Thousands of government representatives, international organizations and civil society members have gathered in the Qatari capital of Doha for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, on November 26 with a call to build on and implement previously agreed decisions to curb global carbon emissions by the year 2020.
The ten-day meeting brings together the 195 Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
Under the Protocol, 37 States – consisting of highly industrialized countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to a market economy – have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. Government delegates at the Conference will, among other goals, try to extend the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012.
UNFCCC
No wonder the climate talks turned into such an alphabet soup when the first acronym they came up with had six letters, ending with three Cs. It stands for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Adopted in 1992 and ratified by 194 countries and the European Union, it provides the foundation of the global climate talks.
COP 18
Each meeting of the countries who have joined the convention is called a Conference of the Parties, or COP. This year's edition in Doha is the 18th such meeting, hence the name COP 18. Things got confusing at the 2009 meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, when the uninitiated assumed COP was an abbreviation of the host city.
KYOTO PROTOCOL
Known to the climate crowd as the ``KP,'' it's the most important deal signed within the convention, establishing binding greenhouse emissions targets for 37 industrialized nations. (Keep reading to find out how to say emissions target in Kyoto-speak). The US was the only industrialized nation that didn't ratify the agreement. Adopted in the Japanese city of Kyoto in 1997, the KP expires at the end of 2012. A key issue in Doha is negotiating an extension, referred to as a second commitment period.
LCA
Since the KP focuses on emissions from industrialized nations, a second work flow was set up in 2007 to discuss other climate actions, including by developing countries and Kyoto-dropout US The formal name is the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action. Delegates just refer to it as the LCA. It's supposed to be closed at the end of this year, but some developing countries say its work isn't finished. That's another sticking point in Doha.
DURBAN PLATFORM
Last year in Durban, South Africa, countries agreed to craft a new global climate pact that would include both rich and poor nations. Negotiators gave themselves a 2015 deadline to adopt the agreement, which would enter into force in 2020. A new working group was formed called the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action. Most delegates call it the Durban Platform or the ADP.
QELRO
It may have a more exotic ring to it than `emissions target' but it's essentially the same thing. A QELRO is the commitment that a country has made to cut its greenhouse emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. It stands for Quantified Emission Limitation and Reduction Obligation. Don't confuse QELROs with the NAMAs, or Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions, pledged by developing countries; or NAPAs, Nationally Adaptation Programs for Action, which are action plans submitted by the poorest countries on how to adapt to climate change.
REDD-PLUS and LULUCF
Even those inside the climate bubble will be hard pressed to spell out what those initials stand for. The important thing to know is they are initiatives to reduce emissions from deforestation and agriculture.
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