The UNFCCC Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland from 1-12 December comes right in the middle of climate negotiations launched last year in Bali and scheduled to be completed in Copenhagen in 2009. Developing countries have submitted several proposals. Will Poznan give momentum to discussions on the governance of a post-2012 climate regime?
Much has changed since Bali. There is a new U.S. president-elect who promises to use American leadership to push climate negotiations forward. Another big news item is the global financial (and, now, economic) crisis. What impact the two events will have is hard to predict as yet.
Meanwhile, and significantly, developing countries have become actively engaged in debates on the financing and technology transfer parts of a future climate deal. The G-77 and China have proposed a new financial mechanism outlining what they see as priority principles: common but differentiated responsibilities; accountability to the Conference of Parties (COP); equitable and geographically-balanced representation; direct access to funding; and demand-driven project finance and implementation. Also on the table is a proposal for a technology mechanism, complete with an Executive Body on Technology under the UNFCCC and a Multilateral Climate Technology Fund.
These are important ideas that put the governance of the climate regime at the centre of the negotiations. But they also raise many more questions. First, there is the question of multiple funds related to adaptation, mitigation, technology acquisition and transfer, technology development, and so forth. Even if they were all managed under the UNFCCC (as is the demand), it is not clear how distributional concerns among competing needs would be resolved.
Secondly, the proposals do not address two critical aspects: monitoring and enforcement. Highly legalised mechanisms or those with firm binding commitments might not necessarily yield better outcomes if monitoring is seen to be weak and ineffective. Demands for ‘measurable, reportable and verifiable’ financing have major implications for regulatory capacity, at home and internationally. If issue linkage is necessary to secure a post-2012 deal, would enforcement also depend on cross-issue sanctions, or would we need separate mechanisms for adaptation, mitigation, and technology transfer?
Thirdly, new proposals have to recognise the context of the wider aid debate. Notwithstanding how well or poorly the Paris Declaration has been adhered to, donors would be extremely unwilling to shift the institutional locus of the debate on climate funds delivery away from aid agencies and multilateral development banks (MDBs) to the UNFCCC. So, should developing countries try to reform governance within the MDBs or push for separate UNFCCC-led governance? Instead, could a combination of the two work? If an effective and credible monitoring and enforcement system were created under the UNFCCC, might developing countries yield to MDBs for the management of funds?
For any of these ideas to get traction, poor countries would demand an upfront commitment of resources to finance adaptation and transfers of technology. Will Poznan deliver on this front?
[...] Ghosh Poznan Climate Conference: Can the climate governance debate move forward? the GEG blog 28 November [...]