Twenty-nine of the 42 member countries of
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
incorporated in the Cartagena Dialogue for Progressive Action gathered
in Bali on Wednesday to strengthen their vision on the urgency of
pushing legally binding commitments to address climate change for the
194 countries attending the upcoming UN Conference of Parties (COP) 18
in Doha, Qatar. The three-day Cartagena Dialogue will be held just a
couple of months before the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol at the end
of this year, while from Nov. 26 to Dec. 7, COP 18 will take place in
Doha.
Adopted at the 1997 COP 3 in Japan, the
Kyoto Protocol targeted reducing greenhouse gas emissions by an average
of 5 percent against 1990 levels over a five-year period from 2008 to
2012. By the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol
this year, a new international framework needs to be negotiated and
ratified to deliver stringent emission reductions, as stated on the
UNFCCC website. “The important thing is, this is what unites Cartagena,
we want a legally binding agreement that will apply to all. The Kyoto
Protocol will end in about three months time, we want a legally binding
agreement where all the countries in the world will make commitments.
Maybe these commitments will be different
[for each country], but we all need to take on commitments,” director
of economic, environmental and social affairs from the Colombian Foreign
Affairs Ministry, Paula Caballero Gomez, said on the sidelines of the
ninth Cartagena Dialogue on Wednesday. The 29 participating countries
year at the ninth meeting of the Cartagena Dialogue include Australia,
Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and United Arab Emirates, as well as
representatives of the European Commission.
The Cartagena Dialogue, consisting
overall of 42 developed and developing countries, was born in Cartagena,
Colombia, in 2010, in the aftermath of COP 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark,
in 2009. COP 15 only produced the Copenhagen Accord, while there was no
legally binding pact agreed upon after the US, Brazil, South Africa,
India and China hammered out last-minute deals. Indonesia’s former
environment minister and chairman of the Climate Change National Council
(DNPI) Rachmat Witoelar recalled that since the Bali Roadmap had been
formulated by COP 13 in 2007, multilateral commitments by the developed
countries had yet to be realized in concrete financial forms.
The Bali Roadmap includes the adoption of
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) to
cope with climate change, the development and transfer of technologies,
and the review of financial mechanisms. “Since the Bali Roadmap was
formulated, in essence, it expects developed countries to financially
assist developing countries in climate change mitigation, because the
developed countries have largely contributed in the destruction of the
climate. There have been bilateral agreements, but there have yet to be
any multilateral agreements from those developed countries,” said
Rachmat, while citing that Indonesia, among the most vulnerable
developing countries, had taken its own national development measures in
line with climate change mitigation and adaptation.
“We have a target of 26 percent reduction
of emission by 2020 and we are running on track,” he said, citing the
2011 presidential regulation No. 61 (Perpres) that stipulates a national
action plan on greenhouse gas emission reduction. Last year’s COP 17 in
Durban, South Africa, resulted in the Durban Platform, which pledges to
adopt the second commitment of the Kyoto Protocol alongside a new
global protocol or a legally binding instrument for emission cuts to be
operational in 2020. The 194 countries that attended the Durban
conference agreed to start pledges to contribute initial funds to help
developing countries launch mitigation and adaptation efforts.
Commitments to contribute to the Green Climate Fund were expressed by
four countries, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain and South Korea.
source : bali daily
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar