CSE condemns efforts to kill Kyoto Protocol at Bangkok climate meet

Bangkok climate meet ends in despair.
Is it the end of Kyoto process?


Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) attends Bangkok Climate Change Talks and sees the developed (Annex I) nations working overtime to kill the Kyoto Protocol

Condemns these efforts to junk the Protocol in favour of a new deal just to accommodate the US; EU emerges the new deal-breaker

CSE raises the specter of failure of the Copenhagen CoP in December




New Delhi, October 12, 2009: The 15th Conference of Parties scheduled to be held in Copenhagen from December 7 might fizzle out, going by the results of the recently concluded Bangkok climate meet – says Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). CSE’s climate team attended and closely followed the Bangkok deliberations which, it says, have left most problems unresolved.


“Bangkok was supposed to be a major milestone in the run-up to Copenhagen, but at the end of it, existing problems have remained. What’s worse, new ones have emerged,” says Kushal P S Yadav, head of CSE’s climate team.


The Bangkok Climate Change Talks were held from September 28 till October 9, and revolved around the ninth session of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the seventh session of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action.


Killing the Kyoto process
What became clear at Bangkok was that the Kyoto Protocol is being slowly driven to its death, with almost all the Annex I countries turning away from it. The negotiations in the AWG-KP have not made any progress as no country is ready to commit to the second phase reduction targets.


With the US not ratifying the Protocol, nor making any legal commitment to reduce emissions, comparability of reduction efforts for the Annex I countries became a major issue in Bangkok. Japan had already expressed its dissatisfaction with the Kyoto Protocol, and the European Union (EU) has now started rooting for a new legal instrument to replace it.


Following the US model, other developed countries have begun moving away from internationally binding emissions reduction targets towards having domestic legislations and targets which can eventually be enshrined into a new treaty. Says Yadav: “This is nothing but slow dismantling of an internationally binding agreement. National targets cannot be treated at the same level as commitments made under the Kyoto Protocol. This is evident from the current commitments made by a few developed countries and blocks, which remain well below the levels which science says are required.”