Arthur Max, Associated Press Yahoo News 7 Dec 10;
CANCUN, Mexico – U.N. climate talks moved into their decisive week Monday with the agenda dominated by future cuts in carbon emissions and keeping countries honest about their actions to control global warming.
Government ministers arrived in force to begin applying political muscle to negotiations that in the past week have narrowed some disputes, but which are likely to leave the toughest decisions for the final hours of the 193-nation conference on Friday.
Delegates were feeling pressure to produce at least a modest agreement from the two-week U.N. meeting to restore credibility to the talks after the last summit in Copenhagen failed to agree on any binding action to rein in emissions of global-warming gases.
"We cannot leave Cancun empty-handed," warned Connie Hedegaard, the European Union's top climate official.
The conference seeks decisions on establishing a "green fund" to help poorer nations rein in greenhouse gases and to adapt their economies and infrastructure to a changing climate; an agreement making it easier for developing nations to obtain patented green technology from advanced nations; and pinning down more elements of a system for compensating developing countries for protecting their forests.
"I can see a workable result that gets decisions across all the major areas. I can't predict whether we're going to get there," said U.S. special envoy Todd Stern.
New negotiating documents put on the table over the weekend were generally well received, despite criticisms of flaws and omissions.
"We have a basis to work from this week," said Hedegaard, adding that negotiators need to nail down ways to ensure that countries meet their emissions pledges. Actions by both industrial and developing countries must be monitored so that "they deliver on their promises," she said.
Falling short of a legal treaty at last year's summit, President Barack Obama brokered a political document with the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa, called the Copenhagen Accord, which outlined important compromises.
One breakthrough came when China agreed to allow other countries to review climate actions that received international financing. At Cancun, the Chinese went a step further and said all their operations, including fully domestic actions, would be open to international scrutiny.
But details about how this would be done remained to be settled.
Stern listed some of the remaining issues: To whom do countries report their actions? What details need to be reported? Will a panel of experts review the data? Will countries be able to ask questions?
Xie Zhenhua, China's top climate official, said the critical issue was that measuring, reporting and verification respects national sovereignty and involves no punishment for missing obligations.
Adoption of the Copenhagen Accord was blocked by a handful of dissident nations, led by Bolivia and Venezuela. In subsequent months, however, 140 countries declared their endorsement of the deal, and 85 of them made specific pledges for reducing carbon emissions, or at least limiting their growth, by 2020.
Mexico's deputy foreign minister, Juan Manuel Gomez Robledo, said more countries intend to add their pledges to the list. And some that already have submitted pledges may take "additional measures," he said. He declined to name any country, but said they included both industrial and developing nations.
"There has been a clear message from some parties, and that would certainly be very good news," he told reporters.
The pledges in the Copenhagen Accord are purely voluntary, and are insufficient to meet the goal scientists have set to limit the average global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 Fahrenheit) above what it was before the industrial age began.
The most troublesome issue — and one that could still undermine even the limited ambition envisioned for Cancun — was whether industrial countries would agree to further emissions cuts as spelled out in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
Under Kyoto, 37 nations and the European Union agreed to cut greenhouse gases by a total of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Those countries are on target to meet their obligations, but some of them have balked about accepting more mandatory cuts after 2012.
Japan caused an uproar last week when it flatly said it will refuse to go along, as long as all major emitting countries do not have similar obligations. The United States was assigned a reduction target, but it rejected the treaty. Developing countries, including China and India, were excluded from Kyoto's strictures.
India's environment minister Jairam Ramesh said developing countries had three non-negotiable demands: that developing countries agree to post-2012 reduction targets, that emergency funds begin flowing to Africa and the poorest states facing potential climate disasters, and that Western technology quickly be extended to help countries adapt to climate changes.
Christiana Figueres, the U.N.'s top climate official, said backstage efforts were under way to finesse the Kyoto issue. "There is already an active search for that medium ground," she said.
China says can make voluntary CO2 curbs "binding"
Reuters AlertNet 6 Dec 10;
CANCUN, Mexico, Dec 6 (Reuters) - China is prepared to make its voluntary carbon emissions target part of a binding U.N. resolution, a concession that may pressure developed countries to extend the Kyoto Protocol, a senior negotiator told Reuters.
U.N. climate talks in Mexico's Cancun beach resort hinge on agreement to cement national emissions targets after 2012, when the present round of Kyoto carbon caps end.
Kyoto binds the emissions of nearly 40 developed countries. Developing countries want to extend the protocol, but some industrialized nations including Japan, Russia and Canada want a separate new agreement that regulates the emissions of all nations.
China has previously rejected making its domestic emissions goals binding, as they are for industrialized nations now.
"We can create a resolution and that resolution can be binding on China," said Huang Huikang, the Chinese Foreign Ministry's envoy for climate change talks.
"Under the (U.N. Climate) Convention, we can even have a legally-binding decision. We can discuss the specific form. We can make our efforts a part of international efforts."
"Our view is that to address these concerns, there's no need to overturn the Kyoto Protocol and start all over again," added Huang. (Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Anthony Boadle)
China hopes for "positive results" at climate talks
* Pessimism predominates when forecasting outcome of talks
* Rich, developing nations including China at odds over aims
Reuters AlertNet 5 Dec 10;
BEIJING, Dec 5 (Reuters) - China is hopeful of "positive results" in the U.N. climate talks in Cancun, its chief negotiator to climate change talks said in comments published by state news agency Xinhua on Sunday.
