GLOBAL CLIMATE talks appeared to show progress in the final hours of the UN’s 16th climate change conference in Cancün last night after a draft text hinted at compromise over an impasse on emissions targets between rich and poor nations.
In an effort to break the deadlock, the Mexican presidency circulated drafts of the new text to delegates from all 193 countries represented. The text reflected “the current status of the negotiations”, said a preamble to the text.
The draft referred to a “second commitment period” of the Kyoto Protocol, the extension of which beyond its first 2008-2012 round has been a central roadblock in the talks. It said that it “agrees . . . to ensure that there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods”.
Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), was gloomy about the outcome, saying: “We all will leave Cancún knowing very clearly that we have not very significantly changed the time window within which the world will be able to address climate change.”
A crucial issue was whether the text should explicitly refer to UNEP’s recent report showing that the pledges made by countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the Copenhagen Accord fall far short of its goal of limiting the rise in temperatures to 2 degrees.
European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard made it clear that the EU “wants the text to state the obvious”. But the US, China and other countries have been extremely reluctant to do so, leading to charges by environmentalists that they are “denying the science”.
Smaller groups of ministers and officials have been working hard with the Mexican foreign minister and conference president, Patricia Espinosa, to salvage honourable compromises on a range of issues.
These included the scope and governance of the climate fund to aid vulnerable developing countries, the Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) package on which an impasse was reported and measures to verify pledges to cut emissions.
“We’re at the phase now of horse-trading,” said Elliot Diringer, of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a moderate Washington-based think-tank with observer status here. “You always have to bring it into a smaller group to finally cut the deals.”
“The issues . . . are complex and informal consultations have been running virtually without stop for many hours,” Ms Espinosa told delegates.
“No party can lose sight of what is at stake. Let us always bear in mind what we have to gain if we all act in a responsible way.”
Norway’s environment minister, Erik Solheim, urged everyone to show more flexibility.
“If you want to pick fights in this audience it’s very easy to do it. What we need is a spirit of compromise,” he said at the plenary session.
Earlier, Bolivian president Evo Morales – a hero for many developing countries – warned that if the conference was to “send the Kyoto Protocol to the rubbish bin”, it would be “responsible for ecocide and genocide, because we will be sending many people to their deaths”.
But Japan’s chief negotiator Akira Yamada said a renewal of Kyoto beyond 2012 – which his country opposes – would be “neither a fair nor effective way to tackle climate change globally” as the biggest emitters (China and the US) would be “like spectators in the stands”.
Civil society groups blamed Japan and the US for obstructing progress. The Climate Action Network said Japan was “putting the entire talks at risk” while Oxfam accused the US of “holding hostage” decisions on the Climate Fund by insisting on transparency from developing countries. – (additional reporting Reuters)
