Climate Change @ Bonn: LDC group seeks new talk plan, adoption by 75% majority

New dimension has been added to the clamour for a better environmental change with a call by the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) of the world for the United Nations climate change talk to adopt a 75 per cent majority of any latest Protocol with a timeline.

This formed submission by LDC Group at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which holds in Bonn between 14 and 25, May 2012 at the Maritim Hotel.

LDCs are classified as the world’s poorest countries and in order to up persuade the UN climate change to talk more on how to reach their goal of having an effective and legally binding agreement ready for governments to adopt by 2015.

The LDC group chairman, Pa Ousman Jarju, the group’s spokesperson, Sandra Freitas, informed that the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) group’s formal submission to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, under which the talks take place, seeks the inclusion of some demands.

These demands encompass new legally binding agreement to take the form of a new protocol under the convention that builds on and enhances the commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

Addition to toe six points of demands are that parties should agree new rules to allow the adoption of the Protocol by a 75 per cent majority, not by consensus as under current rules; A final negotiating text should be ready a full year ahead of the 2015 deadline rather than the usual six months deadline that the UNFCCC imposes.

Further, the LDC group noted that this would raise the ambition of commitments to mitigate climate change before 2020 must be the top priority;  The new Protocol should have as a key objective, the full implementation of mitigation, adaptation and finance and capacity building among others; and Systems for monitoring, reporting and verifying finance and mitigation actions must not be weaker than but should build upon those that already exist in the Kyoto Protocol.

Pa Ousman Jarju pointed out that at the last year’s conference of parties to the convention in Durban, South Africa, it was agreed to complete negotiations by 2015, but such deadlines have been broken before.

“Our countries cannot wait. We are already feeling the effects of climate change, but the time has come for us to be leaders in the international effort to address this global challenge,” he said.

Equally, he said, the creation of a new body to negotiate a second protocol under the Convention represents an overdue acknowledgement by all Parties that the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol alone are insufficient to drive action consistent with the ultimate objective of the Convention.

“Urgent action is needed by all Parties to prevent dangerous interference with the climate system, and in particular to stay below 2°C and keep open the possibility of limiting warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial in the long-term as called for by the most vulnerable countries,” he said.

According to the group, as negotiators gather in Bonn for the latest round of talks this week, the LDC group also proposes changes to the way the negotiations work to make them faster and fairer.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that to ensure that all issues could be dealt with, the group says the number and duration of future negotiation sessions must be agreed in Bonn, along with a timetable to discuss particular issues.

The group further says parties should consider electing officers to the bureau that will run the talks for more than the usual two year period, to ensure continuity and that the size of the bureau should perhaps be expanded given the urgency of its task and that wide range of topics it must work on.

Pa Ousman Jarju emphasised that the LDC group comes to the Bonn climate change talks with a strong set of recommendations, stressing “In the spirit of international cooperation and with our desire to see the UN climate change convention meet its objective, we urge other parties to join our call for these improvements to the negotiating process and its final goals.”

 

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