Second round
of Bonn UN Climate Change Talks in 2010
designed to pave way for full implementation
of climate change action across the globe
Bonn, 31 May 2010 -
A fresh round of UN Climate Change talks
kicked off on Monday with representatives
from 182 governments meeting in Bonn to
take forward work from last year's UN Climate
Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP 15).
The talks are designed to pick up on issues
that were not resolved in Copenhagen and
to pave the way for the full implementation
of climate change action across the globe.
"The Copenhagen
meeting may have postponed an outcome for
at least a year, but it did not postpone
the impacts of climate change," said
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer.
"The deadline to agree an effective
international response to climate change
at Copenhagen was set because governments,
when launching negotiations in Bali in 2007,
recognised the scientific warning on climate
for what it was: a siren call to act now,
or face the worst," he added.
From Tuesday, government
delegates countries will begin discussing
a new negotiating text under the Ad Hoc
Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action
under the Convention (AWG-LCA).
At the UN Climate Change
Conference in Copenhagen at the end of 2009,
governments extended the mandate of the
AWG-LCA as the negotiating group tasked
to deliver a long-term global solution to
the climate challenge. Governments meeting
in Bonn in April this year subsequently
invited the Chair of the group, Margaret
Mukahanana-Sangarwe, to prepare a new text
in time for the June negotiating session.
"Climate negotiations
over the next two weeks will be on track
if they keep focused on a common way forward
towards a concrete and realistic goal in
Cancún. There is a growing consensus
on what that the goal for Cancún
can be - namely, a full, operational architecture
to implement effective, collective climate
action," said the UN's top climate
change official Yvo de Boer.
The Ad Hoc Working Group
on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties
under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) will also
meet in Bonn from Tuesday, in parallel to
the AWG-LCA. The focus of this group is
on emissions reduction commitments for the
37 industrialized countries that have ratified
the Kyoto Protocol for the period beyond
2012.
"I encourage governments
to now develop greater clarity on the future
of the Kyoto Protocol, since this issue
cannot be left unattended until Cancún,"
Yvo de Boer said.
Mr. de Boer also called
on industrialized countries to fulfill the
financial pledge they made at Copenhagen.
These countries promised to deploy USD 30
billion from now to 2012 in short-term finance
to kick start climate action in developing
countries. "Cancún can deliver
if promises of help are kept and if promises
to compromise are honored in the negotiations,"
he said.
In addition to the two
working groups specifically designed to
negotiate a long-term response to climate
change, two UNFCCC standing committees -
the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological
Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for
Implementation (SBI) - are meeting in Bonn.
The SBSTA will for example
deal with the issue of building capacity
in developing countries to measure emissions
from deforestation. And it will convene
a research dialogue between governments
and research organizations to generate discussion
on the latest information on climate change
science. The SBI is for example expected
to agree on the modalities for the review
of the Kyoto Protocol's Adaptation Fund
in Mexico at the end of this year.
"Recent pledges
by Spain and Germany towards the adaptation
fund have been useful first steps to build
trust among developing nations," said
the UNFCCC Executive Secretary. "But
we must see more concrete contributions
from other countries in the run-up to Cancún
which show that developed countries are
ready to deliver on what they promised five
months ago in Copenhagen," he added.
The Bonn gathering is
being attended by more than 4,500 participants,
including government delegates, representatives
from business and industry, environmental
organisations and research institutions.
The next UNFCCC negotiating
session is scheduled to take place 2-6 August
in Bonn, followed by a second one-week intersessional
meeting (precise and date and time yet to
be announced) before the UN Climate Change
Conference 29 November to 10 December in
Cancún.
About the UNFCCC
With 194 Parties, the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership
and is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto
Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has been ratified
by 191 of the UNFCCC Parties. Under the
Protocol, 37 States, consisting of highly
industrialized countries and countries undergoing
the process of transition to a market economy,
have legally binding emission limitation
and reduction commitments. The ultimate
objective of both treaties is to stabilize
greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere
at a level that will prevent dangerous human
interference with the climate system.
