ADP 2015 - It's A Failure.

Well I certainly have failed. Over this past week I have been busy fighting off some sort of viral infection. The only symptoms of this has been a slight fever, fatigue and the sort of mental fuzziness that prevented me from following the negotiations in anywhere near the required level of detail.

However with the negotiations entering their final hours without a streamlined negotiating text having been completed I feel I should re-state a point I tried to make very badly on Wednesday (11/2/15);

Although delegates are trying to draw up a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol they are not trying to draw up another Kyoto Protocol.

Although it did end up having a second commitment period tacked onto it in order to stop the entire process grinding to a halt the Kyoto Protocol was only intended to last between 4 and 8 years depending on when individual parties ratified it. As a result all the detail of how nations were classified, what they intended to do, how they intended to do it and what sources of finance they would be using/making available had to be laid out in the agreement itself.

The replacement to Kyoto though is much more ambitious intended to last until the end of the 21st century. However within that 80 year time frame there will be multiple commitment periods lasting between 5 and 10 years (10 years seems the most appropriate). When each of these 8/16 commitment periods are negotiated individual things will be different. Nations which are now considered poor will have become richer and nations that are now rich may well have become poorer. Technology may well have developed so things that are unworkable now become not only viable but also cost effective. Governments that are currently opposed to action on climate change will fall and be replaced by ones that are more open to taking action. And yes as time passes the urgency to take action will become greater.

Therefore rather then focusing all their energies on drawing up an agreement that sets everything in stone for the rest of the century I think it would be in everybodies best interest the draw up a loose framework that will set rules for how the future commitment periods will be negotiated. After all immediately after negotiations on the text itself are finished negotiations over the first commitment period must begin and the process is already falling behind schedule.

11:30 on 13/2/15 (UK date).