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United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali
Civil society organizations (CSOs) have long been at the forefront of the environmental movement, particularly around the issue of climate change. CSOs played a critical role at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (commonly known as the Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Earth Summit produced both Agenda 21 and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
It is within the UNFCCC that governments discuss the threats and potential impacts of climate change and come to agreement on international actions to deal with the problem. The latest round of discussions was recently completed in Bali where governments agreed on the parameters of their discussions going forward.
This online focus page is intended to provide information on the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali and its follow-up as well as to highlight the importance of civil society’s contribution to the process and its outcomes.
Below you will find background information on the UNFCCC and the UN’s role in producing international agreement on climate change, information on the Bali Conference and its goals, links to recent relevant meetings as well as links to information and initiatives by CSOs relating to climate change. For an authoritative view of the UN System’s work on Climate Change, please visit the ‘UN Climate Change Gateway’
For daily updates on the Bali Conference, you can read the Earth Negotiations Bulletin daily reports.
Click on the headings below to view a particular section:
Background and History of UN Role
United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali (3 December - 14 December)
Recent Relevant Meetings and Outcomes
NGO work regarding climate change within and external to the UN
Background and History of UN Role
At the core of international efforts to address climate change are the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol. These two treaties represent the international response so far to the compelling evidence, compiled and repeatedly confirmed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that climate change is occurring, and that it is largely due to human activities.
Countries agreed on the Convention on 9 May 1992, and it entered into force on 21 March, 1994. But even as they adopted the Convention, however, governments were aware that its provisions would not be sufficient to adequately address climate change. At the first Conference of the Parties, held in Berlin, Germany in early 1995, a new round of talks was launched to discuss firmer, more detailed commitments.
After two and a half years of intensive negotiations, a substantial extension to the Convention was adopted in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997. This Kyoto Protocol established legally binding emissions targets for industrialized countries, and created innovative mechanisms to assist these countries in meeting these targets. The Kyoto Protocol entered into force on 18 November 2004, after 55 Parties to the Convention had ratified it, including enough industrialized countries - who have specific targets - to encompass 55 per cent of that group’s carbon dioxide emissions in 1990.
The debate surrounding climate change on future severity, how much is man caused, and what the solutions might be, has been becoming increasingly vigorous with data and reports providing concrete evidence for global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to assess scientific, technical, and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. It recently finalized its Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007. In October 2007 the IPCC and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize.
It is within this context that the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali will be taking place.
United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali
The United Nations Climate Change Conference 2007 in Bali was recently held from Monday, 3 December to Friday, 14 December 2007. The Conference was presided over by Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar, with support from the UN’s Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC), headed by Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer. The first week involved negotiations among the Parties at the level of high-ranking government officials on a wide range of issues. On Wednesday, 12 December, the high-level segment started with addresses by the UN Secretary-General and the President of Indonesia. It was attended by 187 Environment Ministers and 11,000 participants in total.
Why was the Bali Conference of such importance? This year’s scientific report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has made clear beyond doubt that climate change is a reality and can seriously harm the future development of our economies, societies and eco-systems worldwide. Immediate action is needed to be able to prevent the most severe impacts. Since climate change is a global issue, tackling climate change and its impacts can only be successfully coordinated at the international level. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) presents the appropriate forum to do this. It has been expanded by the Kyoto Protocol which includes emission reduction commitments for developed countries over the period 2008-2012. A new international climate change deal must be put in place in time to ensure that necessary action is undertaken immediately after 2012 when the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol ends. Therefore, comprehensive negotiations on a new climate deal need to begin without further delay.
What agreements were reached in Bali? 187 countries in Bali on agreed to launch negotiations towards a crucial and strengthened international climate change deal. The decision includes an agenda for the key issues to be negotiated up to 2009. These are: action for adapting to the negative consequences of climate change, such as droughts and floods; ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; ways to widely deploy climate-friendly technologies and financing both adaptation and mitigation measures. Concluding negotiations in 2009 will ensure that the new deal can enter into force by 2013, following the expiration of the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol. “This is a real breakthrough, a real opportunity for the international community to successfully fight climate change,” said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “Parties have recognized the urgency of action on climate change and have now provided the political response to what scientists have been telling us is needed,” he added.
"The developed world must now put on the table real financing, technology transfer and offer assistance for countries affected by climate change or those that soon will be, to adapt," Daniel Mittler, spokesman for Greenpeace International, said. "On these issues the Bali meeting has seen progress."
While a new global deal is envisioned for 2013, countries also agreed on a number of steps that need to be taken immediately to further implement the existing commitments of parties to the UNFCCC. For example, Governments decided that funding for adaptation projects in developing countries, financed by the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), would begin under the management of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). This ensures that the Adaptation Fund will become operational in an early stage of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008-2012). The fund is filled by means of a 2% levy on CDM projects. Currently the fund is worth about 37 million euros.
The Bali Conference also made progress on the issue of technology, one of the key concerns of developing countries. Governments agreed to kick start strategic programs to scale up the level of investment for the transfer of both the mitigation and adaptation technologies that developing countries need creating more attractive environments for investment, as well as to provide incentives to the private sector for technology transfer.
Four major UNFCCC meetings to implement the Bali roadmap are foreseen for next year, the first to be held in March or April.