There is widespread pessimism about the ongoing talks, as rich and developing nations have clashed over the future of the Kyoto Protocol for fighting global warming. [ID:nLDE6B30CG].
"As long as all parties have sincere political wills, China thinks the talks will eventually achieve positive and meaningful results, and is confident that it will reflect what was laid out in the Bali road map," Chinese negotiator Su Wei told Xinhua.
China has said that climate talks should be guided by U.N. texts worked out since a meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in 2007.
Su said that the parties should compromise on the "small problems", but added that there is "no room for compromise on principles", for example, on the issue of whether the Kyoto Protocol should continue.
China accused some developed nations on Friday of seeking to kill the Kyoto Protocol pact -- the United Nations' main weapon in the fight against climate change to curb global warming -- in a damaging standoff with Japan, Russia and Canada. [ID:nLDE6B21YF].
China, the world's top carbon emitter, has long said it will not bow to pressure to rethink the Protocol. [ID:nTOE69606Y].
Kyoto's first phase, which binds about 40 rich nations to meet emissions targets, expires in 2012 and it is not clear on what happens after that, worrying investors who want long-term certainty on climate policies and financing.
Nearly all wealthy countries have signed up to legally binding emissions goals under Kyoto, with the big exception of the United States, which refused to become a party.
Developing nations, including China, are obliged to take voluntary steps to curb the growth of their emissions.
The United States and other rich nations want a new global pact to do away with that either-or division to reflect the surge in emissions from the developing world, now accounting for more than half of mankind's annual greenhouse gas releases.
But developing countries such as China and India have refused to agree to binding targets before they see more ambitious cuts by the industrialized nations.
(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee, Editing by Mark Heinrich)
U.N. Talks To Delay CO2 Market Deal For Forests: EU
Reuters 7 Dec 10;
The European Union wants to delay a deal to use carbon markets to reward countries which protect their tropical forests, beyond U.N. climate talks in Cancun, said EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard.
The aim of a U.N. deal on tropical forests is to pay countries which preserve their trees, and so cut carbon emissions, also called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD).
The EU thought it was too early to pay countries by giving them tradable carbon offsets, which they could then sell to rich countries to help them meet their carbon emissions caps.
"The risk is if you do it in the wrong way that you risk undermining the whole carbon market," Hedegaard told reporters at the November29-December 10 talks in the Mexican beach resort.
"We hope that we can have an overall political understanding on REDD ... here from Cancun."
"We think that we should be careful. It might have some impacts on the whole carbon market. We need to be very sure what we're doing. It's one of the things that needs somewhat more details."
(Reporting by Gerard Wynn)
Nations 'rewriting climate plan'
Eric Brücher Camara BBC News 6 Dec 10;
The UN's former top climate official Yvo de Boer has accused developing countries, such as India and China, of trying to rewrite the Bali Action Plan.
He says this confuses negotiations between more than 190 nations that have started this week in Cancun, Mexico.
The meeting began last week amid low expectations
The number of heads of state expecting to attend the climate meeting is just 20, compared to the 120 who turned up at the Copenhagen summit.
This year's conference opened on Monday 29 November with marked divisions between industrialised and developing countries.
In an exclusive interview to BBC News, Mr de Boer - who has taken up the role of climate adviser at KPMG consulting - said the agreement reached after a tough two weeks of negotiations in Bali, 2007 should be implemented "loyally" or abandoned for "something new".
"The Bali Action Plan was very clear of what [was] expected of developing countries which is real, measurable and verifiable action in exchange to real, measurable and verifiable support", said the Dutch former diplomat.
Yvo de Boer said he understands China and India's criticism, among other developing nations, about the developed world's supposed lack of ambition for CO2 emissions targets and talks of agreements other than legally binding.
'All the impacts'
On the other hand, the former UN climate chief stressed that, after Copenhagen, countries responsible for more than 80% of the planet's emissions committed to curbing emission measures by 2020, including all of the industrialised countries and over 40 developing countries.
"We have a pretty much global movement forward and I think we need to give it real implementation meaning (in Cancun)," he said.
The former executive-secretary for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) also expressed worries about the lack of influence of "a hundred or so smaller developing countries who have contributed nothing to climate change but will be confronted with all of the impacts".
The fact that climate science has come under fierce criticism is also a cause for concern.
Mr De Boer recalled a meeting with an Indian Environment minister who made it very clear that without a clear link between climate change and everyday problems, such as hunger, it is very difficult for any politician to back climate action.
"We have to rebuild confidence in the science. Show that the IPCC is taking criticism seriously, putting its house in order, putting in place solid checks and balances that will re-establish the credibility of the science."
"I think people tend to think that it's not the fundamentals of climate change that are being called into question but some of the symptoms."
Deal or no deal?
Despite these problems, Mr De Boer said it would be "irresponsible" of governments not to reach some agreement in Cancun.
The world's second biggest polluter, the US, which has recently been surpassed by China, failed to approve its climate legislation in the US Senate last summer.
Mr de Boer argued that during the Kyoto conference, in 1997, when the current treaty to curb global emissions was agreed, no country had legislation in place.
"The fact that the US do not have climate legislation in place now does not need to impede an agreement in Cancun and subsequently in South Africa," said Mr De Boer.
In Cancun, for the first time, Mr De Boer will participate in a UN climate change conference representing the business community and says he is looking forward to it.
"I feel very good about not having the weight of the process on my shoulders and being involved this time more from a business perspective which is all about getting practical things done, getting real results."
