Hilary McMahon – Research Director, Carbon War Room

As delegates fly home from the Durban 2011 Climate Conference, almost 36 hours after the scheduled close, relieved that they reached an agreement, the Carbon War Room takes the opportunity to reflect on the outcomes.

The agreement reached – titled the ‘Durban Platform for Enhanced Action’- was essentially an agreement to keep talking about ways to reduce green house gases that are responsible for climate change. The final outcome was probably the ‘medium’ scenario, or as Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, head of the Africa group suggested “we met mid-way”, in what could have been a disastrous set of negotiations. The worst-case scenario would have seen the majority of countries walking away from any agreement, which would have perhaps spelled the end for any hope of an inclusive multilateral process. The best-case scenario would have been an agreement on a multilateral approach to solve climate change that included commitments to legally binding mitigation target for all countries (including China, India and the US) and enhanced the level of ambition of those commitments.

Top down to bottom up

So where does the medium-outcome leave us? The developments in Durban suggest that we are firmly moving from a top down process (e.g. the 1997 Kyoto Protocol like treaties) to a bottom up approach, which allows countries to set their own targets, or commitments, and report on these at the international level in a consistent and transparent way. As European Commissioner Connie Hedegaard stated, “the big thing is that now all big economies, all parties have to commit in the future in a legal way and that’s what we came here for”.

Even though countries will be setting these commitments unilaterally, the parties agreed that we still need a place to ‘house’ these commitments and a platform to report against them. This is key, as it will allow a certain amount of transparency around how countries are progressing in meeting their mitigation commitment and what activities they are undertaking to achieve them. The implications for the private sector are that there will now be a level of transparency around what commitments countries have set, and therefore, how companies will be required to contribute and report on their emissions.

Small steps

South Africa’s International Relations Minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, brought down the long-awaited final gavel at the end of the conference stating “we have made history”. The question therefore is, what history has been made? There is little that will be written about in the history books here, but there were small steps in the right direction in terms of substance. For example, the 200 countries present agreed, in the wee hours of the morning, to the following:

• A continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, the only existing protocol tying country to negotiated green house gas emission reductions and the continuation of the markets for carbon credits associated with the Kyoto Protocol. This is important for the private sector that is engaged in the buying and selling of these credits.
• An agreement to continue negotiations on some other substantive issues including a financial mechanism and the fleshing out a Green Climate Fund. This is relevant for the private sector, as it is likely that any public funds committed in the future will be used to leverage private funds to support mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.
• An agreement on the rules to help avoid deforestation and the measurement of emissions in this sector, which is highly relevant for companies operating in this sector.
• The establishment of a process to create a technology mechanism to support the deployment of low carbon technologies, a mechanism that the private sector could both contribute to and benefit from.

All of these mechanisms in themselves are a very small step in the right direction and often more symbolic than game-changing, however, they do demonstrate the opportunity for developed countries to support developing countries to mitigate green house gases with mature climate change solution technologies.

Where to now?

The next steps will be to iron out the details of the roadmap for a regime to include all countries, the operationalization of the various mechanisms that were discussed and to decide on the look and feel of the next commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. All this will need to be considered before the next climate conference in Qatar in 2012, which is actually also the country with the highest green house gas emissions per capita in the world. Perhaps the Climate Conference will act as an inspiration for its host and its participants alike to embrace a low carbon future. Something on which Durban demonstrated, we can all agree.

Hilary McMahon is the Research Director at Carbon War Room. She can be reached at hmcmahon@carbonwarroom.com