Carmen Bunzl - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Chapter 5. Conclusions 227
further commitments was thus annihilated – the lack of such commitments was
one of two cited reasons for President Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol.
Nevertheless, any commitments on developing countries’ part will have to
be matched by support – both financial and technological – from developed
countries. It will be important to develop mechanisms for financing mitigation
in developing countries and for technology cooperation: simplification of the
financial mechanisms’ operation, the establishment of new mechanisms of
technology transfer, and scaling up of funding.
In the area of adaptation, the Kyoto Protocol’s Adaptation Fund was finally
made operational so that it can begin distributing funds generated from the
levy of the Clean Development Mechanism. Technology transfer and
cooperation is a top priority of developing countries and has now received
much greater focus than in the past. Public and private sector funding was also
considered – from carbon markets to investment banks. These three areas of
negotiation were crucial in order to build the trust of developing countries to
launch their mitigation negotiations. Social justice and equity were equally
emphasized in the negotiations.
A separate, but linked, negotiation on reducing emissions from deforestation
and forest degradation in developing countries was also launched. An effort
has to be made to ensure that aviation is not forgotten, as it is not explicitly
noted in the Bali text.
The challenges on the road to Copenhagen are enormous: negotiating
deepened commitments for those countries that are already bound under the
Kyoto Protocol, new commitments for developing countries (including methods
for differentiation), integrating the US with new commitments, adaptation,
deforestation, financial mechanisms, technology cooperation, transfer
mechanisms for mitigation and adaptation, improving the already existing
market mechanisms (such as the CDM). All these processes have to be
combined into one gigantic package deal.
Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería ICAI Carmen Bunzl Boulet Junio 2008