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DESPITE not achieving all it set out to do, the 17th Conference of the Parties (CoP 17) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa is widely seen as having achieved progress in a phasal sense.
The conference ended on December 11, 2011, two days later than planned due to serious disputes among negotiating parties. After difficult negotiations, a package of resolutions was passed by representatives from more than 200 countries and international organizations.
The two main outcomes were a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, beginning on January 1, 2013 and end either on December 31, 2017 or 2020, and the launch of the Green Climate Fund, a process aimed at developing a protocol, another legal instrument or a legal outcome under the Convention applicable to all parties.
Future chartered
“The conference in Durban reached agreement on the two major concerns of China and other developing countries: the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and the Green Climate Fund,” said Zhou Dadi, Director General(emeritus) of the Energy research Institute affiliated to National Development and reform Commission (NDrC) of China.
He said that the conference charted the future for the global climate action after this conference and before 2020. Now the world can start to discuss plans after 2020, which was significant progress.
Zhou’s opinion was echoed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The package of resolutions is a significant step forward in global climate efforts, said Ban.
The resolutions passed at the closing of the conference were not perfect, but they were a landmark for global climate action, said Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South African Minister of International relations and Cooperation and also President of the CoP 17.
According to the resolutions, an Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action will be established. It will be responsible for formulating a legal instrument or legal result applying to all parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The establishment work will start in the first half of 2012, and be completed no later than 2015. Based on this legal instrument, all the parties to the convention will discuss emissions reduction beginning from 2020.
What’s more, the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol will be officially approved of at the next UN Climate Change Conference in Qatar in 2012, and come into effect in 2013. And a new climate treaty including the United States and emerging countries such as China and India should be reached before 2015 and come into effect after 2020.
The Kyoto Protocol is the only legally binding agreement that sets targets for major developed countries. It was passed in December 1997 and came into effect in February 2005. Its first commitment period will expire at the end of 2012.
Moreover, the conference decided to officially launch the Green Climate Fund and establish its governing instrument. Building on the commitment by developed countries to transfer$100 billion a year by 2020 to developing countries for adaptation and mitigation, the Green Climate Fund will be essential for channeling funds for developing countries.
Also, the package of resolutions includes documents on monitoring and verification rules of emissions reduction, forest protection and clean-energy technology transfer to developing countries.
Negative attitudes
“However, the disputes among the negotiating parties will exist for a long time,” said Zhou.
The United States has held a negative attitude on climate change. Even when the U.S. economy was in good shape, it presented little will to contribute to this international public cause. Neither did it show the willingness of aiding developing countries, said Zhou.
Now amid the financial crisis, it is difficult for President obama to put the policies that he brought forward into practice. obama confessed the difficulty in pushing forward the climate actions in the United States due to obstacles from the U.S. Congress.
“I talked about reducing America’s dependence on oil when I was running for President, and I’m proud of the historic progress that we’ve made…But I’ve got to be honest. We’ve run into the same political gridlock, the same inertia that has held us back for decades,” said obama in a remark on America’s Energy Security at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., on March 30, 2011.
The resolutions reached at dawn didn’t bring light for the public. Instead, it cast shadow on global climate cooperation, said Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace, an independent global organization devoted to protecting the environment and world peace.
The United States and some other countries that hinder the climate talks have successfully kept a door for themselves. If the door is not locked, the United States will possibly keep delaying the talks on a legally binding global climate treaty that the world needs urgently. This will be a disaster for the Earth that all human beings lived on, said Naidoo.
Although the environmental protection force is strong in the EU, currently it is suffering from huge economic difficulties. What’s more, it doesn’t understand the real condition of de- veloping countries but insists that the Kyoto Protocol should cover emerging economies such as China and India, said Zhou.
During the conference in Durban, the EU called for a global climate framework engaging all major economies. It insisted that the global climate action must be led by the major economies in both the developed and the developing worlds since they are the biggest emitters.
“Developed countries lack the political will to reduce emissions and provide finance and technology transfer to support developing countries. The lack of political will is the main element that hinders cooperation on addressing climate change in the international community,” said China’s View on the Durban Conference, a press release issued by the Chinese delegation in Durban on December 10, 2011.
