UN Wants a Climate Agreement That Transfers Funding from Long-industrialised Nations to the Developing World

Binding Climate Treaty May Slip Far into 2010

November 16, 2009

Reuters - A binding international treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions will slip to mid-2010 or beyond and a summit in Copenhagen next month will fall short of its ambitions, the United Nations and Denmark said on Monday.

The United Nations' top climate official said a treaty could be wrapped up at talks in Bonn by mid-2010. Denmark, host of next month's meeting, said it might take longer - until Mexico in December. Negotiations on a deal, initially due to be reached at the Dec. 7-18 summit in Copenhagen, have stalled.

U.S. President Barack Obama and some other Asia Pacific leaders embraced a proposal by Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen on Sunday that next month's summit should aim for political agreements but delay a legally binding treaty.

Denmark still wants the summit to agree emissions cuts by each developed country, actions by developing nations to slow their rising emissions, and new funds and technology to help the poor.

Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said he favoured at most a six-month delay for a legally binding deal -- until a meeting in Bonn in mid-2010. That would give time for the U.S. Senate to pass carbon-capping laws, he said.

"It's like metal, you've got to beat it when it's hot," he told Reuters at two days of talks involving 40 environment ministers. They are trying to end rich-poor splits blocking even a political deal for sharing out greenhouse gas curbs.

"If we get clarity on (emission) targets, developing country engagement and finance in Copenhagen, which I'm confident we will, then you can nail that down in a treaty form six months later."

MEXICAN TREATY?

Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard also said the December summit should end with a clear deadline.

"Maybe a realistic deadline would be Mexico but it depends on how far parties go on crunch issues," she told reporters. Ministerial talks are scheduled for Mexico in December 2010.

Denmark wants world leaders to sign up to a 5-8 page "political agreement" next month, backed up by annexes outlining commitments by each nation.

At a U.N. food summit in Rome, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said:

"I remain positive about Copenhagen. There is no cause for alarm."

He also said a climate deal was crucial to fighting global hunger because climate change hurts farm output in poor countries.

"There can be no food security without climate security," he said. "Next month in Copenhagen, we need a comprehensive agreement that will provide a firm foundation for a legally binding treaty on climate change."

China, which is under pressure to restrict its emissions growth even though its industrial expansion is very recent, said it was "studying" the Danish proposal for a political deal. China has overtaken the United States as top emitter.

It made clear it is keen to tie down points that have been agreed in principle on transfers of technology and funding from long-industrialised nations to the developing world.

India's Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh said:

"It seems like the inability of the U.S. to come forward with a meaningful emissions cut by the year 2020 has led to such a situation ... I am hoping that we can get a full agreement but it looks increasingly unlikely."

STILL HOPING

Poor nations insisted that a binding treaty was still possible next month, even though Obama and most other leaders reckon it has slipped out of reach, not least because the U.S. Senate is unlikely to pass carbon-capping laws by December.

"We believe that an internationally legally binding agreement is still possible," Michael Church, the environment minister of Grenada who chairs the 42-nation Alliance of Small Island States, told Reuters.

Developing nations say they are most at risk from heatwaves, droughts, floods, disease and rising sea levels, and so are pressing for action most urgently.

APEC Declaration: Leaders Ready to Strike a Politically Binding Agreement in Copenhagen

November 15, 2009

AFP – Asia-Pacific leaders on Sunday buried hopes a key UN meeting next month would forge a binding pact to combat climate change, saying talks would drag on well past the Copenhagen meeting.

Instead they backed a face-saving proposal from Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen -- who jetted in for hastily arranged talks in Singapore -- aimed at forging a political statement of intent at the December meeting.

Complex negotiations towards a legally enforceable successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which expires in 2012, would then continue to work out differences between rich nations and developing countries including China.

At Sunday's talks attended by leaders including US President Barack Obama and China's Hu Jintao on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit, there was broad consensus this was the best option for the climate negotiations, officials said.

"There was an assessment by the leaders that it was unrealistic to expect a full, internationally legally-binding agreement to be negotiated between now and when Copenhagen starts in 22 days," US Deputy National Security Adviser Mike Froman told reporters.

Froman said Rasmussen told the meeting "he would seek to achieve a politically binding agreement that covered all the major elements of the negotiations" during the December 7-18 conference. APEC leaders work for ambitious Copenhagen outcome

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Mexican Prime Minister Felipe Calderon had convened the Singapore talks before the closing session of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here.

In a final declaration, APEC called Sunday for "an ambitious outcome in Copenhagen" but dropped a proposal included in earlier drafts to slash their greenhouse gas emissions to half their 1990 levels by 2050.

Environmental group WWF said the leaders had "missed a great opportunity to move the world closer to a fair, ambitious and binding agreement" in Copenhagen and "this does not look like a smart strategy" to battle climate change.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong defended the APEC declaration, saying the talks were not a forum for negotiating climate issues.

"This is APEC and it's a declaration of intent in good faith, and the negotiations and the formal commitments will be done in the UN process which is leading to Copenhagen," he told a news conference.

Earlier, China's Hu told fellow APEC leaders that he hoped for "positive results" in Copenhagen and vowed his government was "ready to work together with all parties to achieve this goal."

The president repeated Beijing's position that the developed world must bear the brunt of emissions cuts and provide technology and financial help to poor countries to mitigate climate change.

Arkady Dvorkovich, chief economic adviser to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, said the leaders "are ready to strike a political agreement which would give an impetus to the negotiations process."

Medvedev called for a "roadmap" to govern negotiations in 2010-2011 for a new treaty, he said.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told reporters he hoped to attend the Copenhagen talks and said he had pressed the other regional leaders to do the same.

Obama, speaking to his APEC counterparts before the summit wrapped up, acknowledged the concerns of developing nations.

"We must seek a solution that will allow all nations to grow and raise living standards without polluting our atmosphere and wreaking havoc on our climate," he said.

Industrialised nations are pressing emerging giants such as China, India and Brazil, which are now huge emitters, to strengthen promises to tackle their own greenhouse gas output, but developing nations fear drastic cuts would impede their economic progress.

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