By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Dec 1 2004 (IPS)

Unlike its lacklustre predecessors, the conference of the parties to the Climate Change Convention, to be held this month in Argentina, is expected to produce heated debates and significant advances, largely because of Russia’s recent ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, but also due to a new format.

Because of the Nov. 18 formal ratification by Russia, the treaty – the first legally binding instrument for curbing greenhouse gas emissions – will go into effect in February.

That means that within two months, developing countries will begin to receive proposals from companies and governments to develop projects for reducing emissions, as part of the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) created to allow industrialised countries to offset excess emissions by purchasing “decarbonisation services” from developing nations.

Ten years after the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (known as the Climate Change Convention or UNFCCC) went into effect, delegates from 188 countries will meet Dec. 6-17 in the Argentine capital to assess compliance with the commitments assumed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to discuss proposals for adapting to global warming.

(Carbon dioxide generated by the burning of fossil fuels is the main greenhouse gas. These emissions trap heat in the atmosphere, leading to global warming.)

Parallel to the meeting, which is the Tenth Session of the Conference of Parties (COP-10) to be attended by more than 4,000 delegates, around 700 environmental organisations will hold their own forum to debate the impact of climate change on local communities, and present suggestions for actions to adapt to the phenomenon.

Enciso, who is one of the coordinators of the NGO forum, also said projects would be presented that could be financed by the mechanisms created by that treaty.

Other major tasks to be tackled by the delegates at the official conference include the creation of a list of the potential impacts of global warming on developing countries, which would outline the main vulnerabilities and commit funds to help these countries adapt.

In addition, the countries face a major challenge: how to get the United States, the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gases, to commit itself to cutting emissions, even though the government of President George W. Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.

“They remain part of the negotiations, but we must somehow get them to take action,” Raúl Estrada, director of environmental affairs in Argentina’s Foreign Ministry, and the head of this South American country’s COP-10 delegation, told IPS.

Estrada has played a leading role in the international negotiations on climate change. He presided over the committee that drafted the Kyoto Protocol, and is in charge of organising the coming COP-10 gathering.

The Buenos Aires conference will follow a new format, to avoid what Estrada describes as a dry series of speeches by environment ministers from around the world.

The ministers will be separated into four panel discussions, where they will give brief presentations and debate among themselves and with representatives of NGOs. All of the regions will be represented on each panel.

Since COP-10 is being held on the 10th anniversary since the Climate Change Convention went into effect, the first panel will assess progress and setbacks in terms of living up to the targets for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

According to a report by the International Energy Agency, the commitments have been met overall, but the efforts of individual countries have been highly uneven.

Former socialist countries in transition to market economies also saw their production plunge, which contributed to a reduction in emissions, while the emissions of other countries, like Spain and the United States, actually increased.

Another panel will discuss adaptation to climate change, which for the first time will be the central focus of a conference of the parties.

Up to now, the members of the Group of Eight most powerful countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – had been reluctant to discuss the question of adaptation, on the argument that it was not a problem that applied to all countries, but to specific local areas.

But according to a widely ignored article in the Climate Change Convention, industrialised countries “shall also assist the developing country parties that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting costs of adaptation to those adverse effects.”

“The idea is to outline an agenda containing the issues of concern to each region, and secure commitments for the financing of projects,” said Estrada, who added that those interested in providing funding are reluctant to do so, “until we mark out a rational route” for the use of such funds.

That would involve creating mathematical models on a regional and local scale to indicate which areas would be critically affected in the case of a rise in temperatures, and establishing priorities based on the gravity of the impacts of climate change.

Some countries will present projects to build barriers against rising sea levels or the flooding of rivers. Others will determine which crops will adapt better to climate change, and yet others will design prevention measures for confronting tropical storms, which according to predictions will become more frequent.

Estrada fears that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) nations will boycott the agenda on this point. Oil-producing nations are demanding that the adaptation programmes include measures aimed at helping them diversify their economies, to make them less dependent on oil exports.

But donors refuse to increase funding that will go to countries that already receive major revenue flows from oil sales and that will in the future supply huge fast-growing markets like India and China.

The other two panels will discuss technology transfer, and the impacts of climate change as well as the mitigating measures adopted so far.

Estrada noted that Washington will send the COP-10 a delegation of more than 100 officials and advisers, which he said refutes the claim that the United States, which ratified the UNFCCC, has turned its back on the climate change debate.

Washington is developing projects to capture carbon dioxide, said Estrada, who also underlined that although the United States accounts for 25 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, there are cities and states in that country that have reduced their emissions.

“The United States abandoned all restraints prematurely because of lobbying. Now we have to come up with some other way to bring it back on board,” perhaps an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol, said the Argentine expert, who argued that “no country in its right mind can imagine reducing global emissions without the (participation of the) United States.”

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