“The Durban Conference did not succeed in accomplishing the negotiations under the Bali roadmap. The implementation of the Cancun Agreements and the Durban outcome will not be achieved in the short run. A heavy load of work ahead on the post 2020 arrangement needs to be done in order to enhance the implementation of the convention,” said the release.
There is no legally binding international treaty that has no political background. Though the issue of climate change involves the world’s common interests, it is still closely related to the current world political pattern. Developing countries can’t be too nave and expect developed countries to voluntarily take international responsibilities, said Zhou, adding that China can’t give up defending the interests of developing countries in the international negotiations.
Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate negotiator and Vice Chairman of NDrC, also responded in Durban on December 7 on the desire of more responsibilities from China.
“China’s total emission volume has attracted global attention, but please don’t forget, China is a developing country with a population of 1.32 billion. China’s per-capita GDP just surpassed $4,300. There are still 128 million people living on less than $1 a day in China,” said Xie.
China faces the tough task of promoting development, eliminating poverty and improving people’s livelihoods. However, China has overcome all the difficulties and made arduous efforts in dealing with climate change, he said.
For instance, from 2005 to 2010, China’s energy consumption per unit of the GDP dropped 19.1 percent, or a reduction of 1.46 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
The Chinese Government has attached great importance to the issue of climate change, and regarded dealing with climate change as an important strategy and persistent policy in China’s economic and social development, said Xie.
Public challenge
This new border constitutes a public challenge to Ghana’s offshore acreage, which according to Ghana’s Tullow Oil holds close to a billion barrels in untapped oil reserves. Tullow Oil reported that they had been asked in april 2010 to sign an agreement with Cote d’Ivoire’s Director General of hydrocarbons and Petroci failing which they would be prevented from operating, which was confirmed by Ghana’s Minister for Information Okudzeto abrokwa. apart from Tullow Oil, the new border also includes laying claim to much of Tullow Oil’s Jubilee, Tweneboa, Enyenra and Owo discoveries, among others, plus the West Tano-1X find and several prospect sites.
In March 2010, Ghana President John Evans atta Mills passed the Ghana Boundary Commission Bill to establish a commission to negotiate proper demarcation of Ghana’s land and maritime boundaries with neighboring countries. This was after Cote d’Ivoire first raised concerns that Ghana has encroached on its territorial waters.
Ghana’s Energy Minister Joe Oteng adjei said there is a critical need to put in place a commission that would lead to the negotiation of Ghana’s maritime and land boundaries with the country’s neighbors.“There are international laws and United nation’s conventions that need to be respected.” adjei said areas couldn’t just be taken over with claims, as negotiations are needed. “as we put our commission in place then we have the mandate to meet with our counterpart as to the delimitations of our maritime boundary,” he said.
Boundary commission
The 14-member Ghana Boundary Commission, chaired by the Minister of Lands and Forestry, Collins Dauda, is the result of legislation pushed through by the government earlier following the discovery of commercial quantities of oil in the deepwater Dzata-1 exploration well off Cape Three Points in the western region, which Cote d’Ivoire says lies within its border.
Upstream said that the border dispute is interesting because a recognized maritime border does not divide Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. Instead, they have used a median line derived from the position of the end-point of their land boundary. This was defined in an anglo-French agreement of 1893, based upon the position of a house occupied by British officials in the 1880s. after independence the two countries agreed to set up a joint commission to redefine their common border, but no action was ever taken.
Upstream reported that discovery of oil by Ghana was enough to demonstrate the inadequacy of a simple median line. Cote d’Ivoire has since argued that a precise maritime boundary must be delimited, and the boundary that is eventually constructed will pertain to the area that is the object of Cote d’Ivoire’s current protest.
head of Ghana’s technical committee of the Presidential Commission, Lawrence apaalse, told ghanabusinessnews.com in June 2010 that the Ivorians made some proposals to the Ghanaian Commission, but the proposals were not acceptable and they were asked to go back and review it.
according to adama Toungara, the new oil minister for Cote d’Ivoire, the country plans to boost oil drilling by the year’s end to become a major regional producer.
