(cross posted at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)
Author’s Note: This December, I had the opportunity to attend the UN Climate negotiations in Copenhagen in two capacities: as a Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and as part of the International Youth Climate Movement.  Copenhagen was my first time attending a Conference of Parties (COP), the annual meeting of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or the Convention), and I came away with a few strong impressions of the outcome of COP-15 and the steps that will be necessary going forward to protect my and future generations.  As a rookie to international negotiations who only recently entered the workplace, my perspective is a bit different from that of many negotiators, heads of state, and even other commentators: my generation will be alive well into the decades of serious climate change that today’s action (or inaction) shapes.As Copenhagen becomes a memory, many are left attempting to make sense of its unconventional outcome and what it means for the future. The negotiations produced three main outcomes: the Copenhagen Accord, and the extension of both the AWG-LCA and the AWG-KP tracks.1 None of these were particularly progressive, although they do represent forward movement. In essence, the latter two simply mean that the two-track approach the UNFCCC has followed since the development of the Bali Road Map2 in 2007 has been extended through COP-16, to be held in Mexico from November 29 – December 10, 2010, with a view towards reaching a final conclusion at that meeting.  The progress made in Copenhagen on the negotiating text for both tracks will be carried forward, with the reports made by each group serving as the starting point for future negotiations.
The AWG-KP track deals with all aspects of UNFCCC business associated with the Kyoto Protocol, including, but not limited to, assembling country greenhouse gas inventories and progress reports for the first commitment period, overseeing the Clean Development Mechanism,  and setting mitigation targets for Annex I countries for a second commitment period.  The AWG-LCA track focuses on the dual challenges mentioned above and any other issues that influence the long-term ability of Parties to implement the Convention. AWG-LCA’s work is generally broken down into shared vision, mitigation, adaptation, technology transfer, and financing. The legal format of the outcome it will produce has not yet been agreed upon, nor has its relation to the Kyoto Protocol. The two-track process was put in place largely as a way of addressing the dual challenges of incorporating Parties that are not signatories to the Kyoto Protocol—notably the United States—into a framework and of developing a framework that allows Non-Annex I Parties—essentially, developing countries—to undertake nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) in the context of a UN agreement, while still continuing to oversee the Kyoto Protocol.