Rachel O'Brien Straits Times 28 Sep 09;
BANGKOK (AFP) – The UN climate chief warned on Monday that time was running out to break a deadlock on a global warming pact, telling delegates in Bangkok that failure to do so by December would threaten future generations.
The talks are the next to last before a showdown in Copenhagen at the end of the year, when the 192 countries must agree on a treaty for tackling greenhouse gases beyond 2010, after the current Kyoto Protocol expires.
"Time is not just pressing, it has almost run out," said UN climate head Yvo de Boer, who broke down in tears of frustration at talks in Bali two years ago, when world governments drew up the "road map" to the Copenhagen deadline.
After two years of haggling, the world is still trying to thrash out a draft text for December's talks, with major disagreements on the two key issues of cutting carbon emissions and meeting the associated costs.
"There is no plan B, and if we do not realise plan A the future will hold us to account for it," de Boer said in his opening speech to around 2,500 government delegates and representatives from business and environment groups.
De Boer said that devastating floods in the Philippines at the weekend which have killed at least 140 people further highlighted the need for action.
"One of the reasons why countries have gathered here is to ensure the frequency and severity of those kinds of extreme weather events decreases as a result of ambitious climate change policy," de Boer said.
The Bangkok talks, part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), run until October 9. The final talks before Copenhagen are in Barcelona from November 2-6.
The meeting in the Thai capital follows last week's UN climate summit in New York and a G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, both of which failed to break the deadlock on either of the two biggest issues.
"Our children and grandchildren will never forgive us unless action is taken. Time is running out, we have two months before Copenhagen," Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in his opening speech on Monday.
De Boer said on the eve of the Bangkok talks that they had a 280-page negotiating text which is "basically impossible to work with."
The US on Monday reaffirmed its commitment to signing the treaty.
"We want to be part of a new agreement," said Jonathan Pershing, the US head of delegation in Bangkok.
The US -- which signed the Kyoto deal but later saw it rejected by Congress -- is due to introduce its new climate change and energy bill in the Senate this week and there are fears the bill will not pass ahead of Copenhagen.
Pershing said the United States was "working quite aggressively trying to promote action in the Congress."
While the European Union, pegged to a 1990 benchmark, has set a 20 percent target for emissions cuts by 2020, and Japan 25 percent if others follow suit, the US so far has only set the equivalent of four percent as a target.
Experts warn that global temperatures must rise no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 over pre-industrial times, a target embraced by the leaders of the G8 nations in July.
Scientists also say emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases should peak just six years from now.
Without drastic action they fear drought, floods and rising sea levels could grip the world by the end of the century causing famine, homelessness and strife.
On emissions, developed economies including the US have acknowledged a historical responsibility for global warming. Most have put numbers on the table for slashing their carbon pollution by 2020 and by 2050.
But they say that developing nations -- especially China, India and Brazil and other major emitters of tomorrow -- should also pledge to curb output of greenhouse gases.
Poor and emerging economies refuse to take on their own hard targets but call for rich nations to make higher cuts.
UN warns leaders time running out for climate deal
Michael Casey, Associated Press 28 Sep 09;
BANGKOK – The United Nations on Monday warned world leaders they have only 70 days to reach a new deal to limit global warming, while environmentalists pointed to the deadly floods in the Philippines to illustrate the already devastating impact of climate change.
Only hours after negotiations began, rich and poor nations were already flinging their usual rebukes at one another for failing to do their part to reach a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Talks have been deadlocked for months over the industrial countries' refusal to commit to committing to sufficiently deep cuts or provide billions of dollars to poor nations to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change and transition to a low-carbon economy.
The major developing countries like India and China, in turn, have refused to agree to binding targets altogether and are leery of demands that any of their commitments be monitored and verified as part of any agreement.
"Time is not just pressing. It has almost run out," U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said, with a clock nearby showing there were 70 days until world leaders are scheduled to meet in Copenhagen to finalize a pact.
"As many leaders have said, there is no plan B," he continued. "If we don't realize Plan A, the future will hold us to account for it."
Some environmentalists tried to raise the sense of urgency by pointing to the weekend tropical storm that set off the region's worst flooding in more than 40 years in the Philippines and left 140 dead. It offered, they said, a glimpse into the kind of turbulent weather that could be unleashed by warming temperatures.
"We are asking the negotiators to look outside these walls. They should realize that it is the people's lives at stake," said Dinah Fuentesfina, a Philippine activist from the Global Campaign for Climate Action Asia.
The need for a deal was also driven home by a U.N. report last week that showed climate-related events such as the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets and the increasing acidification of the oceans were happening much faster than scientists had predicted even two years ago.
The two weeks of U.N. climate talks in the Thai capital, the second to last meeting before Copenhagen, have drawn some 1,500 delegates from 180 countries who are tasked with boiling down an unwieldy, 200-page draft agreement to around 30 pages that will be presented to ministers in Denmark.
Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister for climate and energy whose country will host the talks in December, told delegates the world was watching and urged them to build on the momentum that came out of last week's U.N. climate summit where 100 world leaders pledged their support for an agreement.
At the New York summit, President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao — whose countries are the world's two biggest emitters, each accounting for about 20 percent of greenhouse gas pollution — both vowed tough measures to combat climate change.
Hu said China would generate 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources within a decade, and for the first time pledged to reduce the rate by which its carbon emissions rise. He did not give specific targets.
Most countries agree that the rise in average global temperatures must not exceed 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels — a threshold beyond which it is believed serious climate changes would ensue. Temperatures have already risen 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) since the 19th century.
But so far, there is no consensus on how to stop the warming
Most industrialized nations have offered to cut emissions 15 to 23 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, falling short of the 25 to 40 percent cuts scientists and activists say are needed to hold off warming of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius).
But the United States has offered much lower targets so far, with a House of Representatives bill proposing to reduce emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels — only about 4 percent below 1990 levels — by 2020. The Senate has yet to take up the climate bill.
De Boer insisted a deal could still be reached in Copenhagen, but the traditional divisions sprang up quickly on the first day as poor countries repeatedly called for deeper emissions cuts from rich nations.
"Emission reductions of at least 40 percent or 45 percent below the 1990 baseline by developed countries are required and must be announced without further delay," the Indian delegation said in a statement.
Sudan's Lumumba Di-Aping, speaking for the Group of 77 developing nations and China, said it was just as important that developed countries financially help poor nations adapt to the impacts of climate change and develop greener economies.
"Finance and technology are central to achieving a just and equitable deal," Di-Aping said.
But the United States shot back that developing countries would have to do their part — short of binding targets — to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and for the first time agree to a system that would monitor and verify their promised actions.
Jonathan Pershing, the chief American negotiator at the talks, said the United States was ready to make a deal but that it would take actions from every nation big and small.
"No one nation can meet this challenge alone," he said.
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Associated Press writer Denis D. Gray contributed to this report.
Negotiators urged to speed up climate pact talks
Thin Lei Win and David Fogarty, Reuters 28 Sep 09;
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Delegates at the start of marathon climate talks in Thailand on Monday were told to speed up "painfully slow" negotiations as they struggle to settle on the outline of a tougher pact to fight global warming.
The Bangkok talks, which run until October 9, is the last major negotiating round before a gathering in Copenhagen in December that the United Nations has set as a deadline to seal a broad agreement on a pact to expand and replace the Kyoto Protocol.
"Time is not just pressing. It has almost run out," Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told delegates from about 180 countries.
"But in two weeks real progress can be made toward the goals that world leaders have set for the negotiations to break deadlocks and to cooperate toward concrete progress," he said.
Delegates at the talks are tasked with trying to streamline a draft legal text of a pact that would replace Kyoto. The main text, running to about 180 pages, is filled with blanks, options and alternative wording options.
The U.N.-led negotiations have become bogged down over arguments about rich nations' targets to cut emissions by 2020, financing for poorer nations to adapt to climate change and to curb their own greenhouse gas emissions and the best way to deliver and manage those funds.
"We've talked for long enough, the world expects actions," Connie Hedegaard, Denmark's minister of climate change and energy and host of the December 7-18 Copenhagen gathering, told delegates.
De Boer later told reporters the negotiating process so far had been painfully slow. "We must have a higher level of ambition in terms of emissions cuts by industrialized countries.
"In addition, we need to see more clarity here on how the process is going to make it possible for developing countries to engage," he said.
"DROWNING IN TEXT"
The United Nations, many developing nations and green groups have expressed frustration about the lack of progress during several negotiating rounds in the run-up to Copenhagen.
"The problem we have at the moment in these negotiations is that we are drowning in text," Tove Ryding of Greenpeace told reporters.
"What we need to see is late nights and fights. We need to see them sit there -- that's what these people do for a living -- they need to smell like sweat and coffee. If they don't do that, they're not actually at work."
De Boer spoke of progress at last week's U.N. climate change summit in New York but said a Copenhagen agreement must have five essential elements.
These included enhanced steps to help the most vulnerable nations adapt to climate change impacts, tougher emissions targets for rich nations, which are currently well below the 25-40 percent reductions from 1990 levels by 2020 recommended by the U.N. climate panel, and cash to help poorer countries cut their emissions.
Hedegaard said a picture was beginning to emerge from the puzzle of the climate text, but rapid progress was needed to refine it into a document with clear political choices.
Artur Runge-Metzger, head of the European Commission delegation, said final figures on finance would most likely be decided on the last night of the Copenhagen talks.
"Because you can only commit to figures if you know what kind of deal you are going to have and which direction are you going to go," he said.
De Boer said long-term financing to help poorer nations adapt to climate change and to slow the pace of their emissions growth should be in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year.
"I think the main worry for us here in Bangkok is that there's only 70 days left," said Runge-Metzger, referring to the start of the Copenhagen meeting. "There's so much work to be done."
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
