KPMG's global climate change and sustainability advisor Yvo de Boer said on Tuesday that there should be more interaction between governments and the private sector on the international climate change negotiations, as decisions at this forum impacted on business.
Formerly the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary, De Boer noted that the climate change negotiations were an intergovernmental process, but felt that business should have a stronger voice in the process, particularly since climate change was increasingly becoming an issue at the boardroom level.
"Business must come forward more often with a business view [on climate change negotiations]. Hopefully South Africa's CEO forum can play a role in that," he added.
This recently established forum has some 40 private sector members from various sectors of the economy, and was engaging with the South African government regarding climate change issues.
De Boer said that companies could make the business case for action on climate change, and this input was necessary at the global negotiations. Ultimately however, it was up to governments to put in place the policies and frameworks and define the process for progress on the matter.
He said that it was unlikely that business would get a seat at the table at the UNFCCC negotiations.
De Boer said that when it was boiled down to its essence, the reason why the world was not progressing on environmental concerns was because the case for green growth has not been effectively made. "As long as we can pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere without cost, we won't see reform," he reiterated.
He added that the political processes of the negotiations were about pricing things properly. This was an immensely complicated task considering the number of different participating countries with their conflicting interests.
COP 17
South Africa would host the seventeenth conference of the parties (COP 17) in Durban, under the UNFCCC, where the 195 member parties would continue to battle out the negotiations in the hope of reaching agreement on climate change issues.
Durban was viewed as important for advancing the climate change agenda, particularly on practical topics that would likely affect the private sector, such as the financial mechanism, or Green Climate Fund, which would raise funds for climate change-related projects in developing countries.
"The South African government will not have an easy time of making a success of Durban," said De Boer, noting that it would be particularly difficult since the world was still in the midst of a global economic crisis, and many commentators felt that climate change policy and action were in conflict with economic growth.
He added that the US was a complicating factor since much of the government's focus was on healthcare and it was difficult to get buy-in for climate change decision making.
FUTURE OF THE KYOTO PROTOCOL
De Boer did not believe that the US would ever agree to become a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol and take on legally binding emission reduction targets.
"My sense is that unless negotiators manage to resolve the future, or nonfuture, of the Kyoto Protocol at Durban, there won't be progress on the other issues [within the UNFCCC negotiations]," he said.
The future of the Kyoto Protocol hangs in the balance. Most developing countries want to see the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol and a second emission reduction commitment period beyond 2012. Some industrialized countries, namely Canada, Japan and Russia have said that they would not sign on to a second commitment period, mainly because the US is not a party to the agreement.
The US has strongly emphasised that it would not take on targets unless emerging economies such as China were also obliged to take on emission reduction targets.
De Boer said that he hoped an outcome could be reached whereby stakeholders "don't kill Kyoto", but take key elements of the Protocol and build it into a single new agreement, with a comprehensive united approach.
This would be a kind of 'reformed' Protocol, which would recognise that different countries could take on different commitments. It would also need to be decided whether targets taken on by countries would be legally binding or not.
De Boer added that if a reformed treaty was agreed upon, he would like to see some kind of Durban roadmap after COP 17 on when such a treaty would be finalised, and what its key elements would need to be.
