UN Climate Change Conference held In Doha, Qatar

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 26th to December 7th.

The country will serve as host for the global climate conference to take place in Doha, the capital of Qatar.

The summit is officially referred to as the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

As the world is facing a grave climate change situation, the conference aims to carve an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to deal with global warming. It identifies the fact that carbon dioxide emissions, industrial emissions and other greenhouse gases affect the climate system.

Delegates meeting at Doha will aim at reviewing and framing a deal to slow down the process of climate change, such as floods, sandstorms, droughts, rise in sea levels and heat waves. The deal is meant to be reached by the end of 2015 and enter into force in 2020.

Key Issues:

Kyoto Protocol 2

The paramount issue that needs to be addressed this year is the Kyoto Protocol. The first commitment of Kyoto Protocol is set to expire by December-end of 2012, so, it is important to bring in effect a second Kyoto agreement commitment to abide by emission reductions that have been made by countries previously.

Deeper emission cuts

Another important issue is that the Doha climate summit must keep up with the momentum gained from the Durban Summit and the European Union (EU) and other countries must give more in order to keep up with their promise of limiting the global warming to 2 degrees as pledged earlier.

Climate fund

Although United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged the world leaders to contribute and aid in financing the UN multibillion-dollar fund in order to fight climate change, but the road seems to be tough due to current global economic crisis, especially the Eurozone crisis and the financial downturn prevailing in the US. It is also evident that developing countries will pressurise developed nations to aid financing and technology to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change.

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.