End of the year, parties to the UN climate negotiations will meet in Cancun, Mexico, to continue their negotiations on the future of international climate protection. In preparation for this, thousands of delegates met in Tianjin, China, beginning of October to negotiate the way forward. Dr. Camilla Bausch and Dr. Ralph Bodle of Ecologic Legal continue to support the German delegation and EU team in the negotiations. In this capacity, they participated in the negotiations in China and will travel to Cancun at the end of November to continue this work.
Since leaders in Copenhagen in 2009 were not able to agree on a comprehensive future climate regime, the challenge of 2010 is to define a path forward for the UN climate negotiations. However, the parties to the UN climate regime still struggle to agree on the complex questions regarding the form (e.g. binding or non-binding) and content (e.g. financial architecture, framing of mitigation commitments and action, as well as monitoring, reporting and verification).
But despite the time-pressure, little progress was achieved in Tianjin. The vision for the details and content of the “set of decisions”, which are the expected outcome of the session in Cancun, remain unclear. Parties strive for a “balanced outcome”, but there are very different views on what that means and how the balance can be struck.
It is evident that the meeting in Cancun will only be able to deliver a further stepping stone on the way to an adequate international climate solution. It will also lay the ground for the negotiations in 2011 leading up to the summit in South-Africa at the end of 2011. Furthermore, initiatives and partnership outside the UN system which (aim to positively) contribute to the negotiations gain momentum. The Cancun summit will provide an indication of what the UN climate regime can still be expected to deliver. However, it will be just one among others now and in the future.
Keywords: climate negotiations, China, Tianjin, AWG, AWG KP, AWG LCA, Cancun, climate finance
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