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Expect a tough round of climate talks in Durban

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The UN climate negotiations in South Africa will be "tough", with the big question focusing on the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the foreign minister said Friday after preparatory talks.
"It is going to be a tough COP (Conference of Parties) because it is a COP that can't avoid the political issues that were not thoroughly discussed in Cancun," Maite Nkoana-Mashabane told journalists, referring to a big meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) last December.
"We no longer have time to postpone the key issue, particularly of the second commitment period" of Kyoto, she said. "It has to be discussed in Durban."
Nkoana-Mashabane hosted two days of ministerial consultations attended by more than 40 countries which she said had seen opinion coalesce in favour of fresh Kyoto commitments after the current set of carbon curbs expires at end 2012.
"The majority of party members here were saying Kyoto is very, very important because this is the only instrument we have in the UNFCCC process that is legally binding."
Arduously negotiated, the Kyoto Protocol requires rich countries that have ratified it to sign on to binding goals in curbing greenhouse-gas emissions.
As a result, its critics say it is ineffective because it does not include the world's two biggest carbon emissions, China, which as a developing economy does not have carbon targets, and United States, which boycotted the accord in 2001.
But Kyoto's supporters say the protocol is a cornerstone for attacking climate change because of its legal teeth and its distinction between rich and poor.
The European Union (EU) is one such defender, but is cautious about signing up to a second commitment period without ambitious promises from the major emitters in a wider UNFCCC negotiation arena.
"The majority of the countries that were represented here ... are all saying that one of the key outcomes for Durban is that we commit on the second commitment of Kyoto," Nkoana-Mashabane said.
"There are a few countries who are still putting conditions to say 'if A happens or B happens, they think they will sign on', but they are not too many. So, therefore, again the general thrust of the outcome of this meeting was very positive."
Earlier talks to thrash out a planned $100-billion-a-year Green Climate Fund, established in Cancun in December, saw the United States and Saudi Arabia withdraw their support for the overall design supported by other countries, a London-based NGO, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), said Thursday.
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said governments who sat on the fund's committee had decided to forward an "operating instrument" document to Durban.
"I'm actually confident that once that instrument is seen at the top... that it will be recognised as what it is, which is a very, very balanced document that seeks to begin to move forward a fund that has never been seen before," she added.
Nkoana-Mashabane said activation of the fund, meant to help developing countries to tackle climate change, was vital.
"Developing countries demand a prompt start for the fund through its early and initial capitalisation."
The EU said the ministerial meeting had a "good atmosphere (but) could not hide the fact that the world is waiting for the US and the emerging economies to commit".
"A second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol with the EU and other ambitious developed economies would cover only 15 percent of the global emissions," EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard noted in a statement.
"This is clearly not good enough. We need commitments also from the other big emitters."
The Durban conference takes place from November 28 to December 9.
Environmental experts want, Europe should maintain its leadership on climate change and maintain pressure on global partners to save the Kyoto protocol. There are really two paths for Europe, writes climate activist Wendel Trio, either to extend its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol or to move towards ending it.
"Once again headlines in Europe are dominated by an economic crisis that many feel never really left since it began in 2008.  Government leaders are scrambling to keep the European economy from going into freefall and spreading even more hardship than is already being felt by too many.
The crisis may have been born in the USA, but as we now know, the signs of impending crisis were there in the EU. Yet our own legislators failed to legislate, regulators failed to regulate and central banks threw caution to the wind.
The same cannot be said about the EU when it comes to their leadership on climate change, a global issue that increasingly threatens our safety, health and prosperity.  It is here that Europe deserves praise for acknowledging early on the science, the risks, the need for global action and the costs of inaction. 
The EU responded to the threat by championing a multilateral solution, readily signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. It led by example with its own domestic greenhouse gas reduction targets and plans.  But the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012, and so it is that in the midst of this acute economic crisis EU leadership needs to turn its attention to the future to best serve Europe's strategic interests.
There are really only two paths available to Europe in Durban - to extend its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol or to move towards ending it.  It should be said that signing up to a second commitment period requires Europe to do nothing more in terms of additional emission reductions.
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