guest post by Dr. Meine van Noordwijk, World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Bogor, Indonesia.
The 15th Conference of Parties (COP) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) last month in Copenhagen did not meet the expectations of the vast majority of participants and of the rest of the world who avoided the cold weather and followed the discussions remotely. The ‘Copenhagen Accord’ hardly goes beyond the Bali Roadmap of two years ago. It indicates a target for Globally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (GAMA), aiming to keep the human-made global temperature increase below the 2
oC that may be manageable, while stronger warming can lead to uncontrollable further changes. But if all countries are listing their Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA), it probably does not add up to GAMA. Substantial further negotiations will be needed.
[caption id="attachment_1549" align="aligncenter" width="504" caption="Meine van Noordwijk presenting in Copenhagen. Photo by IISD."]
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There is no agreed set of principles of fairness and efficiency on how to do it: past emission records were the basis for claimed ‘emission permits’ under the Kyoto Protocol with proportionate emission reduction targets for industrialized countries, but the voice for more equal per capita emission rights and/or linkage between emissions and national economic performance (C efficiency) is getting stronger. The Kyoto Protocol has led to an outsourcing of dirty industries to countries without commitments to reduce their emissions, defying global emission reduction. Similar ‘leakage’ occurs when fossil fuel is substituted by biofuel with the emissions caused by biofuel production outside of the accounting scheme. The global economy is simply too well connected for selective policies on emission reductions to work; there have to be globally applicable policies.
