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Before the delivery of the work plan at the closing plenary session Friday, developing countries held fierce debate and finally rejected Japan's "sectoral approach" which accusedly attempted to replace the national binding emissions cut imposed on developed countries under Kyoto Protocol with targets counted on the basis of industries and sectors in both developed and developing countries.
Talks within the two ad hoc working groups -- one on further commitments for Annex-I Parties (a group of developed countries) under Kyoto Protocol (KP group), and the other on Long-term Cooperative Action under the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) (LCA group), had respective focuses on what the developed countries must do (for KP group) and what the developing countries could do under a new agreement on climate change mitigation and adaptation (for LCA group).
The KP group ended its final session earlier on Friday night, with parties analyzing technologies and methods available for developed countries to meet further emission cut commitments after the first commitment period of Kyoto Protocol 2008-2012 expires.
The key and tough issue of setting binding emission cut targets in the post-Kyoto pact for the so-called Annex 1 Parties to the Convention, or developed countries as more commonly understood, is left for future discussions after the real negotiation process starts at the end of this year.
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Bangkok Climate Change Talks ended after midnight Friday after delegates from developed countries and developing countries agreed on a work plan for future negotiations leading to a new pact on global cooperation action to climate change after 2012. |
The LCA group's closing plenary meeting, which lasted well until midnight Friday, has caught more attention especially from developed countries, after parties were engaged in fierce discussions over Japan's so-called "sectoral approach" on emission cut targets setting mechanism.
Japan has been pushing this "sectoral approach" very hard during the five-day LCA group session in Bangkok, which has been tasked with drafting a work plan for future negotiation following the Bali Roadmap agreed at last December's UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia.
The basic concept of Japan's sectoral approach is to set midterm national targets for "each major emitting country" by calculating emission reduction potential in each sectors, such as power-generation, transport, and other energy intensive industries with certain indicators.
Japan had wanted to push it to be included at the very first session of negotiation procedures after Bangkok in a form of "workshop", but the idea faced strong boycott from developing nations which finally threw it from the table.
The original "sectoral approach" is defined in the Convention as a method option for developed countries to meet target improving energy efficiency technology.
Discussions on the final draft of the work plan which continued beyond schedule on Thursday broke after midnight as Japan was pushing so hard on the issue and countries failed to reach consensus.
Su Wei, director-general of China's Office of National Leading Group on Climate Change, told Xinhua that Japan's sectoral approach is actually attempting to transfer developed countries' emission cut responsibility as committed under the Convention and the Protocol, by using sectoral targets in individual industries in both developed and developing countries.
This attempt proves unpopular and hinders global cooperation infighting climate change, Sun said.
Over 1,000 representatives from over 160 countries attended theBangkok Talks. The next session will be held in June in Bonn, Germany, followed by a few more meetings, before the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark by the end of 2009.
The expected new agreement will hopefully define new greenhouse gases (GHG) emission reduction commitments for industrialized countries after 2012, when the first commitment period 2008-2012 of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol expires.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, 38 Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including the European Union, the United States, and Japan, are subject to binding national targets on emission reduction by an average 5.2 percent by 2012 from the 1990 level.
Developing countries like China, India and least-developed countries, would take domestic actions to join global cooperation action in climate change mitigation and adaptation, by reducing emissions with technical and financing support by developed countries, but are not subject to binding emission cut targets, according to the Protocol.