Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 13 • Number 43 • 16th December 2009

Copenhagen Update: Draft Climate Texts Move toward Final Decision

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In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, the chair of the ad-hoc working group for long-term cooperative action (LCA) gavelled a decision to conclude work on texts that are a basis for a new global accord on climate change, which parties have been negotiating over the last two years. The texts will now be considered, refined, and eventually adopted by the Conference of the Parties (COP) at the Copenhagen climate talks.

This is the official process by which this year’s negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change advance towards their grand finale at the end of this week: a political agreement on enhanced cooperative action on climate change.

The process was intended, initially, to generate a new international agreement to address climate change - an outcome that island states and many least developed countries had been strongly urging. But two weeks of intense negotiations have revealed what many expected: that the countries of the world cannot agree on how to proceed.

At this point, both the Kyoto Protocol and the LCA negotiating tracks have concluded their initial phases of work. The Parties will now consider how to proceed and may return the heavily bracketed texts to negotiators with some instructions on how to continue cleaning them up.

Although there are few paragraphs without brackets in the latest draft texts that are now under consideration, it is possible to give a quick rundown of the state-of-play of the trade-related aspects of the text. That said, the final outcome of the Copenhagen talks of course remains uncertain.

Trade issues in the latest draft texts

The chair of the LCA group has prepared a conclusion to the work of the group that indicates that the COP should decide on a set of ‘draft decision documents’. Each of those documents relates to a separate section of the Bali Action Plan, the roadmap for the negotiations that officials agreed two years ago.

On adaptation, the text includes bracketed proposal for the establishment of a Copenhagen Adaptation Framework (or Programme). It also includes language on building economic resilience in developing countries. To this end, trade is expected to play a role insofar as it can strengthen export and supply-side capacity in developing countries. The language on increased financial, technology and capacity building support for adaptation also presents significant synergies with national and international efforts to strengthen trade capacity, such as through the WTO’s Aid for Trade initiative and the Enhanced Integrated Framework for Least Developed Countries.

The draft conclusions on technology development and transfer envisage the establishment of a ‘Technology Mechanism’ with an executive committee and a climate technology centre. Notably, this proposal is not in brackets, meaning that no delegation has opposed it. The mechanism would support a list of activities; only one of those activities remains in brackets: the removal of barriers to technology development and transfer and enhancing means to promote technology transfer. The text on technology further proposes the establishment or strengthening of technology centres and networks, an initiative that would aim to help developing countries make use of new low-carbon technologies, while strengthening their ability to develop their own.

Notably, a section on intellectual property rights (IPRs), which is still in brackets, would create a global pool for IPRs on climate-related technologies, promote the removal of barriers to technology development and transfer, and possibly revoke IPR protection in developing and least developed countries. The technology text includes language that would continue deliberation on the issues under consideration, with a view to having a decision finalised next year.

The negotiations on cooperative sectoral approaches have led to an agriculture-focused text that emphasises the relationship between climate change and food security and that recognises the interests of small and marginal farmers and indigenous peoples. The text also places an emphasis on the importance of traditional knowledge and calls for the establishment of a special work programme on the topic. In brackets, the text stresses that international action in this sector should not lead to disguised restrictions of international trade.

The text on the potential economic and social consequences of response measures taken in response to climate change now includes three options on how to address the question of border carbon measures. The first option is strong language prohibiting their use. The second is simple language referring to the principles of the climate convention.

The third option - considered the compromise alternative - emphasises the specific language in the Convention so as to create a level of comfort for countries concerned with unilateral measures that the United States is contemplating in their national legislation. Finally, this text also includes a bracketed paragraph that would establish a forum with an array of functions, including identifying and evaluating the effects of response measures, both positive and negative. The power and extent of this forum has yet to be defined, but has been the subject of much debate in the negotiations.

Heads of state and government are gave speeches throughout the day on Wednesday and those who showed up will all likely participate in the closing of this year’s COP on Friday. Notably, the level of security and size of national delegations is so high that the participation of observer organisations has been restricted to just 90 people (out of 15,000) during Friday’s closing event. This new development has led many organisations to criticise the unusual lack of transparency and democratic process exercised this year. A number of heads of state have cancelled their participation, while others have already given their statements today.

Rumour has it that the elephant in the room, whose president has already confirmed his participation, may not actually show up on the 18th as expected. To officials in Copenhagen, this wavering on the part of the United States speaks volumes about the level of commitment and the strength of the Copenhagen outcome.

ICTSD will report on 21 December on the advances on trade issues and final outcome, as well as the perspective on the future, as it is accepted that negotiations on many details will continue past Copenhagen towards the 16th COP, which will be held in Mexico next December.

ICTSD reporting.