05
Apr 2008 Bangkok, Thailand – The UN climate
discussions this week in Bangkok showed
that Japan will need to repair trust and
confidence of developing nations if it wants
to lead the G8 towards making a constructive
contribution to the UN climate negotiations,
said WWF.
Japan attempted tampering
with results of a previous high-level UN
meeting: in Bali last December, developing
countries agreed to undertake emission reduction
actions in their own countries. By proposing
even more constraints on developing countries,
Japan now threatened to undermine the trust
and cooperation needed to move forward.
“The Japanese government
will have to build much more trust with
major developing countries if they want
to lead the G8 towards a reasonably good
agreement at the upcoming summit in Hokkaido,”
said Kathrin Gutmann, Climate Policy Coordinator
for WWF International. ”This can best be
done if Japan turns around and campaigns
vigorously for the G8 to agree to emissions
reductions by industrialized countries of
-25% to -40% by 2020.”
Despite these disturbances,
the parties at the Bangkok talks negotiated
the workplan for developing the global legal
framework for emission reductions for the
period after 2012. The countries brought
a number of constructive ideas to the table
and started in delineating the main issues
and the main fault lines that need further
discussion.
“The good news is that
most parties have started to engage pro-actively,”
said Shruti Shukla, WWF India’s climate
and energy policy coordinator. “The bad
news is that many lack the level of preparation
that is needed to successfully conclude
the negotiations by the end of 2009. They
will have to seriously step up their game
by bringing concrete proposals to the table.”
Several countries proposed
new ideas for further negotiations: Mexico
put forward a proposal about organising
funding for emission reductions and technology
in developing countries. The Small Island
States – amongst the most threatened countries
– introduced the idea of an insurance fund
to enable their citizens to deal with climate
disasters.
WWF is concerned about
a last-minute change about the inclusion
of emissions from planes and ships: the
wording is so loose that some industrial
countries could well use this to escape
these reduction obligations. Further negotiations
will have to eliminate this potential loophole.
Kathrin Gutmann, climate policy coordinator,
WWF’s Global Climate Deal Programme
Shruti Shukla, climate and energy policy
coordinator, WWF India
Martin Hiller, WWF climate change programme
