Briefing template final

November 2014
The UN Climate Conference in Lima
Background
The United Nations climate negotiations will convene in Lima, Peru, from 1-12 December at their
annual summit. The Lima Conference is also known as COP 20, 1
The meeting takes place shortly after the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published
its 5th Assessment Report – culminating in a ‘summary for policy makers’ which was published in
October 2014 which synthesized the latest findings on the climate science, the impacts and the
mitigation efforts needed.
The climate science is unequivocal – the impacts of climate change are already being witnessed
and more urgent and ambitious action is crucial if we’re to avoid even more catastrophic impacts.
This year has also seen increasing public mobilization on issues relating to climate and energy –
from the People’s Climate Marches around the world, to the hundreds of actions during Reclaim
Power week.
However, the year also continues to feature the continuing targeting of environmental defenders,
including the death of a young environmentalist in France and the murder of indigenous activists
trying to protect forests in Peru. Globally, two environmental defenders are killed each week with
countless others targeted for some form of repression.
The negotiations
The COP 20 conference will focus on the negotiations of the “Durban Platform for Enhanced
Action” (or “ADP” as its known in the UN). The ADP was launched in 2011 and is scheduled to
conclude at next year’s UN Climate summit (COP 21) in Paris in December 2015.
The negotiations under the Durban Platform have two objectives:
1. Increasing the level of climate action, including the strength of targets and the provision
of climate finance, in the pre-2020 period2; and
2. Developing a new agreement ‘with legal force’ to apply to all countries from 2020
onward.3
At last year’s Climate Summit in Warsaw (COP19) governments agreed that the Lima meeting
would:
Because it is the 20th “Conference of the Parties” (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change.
2 Known as “ADP Workstream 2” in the jargon of the negotiations
3 Known as “ADP Workstream 1”
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 produce ‘draft elements’ of a negotiating text for Paris; and
 agree the prescribed ‘information’ that the UN should know about each country’s planned
‘contribution’4 to that agreement.
In addition to this, the Lima conference also serves as a place to apply and implement existing
climate agreements, including analysing countries’ climate pollution reports and approving
decisions made by the governing body of the Kyoto Protocol, the world’s existing treaty for
internationally binding climate targets.
The summit is also a place for a range of technical negotiations on issues such as rules relating to
accounting of emissions from different sectors of the economy (like forestry or agriculture). This is
where the false solutions, such as international carbon offset trading, are proposed that we as
Friends of the Earth, together with others, try and oppose.
In parallel to the meeting of governments (COP 20), a Peoples' Summit will be held from 8-11
December as a forum for global civil society to discuss climate related issues and in particular to
highlight the rights of people and their solutions to climate change. A march is planned for
Wednesday the 10th December (UN Human Rights Day) to focus on the impacts of climate change
on people and their communities around the world.
What are the key issues at stake in the negotiations:
Key questions at the talks will be:
1. How can governments drastically improve pre-2020 action and deliver an outcome
on that objective?
2. What impact do recent US, EU and China announcements have on the potential
effectiveness of a post-2020 agreement?
3. Should issues like international climate finance, technology access, and
adaptation to climate impacts be included as core elements of the post-2020
agreement?
1. Will a lack of pre-2020 action undermine future talks?
In fact, the Lima conference will open with developed countries 'pledging' effectively no climate
action between now and 2020 and global pledges putting the world on track to risk up to 4°C of
warming by the end of the century.
This has been further undermined by the fact that Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United States
are set to pollute above their insufficient current promises.
This follows on from a Ministerial meeting in June, which was supposed to see the 2020 climate
targets of developed countries revisited, but saw no movement.
And an international climate finance 'pledging conference' in November, which did not even live up
to deliberately lowered expectations, let alone matching the actual need.
Similarly, the Kyoto Protocol - the existing international climate treaty that is supposed to cover
developed country's targets until 2020 - has not formally 'entered into force' because too
few governments have made a proper legal commitment to it, despite promising to do so in 2012.
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Known as “INDCs” or Intended Nationally Determined Contributions
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This lack of action by the countries with the biggest history of climate pollution and the most wealth
available to tackle it - combined with broken promises on revisiting their targets and any legal
bindings under the Kyoto system - is severely undermining trust in the talks.
Whilst, in contrast, developing countries are proposing to do more total abatement than developed
countries by 2020. This year they have been recognized as leading the way in creating national
legislation on climate change.
Given this context, talks on pre-2020 action (known as "Workstream 2") will be a lightening rod
issue in Lima.
Areas of particular differences include: how to scale up action at an aggregate level; how to have
an outcome on pre-2020 action in Paris; and whether particular technical work is needed.
Friends of the Earth England Wales and Northern Ireland (EWNI) believes that a more focused and
collaborative approach on the energy sector could be a substantial outcome of the talks under
Workstream 2. This could include a Globally Funded Renewable Energy Feed in Tariff, which
would ensure decentralized community controlled energy access for the almost 2 billion people
without electricity - but without replicating the dangerous existing model of energy generation and
distribution.
Further reading:

