Global warming
May 31, 2010
A new round of climate talks resumes in Bonn on Monday to prepare for the upcoming United Nations climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, in December, but expectations of a big agreement are not high after the failure of the Copenhagen summit six months ago.
The main aim of the negotiations, under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is to negotiate a text setting out a framework agreement for a new climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
UNFCCC chief Yvo de Boer admits that any treaty is unlikely to be completed before the end of 2011. De Boer tendered his resignation after last December's Copenhagen climate change talks, which ended in widespread disappointment and frustration with only vague promises to cut CO2 emissions.
Leaders from 194 countries were supposed to finalize a legally binding post-2012 treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. All they came up with was a commitment to reduce greenhouse gases that cause global warming and a pledge to assist developing countries combat climate change.
No climate deal in 2010
Speaking at a news conference in Bonn de Boer said he was less than optimistic that the stalled UN climate talks would reach a consensus by the end of this year.
"It's extremely unlikely that we will see a legally binding agreement in Cancun," the UN's top official on climate change said in a teleconference with journalists. "I think that especially developing countries would want to see what an agreement would entail for them before they would be willing to turn it into a legally-binding treaty."
Last month UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named Costa Rica's Christiana Figueres to replace de Boer. Analysts expect her to shift the emphasis from legally binding emission cuts to developing green technologies.
The 12-day Bonn meeting will attempt to unravel some of the decisions made at the failed Copenhagen talks. The so-called Copenhagen Accord sets a voluntary goal of limiting warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). It was brokered by a couple of dozen leaders in the summit's final desperate hours.
To show that the accord has credibility - and restore trust in the overall process - developing countries are now calling on industrialized countries to honor their pledges of financial support.
Debt crisis
Under the Copenhagen Accord, the European Union, the United States, Japan and other wealthy countries pledged $30 billion (24.3 billion euros) in aid from 2010-2012, with a promise of contributing 100 billion dollars a year by the end of the decade.
Faced with the ongoing debt crisis in the eurozone, the EU appears to be backpedaling on its initial goal of unilaterally cutting CO2 emissions by 30 percent by 2020 against 1990 levels to "kick-start" climate action in developing countries.
EU Commissioner for Climate Change Connie Hedegaard said last week that conditions for a 30-percent move "are clearly not met." The EU had previously proposed increasing their target to 30 percent from 20 percent if other countries followed suit as part of a new climate deal. A study presented by the EU commissioner estimated that this would cost EU countries 81 billion euros.
"Of course, it's not an easy time to discuss money that comes out of the public purse right now," said Hedegaard.
France and Germany - the EU's two largest economies - have warned member countries to tread carefully on the issue.
Poor countries set new demands
Developing countries, meanwhile, have raised new demands and pressed developed countries to take greater responsibility for climate change. In a 42-page document prepared ahead of the 12-day Bonn talks, Bolivia asked rich nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 100 percent from 1990 levels by 2040.
Environmental groups, such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), have tried to breathe new life into the stalled talks.
"Copenhagen failed to produce the accord which the world needs, but it did achieve important progress in some aspects," said Regine Guenther, Head of WWF's Climate Policy. The Bonn negotiations should focus on these points, said Guenther, and bring it to a conclusion at the next UN Climate Conference in Mexico.
Credibility gap
According to the WWF delegates in Bonn could resolve issues like the finance, deforestation, and technology transfer in Cancun and then endorse a global treaty in 2011 in South Africa.
"Progress in these areas would signal that the international community continues to be serious about working on a new accord. The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. In South Africa, at the latest, it must be clear how it will continue after that," added Guenther.
Delegates also need to address the huge gap between previous commitments made by Kyoto treaty signatories and the necessary emission reductions of individual countries, said the Swiss-based organization.
nrt/AFP/Reuters/dpa
Editor: Kyle James