Recent Relevant Meetings and Outcomes
Several relevant meetings have taken place and declarations have been in the run-up to, and following on from, the Bali Conference. These have taken place both within and outside of the UNFCCC. While not comprehensive, below is a list of some of the most relevant:
• United Nations Climate Change Conference, 6 - 17 November 2006, Nairobi, Kenya
• Sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies, 7 - 18 May 2007, Bonn, Germany
• Intersessional: AWG 4 and the Dialogue 4, 27 - 31 August 2007, Vienna, Austria
• UN DPI-NGO 60th Annual Conference, 5 & 7 September 2007, United Nations, New York, USA
• Third OPEC Summit, 15 November 2007, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
• The G8 Summit, 8 June 2007, Heiligendamm, Germany
• The Security Council Debate on the Impact of Climate Change on Peace and Security, 17 April 2007, United Nations, New York, USA
• Ministerial Declaration of the 2007 High-level Segment of ECOSOC, 10 July 2007
• Informal Thematic Debate, ’Climate change as a Global Challenge’, 31 July & 1 August 2007, New York, USA
• The Future in our Hands: Addressing the Leadership Challenge of Climate Change, 24 September 2007, United Nations, New York, USA
• Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change, 27-28 September 2007, Washington, DC, USA
• Informal Thematic Debate of the General Assembly: "Addressing Climate Change: The United Nations and the World at Work"
NGO work regarding climate change within and External to the UN
NGOs and civil society have long provided their expertise and advocated for reform with regards to issues such as climate change, and the environment, to multilateral institutions and national governments. These efforts take a variety of forms, from advocacy to grassroots level education and action, to sharing experience and knowledge with policymakers, to publishing position papers, and to taking part in conferences surrounding these issues.
Since the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, an increasing number of NGOs and other members of civil society from all around the globe have participated in international conferences on the environment. Civil Society representatives have brought invaluable expertise and intervention strategies to international meetings and will continue to do so at the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference Bali 2007 (known as COP13).
Please find below resources for, and by, NGOs relevant to the Bali Conference and beyond.
• How NGOs can participate and be observers in the various sessions of the Convention bodies of UNFCCC.
• Climate Change: UN partnerships is a portal that offers links to various NGO focal points, and other civil society members in partnership with various UN based organizations that deal with a multitude of issues surrounding the subject of Global Climate Change.
• Negotiating and Implementing MEAs: A Manual for NGOs (2007) - developed by UNEP in cooperation with Stakeholder Forum, Earth Media and Centro de Estudios Ambientales - aims at strengthening multi-stakeholder participation and increasing political momentum for effective MEA development, implementation and enforcement. It provides step-by-step background information, hands-on guidance, and expert advice on how stakeholders can effectively engage in developing and implementing MEAs.
• The climate change department of The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) works to limit the impact of global warming and climate change on developing countries. In collaboration with the University of East Anglia and Stockholm University, IIED also maintains a bulletin called Tiempo that covers global warming, climate change, sea-level rise and issues related to climate change and the developing world. Several authors from the developing world are highlighted in this publication.
• The Global Carbon Project, a partnership created in 2001 between a range of environment oriented organizations, publishes reports and datasets regarding greenhouse gas emission. The partnerships’ goal is to find solutions to reduce the amount of these emissions as well as the emissions’ effects.
• INFORSE is a global network comprised of over 150 NGOs whose work consists of promoting sustainable energy and social development.
• UK Rivers Network has a division that contains a tremendous variety of useful and interesting links regarding climate change and global warming. Through these links you can find information regarding background, data, statistics, position papers, reports, and various others sorts of informational pieces with respect to climate change and global warming.
• The Climate Action Network is composed of over 365 NGOs around the world working towards individual and government action on the reduction of human-induced global warming
• Climate Strategies is an NGO that was created by a group of European climate change policy researchers with the aim of assisting governments in the development of solutions to help reduce, stop and or reverse the effects of climate change.
• Women and Climate Change: A Women’s Rights-based Approach to Climate Change: What Do Women’s Human Rights have to do with Global Warming?
• The Declaration on Climate Change and Gender Equality is a set of recommendations formulated during the Secretary General’s High-Level Climate Change Event and the Council of Women World Leaders (CWWL) -Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)-Heinrich Böll Foundation High-Level Roundtable “How Changing Climate Impacts Women”
• Environmental Defense recently released a report entitled “Creating a Clean Development Mechanism” that outlines proposals for increasing the Clean Development Mechanism’s contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emission in a post-2012 world.
• The Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy released “CO2-Capture and Geological Storage as a Climate Policy Option: Technologies, Concepts, Perspectives” which provides a tool for implementing Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).
• The Climate Group is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to advancing business and government leadership on climate change. One of its recent publications is: In the Black: The Growth of the Low Carbon Economy: Summary Report.
• The World Council of Churches (WCC) has been working on climate change since 1990. The WCC Climate Change Program is a booklet that comprises key texts developed by the WCC Working Group on Climate Change.
• Established in 1990, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is a Canadian-based not-for-profit organization that acts as a policy research institute working towards effective communication of its findings, engaging decision-makers in government, business, NGOs and other sectors in the development and implementation of policies that are simultaneously beneficial to the global economy, the global environment and to social well-being. IISD recently released a publication entitled “Climate change as the ‘new’ security threat: implications for Africa” which reviews the linkages between climate change and security in Africa and analyses the role of climate change adaptation policies in future conflict prevention.
• The Woods Hole Research Center conducts research, identifies policies, and supports educational activities that advance the well-being of humans and of the environment.
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