International Climate Change: A Negotiations Side-by-Side (CRS Report for Congress)
Premium Purchase PDF for $24.95 (23 pages)
add to cart or
subscribe for unlimited access
Pro Premium subscribers have free access to our full library of CRS reports.
Subscribe today, or
request a demo to learn more.
| Release Date |
Nov. 18, 2010 |
| Report Number |
R41494 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Jane A. Leggett, Specialist in Energy and Environmental Policy |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
From November 29 to December 10, 2010, the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and to its subsidiary Kyoto Protocol plan to meet in Cancun, Mexico. While the political agreement enshrined in the Copenhagen Accord of 2009 hangs in the background, ad hoc processes under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol proceed separately. There is no common view on how to make further progress on these two tracks, or on how to produce one or two comprehensive and consistent agreements to govern commitments after 2012, except on a handful of limited topics (described further below and in Table 1). The United States, along with a few other countries, insists that all elements under negotiation be agreed simultaneously, as a package that carefully balances the interests of different Parties. Other Parties, including China and many developing countries, seek decisions on those elements where Parties concur (such as on provision of financial assistance, preventing deforestation, and promoting technological advance), without requiring agreement on the more controversial elements (such as binding GHG reductions by Non-Annex I Parties). Many Parties, particularly those least developed and perceived as most vulnerable to climate change, are calling for the Cancun meeting to set a mandate to negotiate a 'comprehensive and ambitious' agreement by the subsequent meetings of the Parties in late 2011, to be held in South Africa.
