www.carbon-financeonline.com
10 December, 2008
UN climate change head Yvo de Boer said that talks to reach a new agreement by December next year are unlikely to lead to a "fully elaborated long-term response to climate change", and warned that many details will need to be finalised after the meeting in Copenhagen.
Speaking at a press briefing yesterday on progress with the talks in Poznan, Poland, de Boer cautioned that: "We should be careful not to reach too far and achieve nothing." He added that the Copenhagen talks - viewed as the deadline to finalise a deal which can be ratified before the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 - will be "a failure" if there are still no reduction targets agreed, but that subsequent meetings would be needed to bash out final details.
"We do need to have clarity, numbers on the table from developed countries, otherwise the other dominoes won't fall," he added. Developing countries will only engage in the process if industrialised nations adopt reduction commitments and offer the technological support needed by developing economies.
But Stavros Dimas, EU environment commissioner, said: "Time is running out ... we have to have an agreement in Copenhagen." Sigmar Gabriel, environment minister for Germany, said at a separate event that this week is "a defining week for climate talks", with discussions on the EU's climate and energy package reaching a climax at the end of the week. "Politicians love to make long-term forecasts, and it's great to make 2050 targets, but they will be met by our children and grandchildren, so it's important to make intermediate targets," Gabriel added.
De Boer remained optimistic that the outcome of next December's talks would fulfil the goals of the Bali Road Map. But he added that, just as the Kyoto Protocol needed subsequent meetings in the Hague in 2000 and Marrakech in 2001 to forge a 'ratifiable' agreement, so too may a Copenhagen agreement require further elucidation.
"I think he's trying to manage expectations," commented one delegate. "We're unlikely to have an all-singing, all-dancing post-2012 framework at Copenhagen ... people with expectations that we will come out of Copenhagen with it all in place will be disappointed." "There will be time after Copenhagen to do further details, but we do need very strong architecture and [2020] targets in Copenhagen," said Kate Hampton, head of policy at UK-based boutique investment bank Climate Change Capital.
Meanwhile, Brice Lalonde, head of the French delegation, told reporters today that the work programme for the Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) for 2009 was finalised this morning. "This is probably one of the main achievements for Poznan," he added. The working group - which includes non-Kyoto parties such as the US - is responsible for sketching out a post-2012 framework.
Harlan Watson, lead negotiator for the US, said that solid progress had been made in finalising the work programme for AWG-LCA, which mandates the chair of the group to prepare a draft text, compiling all submissions and noting issues where there are consensus and divergence, for the next meeting in March or April, and then to prepare a negotiating text for June's meeting. The programme will be presented to the plenary, provisionally tomorrow, for a vote.
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