No quick fix on warming, says new UN climate chief

Richard Ingham Yahoo News 9 Jun 10;

BONN (AFP) – The UN's incoming chief on climate change cautioned on Wednesday it could take until 2050 to build the machinery that will ultimately tame greenhouse gases.

In an interview with newswire reporters on the sidelines of UN talks in Bonn, Christiana Figueres said she was approaching her new job with optimism tempered by hard-edged realism.

"I continue to be confident that governments will meet this challenge, for the simple reason that humanity must meet the challenge. We just don't have another option," said Figueres.

But, she warned, political progress on climate change would lag behind scientific warnings for many years to come -- and those who expected a quick fix would be disappointed.

"I don't believe that we will ever have a final agreement on climate... in my lifetime," she said. "Maybe in yours," the 53-year-old added.

Figueres explained: "Building the regime is going to require an effort, a sustained effort of those who will be here, over the next 20 to 30 to 40 years...."

"We have to understand that this is an incremental process, this is a gradual process and that whatever we do is not going to be enough, we still have to hold the bar very high."

An experienced and highly regarded negotiator for Costa Rica who was educated in Britain and the United States, Figueres takes the helm as executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on July 8.

She succeeds Yvo de Boer, a Dutchman, who resigned in the wake of the stormy UN climate summit in Copenhagen last December.

The marathon was supposed to deliver a historic pact on greenhouse-gas emissions from 2012 and channel billions to poor countries exposed to worsening drought, floods, storms and rising seas.

But it was marred by backbiting and nitpicking, with some 120 attending heads of state and government watching in shock.

In the event, a couple of dozen leaders huddled in the night to craft an 11th-hour document, the so-called Copenhagen Accord, in order to save face.

Hedged with non-binding promises to hold additional warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), it was savaged by green groups as a fudge, by advocates for the poor as betrayal and by left-leaning Latin American countries as a violation of UN democracy.

Figueres upbraided those who would describe the outcome of Copenhagen as a "train wreck."

But she acknowledged the meeting had been "full of mistakes, full of errors, from which we are all learning," especially on informing other countries about negotiations taking place in a small group.

The Bonn talks, taking place among senior representatives, conclude on Friday after a 12-day effort to make headway on a negotiation blueprint.

Developing-country delegates on Wednesday said that trust had been badly damaged at Copenhagen and still had to be restored before the next grand UNFCCC meeting, taking place in Cancun, Mexico, from November 29 to December 10.

Some countries are lobbying for a legally-binding deal to be completed in Cancun, but most are quietly admitting this is unrealistic. A better bet would be agreement on some big issues, leading to an overall accord in South Africa in 2011, they say.

Figueres refused to be drawn on whether Cancun would deliver the coveted treaty or not.

But in any case, she said, Cancun had to be about turning the Copenhagen pledges -- on help for poor countries and preventing deforestation, especially -- into solid action.

"If we can't deliver (an agreement) at Cancun and if we are shown the road to Cape Town or any other cities, it will be... a Holocaust," warned Bangladesh negotiator Quamrul Islam Chowdhury, who said his country, threatened by rising seas, was "ground zero" in the onslaught by climate change.

New climate chief: 'no option' but to take action
Verena Schmitt-roschmann, Associated Press Yahoo News 9 Jun 10;

BONN, Germany – World nations have no choice but to join forces to stop global warming, but achieving a legally binding treaty this year should not be the only focus, the new U.N. climate chief said Wednesday.

Christiana Figueres said that "governments will meet this challenge, for the simple reason that humanity must meet this challenge."

"We just don't have another option," said Figueres, who replaces Yvo de Boer next month as head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Her comments came as another two-week climate meeting in Bonn was nearing its end without much visible progress toward reaching a comprehensive global climate deal. These were the first full-fledged climate negotiations since the disappointing December summit in Copenhagen which came up only with a nonbinding political declaration.

The Bonn meeting is to pave the way to the next U.N. climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, at the end of the year which some countries hope will provide a breakthrough.

Figueres did not say if she thinks a deal is possible in Cancun.

"It is too simplistic to focus on: Do we have a legally binding treaty and if so by when," she said.

Even if a treaty is agreed on, "I don't believe that we will ever have a final agreement on climate, certainly not in my lifetime."

Her predecessor de Boer, who had struck a pessimistic note on Monday saying in his final speech to Bonn delegates that he had given up on ambitious short-term climate goals, said he was hopeful for the long term.

"We are on a long journey to address climate change," de Boer said.

While at this point the goal to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is in danger, the issue "takes more than one round of negotiations," he said.

"I am confident that in Cancun you will not only try but succeed" in setting up a stucture for the fight against climate change, he said.

Scientists say industrial countries need to cut their emissions by 25-40 percent as compared to 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050. So far, pledges to cut greenhouse gases only add up to about 13-14 percent by 2020.

Nonetheless, Figueres said industrial countries could still meet the tough cuts needed, as their governments acknowledge the gap and are working on improvements.

"I am also confident that we'll see technology breakthroughs to also fill this gap," she said.

Alden Meyer, of the U.S.-based group Union of Concerned Scientists, said expectations of Figueres were high.

"She has the personality and she has skills" to facilitate progress, Meyer said, noting Figueres' 15 years as a Costa Rican climate negotiator.

Figueres said no one should mistake her for naive in her optimistic outlook.