“We want to start drilling in seven wells by the end of the year to ensure a production of 300,000 barrels a day by 2020, up from 40,000 barrels now. We want to make Cote d’Ivoire a sub-regional oil power even though the country will not be an african Kuwait.”
Out of the 28 oil fields in Cote d’Ivoire, firms from Canada, the United states, Italy, Russia, Ireland, Kuwait and Malaysia, according to official data, operate 23.
Cote d’Ivoire was until recently the leading oil producer in the eight-nation West african Economic and Monetary Union of West africa, which excludes nigeria, the top oil producer in sub-saharan africa.
Oil companies concerned
Meanwhile, Ghana’s Jubilee Oil Partners, including Tullow Oil Plc, Kosmos Energy, anadarko Petroleum and the Ghana national Petroleum Corp. (GnPC), have already raised concerns about the boundary dispute. Texas-based oil explorer, Kosmos Energy has expressed fears about the development. The oil producer says the future of a portion of its license in the Deepwater Tano Block is uncertain if changes are made to the maritime boundary demarcation between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. It has 18 percent stake in the Deepwater Tano block in the Gulf of Guinea.
“Uncertainty remains with regard to the outcome of the boundary demarcation between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire and we do not know if the maritime boundary will change, therefore affecting our rights to explore and develop our discoveries or prospects within such areas,” the Warburg Pincus and Blackstone Group (BX) backed company said in a filing form to the U.s. securities and Exchange Commission on april 25, 2011.
The Ghana Deputy Minister for Energy, alhaji Inusah Fuseini has said that even though Cote d’Ivoire’s claim of ownership is a concern to the people of Ghana, Ghanaians should not fret since they cannot claim sovereignty over the oil region given that the area is a disputed area. he indicated that Ghana would petition the United nation’s Border Commission if negotiations with Cote d’Ivoire failed.
Cote d’Ivoire President Ouattara paid a day visit to Ghana on October 7, where it is believed his discussions with his Ghanaian counterpart included how to solve the border dispute.
(Reporting from Ghana)
The conference ended on December 11, 2011, two days later than planned due to serious disputes among negotiating parties. After difficult negotiations, a package of resolutions was passed by representatives from more than 200 countries and international organizations.
The two main outcomes were a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, beginning on January 1, 2013 and end either on December 31, 2017 or 2020, and the launch of the Green Climate Fund, a process aimed at developing a protocol, another legal instrument or a legal outcome under the Convention applicable to all parties.
Future chartered
“The conference in Durban reached agreement on the two major concerns of China and other developing countries: the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and the Green Climate Fund,” said Zhou Dadi, Director General(emeritus) of the Energy research Institute affiliated to National Development and reform Commission (NDrC) of China.
He said that the conference charted the future for the global climate action after this conference and before 2020. Now the world can start to discuss plans after 2020, which was significant progress.
Zhou’s opinion was echoed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The package of resolutions is a significant step forward in global climate efforts, said Ban.
The resolutions passed at the closing of the conference were not perfect, but they were a landmark for global climate action, said Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South African Minister of International relations and Cooperation and also President of the CoP 17.
According to the resolutions, an Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action will be established. It will be responsible for formulating a legal instrument or legal result applying to all parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The establishment work will start in the first half of 2012, and be completed no later than 2015. Based on this legal instrument, all the parties to the convention will discuss emissions reduction beginning from 2020.
What’s more, the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol will be officially approved of at the next UN Climate Change Conference in Qatar in 2012, and come into effect in 2013. And a new climate treaty including the United States and emerging countries such as China and India should be reached before 2015 and come into effect after 2020.
The Kyoto Protocol is the only legally binding agreement that sets targets for major developed countries. It was passed in December 1997 and came into effect in February 2005. Its first commitment period will expire at the end of 2012.
Moreover, the conference decided to officially launch the Green Climate Fund and establish its governing instrument. Building on the commitment by developed countries to transfer$100 billion a year by 2020 to developing countries for adaptation and mitigation, the Green Climate Fund will be essential for channeling funds for developing countries.
