The 2012 United Nations Climate Change Conference was the 18th yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the UN process for negotiating an agreement to limit dangerous climate change. It is an international treaty among countries to combat "dangerous human interference with th ...

(UNFCCC) and the 8th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP) to the 1997

Kyoto Protocol The was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that global warming is oc ...

(the protocol having been developed under the UNFCCC's charter). The conference took place from Monday 26 November to Saturday 8 December 2012, at the Qatar National Convention Centre in

Doha Doha ( ) is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor (city), Al Khor and Lusail, it is home to most of the country's population. It ...

. The conference reached an agreement to extend the life of the Kyoto Protocol, which had been due to expire at the end of 2012, until 2020, and to reify the 2011 Durban Platform, meaning that a successor to the Protocol is set to be developed by 2015 and implemented by 2020. The wording adopted by the conference incorporated for the first time the concept of "loss and damage", an agreement in principle that richer nations could be financially responsible to other nations for their failure to reduce carbon emissions.

Background

The United Nations Climate Change Conferences are annual multi-lateral meetings of governments held in different locations around the world under the sponsorship of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

that serve as a forum for countries to discuss climate change matters. The conferences seek to address the threat of

global warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...

caused by

greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities intensify the greenhouse effect. This contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide (), from burning fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, oil, and natural gas, is the main cause of climate chan ...

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

. Between 2000 and 2011

growth in the atmosphere was 20% of the total concentration growth since prehistoric level (391,57 ppm in 2011 and 369,52 ppm in 2000) The concentration of

Earth's atmosphere The atmosphere of Earth is composed of a layer of gas mixture that surrounds the Earth's planetary surface (both lands and oceans), known collectively as air, with variable quantities of suspended aerosols and particulates (which create weathe ...

has reached 391 ppm (parts per million) versus the pre-industrial concentration was 280 ppm which the consensus of world climate scientists agree is unsustainable. The conferences are attended by dignitaries and sometimes heads of state from most countries and generally draw significant activity by various environmental advocacy groups. Consequently, the conferences are generally well-covered by the world media agencies. The 2012 conference is held at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, and with a projected attendance of 17,000 participants it is expected to be the largest conference to have ever been held in Qatar. The conference is casually called the COP18/CMP 8 conference but these are technically different but closely related and sometimes integrated conferences. In 2012, the UNFCCC conference served as an umbrella for seven concurrent and interrelated meeting groups collectively called the Doha 2012 UNFCCC conference. The main conference is also preceded by several topical pre-sessions.

Pre-sessions to the 2012 UNFCCC conference

# 70th meeting of the

Clean Development Mechanism The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a United Nations-run carbon offset scheme allowing countries to fund greenhouse gas emissions-reducing projects in other countries and claim the saved emissions as part of their own efforts to meet internat ...

Executive Board (19 to 23 November) #

Least Developed Countries The least developed countries (LDCs) are developing countries listed by the United Nations that exhibit the lowest indicators of socioeconomic development. The concept of LDCs originated in the late 1960s and the first group of LDCs was listed b ...

Preparatory Meetings (20 to 21 November) #

Small Island Developing States The Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are a grouping of developing country, developing countries which are small island country, island countries and small states that tend to share similar sustainable development challenges. These include s ...

Preparatory Meetings (22 to 23 November) # African Group Preparatory Meetings (22 to 23 November) # Informal pre-sessional meeting of Parties to exchange further views on the possible recommendations on loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change (24 November) # G7 & China Preparatory Meetings (24 to 25 November)

Concurrent conferences under the umbrella of the 2012 UNFCCC conference

The Doha 2012 United Nations Climate Change Conference is an agglomeration of multiple related conferences being conducted roughly in parallel and in a semi-integrated fashion over the two weeks that the conference is in session: # Eighteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 18) # Eighth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 8) # Thirty-seventh session of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 37) # Thirty-seventh session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 37) # Seventeenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (second part) (AWG-KP 17.2) # Fifteenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the convention (second part) (AWG-LCA 15.2) # First session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (second part) (ADP 1.2)

Conference focus

The conference focused on five aspects of climate change: * Adaptation – social and other changes that must be undertaken to successfully adapt to climate change. Adaptation might encompass, but is not limited to, changes in agriculture and urban planning. * Finance – how countries will finance adaptation to and

mitigation Mitigation is the reduction of something harmful that has occurred or the reduction of its harmful effects. It may refer to measures taken to reduce the harmful effects of hazards that remain ''in potentia'', or to manage harmful incidents that ...

of climate change, whether from public or private sources. * Mitigation – steps and actions that the countries of the world can take to mitigate the effects of climate change. * Technology – the technologies that are needed to adapt or mitigate climate change and ways in which developed countries can support

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...

in adopting them. * Loss and damage – first articulated at the 2012 conference and in part based on the agreement that was signed at the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun. It introduces the principle that countries vulnerable to the effects of climate change may be financially compensated in future by countries that fail to curb their carbon emissions.

