Time to come up with solutions

by Samuli Sinisalo The final negotitations in Durban just began. The different negotiating bodies will meet in this order: Ad-hod working group on Kyoto Protocol, Ad-hoc working group on Long Term Cooperative Action, Conference of Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to Kyoto Protocol and finally the closing plenary of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC. It’s 9pm on Saturday,...

The Last Night in Durban

by Samuli Sinisalo A lot has happened today, I hope. Everything that is going on takes place behind closed doors, so we have no way of accurately reporting it the play by play. The ministerial Inbada started just few minutes ago, and that will hopefully bring some clarity to the situation. So far there are two draft texts presented by the COP presidency, to conclude the work in Durban. Text from...

Ministers begin their work

 by Samuli Sinisalo The ministerial Indaba-consultations about the Durban outcome begin tonight. In front of them, the ministers have five options for the possible outcome. No decision is not amongst them at this level. The first option is to implement a new legal instrument under article 17 of the convention. This would mean that the contents of the new instrument can be anything - made up in...

Possible outcomes from Durban

by Samuli Sinisalo After one week of negotiations, what are some of the possible outcomes we can expect from Durban? The negotiations run on the two tracks: Kyoto Protocol and the Long term Cooperative Action. From the Kyoto track, there are at least four possible outcomes: 1) No second commitment period is signed and Kyoto Protocol is buried and forgotten 2) Negotiations for second commitment...