Thousands of government representatives, international organizations and
civil society members have gathered in the Qatari capital of Doha for
the United Nations Climate Change Conference, on November 26 with a call to build on and implement previously agreed decisions to
curb global carbon emissions by the year 2020.
The ten-day meeting brings together the 195 Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
Under the Protocol, 37 States – consisting of highly industrialized
countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to a market
economy – have legally binding emission limitation and reduction
commitments. Government delegates at the Conference will, among other
goals, try to extend the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of
2012.
UNFCCC No wonder the
climate talks turned into such an alphabet soup when the first acronym
they came up with had six letters, ending with three Cs. It stands for
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Adopted in 1992 and ratified by 194 countries and the European Union, it provides the foundation of the global climate talks.
COP 18 Each meeting of the countries who have joined the convention is called a Conference of the Parties, or COP. This year's edition in Doha is the 18th such meeting, hence the name COP 18. Things got confusing at the 2009 meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, when the uninitiated assumed COP was an abbreviation of the host city.
KYOTO PROTOCOL
Known to the climate crowd as the ``KP,'' it's the most important deal
signed within the convention, establishing binding greenhouse emissions
targets for 37 industrialized nations. (Keep reading to find out how to
say emissions target in Kyoto-speak). The US was the only industrialized
nation that didn't ratify the agreement. Adopted in the Japanese city
of Kyoto
in 1997, the KP expires at the end of 2012. A key issue in Doha is
negotiating an extension, referred to as a second commitment period.
LCA
Since the KP focuses on emissions from industrialized nations, a second
work flow was set up in 2007 to discuss other climate actions,
including by developing countries and Kyoto-dropout US The formal name
is the Ad Hoc Working Group
on Long-term Cooperative Action. Delegates just refer to it as the LCA.
It's supposed to be closed at the end of this year, but some developing
countries say its work isn't finished. That's another sticking point in
Doha.
DURBAN PLATFORM Last year in Durban, South Africa,
countries agreed to craft a new global climate pact that would include
both rich and poor nations. Negotiators gave themselves a 2015 deadline
to adopt the agreement, which would enter into force in 2020. A new
working group was formed called the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action. Most delegates call it the Durban Platform or the ADP.
QELRO
It may have a more exotic ring to it than `emissions target' but it's
essentially the same thing. A QELRO is the commitment that a country
has made to cut its greenhouse emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. It
stands for Quantified Emission Limitation and Reduction Obligation.
Don't confuse QELROs with the NAMAs, or Nationally Appropriate
Mitigation Actions, pledged by developing countries; or NAPAs,
Nationally Adaptation Programs for Action, which are action plans
submitted by the poorest countries on how to adapt to climate change.
REDD-PLUS and LULUCF
Even those inside the climate bubble will be hard pressed to spell out
what those initials stand for. The important thing to know is they are
initiatives to reduce emissions from deforestation and agriculture.