Conference structure

The conference is generally a two-week conference consisting of the following activities: *Speeches from UN bureaucrats *Speeches from dignitaries and sometimes heads of state *Closed working sessions by various working groups *Open breakouts and working sessions by various working groups *Announcements by countries on a particular position *Announcements of agreements by UN bureaucrats The conference will sometimes see late night (or all night) working sessions when diplomats cannot agree to the terms and conditions of agreements and sometimes staged walk-outs by some parties are not uncommon. The last several conferences of this type have suffered from impasses in the first week and a half of talks, followed by a series of rounds of very late night discussions, sometimes followed by an extension of the conference which finally yields a modest progress agreement. External to the conference, the conference generally attracts well-organized protests, rallies and demonstrations by various environmental groups urging the participants to reach an agreement on the topic of climate change policy. In recent conferences, some activist groups have given daily informal awards to countries that they see as advancing or detracting from their particular ideological position.

Conference outcomes

The Conference produced a package of documents collectively titled ''The Doha Climate Gateway'' over objections from Russia and other countries at the session. The documents collectively contained: # An eight-year extension of the Kyoto Protocol until 2020 limited in scope to only 15% of the global carbon dioxide emissions due to the lack of participation of Canada, Japan, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, New Zealand and the United States and due to the fact that developing countries like China (the world's largest emitter), India and Brazil are not subject to any emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol. # Language on loss and damage, formalized for the first time in the conference documents. # The conference made little progress towards the funding of the

Green Climate Fund The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is a Funding, fund for climate finance that was established within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Considered the world's largest fund of its kind, GCF's objective ...

. Russia, Belarus and Ukraine objected at the end of the session, as they have a right to under the session's rules. In closing the conference, the President said that he would note these objections in his final report.

Reaction to the conference outcomes

Reaction to the conference outcomes was characterized as "modest, at best" by NPR. Kieren Keke, Foreign Minister of

Nauru Nauru, officially the Republic of Nauru, formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies within the Micronesia subregion of Oceania, with its nearest neighbour being Banaba (part of ...

and the representative of the Alliance of Small Island States at the conference, was quoted by the BBC as saying, Others like Martin Khor of the South Center, an association of developing nations saw a more positive outcome, specifically regarding the Loss and Damage Mechanism: Jennifer Morgan of the

World Resources Institute The World Resources Institute (WRI) is a global research non-profit organization established in 1982 with funding from the MacArthur Foundation under the leadership of James Gustave Speth. Subsequent presidents include Jonathan Lash (1993– ...

told NPR about the Loss and Damage Mechanism that: Regarding the path to the $100 billion in

financing, Jennifer Morgan told NPR the following:

Criticisms of the Conference and UNFCCC Process

The overall umbrella and processes of the UNFCCC and the adopted Kyoto Protocol have been criticized by some as not having achieved its stated goals of reducing the emission of

(the primary culprit blamed for rising global temperatures of the 21st century). At a speech given at his alma mater, Todd Stern — the US Climate Change envoy — has expressed the challenges with the UNFCCC process as follows, "Climate change is not a conventional environmental issue...It implicates virtually every aspect of a state's economy, so it makes countries nervous about growth and development. This is an economic issue every bit as it is an environmental one." He went on to explain that, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is a multilateral body concerned with climate change and can be an inefficient system for enacting international policy. Because the framework system includes over 190 countries and because negotiations are governed by consensus, small groups of countries can often block progress.

Participant statements and conference activity

Statement by UN climate chief Christiana Figueres

Governments will decide how and timetable to reach an effective universal climate agreement adopted in 2015 and to enter into force from 2020. Christiana Figueres, the UNFCCC executive secretary: "The necessary technology and policy tools are available to governments and societies, but time is very short — only 36 months to reach a universal agreement before 2015. What we now need is to urgently implement the decisions that have been taken at the inter-governmental level and to further strengthen actions already underway," she said.

Statement by New Zealand Prime Minister John Key

The

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

government said it would not be signing up to a second commitment to the

, a decision criticised by the

World Wildlife Fund The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the ...

. Prime Minister John Key said New Zealand would not lead the way on climate change, instead opting to be a "fast follower".

Statement by Philippine Envoy Naderev Sano

The

Philippine Government The government of the Philippines () has three interdependent branches: the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The Philippines is governed as a unitary state under a presidential representative and democratic constitutional repub ...

called for urgent action to halt climate change, emphasizing their recent experience with a deadly typhoon and believing that countries may face more extreme weather disturbances frequently if climate change is left unchecked. "As we vacillate and procrastinate here, we are suffering. There is massive and widespread devastation back home. Heartbreaking tragedies like this are not unique to the Philippines." said Philippine envoy Naderev Sano, who is a member of the Philippines' Climate Change Commission.

