UNITED NATIONS
NATIONS UNIES

INTERGOVERNMENTAL NEGOTIATING COMMITTEE
FOR A FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE (INC/FCCC)

COMITÉ INTERGOUVERNEMENTAL DE NÉGOCIATION
D'UNE CONVENTION-CADRE SUR LES CHANGEMENTS CLIMATIQUES (CIN/CCCC)

The Climate Change Convention - Getting Down to Business

Geneva, August 1993 - Just over a year ago, global warming made headlines world-wide when 154 Governments at the Rio "Earth Summit" signed a major environmental treaty, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Today the fanfare has died down, but the nitty-gritty work of hammering out the practical details of making the treaty work will continue at next week's Eighth Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change (INC/FCCC). The meeting will be held here from 16-27 August.

"Government representatives engaged in a great deal of political and philosophical debate during the negotiations", says Raúl Estrada Oyuela, INC/FCCC Chairman and Plenipotentiary Minister, Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "But now, while we wait for the treaty to enter into force and then for the first session of the Conference of the Parties [the ratifying countries], they should turn their attention to scientific and financial groundrules."

Meanwhile, the process of ratifying the Climate Change Convention continues apace. Fifty countries must ratify the treaty for it to enter into force three months later and, as of mid- August, the number is 31. The 50th ratification is expected later this year or early in 1994. The first session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) will be held in Germany most likely early in 1995.

The expected participation of about 150 Governments in the upcoming session of the INC/FCCC reflects the keen world-wide interest in climate change. The participants will include some 500 government officials, diplomats, lawyers, scientists, and environmentalists, as well as representatives of non-governmental organisations.

Scheduled opening day speakers include Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP); Prof. G.O.P. Obasi, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO); Prof. Bert Bolin, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); Mohamed El-Ashry, Chairman of the Global Environment Facility (GEF); and Ambassador Lionel Hurst of Antigua and Barbuda, Vice Chairman of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.

"The aim of the meeting is not to discuss what to do about climate change," says Michael Zammit Cutajar, head of the Convention's Geneva-based Secretariat. "The Convention tells us what to do for years ahead. The real question now is how to do it, how to make the Convention work."

One of the most important tasks facing the meeting is to agree on arrangements by which ratifying governments can assess how treaty commitments are being fulfilled. Professor Bolin, who is from Sweden, will report to the meeting on the progress experts are making towards agreeing on "comparable methodologies" for establishing national "inventories" of greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks.

Technical experts from IPCC, which is the main source of scientific and technical advice to the treaty organisation, will give a demonstration of the proposed methodology for calculating emissions and removals. Such a methodology is critical because, without it, progress by countries towards limiting national greenhouse gas emissions cannot be measured and compared.

The Climate Convention sets the objective of stabilising the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But accounting for contributions to this objective is not simple. For example, take the issue of "joint implementation". If Country A decides that the cheapest, i.e. most cost- effective way, to fulfill its commitment to reduce CO2 emissions is to pay for emissions to be reduced in Country B through a joint project, which country, A or B, may claim credit for the reduction?

Another key topic concerns the funding committed by developed countries to help developing countries fulfil their commitments. The involvement of developing countries in mitigating climate change is essential because in the not too distant future their total greenhouse gas emissions will exceed those of today's developed countries (although per-capita emissions in the OECD countries will remain higher for the foreseeable future). Other funding priorities include the costs of preparing information for complying with the Convention, capacity building, and training and education.

Last March in Beijing a funding target of four billion dollars over three to five years was mentioned at a meeting of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which is the interim source of funds for the implementation of the Convention. But this sum would not be exclusively for the climate change treaty, since the GEF also funds projects and activities related to the biological diversity convention, international waters, and, on a more limited basis, protection of the ozone layer. While it is easier to find biodiversity projects to fund now, the largest part of GEF funding will probably be allocated to climate change activities.

Mr. Zammit Cutajar, who comes from Malta, says that the range of potential climate change projects is so vast that one cannot estimate the total cost of all that may be needed.

Several questions arise about how money should be spent. Are all developing countries to be helped, or is there a distinction to be made between rich and poor developing countries? What about the former socialist states with planned economies now in transition to market economies? Sea-level rise is one of the threats posed by global climate change, but does this mean that raising dikes or moving people from low-lying islands and coastal zones merits immediate financing under the treaty? Such questions will be discussed under the heading of "eligibility criteria", one of the key policy issues to be decided by the COP.

Between the upcoming August meeting and the COP's first session, additional meetings of the INC are scheduled in Geneva on 7-18 February 1994 and 22-31 August 1994, and in New York on 6-17 February 1995.