Editorial

• Date: 01 August 2008
• Published date: 01 August 2008
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9388.2008.00603.x

RECIEL 17 (2) 2008. ISSN 0962 8797

iii

© 2008 The Author.

Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

xxx

Editorial

Although many would agree that international climate

change negotiations are not moving fast enough, climate

change continues to be a quickly developing area of

international environmental law and policy. This issue

of

RECIEL

attempts to catch up with the state of inter-

national climate negotiations and other recent climate-

related developments. Although it does not fully explore

all of the issues to be addressed in these negotiations

and elsewhere (such an effort would require a much

larger space than this issue of

RECIEL

can provide), it

does provide insight into the direction of future efforts.

The issue commences with a paper by Chris Spence, Kati

Kulovesi, María Gutiérrez and Miquel Muñoz, who have

all been very active over the past decade as, among other

things, writers for the

Earth Negotiations Bulletin

at

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

(UNFCCC) negotiations. In their piece, they review the

discussions and outcomes from the UNFCCC’s Bali climate

change conference held in December 2007 and its impli-

cations for the international climate change negotiation

process for the post-2012 period. Noting that the meeting

was successful, given the political and diplomatic realities

and the complexity of the challenges that the negotiators

in Bali faced, the authors explain how the high public

expectations for substantive outcomes from the meeting

were not fully met. However, they f‌ind that the meeting

provided direction for future talks, a clear deadline for

the completion of negotiations and room for negotiators

to ‘craft a consensus’ by the end of 2009 at the UNFCCC’s

15

th

session of its conference of the parties (COP-15),

to be held in Copenhagen.

Taking off from where Spence, Kulovesi, Gutiérrez and

Muñoz leave us, Joanna Depledge examines in her

article the different routes that negotiations may take

in the lead up to the Copenhagen conference in 2009.

The paper examines key challenges, including the need

for agreement with the US and developing countries

on the way forward and suggests the use of a transition

phase up to 2020 for countries that have not yet bound

themselves to commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

In particular, she recommends a ‘choose and no-lose’

approach for developing countries, along with options

for increased f‌inancing, and notes that given the com-

plexity of the issues, a work programme for further

negotiations after COP-15 will likely be needed.

Ian Fry then takes us into the negotiations of a regime

to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation

and forest degradation (REDD). Noting that deforestation

of tropical forests contributes up to 20% of global green-

house gas emissions, Fry examines proposals that have

been put forward in recent negotiations to reduce

these emissions through both regulatory and market-based

approaches. He reviews, among other matters, the issues

of leakage, permanence, measurement and additionality

in relation to market-based approaches, and discusses

key aspects of the Bali Action Plan, including its pro-

visions on conservation, sustainable management of

forests and the enhancement of carbon stocks. Fry

concludes that a ‘step-by-step approach’ is critical in

order to build the necessary capacity in developing

countries to address the challenges raised by REDD.

In her article, M.J. Mace examines the outcomes from

the Bali conference from the perspective of small

island developing States (SIDS). Noting that the level

of commitment agreed in the post-2012 climate change

regime will ‘be critical to the survival of many small

island developing nations’, Mace examines the necessary

elements to such a regime and compares them to what has

so far been achieved. She f‌inds that ‘while little progress

has been made to date, a number of useful avenues for

progress exist if only the political will can be found’.

Malte Peterson contributes a piece on the legality of the

European Commission’s proposal to include the aviation

sector in its Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The

author describes the European Commission’s proposed

legislation and the political agreement made by EU

Environment Ministers in the Environment Council

on such a proposal. Petersen then examines language

in the Kyoto Protocol that states that its parties shall

pursue aviation emission reductions, ‘working through

the International Civil Aviation Organization’ and analyzes

whether this provision prevents the EU from following

through with its proposal outside of the ICAO.

The issue also includes a non-thematic paper by Gerd

Winter examining European Community law on

nature protection and the introduction into the envi-

ronment of genetically modif‌ied organisms, as well as

articles by Alexander Gillespie comparing environ-

mental assessment processes in international law and

Guihuan Liu, Jun Wan, Huiyuan Zhang and Lijie Cai on

eco-compensation policies and mechanisms in China.

This issue’s casenote is written by Wim Vandenberghe,

examining the European Court of Justice’s December

2007 judgment in

Commission v. Ireland

(case C-418/04)

in which the Court focuses on the transposition and

use by Ireland of the EC Birds and Habitats Directives.

Book reviews of recent publications on international

environmental law and policy are also included.

The next issue of RECIEL will focus on the topic of

electronic waste.