Kyoto: Power Shift in the Making

The jury is still out on whether or not the battle to develop a successor to the Kyoto Protocol by the end this year will create an effective tool to significantly reduce world greenhouse gas emissions. But there is little doubt that the process will have the unintended consequence of dramatically changing the relationship between rich and poor countries.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 40 industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by around 5 percent compared to 1990 levels, was ratified by 39 of those 40 countries (the US was the lone holdout). But 144 other nations ratified the agreement as well, all of them non-industrialized economies or economies in transition that under the terms of the Kyoto agreement were not required to do anything at all.

With the terms of Kyoto’s compliance period set to expire at the end of 2012, the process of creating a more ambitious and wide-reaching successor agreement has begun. The original 40 countries will take on much more ambitious targets, but the next agreement is also likely to contain some kind of obligation for countries outside that original group. Not surprisingly, the unfailing support the Kyoto Protocol enjoyed in the developing world has eroded as obligations appear likely to creep down the economic ladder.

Old arguments die hard

The two sides in the rich-poor debate both stick to well-developed arguments that have become the centerpiece of the post-Kyoto negotiation process:

• Rich countries argue that if only they take steps to reduce emissions the post-Kyoto agreement will be doomed to failure, as progress would be cancelled out by growing emissions in developing economies, especially large ones like China, India and Brazil. They argue for an agreement that requires action from all countries, or from none.

• Developing countries talk about the “historical responsibility” industrialized countries have, the notion that most of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere today were emitted by industrialized economies and that it is not fair for those countries to penalize poorer countries as they go through the same period fast growth that rich countries enjoyed with no restriction on emissions.

During the first 12 days of June, the UN held a new round of negotiations in Bonn. Some 4,300 delegates, observers and journalists were on hand as the process to start refining the text that will eventually become the post-2012 treaty.
 
UN rules require the first draft of any text approved at the year-end summit in Copenhagen - the UN’s target, in order to allow two years for the ratification process - be on the table at least six months before the end of those talks. That worked out to a 17 June deadline, and there was an unexpected flurry of activity as the deadline approached, with no fewer than five countries (Australia, Costa Rica, Japan, Tuvalu and the US) all submitting complete proposals for a post-Kyoto agreement that went beyond the drafts produced by the UN process.

The documents all built their proposals around a split effort in confronting climate change, focusing on both mitigating its effects by attempting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to its effects by investing in infrastructure.

It is not obvious, but that split is designed to get hesitant developing countries on board.

Developing countries are those least equipped to adapt to the effects of climate change without outside help. And while every proposal includes some mechanism to extend obligations to developing countries - the US plan, for example, requires developing countries to take binding steps to reduce emissions without mandating specific results for those steps, while the Japanese proposal links emissions reduction targets in the developing world to gross domestic product growth, thus defusing arguments that targets could be a drag on economic growth - they also include funding for adaptation measures designed to make participation more attractive to the poorer countries.

A six-month balancing act

Trouble is, adaptation measures carry a massive price tag. Most estimates place the cost of adaptation measures at around €100 billion ($139 billion) per year, a figure sure to increase as more countries sign onto the process. Amid the worldwide economic turmoil, voluntary contributions from rich countries will raise only a tiny fraction of that amount. And so a variety of proposed mechanisms are making the rounds: a fee tied to development projects in poor countries, for example, a tax on sea and air transport, or a levy against power generation in wealthy countries. But the central theme is clear: The ball is on the developing countries’ side of the court. Without the biggest developing countries on board, no post-2012 deal is possible. Rich countries have little leverage to force a deal. What will the developing countries ask for?

The six months until the Copenhagen summit (and some half dozen lower-level meetings in the interim) will answer that question. There’s a delicate balancing act in the works: If the final deal is struck and the obligations of the developing countries are too weak, or if the price that the developed world will have to pay to assure the participation of poorer countries is too high, then the post-Kyoto deal will be doomed to ineffectiveness or failure.

Regardless of the outcome, though, one legacy is likely to remain: After centuries of colonialism, exploitation and interventionism, the relationship between the richest countries on the planet and those striving to join them will have changed in some very important ways.