BY CHRIS KARAMEA INSLEY
The world watched and waited, hoping that international efforts to combat climate change by coming to an agreed outcome in Copenhagen. The global community could not afford anything less than an ambitious climate change deal and such a deal would need to be negotiated to follow on the first phase of the United Nation’s Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. While the Copenhagen agreed outcome need not resolve all details, a clear objective was that Copenhagen should have provided clarity on four key issues:
• Ambitious emission reduction targets for developed countries;
• Nationally appropriate mitigation actions of developing countries;
• Scaling up financial and technological support for both adaptation and mitigation; and
• An effective institutional framework with governance structures that address the needs of developing countries.
While Copenhagen did not deliver explicit and binding targets, an agreement framework was negotiated and agreed between the US, China, India and Brazil representing both the most populous countries of the world and the largest economies of the world. This agreement will be further defined at the next meeting in Mexico in 2020.
New Zealand and Iwi specific interests
In December 2010, the New Zealand government passed into legislation a number of amendments to the existing domestic policy on climate change – it’s Emission Trading System (ETS). While a number of the issues and indeed opportunities will be advanced locally with the Government over the next few weeks and months, there are several critical issues for Iwi and Mäori that require changes to international rules and protocols with the United Nations.
Land-use flexibility is one particular issue requiring such a change to the international rules such that in the future should a landowner wish to change land-use away from forestry, this could be done without incurring punitive liabilities currently not provided for in international United Nations rules. New Zealand negotiators were instrumental in negotiating into draft texts an appropriate accommodation to enable land-use flexibility. A related issue and success was the recognition in the draft texts for the recognition of harvested wood products to capture and store carbon emissions.
Reducing emissions from agriculture is a massive issue for Mäori farmers. While the amended legislation sees agriculture not coming into the ETS until 2015, in the interim an enormous amount of work and new research is needed to find, develop and deploy technology solutions to Mäori farmers that will either reduce emissions from farming operations and/or find new low emission products and services from agriculture. The announcement of the New Zealand led Global Research Alliance was a key outcome from Copenhagen for Mäori and Iwi where the leaders from 30 countries (developed and developing countries) committed both funding and research capabilities to research these new technology options. A very real risk for Mäori and non-Mäori farmers alike is that this initiative gets hijacked by the science community away from delivering practical solutions for farmers towards more blue skies research.
Recognition of the interests and rights of Indigenous peoples in UN protocols
In meeting with leaders of other indigenous people of the world present at Copenhagen, it is very clear that indigenous peoples across the world share a common set of concerns and interests in the broader climate change issues facing the world and the need for substantive robust international and domestic policies and protocols that fairly and equitably assign obligations and responsibilities on those most responsible for the world’s emissions. For the first time, the Copenhagen negotiations were instrumental at getting the rights and interests of indigenous peoples written into draft texts ahead of the next meeting in Mexico.
It is fair to say that Mäori awareness of impacts and issues posed by climate change and related policy is highly sophisticated relative to that of other indigenous peoples and, that Mäori ability to advocate interests to inform appropriate domestic policy is similarly highly sophisticated relative to other indigenous peoples.
While Copenhagen did not deliver fully on the more lofty goals it had at the outset, getting the almost 200 leaders of the world and particularly those of the largest developed and developing economies to a single meeting focused on the climate change challenges of the word and pledge commitments to various forms of actions in the months and years ahead, must be seen as a success. Getting the key interests of Iwi and Mäori written into the draft texts is key. These of course will still require more hardnosed negotiation at the next meeting in Mexico.
Given the substantive footprint that Mäori have in the New Zealand economy and particularly in the primary sector, it is vital that Mäori continue to have a voice on the international stage to ensure the gains in Copenhagen can be locked down in the international rules and protocols.
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