South African government negotiators played a central role in charting a future for reducing climate change at the giant United Nations conference in Montreal this week.
Alf Wills, leader of the 50-strong South African delegation, presided over a central committee trying to ensure a way forward for the Kyoto Protocol and its attempts to limit harmful greenhouse gas emissions. He co-chaired the committee with David Drake, a foreign affairs counsellor in the host country, Canada.
Called the 3.9 contact group (it is the group on Article 3.9 of the Kyoto Protocol), the committee wrestled with what became known as ”an 800-pound gorilla” after one delegate called its discussions the ”sleeping gorilla we have all being trying not to wake”.
The committee’s almost round-the-clock sessions were closed but, according to delegates who crammed into overflowing rooms where the meetings were held, they were often heated and frustrating. The big shouting points were whether developed countries would undertake more reductions in harmful emissions in the future, and what concessions rapidly industrialising countries would offer in compensation.
”They are key make-or-break issues and South Africa is playing a key role in trying to ensure a breakthrough,” said Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk, who arrived towards the end of the 3.9 negotiations for the ministerial discussions.
Scientists at the conference warned that, in the absence of a consistent plan to combat rising greenhouse gases, the next 20 to 50 years would see more droughts and floods, reduced agricultural crop yields, less water resources, species extinctions and increased diseases such as malaria.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, 37 developed countries are bound by legally binding emission-reduction targets to be achieved between 2008 and 2012. The 3.9 committee focused on putting steps in place for a second phase of Kyoto after 2012.
With Wills on the bench, Joanne Yawitch, Deputy Director General of environmental quality and protection in the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, headed South Africa’s negotiating team in the 3.9 meetings. Her team aligned itself in a bloc with G77 countries and China.
This bloc called for decisions to be made in the next few years that would determine the future regime, including possible further reduction commitments from developed countries.
In the opposing camp, Japan and the European Union were looking for concessions from developing countries, particularly rapidly industrialising countries such as South Africa, Brazil, India and China.
Delegates pointed out that a stalemate in the 3.9 negotiations would severely compromise carbon trading, which has seen developed countries invest millions in projects that cut emissions. It took 10 years for the Kyoto Protocol to get off the ground, so arrangements for the post-2012 regime had to be secured now.
”The European Union has put huge resources into emissions trading in the carbon market. It insists there has to be a legal mechanism for securing that market into the future,” explained Yawitch.
But South Africa was not prepared to take on legally binding targets to reduce emissions, despite being ranked one of the world’s top 20 worst offenders. ”We want to focus on energy efficiency, sustainable development and strategies for adapting to the impacts of climate change. Developed countries promised certain reductions and the developing world is facing severe threats without them,” said Yawitch.
The South African chapter of the Climate Action Network, the lead NGO at the conference, pointed out that voluntary arrangements had not worked. It pushed for a ”Montreal mandate” setting out a clear way forward, and for emissions reductions by developed countries to increase from the present 5,2% to 30% in the post-2012 regime.
As it looked increasingly unlikely towards the end of the week that Wills’s ”gorilla” in the 3.9 negotiations would be tamed, Canada introduced a ”non-paper”. This involved informal discussions about drawing up a future agreement outside of the 3.9 negotiations.
Ministers from more than 190 countries were due to commit themselves to various undertakings by December 9. Wills predicted optimistically that they would include an accord on 3.9, some sort of broad agreement arising out of the ”non-paper” and penalties for countries who do not toe the line.