Leading from the front

The UN climate change conference in Poznan is the half-way mark of a two-year negotiating process, set to culminate in an ambitious international climate change deal in Copenhagen next year.

Since the major UN conference in Bali last year, which set the roadmap for this process, the world has been transformed, first by the financial crisis in world markets, and now by an increasingly deep and global economic downturn.

Many people have raised concerns that these crises could negatively influence international climate change negotiations in general and the Poznan gathering in particular.

Thankfully, there is a wide-spread and growing recognition that they cannot be a justification for delaying action and that, on the contrary, unless climate change is addressed, any financial and economic solution will ultimately fail.

At Poznan, negotiators will take stock of the progress made in the first year of the talks and map out what needs to be done to reach agreement at the end of 2009. The meeting will also be an important opportunity for ministers to determine the key ingredients of a universally shared vision on international cooperation to address climate change.

Crucially, this vision needs to include both the financial architecture and the types of mechanisms needed to generate additional financial resources.

On the road to an agreement in Copenhagen, EU leadership has proven to be critical. At the UN climate change conference in Bali last year, the EU received a standing ovation when it committed to a 20 per cent emissions reduction target, and to 30 per cent if other developed countries followed suit.

The agreement of the EU’s energy and climate package in December has the potential to send a vital signal to the international negotiating process, demonstrating that industrialised countries are willing to live up to their promises.

This is why in the second week of December, the eyes of the world will not only be firmly set on the high-level segment of the UN climate change conference in Poznan, but on European leaders simultaneously meeting in Brussels to agree their flagship package.

Whilst Europe needs to continue to show leadership in reducing its own emissions, it must also continue to play a leading role in the field of international cooperation.

Developing countries’ efforts to eradicate poverty and enhance economic growth are set to require vast amounts of energy and huge investments in energy infrastructure - more than half of the around tn forecast to be invested world-wide in the energy sector by 2030.

At the same time, the greatest greenhouse gas mitigation potential – around 70 per cent of what is possible world-wide – is in precisely these parts of the world. Developing countries are willing to undertake stronger action on climate change, but only if provided with the necessary financial and technological support by industrialised countries to green their economies.

Several European countries have put useful proposals on the table as how that kind of support can be generated.  For example, Germany intends to use a share of proceeds from the auctioning of emission allowances for international cooperation - a model that can be extended to the entire EU emissions trading scheme.

And in the context of the EU’s budget reform, Europe can channel funds to where they have the greatest effect in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. A new global technology mechanism, agreed in Copenhagen next year, could further decisively boost research and development by pooling global funds to support a coordinated research and development agenda.

The agreed outcome in Copenhagen in 2009 needs to constitute an effective and ambitious policy framework that sets a clear overall direction for future global climate change action.

In order to arrive at such a policy framework, the process needs to be unlocked by clearly determining the political essentials of the outcome in Copenhagen. These include the nature of the commitments, how financial resources will be mobilised and the institutional framework required to deliver the financial, technological and capacity building resources for both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the inevitable effects of climate change.

The EU as a conglomeration of industrialised nations can take the lead both by subscribing to an ambitious mid-term emission reduction target and by actively helping to unlock all the political elements of the new deal.