It appears that the climate is changing more rapidly than predicted in the most recent assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Climate negotiations, on the other hand, have been moving at a snail's pace. The disjuncture between the urgency of action and the willingness of countries around the world to act seriously is widening.

The climate is changing faster than forecast in the IPCC's fourth assessment, published in 2007. Actual increases in emissions, temperature and sea levels are at the top of the range in IPCC scenarios. Literature published in the last two years has identified several specific cases of higher risk, even since the IPCC's last report, including those on food production.

Observed warming and sea-level rise are at the upper end of the expected range. There is growing risk of ice sheet disintegration or rapid decay with increasing warming. Warming is bringing the climate system closer to tipping points, and projected unmitigated warming this century would probably trigger tipping points. And yet global fossil fuel emissions trends are higher than expected – higher than the upper edge of the envelope of IPCC projections.

There is much talk about climate, but few big investors are walking the talk. Coal-intensive developments are continuing, including in our country, in China and across the world. Higher oil prices make alternatives to petroleum products more attractive – not only biofuels, but also Sasol's highly emissions-intensive coal-to-liquid synfuels. Unless policies shift dramatically, emissions will continue to grow rapidly. In short, time is running out.

To avoid even more severe impacts and keep temperature increases below 2 ºC, global emissions need to peak by 2015. Next year is, perhaps, the last chance to get serious negotiations going – indeed, they need to start next month.

The United Nations climate change negotiations will be held from December 1 to 12, in Poznań, Poland. This will be the fourteenth conference of the parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and the fourth under its Kyoto Protocol. That gives some sense of how long multilateral negotiations have taken.

In Bali, last year, the countries of the world agreed to negotiate the future of the climate deal by 2009. Poznań will be half of the time spent – and needs to show countries seriously gearing up for negotiations. While the agenda says much about a 'shared vision', progress will have to be substantial in selected areas and make big strides towards the major elements:

•Adaptation has long been the stepchild of the climate negotiations. It is about dealing with the actual impacts – from increased levels of malaria, and water scarcity to sea level rise. Poznań will need to show real progress in this area, in particular, scaling up funding for adaptation, and moving beyond plans to implementation.

•Mitigation, that is, the reduction of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, is one of the areas in which big strides should be made. Globally, GHG emissions must at least halve relative to 1990 levels, in order to have even a half chance of limiting temperature increase to below 2 °C. But the heart of the negotiation is about sharing the burden of mitigation – and its costs.

The science indicates that developed countries must take on absolute reductions of 25% to 40% by 2020, and 80% to 95% by 2050. Even the European Union, priding itself on leadership, will only do 20% by 2020 – unless others act as well. Then it will go to –30%, still in the lower part of the required range.

•What will the US commit to? One might expect that, once the Americans re-engage internationally, they would want to do so as leaders. But the signals so far, even from the Obama camp, are that the IPCC midterm targets are "unrealistic" and that one can only hope for their emissions to return to 1990 levels by 2020. And they will continue to demand that developing countries have similar targets – with a particular eye towards China.

•The IPCC calls this ‘deviation from baseline', which means that the rate of emissions growth must slow down. Doing this at the same time as fighting poverty is no mean challenge. But relative emissions reductions will soon need to have numbers against them too – or be ‘measurable, reportable and verifiable, in diplomatese.

Developing countries will insist that developed countries provide finance and technology for action, and that these are as legally binding as the mitigation actions by developing countries. Much will depend on this discussion on the means of implementation, which is at the heart of the development deal within climate negotiations.

A key blockage has been the absence of a constructively engaged US. Under an Obama Presidency, the tone of US engagement will alter dramatically. But it will need more – much more than just friendlier negotiators.

If the US only returns to historical levels in the mid term, other developed countries would be hard pressed to take up the slack and keep their group in the required range. Might there be reductions of 30% relative to the business-as-usual scenario from developing countries? This is unlikely, if the US sticks with its ‘realistic' approach. And then there will, politically, be no reason for developing countries to be more ambitious.

It is an approach that is 'mutually assured disaster' (mad), because, if none of the countries of the world act, the impacts of climate change will worsen. And the impacts of climate change, already being observed at alarming rates, will worsen further. Ultimately, the world will pay a much higher price in the costs of adaptation than if we invested in mitigation now, unless we "resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long", as Obama said in his acceptance speech.

Poznań will finish few of these agenda items. If developed countries put some money on the table – the ‘means of implementation' – then the shared vision may be more than mere words.

Adaptation would be an obvious area to start, since the trade-offs on mitigation will clearly need next year to thrash through. Funding for technology cooperation is the other promising area.
The big deal is slated for a Copenhagen Protocol or Agreement in 2009. In Poland, countries might have a first glimpse of the text of legal agreement, one likely to complement the Kyoto Protocol for at least a few years. Poznań would do well to set up a process that considers action on climate change an integrated whole – of mitigation and adaptation, climate and development.

Winkler is Associate Professor at the Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town and can be contacted at Harald.Winkler@uct.ac.za. He writes in his personal capacity.

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