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Apart from the much-debated question of what legal form the 2015 climate agreement is supposed to have, another core issue is the substantive content of countries' commitments. While the climate regime has so far mostly been based on emission targets, literature has identified a broad range of other possible types of mitigation commitments, such as technology targets, emission price commitments, or commitments to specific policies and measures (PAMs). The nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) submitted by developing countries under the Cancún Agreements also show a broad range of different forms of participation. This article surveys the possible commitment types that have so far been discussed in literature and in the UNFCCC negotiations and assesses their respective advantages and disadvantages against a set of criteria: environmental effectiveness, cost effectiveness, distributional aspects and institutional feasibility. The article finds that no commitment option provides a silver bullet. All options have several advantages but also disadvantages. The environmentally most effective way forward may lie in pursuing a multi-dimensional approach, combining emission targets with other commitment types to compensate for the drawbacks of the emission-based approach. However, such an approach would also increase complexity, both in terms of the negotiations and in terms of implementation and administration.
Global climate
(2013)
The eighteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 18) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the ninth Conference of Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 8) came to a close in the evening of 8 December 2012. This report lays out the main developments in Doha and assesses the main outcomes. The first chapter outlines the overall situation coming into Doha. The subsequent chapters cover the negotiations on the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the discussions under the Durban Platform on developing a new comprehensive climate agreement by 2015 and increasing short-term ambition, and further near-term action under the UNFCCC.
Die Suche nach einem Ausweg aus den festgefahrenen Klima- verhandlungen ist derzeit eine der wichtigsten Aufgaben der internationalen Politik. Franz Josef Radermacher (2013) versucht, so einen Weg aus dem Politikstau aufzuzeigen: In verstärktem Ausmaß sollten Privatakteure eingebunden werden und Klimaschutzmaßnahmen finanzieren, weil die internationale Staatengemeinschaft bisher daran gescheitert sei, ein Folgeabkommen für das Kyoto-Protokoll abzuschließen. Von der Staatengemeinschaft verlangt Radermacher nur noch, überhaupt irgendein Abkommen zuwege zu bringen, das die globalen Emissionen zumindest einigermaßen deckelt. Weitere Emissionsreduktionen, die "Verhandlungslücke", sollen Unternehmen und Privatpersonen übernehmen, indem sie freiwillig Emissionszertifikate im Umfang von mehreren hundert Milliarden Tonnen CO2 kaufen und stilllegen. Darüber hinaus sollen weitere 150 Milliarden Tonnen CO2 über Aufforstungsprojekte aus der Atmosphäre herausgeholt werden (Sequestrierung).
The Durban Climate Conference agreed on the creation of a new market-based mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and to consider the establishment of an overall framework for various mitigation approaches, including opportunities for using markets ("Framework"). The creation of such a Framework is therefore of high political significance, as it should ensure on the one hand that new market-based mechanisms contribute to global climate change mitigation and to achievement of targets, and on the other hand, that different market-based approaches can be integrated in a global carbon market. As yet, there is little clarity as to the roles and design of such a framework. This paper contributes to the debate by discussing and evaluating inter alia several design options, and explores how the various options could be implemented and how they interrelate. It concludes that a strong central oversight at the level of the UNFCCC is probably the only option that could reassure the vast majority of UNFCCC Parties that the environmental integrity of new market-based mechanisms is in fact ensured. This does, however, not exclude that some reasonable balance may be struck between centralization and flexibility.
Global climate
(2013)
This report lays out the major developments in Durban and assesses the main outcomes. It is structured along the Bali roadmap for a future climate agreement that was agreed at the Bali climate conference in 2007. The Bali roadmap comprises negotiations under two tracks. First, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments by Annex I Countries under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP), established at the conference in Montreal in 2005, has been negotiating future emission targets for developed countries (listed in Annex I of the United Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and hence called Annex I countries). As the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period expires in 2012, the AWG-KP is to agree on new targets for a second commitment period post-2012 as well as associated rules for accounting emissions. Second, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) has also been negotiating commitments for Annex I countries, intending to cover those that have not ratified the Protocol - that is, the USA. In addition, the LCA negotiates "Nationally appropriate mitigation actions" of developing countries, which are to be supported by Annex I countries with technology, financing and capacity-building. Both the actions and the support are to be "measurable, reportable and verifiable". The LCA also negotiates how such support for developing countries' mitigation actions may be delivered as well as how developing countries may be supported in adapting to the impacts of climate change.