New York, 22 December
- While most countries
are not happy with the outcome of this month's
summit on climate change in Copenhagen,
"really good progress" was made
towards a binding agreement "to save
the world," with the United Nations
leading the way to possible adoption at
next year's meeting in Mexico, UN General
Assembly President Ali Treki said yesterday.
"There are complaints
that some countries have not been dealt
with carefully, other countries believe
it was not democratic, other groups believe
that the matter has been out of the hand
of the UN and they would like also that
UN would take over this problem again,"
he told a year-end news conference in New
York about the summit, which set no mid-
or long-term limits on global warming greenhouse
gas emissions for individual countries.
"But I think we
should be realistic that what happened there,
it is really something positive," he
said, noting that he had not expected a
concrete binding resolution to emerge. "I
think that the conclusion of a certain agreement
was really good progress and we have to
follow that up," he added.
"We all agree that
the United Nations should take the lead
and we'll continue to take the lead and
we will have certainly the summit of Mexico.
We'll finish what we have started in Copenhagen.
But I'm very happy that the majority of
countries of the world are aware of the
dangers of this problem and they would like
to do what they have to do to save the world
and to have an agreement, a binding agreement,"
he concluded.
Last week countries attending
the UN climate convention's summit in Copenhagen
agreed to 'take note' of a document entitled
the Copenhagen Accord.
For the first time in
the history of climate change cooperation,
developing countries including Brazil, China,
India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and
the small and threatened Republic of the
Maldives outlined intentions to decouple
emissions from economic growth.
Developed countries
including the United States will also outline
a range of emission reductions targets up
to 2020 by 1 February 2010. Both commitments
and intentions in terms of greenhouse gas
reductions will be subject to international
monitoring and verification.
Countries accepted to
work towards limiting the rise in global
temperatures to below 2 degree Celsius above
pre-industrial levels. However, emission
reduction commitments by 2050 were in the
end not included in the final document.
Importantly, the Accord
outlines support for technology transfer
and capacity building for developing economies
while also putting forward a financial package
aimed at assisting developing ones adapt
to climate change and to begin de-carbonizing
their economies.
Additional resources
of US$30 billion, covering the period 2010-2012,
will be available immediately and developed
nations also supported a "goal of mobilizing
jointly US$100 billion a year by 2020 to
address the needs of developing countries".
The Accord recognized
the crucial role of forests in addressing
climate change, saying their was a need
to recognize reduced emissions from deforestation
and forest degradation (REDD+) via the immediate
establishment of a mechanism to enable the
mobilization of financial resources from
developed countries.
The United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agricultural
Organization and the UN Development Programme
are spearheading the UN REDD programme which
is already assisting close to a dozen developing
countries prepare for a REDD regime.
UN-REDD dovetails with other initiatives,
including the World Bank's Forest Carbon
Partnership Facility.
The culmination of two
weeks of talks and two years of negotiations,
today's outcome was welcomed by UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon, who said: "The U.N. system
will work to immediately start to deliver
meaningful results to people in need and
jump-start clean-energy growth in developing
countries."
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary
General and Executive Director of UNEP,
said: "This was perhaps not the big
breakthrough some had hoped for, but neither
was it a breakdown which at times seemed
a possibility. The litmus test of developed
countries' ambitions will in a sense come
immediately. If the funds promised in the
Accord start flowing swiftly and to the
levels announced, then a new international
climate change policy may have been born."
Notes to Editors:
United Nations Climate Change Conference
http://www.unep.org/climatechange/CopenhagenCOP15
UN-REDD www.un-redd.org
Seal the Deal 2009 http://www.sealthedeal2009.org/
The UN-led Seal the
Deal campaign, working with various civil
society groups, coalesced around 13 million
signatures from all around the world asking
for a fair, equitable and ambitious deal.
