Marrakech climate talks to finalize Kyoto rulebook
Regional, Environment, 10/11/2001

The world's governments are meeting marrakesh from October 29 to November 9 to finalize procedures and institutions needed to make the Kyoto Protocol fully operational.

The executive secretariat of the framework agreement on climate changes says in a statement participants will be negotiating a package of formal Conference decisions on the basis of political principles agreed by ministers and senior officials last July in Bonn. These decisions will also address how to increase the flow of financial and technological support to developing countries under the Climate Change Convention.

"The work of translating the Bonn Agreements into a detailed operational rulebook must be completed here in Marrakech," said Michael Zammit Cutajar, Executive Secretary of the Convention.

"Certainty about the Kyoto Protocol's rules will further motivate businesses and other economic actors to create the low-carbon economy of the future. It will also clear the way for governments to ratify the Protocol and bring it into force.

Marrakech should be the turning point that enables the Protocol to move into high gear," he said. With the new funding and rules in place, the Parties to the Convention could start discussing the political issues that are likely to dominate the next few years, including the widespread desire to re-engage

the US in emissions limitation, the second period for emissions cuts under the Protocol (on which negotiations should start by 2005) and the prospects for expanding the group of countries with emissions targets.

This broader perspective should come to the fore at next September's World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, to which the Marrakech conference will make an input. The conference will also consider the implications for future action on climate change of the latest scientific

and technical findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

the Marrakech meeting will also be submitted for adoption 10 draft decisions reached by July's Bonn conference mostly on issues concerning the Convention.

The Marrakech conference, which is the seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP 7), is also expected to start setting up the Kyoto institutions. A first step would be to elect the Executive Board of the Clean Development Mechanism to ensure the CDM's prompt start.

The CDM will promote sustainable development by encouraging investments in projects in developing countries that reduce or avoid emissions. Developed countries then receive credit against their Kyoto targets for emissions avoided by these projects.

In addition, a Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund will be established to finance concrete adaptation projects and programs. In July, many developed countries made a joint political statement pledging to contribute $410 million per year by 2005 to help developing countries manage their emissions and adapt to climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol will enter into force and become legally binding after it has been ratified by at least 55 Parties to the Convention, including industrialized countries representing at least 55% of the total 1990 carbon dioxide emissions from this group. So far, 40 countries have ratified, including one

industrialized country (Romania). The talks will take place under the chairmanship of President-designate Mohamed Elyazghi, Morocco's Minister of Territory Planning, Urbanism, Housing and Environment. The high-level segment for ministers and senior officials is scheduled for November 7 to 9.

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