Durban Mandate and how Africa caved in

The Durban climate change negotiation was billed as an African COP but for Africa and much of the developing world, outcomes of the talks spell doom.

Last December’s climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa marked a critical phase in rescuing the earth and humanity. However, the Durban decisions do not guarantee a safe future for the world’s population especially in Africa.

The regime change, that the ‘DurbanAction on Enhanced Action’ (Durban Mandate) represents, fundamentally shifts the burden of climate change to developing countries from developed nations which are responsible for polluting the atmosphere, to trigger the phenomenon, in the first place.

The Durban talks produced three main outcomes. Durban mandate launched a process for the negotiation of a new climate treaty to be implemented from 2020. 

The mandate also extended the Kyoto Protocol (KP) by a single term. The current emission reduction period expires in December 2012 and an extension was essential to avoid a gap between the two periods and to save the planet from inevitable overheating. 

But the Durban decision on the KP essentially consigns the protocol, which remains to date, the only legally binding climate treaty, to life support. Days after Durban, Canada withdrew from the KP. Russia and Japan have threatened to join Canada in abandoning the KP. The European Union (EU) failed to raise its emission cut targets opting for the lowest possible reduction levels. 

The Durban mandate agreed on measures to implement some decisions adopted by earlier COPs including establishment of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), transparency mechanisms, technology and adaptation cooperation. It is unclear just yet how some of these decisions will be implemented with the dismantling of the existing climate regime. The GCF was set up as an empty shell with no country willing to put in the funds needed to enable developing countries to address climate change and to pursue a cleaner and more sustainable development path.

For Africa and much of the developing world, the outcome of the Durban talks was a major disaster. Africa’s major collective demands were swept aside and even where there was agreement of some sort, the decisions are empty shells at best. The Durban mandate effectively ushers in a new climate regime as it throws out the equity- and science-based regime that has guided international negotiations until last December United Nations climate talks in South Africa.

Far from building confidence, Durban dismantled the trust and transparency as well as equity embedded in the Convention. 

Equity and ‘Common But Differentiated Responsibilities’ (CBDR) have been central to the climate change Convention and treaty. CBDR underscores the principle that the highest polluters bear the largest burden of the cost of addressing climate change. 

The Durban mandate ignores this fact. Under the Durban mandate both developed and developing countries are treated as equals. This means that countries in Africa, which together contribute under 4 per cent of global greenhouse gases (GHG), will have to cut their emissions as developed regions such as the European Union and the United States which have over the last two centuries damaged the atmosphere and continue to spew more than their fare share of GHG into the atmosphere. This will stifle Africa and other developing regions’ development to deepen poverty and economic deprivation and fuel insecurity.

The Durban mandate thus offers rich countries a convenient escape out of their prior internationally legally-binding commitments under the Convention and treaty.  

Capitulation

But in Durban, Africa held on to its equity- and science-based position until the last 48 hours of the two-week long climate change talks.

A number of reasons seem to account for this gargantuan capitulation. Among these was the intense direct pressure mounted on Africa by the European Union. The EU combined this pressure with divide and rule tactics which undermined the unity of African countries.  

But Africa’s own weaknesses also contributed a great deal to the continent’s demands and expectations being swept aside in the final Durban mandate.

Nasr (Egypt) & Tosi (DRC), chair of Africa Group

In the run up to Durban, African countries updated and consolidated their common negotiating positions on climate change in Bamako, Mali. These positions were affirmed at the highest level by African heads of state and government in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea in July 2011.

At the fourth special session of AMCEN in Bamako, African ministers of environment updated the continent’s common position on climate change to demand a second and subsequent commitment periods of the Kyoto Protocol with raised, rapid and sustained emission cuts; an additional legally binding outcome based on the Bali Action Plan, including comparable mitigation efforts for the United States (which is not a signatory to the protocol) and other measures to enable African countries adapt to the devastating effects of climate change. 

Africa’s demands also included finance, technology and resource support for countries on the continent to contribute to global action on climate change in the context of sustainable development. 

The weaknesses of Africa in the negotiations were perhaps most highlighted when Meles Zenawi, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, effectively instructed African delegates to step back from the agreed common African position and adopt the European Union’s illegitimate positions on major issues at stake at the negotiations in total violation of the remit of his authority as the spokesperson of the ad hoc Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSOCC). 

Ethiopia's Zenawi

Addressing a mixed group of African negotiators and government ministers on December 8, Zenawi asked the African representatives to prioritise two issues.  Firstly, they should, as way to securing a second period for the KP, accept a mandate for a new legally binding treaty on mitigation which covers all countries.  Second, they should work for the adoption of a decision on the Green Climate Fund even if it was an empty shell.

In giving these instructions, Zenawi over-stepped his mandate.  As spokesperson of CAHOSOCC, the Ethiopian prime minister does not have the authority to direct African delegates on how to negotiate.  CAHOSOCC is a monitoring body that is only meant to observe the negotiations and report to the Heads of State and Government.   

The technical negotiators and ministers draw their mandate directly from the collective African positions adopted by the Heads of State and Government at their Summit.

In a further complication of Africa’s negotiating strength, the troika of Zenawi, Algeria and Kenya took off to hold bilateral talks with some actors including the European Union and the United States, thus holding the rest of Africa hostage.

Concessions

President Jacob Zuma’s stance as host of the talks also contributed to this process.  Preoccupied as host with ensuring the ‘success’ of the meeting, Zuma was keen to offer concessions to the EU even when these did not accord with Africa’s collective position. 

On many occasions, Zuma called on African negotiators to meet Europe half-way. Given that it was Europe which was keen on overturning the basic principles of the UNFCCC regime that Africa was defending, this call to meet Europe half-way was basically a call for Africa to give in to Europe’s fundamental project. 

The host’s attitude played into the hands of the EU and developed countries as it robbed Africa of some of the necessary gravitas to push back the pressure from rich developed countries to abandon its principled demands.