* New fund agreed to give money to poor countries
* Future of key Kyoto Protocol left on hold
* Britain says deeper EU emissions cuts more likely
Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn Reuters AlertNet 11 Dec 10;
CANCUN, Mexico, Dec 11 (Reuters) - The world's governments agreed on Saturday to modest steps to combat climate change and to give more money to poor countries, but they put off until next year tough decisions on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The deal includes a Green Climate Fund that would give $100 billion a year in aid to poor nations by 2020, measures to protect tropical forests and ways to share clean energy technologies.
Ending a marathon session of talks in the Mexican beach resort of Cancun, almost 200 countries also set a target of limiting a rise in average world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) over pre-industrial times.
There was, however, no major progress on how to extend the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges almost 40 rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The failure to resolve the central problem of emissions dismayed environmental groups. It was also unclear how the $100 billion a year for the Green Climate Fund will be raised.
The first round of Kyoto expires in 2012, it does not include China and the United States -- the world's two biggest emitters -- and there is no consensus over whether developing countries should have binding targets to cut emissions or whether rich countries have more to do first.
The main success in Cancun after two weeks of talks was simply preventing the collapse of climate change negotiations, promoting support for a shift to low carbon economies and rebuilding trust between rich and poor countries on the challenges of global warming.
Major players were relieved there was no repeat of the acrimonious failure seen at the Copenhagen summit last year, but they warned there was still a long way to go.
"The most important thing is that the multilateral process has received a shot in the arm, it had reached an historic low. It will fight another day," Indian Environment Minister Jairam Rameshtold Reuters. "It could yet fail."
"We have a long, challenging journey ahead of us. Whether it's doable in a short period of time, to get a legally binding deal, I don't know," the European Union's climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said of a deal beyond 2012.
U.S. President Barack Obama said the Cancun meeting was a success and advances the world's response to climate change.
Carbon offset markets worth $20 billion depend on Kyoto emissions caps to drive developed countries to pay for cuts in greenhouse gases in developing nations as a cheaper alternative to cutting their own greenhouse gases.
The Cancun agreement would "build upon" such markets, giving them some support despite the doubt over Kyoto itself.
Abyd Karmali, global head of carbon markets for the Bank of America Merrill Lynch said the deal lays the foundation for progress.
"Now that countries' emission reduction targets are enshrined in the new Cancun Agreement, it is critical for countries to move forward with their domestic policies and measures," he said in a research note.
KYOTO DISPUTES
The agreement reached on Saturday set no firm deadlines for an elusive legally binding accord on Kyoto. The next major global climate talks will be in South Africa at the end of 2011 and ministers will not meet on Kyoto before then, although lower-level negotiations are possible.
China's top climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, said the agreement shows the Kyoto Protocol is still alive.
"At the South Africa conference, we'll undertake discussions and negotiations over the substantive content of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol," he said, adding that developing countries hoped for further progress on the issues of funding, technology and protecting forests.
Japan, Canada and Russia had earlier this week said they would not extend Kyoto, demanding instead that all major emitters including the United States, China and India join in a new global deal.
Developing nations insist that rich Kyoto countries, which have burned the most fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution, must extend the agreement beyond 2012 before the poor agree to measures to curb their emissions.
The Cancun talks were held as evidence of global warming mounted. Michael Jarraud, the head of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, told the conference that this year could be the warmest year since records were first kept in 1850. It also caps a record-warm decade. [ID:nN02236423]
Environmentalists worry that global leaders are not moving fast enough to tackle the big climate issues.
"Cancun may have saved the process, but it did not yet save the climate," said Wendel Trio, Greenpeace's international climate policy director.
Britain's energy and climate secretary, Chris Huhne, said the advances in Cancun made it more likely that the European Union would toughen cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, to 30 percent below 1990 levels from a current 20 percent.
"I think it definitely makes an agreement on 30 percent in the EU more likely," he said.
Bolivia's left-wing government was alone in objecting to the Cancun accord. It had demanded far deeper cuts in greenhouse gases by rich nations and accused them of "genocidal" policies causing 300,000 deaths a year.