Proposal from the African Group to the UN to address renewable energy.

Update about the Green Climate Fund pledging conference.
2. What impact do recent US, EU and China announcements have?
The lead up to the Lima Conference saw the release of reports by the IPCC (the UN's climate
science panel) which outline how much climate pollution can be released over time to avoid levels
of warming - this limit is known as an 'emissions budget' or 'carbon budget.'
By using such 'emission budgets' and converting them into feasible pathways for pollution levels, it
is possible to assess current 2025 and 2030 emission target proposals from countries such as the
US, the EU, and China against temperature goals, like those agreed under the UN, for 1.5°C or
2°C above pre-industrial levels.
All analysis shows that these most recent proposals do not align with those temperature goals,
unless those countries expect every other country to undertake drastically deeper cuts, forcing into
question the political commitment to the 1.5°C or 2°C temperature goals.
This is particularly worrying given the United States' new target is actually a retreat from what it
promised in 2009, even though it is the biggest historical polluter, and the country with the greatest
resources and capacity to address climate change.
To address this issue, several countries, such as Ethiopia and Bolivia, have proposed more
explicitly taking up the idea of the 'emissions budget' in the negotiations.
Similarly, questions of the scale of commitments from different countries being based on objective
criteria, such as historical responsibly and capacity, will be brought into focus as various countries
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begin to justify their proposed climate actions.
Such proposals will be contentious, with perennial blocker the United States having publicly
opposed such suggestions before, as they are likely to reveal the lack of significant action in the
U.S., even under President Obama's leadership.
Further reading:

The 'draft elements non-paper text' which includes reference to the emissions budget.

An interactive map by Friends of the Earth (EWNI) supported by the Stockholm
Environment Institute showing how much each country actually needs to reduce emissions
for the 1.5°C or 2°C guardrail.
4. A comprehensive agreement – addressing finance, adaptation and loss and damage
Given the devastating impact of climate change already on millions of people, on their homes and
their access to food and water, the UN climate agreement needs to address issues in a balanced
way. This means addressing issues beyond just pollution targets.
In UN conference language this means countries taking on targets for finance and technology
transfers, and addressing adaptation and 'loss and damage' issues. Action on all these issues is
needed as part of the outcome for Parisin December 2015.
All parties agreed in Durban (2011) that work would cover mitigation, adaptation, finance,
technology, capacity and transparency. Despite this agreement, it seems some countries (mainly
developed ones) want a narrow Paris agreement focused on mitigation, to the exclusion of other
issues.
Although the current draft 'text' of elements includes these other issues, this text has no legal
standing and it is unclear of its status within the talks.
In contrast the 'draft decision' text will form the basis of the legal outcome of the Lima Conference,
and that document currently allows for countries to determine their own 'scope' of contributions to
the agreement.
This would mean that some countries could decide their 'contributions' would be focused on
pollution targets only, and not on climate finance. This would narrow the negotiations to cover
mitigation, and risk shifting the burden from the richer to the poorer countries in the negotiations.
Many developing countries are concerned by such a process and so a lot of procedural wrangling
can be expected in Lima as those who are focused on a more comprehensive agreement work to
rectify the current proposed text.
Further reading:
 Briefing explaining the issues at stake in the content of the Lima decision and national
contributions.
 The current proposed ‘decision text’.
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