High Time for 
Bold Moves on Legal Form

1 December 2010

Today, Parties are expected to consider the numerous proposals for a new legally binding instrument under the Convention as well as proposed amendments to the Kyoto Protocol in the COP and CMP Plenaries, respectively.
ECO remembers that last year this discussion caused quite a fuss. In the end, the consideration of legal form was relegated to informal consultations on the basis that Parties had not had sufficient time to consider proposals and . . . well, we all know how Copenhagen ended.
Now Parties have had a full year to consider the proposals that have been tabled – a year when the impacts of climate change over and over again made themselves apparent with Pakistani floods, Russian forest fires, Chinese landslides, and Caribbean islands inundated by hurricanes.  
It’s high time to get serious about climate change action and discuss these proposals in an open and transparent manner.
Parties should establish a Contact Group to do so rather than putting the 
issue to bed again (as they did in Copenhagen) by referring it to informal consultations.
While ECO is painfully aware that Parties will not be concluding a fair, ambitious and legally binding deal to save the planet here in Cancun, it’s time to 
reaffirm that this is what we are aiming for.
Moving toward deciding on the legal form is possible, necessary and will enable more effective negotiations in the lead up to South Africa.
Last year, ECO headlined Tuvalu’s insistence on a legal form Contact Group as ‘A Bold Move in Darker Times’.
We would really love to have a headline here in Cancun saying, ‘A Bold Move By All Parties in Sunnier Times’.  
And delegates, if you’re up for it, you can make the first bold move forward right here, right now.