Climate change campaigners yesterday welcomed UN plans to amend the way changes to the Kyoto Protocol are made, in an effort to salvage negotiations on a new international deal. Under the plans, countries could be forced to accept decisions made by a majority. Currently no resolution can be passed by the group without full agreement.
The UN’s suggestion shows its acceptance that, after two years of deadlock, there is little chance the body will reach a global deal to reduce greenhouse emissions and tackle global warming in November in Cancun, Mexico – which is the next time world leaders will meet to discuss a follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol.
If their suggestions are adopted, decisions will be forced through if four-fifths of the Protocol vote in favour, after all efforts to reach agreement by consensus have been exhausted. The amendments would then come into force after six months. The UN has also recommended that countries could be forced to opt out of any amendments, as opposed to the current arrangement whereby they must explicitly agree to any decisions tabled.
Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, acknowledged that the current deadlock has to be broken. “We know there needs to be reform of the UN process around tackling climate change. We saw at Copenhagen how some countries blocked progress and we can’t allow that to happen again.” The amendment is also welcomed by Farhana Yamin, research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, at the University of Sussex. “The stalemate in negotiations has gone on for 15 years. This consensus arrangement is an extraordinary and ridiculous anomaly in the make up of Kyoto that exists in few other UN organisations. This is a positive way of forcing laggard countries who hold out and play their veto hand the whole time, to engage in constructive talks. Under this system, they will realise that unless they are constructive, they will lose their voice altogether.”
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