Also, the package of resolutions includes documents on monitoring and verification rules of emissions reduction, forest protection and clean-energy technology transfer to developing countries.
Negative attitudes
“However, the disputes among the negotiating parties will exist for a long time,” said Zhou.
The United States has held a negative attitude on climate change. Even when the U.S. economy was in good shape, it presented little will to contribute to this international public cause. Neither did it show the willingness of aiding developing countries, said Zhou.
Now amid the financial crisis, it is difficult for President obama to put the policies that he brought forward into practice. obama confessed the difficulty in pushing forward the climate actions in the United States due to obstacles from the U.S. Congress.
“I talked about reducing America’s dependence on oil when I was running for President, and I’m proud of the historic progress that we’ve made…But I’ve got to be honest. We’ve run into the same political gridlock, the same inertia that has held us back for decades,” said obama in a remark on America’s Energy Security at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., on March 30, 2011.
The resolutions reached at dawn didn’t bring light for the public. Instead, it cast shadow on global climate cooperation, said Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace, an independent global organization devoted to protecting the environment and world peace.
The United States and some other countries that hinder the climate talks have successfully kept a door for themselves. If the door is not locked, the United States will possibly keep delaying the talks on a legally binding global climate treaty that the world needs urgently. This will be a disaster for the Earth that all human beings lived on, said Naidoo.
Although the environmental protection force is strong in the EU, currently it is suffering from huge economic difficulties. What’s more, it doesn’t understand the real condition of de- veloping countries but insists that the Kyoto Protocol should cover emerging economies such as China and India, said Zhou.
During the conference in Durban, the EU called for a global climate framework engaging all major economies. It insisted that the global climate action must be led by the major economies in both the developed and the developing worlds since they are the biggest emitters.
“Developed countries lack the political will to reduce emissions and provide finance and technology transfer to support developing countries. The lack of political will is the main element that hinders cooperation on addressing climate change in the international community,” said China’s View on the Durban Conference, a press release issued by the Chinese delegation in Durban on December 10, 2011.
“The Durban Conference did not succeed in accomplishing the negotiations under the Bali roadmap. The implementation of the Cancun Agreements and the Durban outcome will not be achieved in the short run. A heavy load of work ahead on the post 2020 arrangement needs to be done in order to enhance the implementation of the convention,” said the release.
There is no legally binding international treaty that has no political background. Though the issue of climate change involves the world’s common interests, it is still closely related to the current world political pattern. Developing countries can’t be too nave and expect developed countries to voluntarily take international responsibilities, said Zhou, adding that China can’t give up defending the interests of developing countries in the international negotiations.
Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate negotiator and Vice Chairman of NDrC, also responded in Durban on December 7 on the desire of more responsibilities from China.
“China’s total emission volume has attracted global attention, but please don’t forget, China is a developing country with a population of 1.32 billion. China’s per-capita GDP just surpassed $4,300. There are still 128 million people living on less than $1 a day in China,” said Xie.
China faces the tough task of promoting development, eliminating poverty and improving people’s livelihoods. However, China has overcome all the difficulties and made arduous efforts in dealing with climate change, he said.
For instance, from 2005 to 2010, China’s energy consumption per unit of the GDP dropped 19.1 percent, or a reduction of 1.46 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
The Chinese Government has attached great importance to the issue of climate change, and regarded dealing with climate change as an important strategy and persistent policy in China’s economic and social development, said Xie.
Public challenge
This new border constitutes a public challenge to Ghana’s offshore acreage, which according to Ghana’s Tullow Oil holds close to a billion barrels in untapped oil reserves. Tullow Oil reported that they had been asked in april 2010 to sign an agreement with Cote d’Ivoire’s Director General of hydrocarbons and Petroci failing which they would be prevented from operating, which was confirmed by Ghana’s Minister for Information Okudzeto abrokwa. apart from Tullow Oil, the new border also includes laying claim to much of Tullow Oil’s Jubilee, Tweneboa, Enyenra and Owo discoveries, among others, plus the West Tano-1X find and several prospect sites.
