Post–Kyoto Protocol negotiations on greenhouse gas emissions
UNFCCC negotiations are conducted within two subsidiary bodies, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and were expected to culminate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in December 2009 in Copenhagen (COP-15); negotiations are supported by a number of external processes, including the G8 process, a number of regional meetings and the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate that was launched by US President Barack Obama in March 2009.
In the non-binding "Washington Declaration" on February 16, 2007, the G8+5 group of leaders agreed in principle to a global cap-and-trade system that would apply to both industrialized nations and developing countries, which they hoped would be in place by 2009.
The details enabling this to be achieved would be negotiated by environment ministers within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in a process that would also include the major emerging economies.
[7] As part of the schedule leading up to the September UN High-Level-Event, on July 31 the United Nations General Assembly opened its first-ever plenary session devoted exclusively to climate change, which also included prominent scientists and business leaders.
[9] In his opening speech, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Member States to work together, stating that the time had come for "decisive action on a global scale", and called for a "comprehensive agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process that tackles climate change on all fronts, including adaptation, mitigation, clean technologies, deforestation and resource mobilization".
[10] In closing the conference General Assembly President Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa called for an "equitable, fair and ambitious global deal to match the scale of the challenges ahead".
[14] In advance of the "High-Level-Event", the Secretary-General hoped that world leaders would "send a powerful political signal to the negotiations in Bali that "business as usual" will not do and that they are ready to work jointly with others towards a comprehensive multilateral framework for action".
A meeting of environment ministers and experts held in June called on the conference to agree a road-map, timetable and "concrete steps for the negotiations" with a view to reaching an agreement by 2009.
[23] United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon convened a high-level event on Climate Change on 22 September 2009 to which Heads of State and Government have been invited.
Following preparatory talks in Bonn (in Germany), Bangkok and Barcelona, the 2009 conference was held in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and the treaty succeeding the Kyoto Protocol had been expected to be adopted there.
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the US-backed climate deal as an "essential beginning", although it subsequently emerged that the US had 'used spying, threats and promises of aid' to gain support for the Accord, under which its emissions pledge is the lowest by any leading nation.
[32] The 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference was held in Durban, South Africa, from 28 November to 12 December 2011 to establish a new treaty to limit carbon emissions.
[40] It hence marks the beginning of private investors and large companies withdrawing from polluting industries, at a time when the political motivation for reducing GHG emissions is starting to stall.
