Yahoo News 21 Mar 11;
PARIS (AFP) – Developing countries have submitted their plans for tackling greenhouse-gas emissions under the UN flag, completing a double inventory decided in Mexico in December, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change said on Monday.
The listing of voluntary, "nationally appropriate" actions follows an inventory of emissions reduction targets by developed countries, the Bonn-based secretariat said.
The documents form the basis of a system of "mutual accountability", a planned confidence-building mechanism to let countries know what counterparts are doing in the fight against climate change.
The 194 UNFCCC parties also agreed in Cancun to establish a Green Climate Fund (GCF) with the potential to channel hundreds of billions of dollars in aid from rich economies to poor, vulnerable nations.
They rallied around a call to cap warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) and on ways to fight deforestation, a leading cause of climate change.
The two-week meeting was blighted over the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark treaty whose obligations on wealthy countries to cut emissions expires in late 2012.
The forum next meets in Bangkok at the level of senior officials from April 3 to April 8; in Bonn from June 6-17; and in Durban, South Africa, from November 28-December 9, ending at ministerial level.
