Climate Change Negotiations

Abstract

In the recent Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper the Rudd government emphasised that a major part of its efforts to control global gas emissions would be its participation in international negotiations leading to a global agreement on this issue. Australia is party to the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, and has a number of bilateral and other international climate change partnerships. There are many forthcoming international meetings that will have a bearing on the creation of a post-2012 international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, not all of them are important for the negotiation of the eventual agreement itself. The purpose of the following paper is to outline the main international forums where this agreement is to be negotiated and to present a timetable of major Australian and international events and meetings leading up to these final negotiations. It also provides an outline of leading organisations which are likely to influence international climate change negotiations. This paper will be a ‘living’ document, updated to include any new developments regarding domestic or international climate change negotiations.