Conditions not met for climate deal in Cancun: Mexico

Yahoo News 18 Oct 10;

MEXICO CITY (AFP) – Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said Monday that "conditions have not been met" for a new climate deal on reducing greenhouse gas emissions at a worldwide summit in Cancun in December.

"For Cancun, the conditions have not been met to adopt a new protocol" to replace the Kyoto accord which expires in 2012, Espinosa said.

The Cancun meeting, from November 29 to December 10, aims to firm up "a basic agenda" for the continuation of negotiations, Espinosa said.

The United States and China clashed at climate change talks earlier this month in China, accusing each other of blocking progress ahead of the Mexico summit.

Delegates from more than 200 countries will take part in the next round of UN talks in Cancun.

World leaders failed to broker a new climate treaty in Copenhagen, Denmark, last year, as developed and developing nations battled over who should carry more of the burden in curbing greenhouse gases, which are blamed for global warming.

European leaders now look set to push China, the United States and a host of emerging powers to extend the Kyoto deal at the crunch talks in Mexico.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has underlined the urgency for an agreement, saying that the poorest communities were already suffering the impact of climate change.

Climate talks must ensure carbon trading: WBank official
Yahoo News 18 Oct 10;

HANOI (AFP) – Major talks on global warming next month must provide reassurances for the future of the market in greenhouse-gas emissions beyond 2012, the World Bank's environment chief said Monday.

"What they have to find out is how to ensure that carbon trading does not collapse," Inger Andersen, the Bank's vice-president for sustainable development, told AFP in an interview.

She added that "finding a way that that can be ensured would be very important to the world".

Carbon trading began under the Kyoto Protocol, the world's only treaty to set down targeted curbs in man-made gases that trap solar heat, inflicting potentially catastrophic changes to the world's climate system.

Developed countries which have ratified the Protocol, mainly in Europe, can buy or sell credits to help meet their emissions quota.

The Protocol's current roster of pledges runs out at the end of 2012. As a result, the future of the market has been cast into doubt by uncertainty surrounding talks on a global climate treaty beyond this date.

Negotiations resume in Cancun, Mexico from November 29 to December 10 under the 194-member UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Kyoto's parent organisation.