Copenhagen, 11 December 2009 (Meena Raman) - The fifth meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) was suspended yesterday over an agenda item relating to the consideration of proposals by Parties for amendments to the Kyoto Protocol (KP).
The CMP was presided over by Denmarkâs Minister of Climate and Energy, Connie Hedegaard. The UNFCCC secretariat informed Parties at the meeting that by 17 June 2009, 12 proposals to amend the KP had been submitted. The Parties who had submitted proposals were the European Union, Tuvalu (which submitted 2 proposals), Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, China and 36 others in a joint submission, Colombia, Belarus, Japan, Bolivia on behalf of Malaysia, Paraguay and Venezuela, and Papua New Guinea.
(The proposals by developing countries were mainly for amendments to Annex B of the Kyoto Protocol according to the mandate of Article 3.9, which relate to the emission reduction targets of Annex 1 Parties in the second commitment period of the KP, while the proposals of Japan and Australia in particular, are for new protocols that would change the nature of the KP, and seek to merge the outcomes of the two-track processes of the Ad hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA).