Under the U.N.-led negotiations, all agreements are supposed to have consensus support, but Bolivia was sidelined with the accord simply noting its concerns. (Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner, Patrick Rucker and Christopher Buckley; Writing by Russell Blinch, Editing by Kieran Murray)
UN climate meeting OKs Green Fund in new accord
Arthur Max, Associated Press Yahoo News 11 Dec 10;
CANCUN, Mexico – A U.N. conference on Saturday adopted a modest climate deal creating a fund to help the developing world go green, though it deferred for another year the tough work of carving out deeper reductions in carbon emissions causing Earth to steadily warm.
Though the accords were limited, it was the first time in three years the 193-nation conference adopted any climate action, restoring faith in the unwieldy U.N. process after the letdown a year ago at a much-anticipated summit in Copenhagen.
The Cancun Agreements created institutions for delivering technology and funding to poorer countries, though they did not say where the funding would come from.
In urging industrial countries to move faster on emissions cuts, it noted that scientists recommended reducing greenhouse gas emissions from industrial countries by 25 to 40 per cent from 1990 levels within the next 10 years. Current pledges amount to about 16 percent.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon, in a 4 a.m. speech, declared the conference "a thoroughgoing success," after two separate agreements were passed. The agreements shattered "the inertia of mistrust" that had settled over the frustrated efforts for a broad climate treaty, he said.
One of the agreements renewed a framework for cutting greenhouse gas emissions but set no new targets for industrial countries. The second created a financial and technical support system for developing countries facing grave threats from global warming.
Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa, the conference president, gaveled the deal through early Saturday over the objections of Bolivia's delegate, who said it was so weak it would endanger the planet.
Decisions at the U.N. climate talks are typically made by consensus, but Espinosa said consensus doesn't "mean that one country has the right to veto" decisions supported by everyone else.
The accord establishes a multibillion dollar annual Green Climate Fund to help developing countries cope with climate change, though it doesn't say how the fund's money is to be raised. Last year in Copenhagen governments agreed to mobilize $100 billion a year for developing countries, starting in 2020, much of which will be handled by the fund.
The agreements also set rules for internationally funded forest conservation, and provides for climate-friendly technology to expanding economies.
Espinosa won repeated standing ovations from a packed conference hall for her deft handling of bickering countries and for drafting an acceptable deal, though it fully satisfied no one.
"It's been a challenging, tiring and intensive week" said U.S. special climate envoy Todd Stern, clearly content with the results.
The European Union's top climate official, Connie Hedegaard, said Saturday's decisions would help keep international climate talks on track.
"But the two weeks in Cancun have shown once again how slow and difficult the process is," Hedegaard said. "Everyone needs to be aware that we still have a long and challenging journey ahead of us to reach the goal of a legally binding global climate framework."
Christiana Figueres, the U.N.'s senior climate official, said the agreements would put all governments on cleaner trajectory. "Cancun has done its job," she said.
Environmentalists cautiously welcomed the deal.
It "wasn't enough to save the climate," said Alden Meyer of the Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists. "But it did restore the credibility of the United Nations as a forum where progress can be made."
The Cancun deal finessed disputes between industrial and developing countries on future emissions cuts and incorporates voluntary reduction pledges attached to the Copenhagen Accord that emerged from last year's climate summit in the Danish capital.
It struck a skillful compromise between the U.S. and China, which had been at loggerheads throughout the two week conclave on methods for monitoring and verifying actions to curtail greenhouse gases.
"What we have now is a text that, while not perfect, is certainly a good basis for moving forward," Stern said during the decisive conference meeting. His Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, sounded a similar note and added, "The negotiations in the future will continue to be difficult."
The accord "goes beyond what we expected when we came here," said Wendel Trio of the Greenpeace environmental group.
Underscoring what's at stake in the long-running climate talks, NASA reported that the January-November 2010 global temperatures were the warmest in the 131-year record. Its data indicated the year would likely end as the warmest on record, or tied with 2005 as the warmest.
The U.N.'s top climate science body has said swift and deep reductions are required to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 F) above preindustrial levels, which could trigger catastrophic climate impacts.
Bolivian delegate Pablo Solon protested that the weak pledges of the Copenhagen Accord condemned the Earth to temperature increases of up to 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 F), saying that is tantamount to "ecocide" that could cost millions of lives.
He also complained that the text was being railroaded over his protests in violation of the U.N.'s consensus rules.