In March 2010, Ghana President John Evans atta Mills passed the Ghana Boundary Commission Bill to establish a commission to negotiate proper demarcation of Ghana’s land and maritime boundaries with neighboring countries. This was after Cote d’Ivoire first raised concerns that Ghana has encroached on its territorial waters.
Ghana’s Energy Minister Joe Oteng adjei said there is a critical need to put in place a commission that would lead to the negotiation of Ghana’s maritime and land boundaries with the country’s neighbors.“There are international laws and United nation’s conventions that need to be respected.” adjei said areas couldn’t just be taken over with claims, as negotiations are needed. “as we put our commission in place then we have the mandate to meet with our counterpart as to the delimitations of our maritime boundary,” he said.
Boundary commission
The 14-member Ghana Boundary Commission, chaired by the Minister of Lands and Forestry, Collins Dauda, is the result of legislation pushed through by the government earlier following the discovery of commercial quantities of oil in the deepwater Dzata-1 exploration well off Cape Three Points in the western region, which Cote d’Ivoire says lies within its border.
Upstream said that the border dispute is interesting because a recognized maritime border does not divide Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. Instead, they have used a median line derived from the position of the end-point of their land boundary. This was defined in an anglo-French agreement of 1893, based upon the position of a house occupied by British officials in the 1880s. after independence the two countries agreed to set up a joint commission to redefine their common border, but no action was ever taken.
Upstream reported that discovery of oil by Ghana was enough to demonstrate the inadequacy of a simple median line. Cote d’Ivoire has since argued that a precise maritime boundary must be delimited, and the boundary that is eventually constructed will pertain to the area that is the object of Cote d’Ivoire’s current protest.
head of Ghana’s technical committee of the Presidential Commission, Lawrence apaalse, told ghanabusinessnews.com in June 2010 that the Ivorians made some proposals to the Ghanaian Commission, but the proposals were not acceptable and they were asked to go back and review it.
according to adama Toungara, the new oil minister for Cote d’Ivoire, the country plans to boost oil drilling by the year’s end to become a major regional producer.
“We want to start drilling in seven wells by the end of the year to ensure a production of 300,000 barrels a day by 2020, up from 40,000 barrels now. We want to make Cote d’Ivoire a sub-regional oil power even though the country will not be an african Kuwait.”
Out of the 28 oil fields in Cote d’Ivoire, firms from Canada, the United states, Italy, Russia, Ireland, Kuwait and Malaysia, according to official data, operate 23.
Cote d’Ivoire was until recently the leading oil producer in the eight-nation West african Economic and Monetary Union of West africa, which excludes nigeria, the top oil producer in sub-saharan africa.
Oil companies concerned
Meanwhile, Ghana’s Jubilee Oil Partners, including Tullow Oil Plc, Kosmos Energy, anadarko Petroleum and the Ghana national Petroleum Corp. (GnPC), have already raised concerns about the boundary dispute. Texas-based oil explorer, Kosmos Energy has expressed fears about the development. The oil producer says the future of a portion of its license in the Deepwater Tano Block is uncertain if changes are made to the maritime boundary demarcation between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. It has 18 percent stake in the Deepwater Tano block in the Gulf of Guinea.
“Uncertainty remains with regard to the outcome of the boundary demarcation between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire and we do not know if the maritime boundary will change, therefore affecting our rights to explore and develop our discoveries or prospects within such areas,” the Warburg Pincus and Blackstone Group (BX) backed company said in a filing form to the U.s. securities and Exchange Commission on april 25, 2011.
The Ghana Deputy Minister for Energy, alhaji Inusah Fuseini has said that even though Cote d’Ivoire’s claim of ownership is a concern to the people of Ghana, Ghanaians should not fret since they cannot claim sovereignty over the oil region given that the area is a disputed area. he indicated that Ghana would petition the United nation’s Border Commission if negotiations with Cote d’Ivoire failed.
Cote d’Ivoire President Ouattara paid a day visit to Ghana on October 7, where it is believed his discussions with his Ghanaian counterpart included how to solve the border dispute.
(Reporting from Ghana)