Yahoo News 25 May 10;
PARIS (AFP) – The outgoing head of the UN's climate forum on Tuesday urged rich countries to make good on promises they made last December in Copenhagen to help rebuild trust after the storm-tossed summit.
Yvo de Boer said a 12-day negotiation round starting in Bonn next Monday had to lay down the foundations for work leading up to the climate treaty that notoriously eluded world leaders in Copenhagen.
"The priority for the industrialised countries is to deploy the 30 billion (dollars) they pledged from now until 2012 in short-term finance to kickstart climate action in developing countries," de Boer said in a news conference webcast from Bonn.
"Now, of course, times are harsh, especially in Europe, but raising 10 billion a year for three years amongst all industrialised countries is not an impossible call."
The 30-billion-dollar pledge is enshrined in the "Copenhagen Accord," which was hastily thrown together as failure loomed. Green groups and advocates for the poor slammed the document as a fudge or a betrayal.
The promise was presented as a sign of good faith towards poor nations bearing the brunt of climate change pending a global treaty that would take effect from 2012.
But there have been scant details about how this money will be disbursed, to whom and how -- or whether the cash is new or siphoned from existing budgets.
De Boer hoped the Bonn talks, taking place at the level of senior officials, would "significantly advance" negotiations ahead of a ministerial-level meeting in Cancun, Mexico, from November 29 to December 10.
But he discounted any prospect that the treaty -- which according to initial plans should have been wrapped up in Copenhagen -- would be concluded this year.
"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," he said.
If so, that means any pact would be completed, at the earliest, in South Africa at the end of 2011.
That leaves just a year before the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol, the world's only treaty to detail cuts in heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
"I encourage governments now to develop greater clarity on the future of the Kyoto Protocol since this issue be cannot left unattended until Cancun," de Boer added. "...Governments need an open discussion."
De Boer, a Dutchman, announced his resignation as executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the aftermath of Copenhagen.
His successor is Costa Rica's chief climate negotiator, Christiana Figueres, 53, who takes office on July 1.
UN Urges Rich To Honor $30 Billion Climate Aid Pledge
Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn, Reuters 26 May 10;
The United Nations urged rich nations on Tuesday to keep a pledge to give $30 billion to poor nations by 2012 to cope with climate change, saying it was "not an impossible call" despite budget cuts in Europe.
Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, also said it was extremely unlikely that a new U.N. climate treaty would be agreed in 2010 after the Copenhagen summit in December fell short of a full, legally binding treaty.
He said that one priority for 2010 was for rich countries to deliver on key elements of that Copenhagen Accord, including a promise of $10 billion a year in aid from 2010-12 for developing nations, rising to $100 billion a year from 2020.
"Of course times are harsh, especially in Europe, but raising $10 billion a year for three years among all industrialized countries is not an impossible call," he said.
"It will establish greater trust" between rich and poor nations, he said in a briefing before talks among officials from 190 nations in Bonn from May 31 to June 11 preparing for ministerial talks in Cancun, Mexico, near the end of 2010.
Poor nations say they will need ever more cash to shift from fossil fuels toward renewable energies, such as wind and solar power, and to start adapting to impacts of climate change such as more droughts, floods and rising sea levels.
"I think it's extremely unlikely we will see a legally binding agreement in Cancun," de Boer said. "Having a treaty, if we are to get to a treaty, in South Africa a year later would be much more realistic."
South Africa hosts the next annual ministerial meeting in late 2011. Many nations also say that there are only scant chances of a deal in 2010 after Copenhagen fell short.
De Boer said the Bonn talks would consider a new negotiating text that shows wide splits between rich and poor and, controversially, includes elements of the Copenhagen Accord even though it does not have backing of all nations.
Some developing nations such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Sudan and Cuba oppose the Copenhagen Accord as lacking ambition. "There may be objections to the Copenhagen Accord being part of the negotiating text," he said.
Apart from cash, the Accord sets an overriding goal of limiting global warming to a maximum temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.
De Boer said that pledges for cuts in greenhouse gases so far were insufficient to meet the goal.
(Editing by Mark Heinrich)