Statement by Japanese Masahiko Horie

"Only developed countries are legally bound by the Kyoto protocol and their emissions are only 26% f global emissions If we continue the same, only one quarter of the world is legally bound and three-quarters of countries are not bound at all.""UN: methane released from melting ice could push climate past tipping point"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' 27 November 2012

United Nations and UNEP: methane thawing from permafrost

The

gave a strong warning on the threat to the climate from

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The abundance of methane on Earth makes ...

in the thawing

permafrost Permafrost () is soil or underwater sediment which continuously remains below for two years or more; the oldest permafrost has been continuously frozen for around 700,000 years. Whilst the shallowest permafrost has a vertical extent of below ...

. This has not yet been included in models of the future climate. Permafrost contain 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon – twice the amount currently in the atmosphere. When it thaws, it could push global warming past one of the key "tipping points" that scientists believe could lead to runaway climate change.

UNEP The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the Declaration of the United Nati ...

called

IPCC The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to "provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies". The World M ...

to provide governments with the most up-to-date knowledge in the next IPCC reports next year.

Non-participant statements

World Bank

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

published a report in November 2012 demanding the moral responsibility to take action on behalf of future generations. 4 °C warmer world must be avoided – we need to hold warming below 2 °C. Even with the current mitigation commitments there is roughly a 20 percent likelihood of exceeding 4 °C by 2100. The World Bank and the International Energy Agency warned that the world is heading for unprecedented warming – of between 4 °C and 6 °C – if trends are not reversed. That scale would result in droughts, floods, heatwaves and fiercer storms, decline agricultural productivity, bring plant and animal extinctions, and wide human migration.

Youth

The first time in history an Arab country is hosting the U.N. conference for climate change negotiations. Youth in more than 13 Arab countries, launch the Arab Youth Climate Movement, a group established to lobby the region's governments on an ongoing basis to take action against climate change: "It's basically our role as civil society to make sure that the government is doing its best to provide us with the best quality of life and it's our right as human beings to ensure a healthy future for us and generations to come." The New Zealand Youth Delegation heavily criticised its own government at the start of the conference, saying New Zealand's withdrawal from a second period of commitment under the Kyoto Protocol was "embarrassing, short-sighted and irresponsible". New Zealand received two 'Fossil of the Day' awards for "actively hampering international progress".

Friends of the Earth International

"An open letter to governments and their negotiators" posted on Friends of the Earth International's website stated, "To really address climate change UNFCCC-COP18 should decide to leave under the soil more than 2/3 of the fossil reserves."

Greenpeace

Lauri Myllyvirta from Greenpeace Nordic states that the key reason we are heading for 4 °C of warming is coal burning. Massive expansion in the use of coal has caused more than two-thirds of the increase in global CO₂ emissions in recent years. Also the World Bank made plea for governments to avoid 4 °C Warmer World. No new coal plants were constructed in Europe after 2007, but 1,200 coal plants are now being planned elsewhere: they can be stopped. The EU spent two-thirds of its energy research funding on nuclear technologies in 2011. Some countries maintain direct subsidies to oil consumption and coal mining. Others are providing decisive economic benefits to nuclear, oil and gas installations by legislation socialising the costs of accidents and of decommissioning. According to Greenpeace removing these subsidies and imposing

environmental tax An environmental tax, ecotax (short for ecological taxation), or green tax is a tax levied on activities which are considered to be harmful to the environment and is intended to promote environmentally friendly alternatives via economic incentive ...

es would increase the cost and price of old energy supplies, and make energy efficiency more profitable.Sweden report
Greenpeace 12.11.2012

Keepers of prosperity

Eren Swobodan of the German group "Keepers of prosperity - Bewahrer des Wohlstandes" criticized the inaction of the German government. He called for crime charges against people who express doubts on the scientific consensus. In an open letter to non-attendees of his group's 2012 meeting he wrote "the world can't afford another event like 2004 and 2007" and "everything has to be done to avoid it", but he also added for consideration that "they won't make it easy for us". According to Swobodan there is time until 2018, anything beyond that would be too late. In a national campaign published by several German newspapers the group showed heartbreaking pictures of children getting a sunburn and some more severe injuries from to the climate change-enhanced sunny weather in many parts of Germany. Although the campaign raised awareness of global warning in Germany and some German speaking parts of France and even 4 TV stations reported about it, some observers doubt whether it would convince enough politicians to "do what it takes to make it happen".

References

External links

Official webcast to Climate Change Conference COP18/CMP8, Doha, Qatar

{{DEFAULTSORT:United Nations Climate Change Conference, 2012 2012 conferences 2012 in Qatar

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

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