22 September 2009
Representatives of 17 Major Economies Tackle Climate Issues
Agenda includes adaptation, mitigation, technology cooperation, next steps
Washington — Representatives of 17 major developed and developing countries met at the Major Economies Forum (MEF) in Washington September 17–18 to tackle a range of unresolved issues on climate change.
Months before leaders of 192 countries converge in Copenhagen in December to try to craft an ambitious agreement on climate change, attendees at the forum sought early consensus on critical global challenges, including how to adapt to environmental change and mitigate its effects, and how to measure, report and verify reductions in greenhouse gases.
“I think there was some narrowing of differences,” Todd Stern, U.S. special envoy for climate change, said in a briefing after the meeting. “There are plenty of differences that remain, but it was a pretty full ventilation of views in a way that … the MEF is designed to promote.”
Forum members are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States. Denmark and the United Nations also were invited to participate.
President Barack Obama launched the MEF in March to facilitate candid discussion among the members, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and achieve an international climate agreement during the 15th conference of the parties (COP-15) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that will take place December 7–18 in Copenhagen.
SEEKING INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT
The UNFCCC, an international treaty outlining general goals and rules for battling climate change, was adopted in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Brazil.
The first assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published two years earlier, played a decisive role in the treaty’s creation by stating that emissions from human activities were substantially increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, and that this would raise global mean temperatures in the 21st century above that seen for the past 10,000 years.
The Kyoto Protocol is an amendment to the UNFCCC that establishes legally binding commitments to reduce specific greenhouse gases produced by industrialized nations, and general commitments for all member countries. As of January, 183 parties had ratified the protocol, which entered into force in 2005 and ends in 2012. The United States declined to ratify the protocol, partly because developing countries had no legally binding commitments under the amendment.
In a statement to a climate change committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on September 10, Stern characterized one of the main barriers to a climate change agreement in Copenhagen.
“Developing countries tend to see a problem not of their own making that they are being asked to fix in ways which, they fear, could stifle their ability to lift their standards of living,” he said in testimony.
“Developed countries tend to see an unforgiving problem with potentially grave and irreversible consequences and that cannot be solved without the full participation of developing countries,” he said, “particularly China and the other emerging market economies.”
The good news, he said, is that major developing countries like China, India, Brazil, South Africa and others are focusing on climate change and taking significant action.
“In some cases,” he added, “they are taking action at the federal level that outstrips our own.”
APPROACHING COPENHAGEN
The Major Economies Forum will meet again in October/November, Stern said. In the meantime, several other meetings will focus attention on the run-up to COP-15.
On September 22, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will convene a climate change summit in New York, ahead of the U.N. General Assembly meetings, to promote the urgent need for action in Copenhagen. President Obama plans to attend.
“I think that we’re looking for this president to make a strong statement,” Stern said. “It’s an opportunity for him to speak before the nations of the world on this issue.”
The summit will focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in developed and developing countries, funding to support mitigation and adaptation, and governance structures needed for an effective regime.
Climate change topics will also be part of the agenda in Pittsburgh, September 24–26 at the G20 Summit. The Group of 20 consists of 19 countries and the European Union who meet to discuss key issues in the global economy.
