My hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment and I will attend the 13th meeting of the Parties (COP13) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bali, Indonesia this week. Our aim for the meeting is the launch of negotiations leading—by the end of 2009—to a comprehensive global agreement to tackle climate change. This is an ambitious objective, and success is not guaranteed.
The recent fourth assessment report from the panel on climate change (IPCC) has made clear the role of humans in climate change and the impact on food production, sea level rise, human health, biodiversity and on our economies if we do not take urgent and sustained action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is very important that we achieve an international agreement which can build on existing commitments and is agreed in time to follow the first commitment phase of the Kyoto protocol, which ends in 2012.
I welcome the recent call by the Corporate Leaders’ Group, representing over 90 companies, for a launch of negotiations and for an enhanced and extended carbon market. At Bali we need to agree that all parties will take part in a comprehensive, twin-tracked negotiation to be completed at the Copenhagen climate change conference at the end of 2009. This will require a detailed work programme and interim milestones to review progress.
The two tracks relate to the Framework Convention and the Kyoto protocol. Under the convention, parties have already been discussing in a non-negotiating forum how to improve its implementation. The focus has been on technology, market instruments, adaptation and sustainable development and we need to build on these discussions in formal negotiations.
The second track relates to the ongoing negotiations under the Kyoto protocol, where developed countries which have ratified have been considering new targets for the second commitment phase which is due to start in 2013. This needs to continue in tandem with the planned 2008 review of the protocol.
We believe that the negotiations we will seek to launch in Bali will need to be guided by four main principles: recognition of the scale of the challenge, effectiveness, fairness and a comprehensive scope.
The first principle on recognising the scale of the challenge is the need for the negotiations to be guided by the aim of limiting the global average temperature increase to not more than 20C above pre-industrial levels, and agreeing a goal of reducing global emissions to at least 50 per cent. below 1990 levels by 2050.
The second principle is that the agreement must be effective. This means it must involve all countries with significant emissions; and the commitments made must be measurable. An effective agreement also requires development of a truly global carbon market. We know that putting a price on carbon is essential to provide the incentive for the private sector to invest in energy efficiency and clean energy sources. We need to expand and evolve market mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism to move us toward a global carbon market. At Bali we will be pressing for improvements to implementation of the current mechanisms.
The third principle is fairness. The commitments made by different countries must be based on the UN principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”. Developed countries must continue to take the lead by adopting deeper targets. The larger developing countries will also need to adopt new and flexible types of commitments which do not have the effect of putting a brake on their development. These commitments will need to vary between countries depending on their different stages of economic development and they will change over time as countries grow. We do not foresee any developing country taking on absolute emissions reductions in the next commitment period but action by developing countries should nevertheless be measurable and verifiable. Negotiations on these commitments should form the basis of the discussions under the convention talks.
Fairness also demands that the rich countries support developing countries in making this transition. We need to facilitate the transfer of technology and in Bali we will be aiming to launch a new body to progress a long-term and enhanced technology transfer framework feeding into a post-2012 agreement. Through the Clean Development Mechanism, the carbon market already provides significant flows of finance to developing countries; they could be much larger in the future. And we are also prepared to do more to offer support. The Clean Energy Investment Framework of the World Bank and regional development banks is intended to catalyse private sector investment in low carbon energy, energy efficiency and adaptation to climate change.
The Government have already pledged £800 million through our Environmental Transformation Fund over the next three years for these aims, and we now want other donor countries to join us in making this a major fund that can assist developing countries in tackling the challenges of climate change.
Fourth, a post-2012 agreement must be comprehensive. As well as emissions from energy it must address those from land use, especially from deforestation. Major progress in reducing deforestation rates has already been made, in Brazil, Indonesia and elsewhere. If we are to help reduce emissions from deforestation, the international community must make it economically worthwhile for local people to benefit from sustainable forest management rather than through logging and forest clearance. In Bali we are aiming to agree a framework for voluntary participation by developing countries in a scheme to provide positive incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation, including a set of indicative national baselines with long-term responsibility for stocks.
We also want to see positive support for pilot schemes, to help build links to activities by other organisations and stakeholders, including the World Bank proposal for a Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. We need to link the deforestation negotiations into the broader negotiations on a post-2012 agreement. For any agreement to be comprehensive, it should also cover the growing emissions from aviation and shipping.
And last, but very importantly, we need to accept that climate change is already happening and some future impacts are inevitable. All countries need to put in place measures now that will increase resilience to the effects of climate change. It is the poorest countries that are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. At Bali we will be seeking to agree governance arrangements for a planned Adaptation Fund so that it can start work, as well as to agree to develop a new Framework for Action on Adaptation which provides a structure for stakeholder engagement and funding.
While the UNFCCC is the primary body for international consensus on a new agreement, we need to recognise the valuable work taking place in informal discussions and negotiations such as the G8, Gleneagles Dialogue and US Major Economies Meeting. The results from these informal processes should be fed into the convention negotiations.
Success in achieving these aims at Bali is indeed an ambitious goal. But it is one that all those attending from the UK will do their best to achieve.