Greater clarity on climate finance at 46-nation forum

Richard Ingham Yahoo News 3 Sep 10;

GENEVA (AFP) – Forty-six countries gained a clearer view on Friday of what it may take to secure a deal worth hundreds of billions of dollars in climate aid, an issue that threatens hopes for a treaty on global warming.

A two-day informal meeting of the biggest players in the world climate haggle indicated growing support for a "Green Fund" to help dispense up to 100 billion dollars annually by 2020, said several of those attending.

Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said it was possible the fund could be okayed by the 194-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December.

"We are hoping that we can make a very formal decision regarding the establishment of the fund and at the same time decide on how to make this fund be able to channel resources immediately, because there is this sense of urgency," Espinosa told reporters.

Her optimism was dampened, though, by the United States.

It warned that it expected quid pro quos on other big climate issues -- notably curbs on greenhouse gases and monitoring of national pledges -- before the Green Fund could get underway.

"This has to be part of a package," US climate envoy Todd Stern said.

"That doesn't mean that you can't negotiate quite far down the road on this... (but) all of those key elements have to move, not just one or two."

The Geneva meeting aimed at restoring badly-damaged trust and focussing on pragmatism after the near-disaster of the Copenhagen climate summit last December.

That gathering was supposed to have sealed an accord to ratchet up cuts in heat-trapping fossil-fuel gases from 2012 and stump up billions of dollars in help to climate-vulnerable countries.

Driven to the brink by nitpicking and fingerpointing, the summit yielded a desperately crafted, last-minute document, the Copenhagen Accord.

It set a goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), but did not specify by which date, and opened up a register of voluntary pledges on emissions cuts.

Rich countries also promised to mobilise up to 100 billion dollars in climate aid annually by 2020.

The Geneva talks, gathering the major rich economies, emerging giants and countries representative of the developing world, aimed at swapping ideas on who should administer the money and how it should be supervised.

"We debated openly, often outside of our traditional negotiating positions and explored the issues together," said Swiss Environment Minister Moritz Leuenberger, who co-hosted the meeting with Mexico's Espinosa.

"In this way, we increased our understanding of the problems and the possible solutions."

UNFCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres described the event as "a very, very helpful discussion," while French climate ambassador Brice Lalonde said the outcome was "very concrete."

"Many proposals have been made. It's now up to negotiators to take these ideas and sort them out and bring them into the overall discussions," he told AFP.

Greenpeace's climate spokesman, Wendel Trio, said time was running out for agreeing how the money would be raised.

"Without concrete progress on this issue it seems very unlikely that a lot of progress can be made in general in Cancun," Trio said in an email.

"We urge governments to at least agree on the operationalisation of the climate fund as well as agree on a continuation of the process to get agreement on innovative sources for climate funding."

A panel of experts mandated by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is looking at the range of funding options, including carbon taxes and levies on airline targets. It meets for the final time in Addis Ababa on October 12 and will deliver its report "by October 30," said panel member Janos Pasztor.

The shock of Copenhagen's near-fiasco has caused expectations for a climate treaty to be dialled down.

At best, say experts, Cancun will deliver good progress on finance, technology transfer, preventing deforestation and encouraging skills-building in poor countries.

Even then, agreement in these areas will still be contingent on a deal on emissions controls and the legal status of the future treaty.

That headache could be left to next year, meaning that the treaty would be completed at the end of 2011 at the earliest.

Progress seen on "Green Fund" for climate deal
* Green Fund would channel aid to developing nations
* U.N. treaty said out of reach for 2010
* Mexico talks could agree package of measures
Alister Doyle Reuters AlertNet 3 Sep 10;

GENEVA, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Almost 50 nations made progress on Friday towards a "Green Fund" to help poor countries fight global warming but hosts Mexico and Switzerland said a full U.N. climate treaty was out of reach for 2010.

Environment ministers and senior officials meeting in Geneva also examined how to raise a promised $100 billion a year in climate aid from 2020 -- perhaps from carbon markets, higher plane fares or taxes on shipping -- to be managed by the Fund.

"We think we should be able to establish the Green Fund in the conference in Cancun," Mexico's Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said after the informal Sept. 2-3 talks among 46 nations in Geneva.

Mexico will host an annual U.N. climate meeting in Cancun from Nov. 29-Dec. 10. A Green Fund is meant to help poor nations shift from fossil fuels and cope with projected floods, droughts, mudslides and rising seas caused by climate change.

Espinosa said any deal in Cancun would fall short of a treaty, part of a lowering of hopes after the U.N.'s Copenhagen summit in 2009 agreed only a non-binding deal. Cancun might decide to build any deals into a treaty, perhaps in 2011.

"We created a lot of expectations in Copenhagen that we would get a comprehensive, legally binding solution. We are no longer fixated on that," Swiss Environment Minister Moritz Leuenberger told a news conference with co-host Espinosa.

FORESTS, CLEAN TECH

Espinosa said a Green Fund would only be agreed as part of a broad package in Cancun, including ways to share clean-energy technologies or protect carbon-absorbing forests. She said all elements of the package had to be agreed, or none.

U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern told a news conference that the meeting had been "pretty constructive".

"The biggest issue is...this has to be part of a package. We are not going to move on the Green Fund, and the $100 billion, if issues central to the Copenhagen Accord, including mitigation and transparency, don't also move," he said.

Stern also reiterated that President Barack Obama was committed to cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 even though the Senate has failed to pass legislation. The United States is the only major developed nation with no legal cap.

Connie Hedegaard, the European Union's climate commissioner, said that there was "some convergence" on the Green Fund but little sign of movement on underlying issues from China and the United States, the top greenhouse gas emitters.

"We've seen nothing new coming out of the U.S., nothing new coming out of China. So we have to be very practical," she said of a focus on steps that fall short of a treaty.

Earlier, the Netherlands launched a U.N.-backed website (www.faststartfinance.org) to try to track how far rich nations, struggling with austerity, are able to keep a pledge made in Copenhagen to give poor nations $30 billion in "new and additional" climate aid from 2010-12.

Christiana Figueres, the U.N.'s climate chief, said the cash was a "golden key" to convince poor nations that the rich were serious in taking the lead to curb global warming. Under the Copenhagen Accord, flows would surge to $100 billion a year from 2020.

So far, the website lists cash promises by 6 European donors including Germany and Britain and 27 recipients from Bangladesh to the Marshall Islands. Stern said Washington would submit U.S. data in coming weeks.

Many of the developing nations' sites, listing cash received, are blank.