6Smith School of Enterprise and the EnvironmentSmith

EnvironmentSmith School of Enterprise and the Environment7The International Climate Change NegotiationsChapter 2: The International Climate Change NegotiationsHistory of the NegotiationsTo understand the implications of the outcomes from Cancun, it is necessary to put the conference and what it was intended to achieve in perspective.The problem of climate change was brought to light at an international level by the first IPCC Assessment Report in 1990 which highlighted the issue as a subject in need of a political platform. The IPCC was created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations Environment Program to provide a review of the consensus scientific view on the subject.The findings of the IPCC spurred the beginning of the climate change negotiations in 1991 which have since developed in essentially three stages. Initially, climate negotiations acted to establish a framework of governance. This took the form of the UNFCCC which was adopted in 1992 and entered into force two years later. Following this, negotiations proceeded to set up the Kyoto Protocol; this began in 1995, in 1997 the Kyoto Protocol was adopted, and the stage concluded in 2001 when the detailed rules for the Protocol's implementation were finalised in Marrakesh at the seventh COP. The Kyoto Protocol set up emissions reduction targets for 37 developed countries and the European community, this group of countries being referred to under the Kyoto Protocol as Annex B countries (Annex I under the FCCC). The individual emissions targets were intended to reduce emissions by developed countries by 5 per cent against the 1990 levels over the 5-year period of 2008-2012. No targets were set for developing countries. In addition, the Kyoto Protocol established market-based mechanisms to help countries reach their targets in a cost-effective way. The major instruments are the Emissions Trading Schemes (ETS), inspired by the success of the SO2 trading schemes in the US at reducing acid rain; the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM); and Joint Implementation (JI) [3]. Currently the negotiations are in the third stage: the formation of policy for the post-2012 period when the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period ends. These negotiations have proceeded along two tracks. The first track, known as the Ad hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP), is intended to negotiate improvements in the Kyoto Protocol and a second set of emissions targets. This track covers only the developed countries signed up to the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (not the US). The second track was launched by the Bali Action Plan to work on an 'agreed outcome' under the UNFCCC and is known as the Ad hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA). This includes negotiations on mitigation actions for developed countries, nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) by developing countries, financial arrangements, adaptation, technology transfer and a system for monitoring, reporting and verification. There has been much debate about the form of the agreement for the post-2012 period, principally, whether or not it should take the form of a single Chapter 2