Background international climate negotiations

Negotiations began in 1991 with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) within which there was a desire to prepare a convention. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

he aim of the Convention is to stabilise the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a level where the climate system is not affected in a harmful way. The Convention came into force in 1994. Since then the parties to the Convention have met annually at the “Conference of the Parties”, (COP).

The first meeting, COP 1, resulted in the Berlin Mandate which aimed to bring about stronger measures and commitments and decided to implement a pilot phase of joint implementation measures (Activities Implemented Jointly, AIJ). The Berlin Mandate led subsequently to the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol (COP 3). At COP 6 in The Hague a compromise was established which culminated in the Marrakech Accords (COP 7) whereby the political agreement from Kyoto was converted to a legally binding text.

Following the Marrakech Accords of 2001 climate change negotiations have typically consisted of more patient work on technical issues. Negotiations on climate cooperation for the post 2012 period began in earnest with the first combined meeting of the parties to the Convention and the Protocol, COP/MOP 1 (Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto protocol) in Montreal, Canada in December 2005. The ambition is to expand participation to include major developing countries such as China, India and Brazil and to bring the USA back into the process.

Work on a future climate change agreement goes on two “tracks”, the “Convention track” which takes the Climate Change Convention as its starting point and which comprises all the countries in the world and the “Kyoto track” which looks at continuing the Kyoto Protocol and at new commitments to emission limits for the industrialised countries.

The way forward to a new climate change agreement is described in the Bali Road Map, adopted at COP 13 in December 2007 and covering the two years until COP 15 in Copenhagen in December 2009. Important elements in the negotiation of a future climate change agreement not only include more far-reaching emission limits but also adaptation to those climate changes which are already taking place, financing (both government financing and financing via the greenhouse gas markets), technology transfer and how deforestation in the tropical regions can be restricted.

Sweden is holding the EU presidency during the second half of 2009 and Sweden has highlighted the climate as a priority area during its stewardship. In his contact with the leaders of other countries Prime Minister Reinfeldt stressed the importance of the climate question. The advent of a new political regime in Washington has strengthened hopes of reaching a new international climate change agreement. The global economic crisis has affected the nature of discussions but the importance of the climate question has not diminished.