this reduction.
Poznań was supposed to have paved the way towards the formulation of a strong, dedicated, consensual international climate change treaty in Copenhagen. Instead Parties have stuck to status quo and Poznań seems to function only as a buyer of time until Copenhagen for world leaders.
The outcome of Poznań will be clearly known in the coming hours. We will remain tuned in to see the final results.

DNV Gets Suspended

In its last Executive Board meeting held towards the end of last month, the UNFCCC Panel suspended one of the largest designated operational entity – Norway's DNV - for non-conformities. This was an interesting development. While the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has been criticized by some independent experts including the leading non-governmental environmental organization, the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF), the suspension of DNV was unexpected.

The suspension is seen as a sign of the EB getting stricter and more willing to take on reforms in response to the criticism directed at the CDM. Project developers though have been adversely affected by this decision. The EB has disallowed DNV from submitting any new registration or issuance requests. This will hurt project developers who have projects currently in verification and issuance stages with DNV. Project developers will now have to start the process again with another DOE, which is not only time-consuming but also very expensive. Project developers have already been reeling under the delays in the UN CDM certification process and the sudden suspension of one of the largest DOEs is going to further upset the purveyors of carbon credits.

DNV has validated close to half of the projects registered by the UN. The CDM pipeline shows that projects verified by DNV had an average issuance success of 81% and in 2008, of the 342 projects registered by the UN, 136 were validated by DNV. In India 30% of the projects at validation stage have been validated by DNV.