* Indonesia envoy urges solutions to climate impasse
* Fears little progress in key talks at year-end
* Worries about losing "allies" in Australia, Japan
David Fogarty, Reuters AlertNet 19 Aug 10;
SINGAPORE, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Nations face an uphill battle to reach agreement on a tougher climate pact by the end of 2011, a senior Indonesian climate change official said on Thursday, describing progress to date as bleak.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed doubt last week that a major U.N. climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, at the end of the year will yield a pact that binds all major greenhouse gas emitting nations to 2020 reduction targets. [ID:nN09267588]
But Agus Purnomo, the Indonesian president's special adviser on climate change, said sealing a deal at talks scheduled for South Africa in late 2011 also looked like a real struggle.
"The progress to date is bleak because we still have no convergence on almost every important issue," Purnomo told Reuters in an interview from Jakarta.
"The developed countries are not coming to a decision of significant emissions reductions, so we don't know in Cancun whether we will be able to come up with a significant outcome."
He also voiced worries about Australia and the United States shelving plans to introduce emissions trading schemes and whether the new Japanese government would be able to convince parliament to pass laws enshrining a 25 percent cut in emissions by 2020 from 1990 levels.
A key concern, too, was the U.N. negotiation process itself, which has stalled over the size of emissions cuts pledged by rich nations, lack of progress on how to verify emissions reductions by poor nations and a general lack of trust.
The negotiations aim to reach agreement on the expansion or replacement of the existing Kyoto Protocol, whose first phase ends in 2012.
The process of reaching such an agreement involving 194 nations has been criticised as too cumbersome, open to manipulation and in need of reform.
It should be focusing on tougher emissions curbs by all big nations, including developing nations such as China, India and Brazil, green groups and negotiators say.
"DESPERATE SITUATION"
Kyoto commits about 40 industrialised nations to emissions targets between 2008-12 and governments and industry need an expanded treaty to set new reduction targets that would give businesses such as utilities certainly on investments.
"If we leave it to the domestic processes of the developed countries, it looks like we're not going to get an agreement. So we need to come up something more creative to solve this impasse," Purnomo said.
"We are in a rather desperate situation and we need solutions."
The last major talks in Copenhagen ended with a non-binding deal that agreed on limiting global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius and fast-start climate funding for poorer nations of $30 billion by 2012 and $100 billion every year from 2020.
Purnomo said there had been not much progress in handing out some of the $30 billion to poorer nations, a key benchmark of progress, negotiators say.
Indonesia, a major emitter through deforestation and fires, has pledged to cut emissions 26 percent from projected levels by 2020, increasing to 41 percent with funding from rich nations to clean up its industries and protect its forests.
Purnomo also worried about losing "climate allies".
Britain, Australia and Japan had been quite progressive, he said, in focusing on making emissions reductions in line with the U.N. climate panel's recommendations.
The panel recommends rich nations should cut emissions between 25 to 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels.
"Now they have changed leaders or at least Australia has an election this weekend. We're afraid that we'll lose champions of climate change among the developed countries because of their domestic political processes." (Editing by Nick Macfie)
