ABSTRACT
The key argument is that the Kyoto process has been focused-even obsessed-with the short-term need to launch the policy process and get the industrialized countries to agree to some targets, no matter how meager. It is time now to refocus on the long-term objectives of the UNFCCC, particularly on its stated goals regarding sustainable development. In this regard, the developing countries are now confronted by both challenges and opportunities. The challenges emerge from the fact that developing country concerns, which had always been marginal to the thrust of the UNFCCC, have become even more marginalized in recent negotiations, as focus has concentrated on getting the Northern countries (those listed in Annex 1) to accede to the Kyoto Protocol (see Table 20.1). This has happened at the cost of sidestepping, if not outright ignoring, Southern priorities (Najam, 2001; Sokona, 2001). On the other hand, the supposed revival of a sustainable development focus from the Johannesburg Summit gives the developing countries an opportunity to reestablish the link between climate change and sustainable development (Huq and Sokona, 2001). Such a link is enshrined in the text of the UNFCCC but has been systematically ignored in its operational provisions; most especially in the Kyoto Protocol (Najam and Sagar, 1998).
