Day Two and it really felt like we were getting into the 'nitty-gritty'. Goodbye to the cavernous plenary halls and hello to the smaller Contact Group meetings. 

Negotiating process insight

Late afternoon I sat down in a side hall to observe the Contact Group on Potential Consequences under the Kyoto Protocol... Here’s the link to the English version of the text the delegates are revising in this contact group http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/awg10/eng/12r02.pdf. 

So what actually goes on at 'international negotiations'? 

At this stage delegates are amending and trying to agree on revisions to the "revised negotiating text" (RNT) and different Contact Groups have been established at previous inter-sessional meetings (meetings between annual COPs of which there have been 6 this year) to address different parts of the RNT. If you open the link above you'll see lots of 'bracketed text' which delegates have yet to agree. 

During the session, two delegates representing two important blocs of countries, spent about 45 minutes debating the merits of using the phrase "striving to minimize" versus the word "minimizing"; and then the chair decided to leave both options for another read-through and we moved onto the next line... It gives you a sense of the scale of the problem!

French targets

Word in the corridors is that the French are to commit to a 30% mitigation target, with 100% of the target being met with domestic mitigation actions. No reliance on foreign offsetting means real emissions reductions. If true it’s an important step forward in achieving real reductions. This is unconfirmed as yet, so we'll just have to wait and see (anyone want to lobby the French delegation?). 

EU fudge

Bad news from the corridors is that the EU is apparently trying to hide the scale of future LULUCF* emissions increases (from loss of forestry) by fudging the baselines from which those emissions reductions are measured. In a bizarre and unique accounting method they’re proposing to measure reductions against future projected emissions and not against 1990 levels as is the standard. 

Obama’s authority

And finally, hot off the presses (I've just left the room!) The Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute released a report today demonstrating that President Obama has clear legal authority to commit the United States to reducing greenhouse gas pollution. The report, titled Yes, He Can: President Obama’s Power to Make an International Climate Commitment Without Waiting for Congress, concludes that the President need not wait for Congress to act before taking strong action to reduce U.S. emissions. Read it and weep US Senate!! 

You can read it here. 

Now all we need is for President Obama to show the moral and political courage the Americans (and, dare I say it, the world) asked for when choosing him as their leader. Fingers crossed...

Kim Coetzee for Green Energy Republic

*LULUCF stands for Land use, land-use change and forestry, includes for e.g. conversion of forest into agricultural land - the loss of a sink and the substitution thereof with a CO2 source. 

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