1. INTRODUCTION
Joy Hyvarinen, International Treaties Coordinator, January 1996.
The Climate Convention is one of the two treaties agreed at the
Rio Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992.
The other one is the Convention on Biological Diversity.
1.1 Never before
Climate change is a global problem, which no country can solve
on its own. The Climate Convention is the first international
attempt to address it.
Climate change caused by humans (by burning of oil and coal) is
an unprecedented problem with potentially devastating impacts,
such as changes in seasonality and intensity of rainfall, more
frequent droughts and sea-level rise which might drown large areas
of low-lying states and entire island nations. Many species are
unlikely to be able to adapt quickly enough, especially species
already under threat.
While climate change has been difficult to predict, the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC), which integrates and assesses
the science on climate change, now says that there is a detectable
human influence on the global climate.
Responding to climate change by cutting down greenhouse gas emissions
has huge implications for lifestyles and national economies, especially
in industrialized countries.
1.2 North-South issues
The environment versus development debate comes to a head in the
Climate Convention.
Industrialized countries are responsible for most greenhouse gas
emissions and the absolute priority must be to reduce emissions
in the North.
However, if climate change is to be stopped, developing countries
will not be able to industrialize in the same way the countries
that are now industrialized did. Developing countries, whose priorities
are economic development and poverty eradication, feel that it
is not fair that their development would be hindered because industrialized
countries have used up, or exceeded, the shared global "environmental
space" for development.
Because of this, the Climate Convention has stronger commitments
for industrialized countries than for developing countries (see
section 2.5).
WWF is working to ensure industrialized countries take the lead
in combating climate change, as the Convention requires them to.
1.3 Making new international law
Treaties (or conventions, it means the same thing) are one of
the most important ways of making international law. However,
it is important to understand that international law is still
at quite an early stage of development, and the international
community is still in a process of learning how to make treaties
such as the Climate Convention work properly.
The negotiators of the Climate Convention created the Convention
as they went along. Time pressures and strong disagreements concerning
some issues contributed to making the Convention an imperfect
instrument. It is not always clear what the text means and the
Convention will need much interpretation and development as it
is put into practice.
1.4 A framework Convention
The Climate Convention is a "framework convention",
which means that it is designed to change and be adjusted in the
future. The Convention contains review processes, through which
the Parties to the Convention will decide how to change it (see
section 2.7).
Governments recognize that the Climate Convention is a first step,
which will need to be followed by more action.
1.5 State of play - the Berlin Mandate
At the time of writing, governments are meeting in the Ad Hoc
Group on the Berlin Mandate (the "AGBM").
The Berlin Mandate, which was adopted at the first Conference
of the Parties (COP 1) at Berlin in April 1995, commits governments
to strengthening the Climate Convention. The Mandate sets out
a framework for concluding negotiations of a protocol in time
for COP 3 in 1997.
Important work is also being done in meetings of other subsidiary
bodies of the COP (see sections 2.23, 2.27)
The Climate Action Network (CAN), which WWF is part of, wanted
COP 1 to adopt the Toronto target, a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions
by the year 2005, for industrialized countries.
NGOs are continuing to work for reductions in industrialized country
emissions.
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