UN climate chief sees 'significant' Copenhagen deal

Joelle Garrus Yahoo News 11 Sep 09;

DALIAN, China (AFP) – UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said on Friday he believed nations would sign a "significant" deal on how to reduce the effects of global warming at a conference in Copenhagen in December.

"I am confident we can reach a significant agreement," De Boer told AFP on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions, known as the "Summer Davos in Asia", in the Chinese port city of Dalian.

The December 7-18 talks in Denmark, under the 192-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aim to craft a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

But major differences remain between developed and less developed nations over who should bear the brunt of the responsibility for making carbon emissions cuts.

US climate envoy Todd Stern on Thursday described the ongoing UN-led negotiations as "difficult". The same day, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband warned there was a "real danger" of failure in Copenhagen.

But De Boer, the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, sounded a brighter note.

He hailed the European Union, which has proposed tens of billions of euros (dollars) in global aid for poor nations to fight global warming, as well as what he called Tokyo's "dramatic change of position" on the issue.

Japan's next prime minister Yukio Hatoyama on Monday pledged that his country would seek to cut its emissions by 25 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels -- far more than the eight-percent reduction vowed by outgoing Taro Aso.

The UN official also said that China had "dramatically changed" course on climate change policy, and said the administration of US President Barack Obama, despite Stern's warning, "wants change".

"I am convinced that countries around the planet want to capitalise on this in Copenhagen," De Boer said.

Developing countries such as China and India say rich countries ought to shoulder the main responsibility for mitigating global warming as they have historically emitted most of the greenhouse gases at the root of the problem.

Beijing, which is vying with the United States for the rank of world's worst emitter of greenhouse gases, has so far refused to commit to fixed targets for emission cuts but has vowed to seek a more energy-efficient economy.

"We expect Copenhagen to make clear what developing countries, especially major developing countries, will do to reduce growth of emissions," De Boer said. "We need to gradually increase their level of engagement."

But he acknowledged that poorer nations could not be asked to totally sacrifice their development for the sake of the environment.

"To say 'you cannot grow because climate change is a problem' is not an equitable way forward," De Boer said.

"Industrial nations have basically been growing their economies since the Industrial Revolution and put all that gas out there."