In the 1992 U.N. climate treaty, the world's nations promised to do their best to rein in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases emitted by industry, transportation and agriculture. In the two decades since, the annual conferences' only big advance came in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, when parties agreed on modest mandatory reductions by richer nations.
But the U.S., alone in the industrial world, rejected the Kyoto Protocol, complaining it would hurt its economy and that such emerging economies as China and India should have taken on emissions obligations.
Since then China has replaced the U.S. as the world's biggest emitter, but it has resisted calls that it assume legally binding commitments — not to lower its emissions, but to restrain their growth.
Here at Cancun such issues came to a head, as Japan and Russia fought pressure to acknowledge in a final decision that they will commit to a second period of emissions reductions under Kyoto, whose current targets expire in 2012.
The Japanese complained that with the rise of China, India, Brazil and others, the 37 Kyoto industrial nations now account for only 27 percent of global greenhouse emissions. They want a new, legally binding pact obligating the U.S., China and other major emitters.
UN climate change talks in Cancun agree a deal
BBC News 11 Dec 10;
UN talks in Cancun have reached a deal to curb climate change, including a fund to help developing countries.
Nations endorsed compromise texts drawn up by the Mexican hosts, despite objections from Bolivia.
The draft documents say deeper cuts in carbon emissions are needed, but do not establish a mechanism for achieving the pledges countries have made.
Some countries' resistance to the Kyoto Protocol had been a stumbling block during the final week of negotiations.
However, diplomats were able to find a compromise.
Delegates cheered speeches from governments that had caused the most friction during negotiations - Japan, China, even the US - as one by one they endorsed the draft.
BBC environment correspondent Richard Black said the meeting did not achieve the comprehensive, all-encompassing deal that many activists and governments want.
But he said it was being "touted as a platform on which that comprehensive agreement can be built".
Mexico's President Felipe Calderon said the summit had allowed leaders to "glimpse new horizons" where countries had the "shared task to keep the planet healthy and keep it safe from [humans]".
The UK Prime Minister David Cameron said: "Now the world must deliver on its promises. There is more hard work to be done ahead of the climate change conference in South Africa next year."
The Green Climate Fund is intended to raise and disburse $100bn (£64bn) a year by 2020 to protect poor nations against climate impacts and assist them with low-carbon development.
A new Adaptation Committee will support countries as they establish climate protection plans.
And parameters for funding developing countries to reduce deforestation are outlined.
But the deal is a lot less than the comprehensive agreement that many countries wanted at last year's Copenhagen summit and continue to seek. It leaves open the question of whether any of its measures, including emission cuts, will be legally binding.
"What we have now is a text that, while not perfect, is certainly a good basis for moving forward," said chief US negotiator Todd Stern.
His Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, sounded a similar note and added: "The negotiations in the future will continue to be difficult."
Bolivia found faults both with elements of the deal and with the way the texts were constructed through private conversations between small groups of countries.
Delegation chief Pablo Solon said that what concerned him most was that commitments would not be made under the Kyoto Protocol.
"We're talking about a [combined] reduction in emissions of 13-16%, and what this means is an increase of more than 4C," he said.
"Responsibly, we cannot go along with this - this would mean we went along with a situation that my president has termed 'ecocide and genocide'," Mr Solon said.
But Claire Parker, senior climate policy adviser for the global conservation group IUCN, said: "We have moved away from the post-Copenhagen paralysis.
"Developing countries can now see new money on the table which they can draw on to adapt to the impacts they're already facing and reduce emissions."
Tara Rao, senior policy adviser with environmental group WWF commented: "There's enough in it that we can work towards next year's meeting in South Africa to get a legally binding agreement there."
The final day of the two-week summit had dawned with low expectations of a deal.
But ministers conducted intensive behind-the-scenes diplomacy to formulate texts that all parties could live with.
Russia and Japan have secured wording that leaves them a possible route to escape extension of the Kyoto Protocol's legally binding emission cuts, while strongly implying that the protocol has an effective future - a key demand of developing countries.
The Green Climate Fund will initially use the World Bank as a trustee - as the US, EU and Japan had demanded - while giving oversight to a new body balanced between developed and developing countries.
Developing countries will have their emission-curbing measures subjected to international verification only when they are funded by Western money - a formulation that seemed to satisfy both China, which had concerns on such verification procedures, and the US, which had demanded them.
