Africa sticks to its guns as developed countries dodge real issues at Lima climate talks

LIMA, Peru 3 December, 2014 (ClimDev-Africa) – Just on the third day of the 20th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP20) which opened in Lima Monday, a sense of frustration is already perceptible among a number of African delegations who blame tactics by Annex I countries to delay concrete discussions on substantive issues such as the implementation of the Durban Platform (ADP).
“It is annoying that, so far “no discussion has been had on any of the issues that is important to Africa”, according to a delegate from Algeria.
The problem, explains Mr. Nagmeldin Goutbi Elhassan (Sudan), Chair of the African Group of Negotiators, is that a lot of time is being spent on procedural issues such as how to deal with contributions by negotiators during meetings with the co-chairs”.

Whereas African negotiators would want to read different texts being prepared for Paris 2015 and continuously enrich them with comments got from the floor, the co-chairs prefer rapporteurs to take notes and “integrate observations by Africa later”.

“It’s like we spend endless hours talking for nothing because nobody actually takes our contributions in to consideration”, a negotiator from South Africa says.
At the plenary session on the Durban platform (ADP) which began on Tuesday, and which was co-chaired by Mr. Kishan Kumarsingh of Trinidad and Tobago and Artur Runge-Metzger, representing the European Union, most African negotiators insisted on the need to change the mode of work from the practice at previous sessions.

All African negotiators have asked for Parties to directly engage in text-based negotiations with each other, to no avail.  China even went on to support an Algerian proposal for “and common construction of the texts on the screen” to ensure that proposed changes by Parties are reflected as discussions proceed.

“Anything short of that would sap the discussions of their “negotiation value”, he said, adding that “it cannot be taken for granted that the revised decision text would be on the basis of textual negotiation”.
The response was a laconic “we will get to that stage” by Mr. Artur Runge-Metzger.

Real discussion on each of these texts -- adaptation, mitigation, climate finance, technology transfer, means of implementation, etc. -- is of absolute importance because they will form the basis of the new global agreement on climate change that is expected to be adopted next year in Paris, to go into force by 2020.
The selection and practices of co-chairs at COP negotiations has always been a contentious issue for Africa, because of the powers this group of experts wield, says a South African negotiator.

“But we are happy that after years of setbacks, we have finally obtained a spot for Africa in that powerful group of co-chairs”, he adds, with a real sign of satisfaction. That satisfaction, one of his colleagues warned, might be short-lived because of behind-the- scene moves by the Annex I countries to influence the choice of the person to occupy Africa’s spot in the group  of co-chairs.
At Tuesday’s daily meeting of the African Group, representatives from Algeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe presented their respective platforms for the position, although no vote was held --leaving space for all sorts of speculations on who will be Africa’s first co-chair in the COP process.

Apparently the reason the role of co-chairs is very important is because of the perception that Annex I countries might use them to delay discussions on substantive issues at COP session and even during inter-session meetings.

There were talks of about the UK, US and France having expressed different preferences for each of the three candidates --- to which another delegate from South Africa, who is familiar with COP negotiations, reacted dismissively saying “for me, the real battle has been won by having a co-chair spot for Africa. Whoever is selected to represent Africa’s interests will be monitored closely” he added.
Slowly but surely because  he assured that the “African Group is committed to the success of the Lima conference, although there is serious concern that Annex I countries may want to rescind the commitments of Durban and Doha on adaptation, finance, and technology transfer which of high importance to Africa.

African delegates seem to have grown used to delay tactics at climate talks and are determined in Lima to weed agreed texts for Paris 2015 of the kind of “creative ambiguities” which gave room to different interpretations of the Kyoto Protocol and often made it difficult to implement.
 
Issued by ClimDev-Africa Programme