"I have been through the ups and downs of the process," she said. "I am fully aware that we are not there yet. This is a long-term process."

She insisted the Copenhagen summit had yielded some positive results, despite ending with a nonbinding political declaration that disappointed many. Specifically, she noted rich countries' commitments to provide billions in aid to poorer nations as well as voluntary pledges for emissions reductions.

The upcoming Cancun summit will be the "time for delivery" on these promises, she said. "I am convinced that Cancun is going to be very productive, that it is going to be successful."

In Bonn, however, delegates from 185 nations seemed caught up in technical questions without making much headway on the crunch issues, said May Boeve of the climate group 350.org.

Experts were discussing a rough draft of a document that could become the core of the climate treaty. For now, it still leaves all of the major issues open — particularly questions about which countries should have to cut emissions and by what amount, and how to generate funds to help poor nations fight climate change.

"We are still looking for breakthroughs" before the talks end Friday, Boeve said.

New UN climate chief calls for more ambition
Richard Black, BBC News 9 Jun 10;

The incoming head of the UN climate convention has said rich nations must pledge bigger emission cuts if climate change is to be tackled effectively.

But Christiana Figueres said she was confident that leaders would meet the challenge "because humanity has to meet it - we don't have another option."

Ms Figueres was speaking at a two-week session of UN negotiations in Bonn.

She said the mood was "constructive"; but major differences are evident between different groups of countries.

In particular, some developing countries are angry at what they see as western nations' attempts to insert new loopholes into regulations on how emissions from land use change are accounted for, which could allow western nations to cut actual emissions by less than they have pledged.

Developing countries are also once again asking for more ambitious cuts from the west.

Analyses suggest that pledges made in Copenhagen, if implemented fully, would put the Earth on course for 3C or even 4C of warming since pre-industrial times, rather than the 2C that many countries say they want to stay below.

"[The pledges] are not ambitious enough to protect the most vulnerable of the Earth, and they need to grow," Ms Figueres told reporters.

"Let's admit the glass is not half full yet; but is starting to fill again."

Ms Figueres, a Costa Rican diplomat and 15-year veteran of the UN climate process, takes over from the current UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer early next month.
Confidence shaken

Mistakes had been made, she said, at December's Copenhagen summit, which was intended to provide a comprehensive package of measures to combat the causes and impacts of climate change - the conclusion to a commitment made by all governments at the 2007 summit in Bali - but which ended with no such thing.

In particular, she said, negotiations in the final days, between small groups of nations chosen by the Danish host government and some important nations from the developed and developing worlds, lacked transparency and inclusiveness.

"What we need to be mindful of is that all interests that will be there among parties of the UNFCCC are represented," she said.

"That did not happen in Copenhagen."

The European Commission's Laurence Graff said events in Copenhagen had damaged public confidence in the UN process.

"From the public side, there was such a wide gap betwen the expectations at Copenhagen and what it delivered that it was very damaging indeed.

"There is a trust issue in relation to the process - and hence the need, here and later, to show that the process is delivering."

She also acknowledged the effect on public opinion of questions that have been raised over the integrity of climate science, but said the science was solid, and that negotiations should move ahead on that basis.
'Holocaust' warning

Looking ahead to this year's summit in Cancun, Mexico, Ms Figueres said it was wrong to think in terms of achieving or not achieving a legally-binding treaty.

Instead, she said, the summit should be about delivery - following through on pledges to curb emissions, and - on the part of the rich - to provide money to help developing nations adapt to climate impacts.

Agreements on issues such as reducing deforestation could be an important part of this, she noted.

But it is clear that developing countries want more.

Quamrul Chowdhury, principal negotiator for Bangladesh, emphasised that his country and its allies were looking for nothing less than "a legally-binding, ambitious, fair and balanced" agreement.

"At Bali, we had the mandate to complete our task at Copenhagen," he said.

"Unfortunately, we couldn't deliver at Copenhagen; and if we can't deliver at Cancun... it will be unfortunate, it will be tragic, it will be a holocaust."

This meeting ends on Friday, and will be followed by one or two more sets of negotiations before the Cancun summit in November and December.


World At Risk Of "Red Card" Over Climate: De Boer
Reuters 10 Jun 10;

Climate negotiators gave a standing ovation to the outgoing head of the U.N. climate change secretariat Wednesday even after he told them they would be at risk of a red card in a soccer match for wasting time.

Dutchman Yvo de Boer, who steps down from July 1 after four years in the job, said governments were doing too little to stick to a promise to limit a rise in world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above pre-industrial times.

In a farewell address at 185-nation climate talks in Bonn, he noted that the world failed to agree a binding treaty at a Copenhagen summit in December. The next major ministerial meeting is in Cancun, Mexico, from November 29-December 10.

"To move toward World Cup imagery: we got a yellow card in Copenhagen and the referee's hand will edge toward the red one if we fail to deliver in Cancun and beyond," he said.

De Boer raised the profile of negotiations with straight-talking about climate change that is likely to hit the poor hardest. "You gave a voice to the vulnerable countries," Leon Charles of Grenada told him during a ceremony.

After a standing ovation for de Boer, his successor, Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica, presented him with a pair of shoes and showed a photograph of how small her feet were in comparison.

Greenpeace said: "Figueres...said she has big shoes to fill. Greepeace recommends running shoes."