Climate change is becoming a hot topic again.

The current outlook

The UN has reported the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere rose to record levels last year, reinforcing scientist’s warnings that the world may be on course for dangerous levels of global warming.  In the wider scientific community it is being felt that the possibility of holding average global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius is slipping away from mankind.

Global climate talks in Doha, Quatar have actually been moving forward with a goal of securing a new accord in 2015. In an interview with Yale Environmental 360 Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and woman in charge of United Nations talks about the inevitability of world economies making the transition to a low-carbon future. Figueres discusses the need for politicians to feel the same urgency as climate scientists about the threats posed by global warming. However there are signs that the attitude towards climate change is shifting the Congressional Budget Office issued a 19-page report on the different ways to make a carbon tax less burdensome on lower income people.

The issue of climate change was practically absent during the presidential campaign until Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast. Amidst a budget crisis the carbon tax idea has been revived by some on both the right and left. The devastating hurricane and an election that led to Democratic gains have placed global warming firmly back into conversation. The more liberal Brookings Institution released a “modest carbon tax” proposal that would raise $150 billion a year, with $30 billion annually set-aside for clean energy investments.

It is becoming obvious for countries such as the United States to pursue the benefits of global climate change policy. Firstly, from a domestic perspective, why would the United States allow other countries to pursue the technologies of the future while current technologies become more obsolete, hence losing its future competitiveness. From an international perspective there is going to be increasing pressure in particular from the private sector to move toward low-carbon technologies in order to maintain global competitiveness.

COP-18 needs to deliver a set of outcomes

The UN talks in Doha, Quatar involve more than 190 nations that are working towards adopting a treaty in 2015 that would limit greenhouse gases starting in 2020. The Kyoto Protocol is now going into its second commitment period, whereby 10 to 12 percent of global emissions would be under the regulation of legally binding instruments. All industrial nations, have pledged to make emission reductions by 2020, which combined with the pledges made by 55 developing countries puts 80% of global emissions under a voluntary structure of mitigation.

The first outcome to be delivered by COP-18 is the immediate implementation of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol to start on January 1, 2013. What delegates at the talks are discussing is how this second commitment period is going to be implemented and what the rules are going to be. COP-18 needs to take a broad array of institutional arrangements that have been in the design phase over the past few years and move those into implementation to support the mitigation and adaptation that developing countries are undertaking.

COP-18 needs to clarify how governments are going to organise their work to insure they put themselves in a good stead to adopt the universal agreement in 2015. Furthermore the industrialised countries need to be clear about how are they intend to implement their promise of financial support to developing countries of up to $100 billion by 2020. In order for countries to be on track to fulfill their initial pledges there needs to be transparency around the exact definition of what can count toward fast-start finance.

The European Union, U.S., Japan and other developed nations paid out $23.6 billion of assistance to poorer countries during the three years through 2012, falling short of the $30 billion promised in 2009, the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development stated this week. Envoys in Doha must also ensure aid doesn’t end next year, by doubling pledges to $60 billion through 2015 and finding $15 billion for a new Green Climate Fund that was set up at last year’s round of talks.

The IPCC are looking at options for countries to reach the two-degree target, which is one of the main issues concerned in the Fifth Assessment report. What is clear to delegates at COP-18 is that the more delayed mitigation is; the increasing likelihood emission increases will not become stabalised.