Durban: Climate Change - Results And Implications

On 11 December 2011 in Durban the first global agreement in principle to climate change emissions reductions by 194 countries was announced. Whilst this agreement is, a stepping stone (it is an agreement to subsequently agree "a legally binding" agreement), there should be no mistaking a simple but powerful fact; all countries, developed and developing alike, have agreed a road map to a binding agreement on how to tackle the emission of greenhouse gases ("GHGs"). The key aspects and the implications are set out below.

The foundations of the talks

In 1992 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) was established to cooperatively consider measures to limit average global temperature increases and resulting climate change. This was followed by the Kyoto Protocol (in force on 16 February 2005), which set binding GHG emissions targets for 38 developed nations (amounting to an average of a five per cent reduction against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012). While the UNFCC encouraged developed countries to stabilise GHG emissions, the Kyoto Protocol committed 38 of them to do so. However, reductions targets for developing countries under the Kyoto Protocol are voluntary. This created a central controversy with very significant developed countries refusing to sign up to binding reduction levels.

The Kyoto Protocol is due to expire next year. Given the major changes required to achieve limits on global temperature increase, the Durban conference was seen as a crucial step in engaging Governments to arrive at a legal mechanism to avoid dangerous climate change.

The results

There were 3 major developments arising from the talks.

Global agreement on a roadmap to achieve a legally binding deal on GHG reductions. A global process has been agreed to develop "a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force" under the UNFCC applicable to all parties, through a body known as the "Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action". Work is to start as a matter of urgency in the first half of 2012. It is envisaged that the work shall be completed by no later than 2015 in order for the protocol, legal instrument or legal outcome to come into legal effect and be implemented from 2020.

In the meantime the Ad Hoc Working Group shall also work on climate change related mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology (development and transfer), transparency of action, and support and...