RIP: The Fight Against Climate Change 1992 - 2015.

In 1992 World leaders gathered in Rio de Janerio, Brazil for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).

This resulted in the formation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Parties to this convention agreed to meet annually for what became known as the Conference of Parties (COP).

At the third Conference of Parties (COP3) in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 a protocol was adopted that would see 36 nations cut their Green House Gas (GHG) emissions in an effort to stop man-made global warming. The "Kyoto Protocol" as it became known entered into force in 2005 and expired in 2012.

Since the 17th Conference of Parties (COP17) in Durban, South Africa in 2011 the UNFCCC has been working to draw up a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol. This task has been undertaken by a entity known as the "Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP).

The intention was for that new agreement to be signed at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) which is currently taking place in Paris, France.

As of June 2015 the ADP was on schedule to complete that task. Although there was always going to be work to be done at COP21 the ADP had produced the outline text of a workable agreement.

That agreement got nations to acknowledge the need to take action on climate change and established a mechanism for the three main areas of climate change action - mitigation, adaptation and loss & damage - to be addressed through what are termed "Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC's).

It then established a mechanism in which the INDC's would be peer reviewed to build capacity amongst parties while allowing questions of adequacy, fairness, ambition and finance to be addressed.

Finally it established a mechanism in which parties would be given assistance to implement their INDC's a punish those parties who refused to stick to their self-imposed commitments.

Then in October 2015 the American Co-Chair of the ADP - Daniel Reifsnyder - must have realised that there was far too great a risk of this becoming a success. 

So he ripped up the existing draft and replaced it with an entirely new one that represents a great step backwards from the Kyoto Protocol that rather then the enhancement that was promised.

Of this new agreements 26 Articles - rather then Chapters or Sections - a full 15 of them relate to procedural matters. 

While these do need to be addressed and included in any agreement I don't think the question of whether the original copy is stored with the UN Secretary General at the UN HQ in New York, US or at the UNFCCC HQ in Bonn, Germany is going to make much material difference to global temperatures.

Of the 11 remaining Articles that actually deal with matters relating to climate change they are so brief as to be meaningless. 

For example the Article 5 relating to Loss & Damage is just 304 words long. That is of course provided they don't adopt the second option which is to make no reference to the issue at all. Once you eliminate the options Article 5 dealing with the vital issue of Technology transfer comes out at a similarly scrawny 300 words covering just 4 paragraphs.

On the core issues of Mitigation and Adaptation the October draft just makes some vague reference to parties needing to communicate what action they intend to take. However it does not set any targets for what that action should nor establish a common mechanism for those communications to allow them to be compared to one another.

With no common mechanism for these communications it has become impossible to establish a further mechanism that allow nations to build capacity, seek support or co-operate to increase ambition.

It has also become impossible to establish a mechanism to assist nations to implement their self-imposed commitments and punish those who refuse to do so.

By far the worst element of the October draft is that while it establishes a minimum 10 year life-span it places no upper time limit at which it will expire so can be replaced by a functioning agreement.

Therefore if signed this will allow politicians - particularly US President Obama - to announce that the problem has been solved so there is no need to discuss climate change ever again. 

Meanwhile GHG emissions will continue to rise, temperatures will continue to rise and the negative effects of climate change will continue to worsen.

In short it will be the death knell to the fight against climate change.

As a result if at 20:00 (GMT) tonight the ADP present the October draft to the High Level Segment of COP21 I will have no choice other then to conclude that the ADP has failed to present a draft.

The High Level  Segment will then have to be postponed until such a time as the ADP resumes and then completes its work.

18:10 on 3/12/15 (UK date).