SA negotiating team, Molewa lauds ‘critical’ outcomes of COP19

3rd December 2013

By: Natalie Greve

Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

  

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Having headed up the South African delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC’s) nineteenth Congress of the Parties (COP19) in November, Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa has lauded the four “critical” outcomes of the talks, which aimed to establish a "multilateral globally impactful climate change regime".

Molewa said in a statement on Tuesday that the conference, this year, held in Warsaw, Poland from November 11 to 23, addressed 68 agenda items, took 38 decisions – 28 of which were taken under the COP – and delivered four “major outcomes”.

REPORTING, ADAPTATION
The first of these were a set of decisions aimed at confirming and enhancing the implementation of an international response to the climate change crisis now and up to 2020, which involved finalising the accounting rules under the Kyoto Protocol to enable countries to ratify their legally binding emission reduction commitments, as agreed in Durban in 2011.

“After two weeks of detailed technical discussions, parties were able to agree to most of the outstanding accounting rules for the Kyoto second commitment period, which will be finalised at the next meeting,” she commented.

In addition to the finalisation of the Kyoto rules, critical work was required to enhance implementation under the convention in the pre-2020 period for developed and developing countries.

A key milestone in this regard was reached by finalising the measurement, reporting and verification systems for developed and developing States, with the Warsaw COP adopting the review guidelines for biennial reports and national communications ahead of the submission of the first biennial reports, which were due from developed countries in January 2014.

Adaptation continued to receive prominent attention, with its most notable outcome being the conclusion of the guidelines for the establishment of National Adaptation Plan for developing countries.

“This is a critical outcome for South Africa as these guidelines can now be used to further develop the country’s own National Adaptation Plan, which is currently under consideration.

“This puts adaptation on a clear path to be in the centre of the legal instrument being negotiated for implementation from 2020 onwards. These negotiations are to be concluded in Paris in 2015,” Department of Environmental Affairs deputy director-general of climate change and air quality and chief negotiator for South Africa at COP19 Judy Beaumont stated at a media briefing on Tuesday.

She added that, in the advancement of the COP19 resolutions, the congress had adopted seven decisions on finance; the three most critical ones being long-term finance, arrangements between COP and the Green Climate Fund, and support to the fundraising strategy and campaign of the Adaptation Fund Board.

During the conference, pledges totalling over $100-million were made to the Adaptation Fund to support concrete funding in developing countries, while, in terms of long-term finance, developed States pledged to scale up available finance to upwards of $10-billion a year, with the aim of jointly mobilising $100-billion a year by 2020.

LEGAL IMPLEMENTATION SYSTEM

Molewa said the second major outcome of the Warsaw conference was the progress that had been made in the negotiation of the climate change system to be implemented beyond 2020, which was to be captured in a new legal instrument.

“A decision, highlighting key components of the 2015 outcome was adopted, and the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action is now on its way to producing a negotiating text in time for the 2015 agreement to be reached in Paris.

“In addition, parties have agreed to start their ‘homework’ – a national consultative process aimed at putting numbers on the table at the Paris 2015 COP,” said Beaumont.

LOSS MECHANISM

Among the key priorities for Africa and other developing countries at COP19 was the third outcome in the establishment of a “very contentious” mechanism on loss and damage owing to climate change.

Molewa was tasked by the Polish COP president during the conference to facilitate these negotiations, which were concluded with a “landmark” outcome in the form of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage.

This outcome outlined institutional arrangements, functions and modalities of the mechanism, which aimed to deal with the impacts of climate change, including extreme and slow-onset weather events, as well as its linkages to other UNFCCC mechanisms.

AMBITION

The fourth critical conference outcome reported was progress in negotiating the means to scale up “ambition” in the post-2012 and pre-2020 period.

Parties agreed to identify, implement and scale up actions with high mitigation potential in 2014, which would be done in a coherent manner with the objective of lowering emissions by 2020.

Beaumont said this commitment was particularly relevant, as a 2013 UN emission gap report had indicated that developed countries’ overall emissions had continued to grow rather than decrease.

“Even if the current emission reduction pledges are fully implemented, the emission gap in 2020 will be between 8 and 12 gigatons. This is what makes the decision to accelerate activities under the work plan on enhancing mitigation up to 2020 extremely important,” she noted.

The twentieth session of the COP to the UNFCCC is expected to take place in December 2014, in Peru.

Edited by Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online

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