Informal talks between the COP presidency and developing countries ended a daylong boycott of negotiations Monday, which was triggered by controversy over the Kyoto Protocol.
Poor countries agree to resume climate talks
The European Union says poor countries have stopped their boycott of climate change negotiations at Copenhagen and have found a solution to their dispute with rich nations.
Informal talks resolved the impasse between rich and poor nations and ended the daylong boycott, which was started by African countries and backed by 135 developing countries including China and India.
The boycott disrupted efforts to forge a pact on global warming, delaying the frantic work of negotiators who are trying to resolve technical issues before more than 110 world leaders arrive in Copenhagen later in the week. It appeared aimed at shifting the focus of the UN climate talks to the responsibilities of industrial countries and making greenhouse gas emission cuts the first item for the leaders to discuss.
Andreas Carlgren, the European Union environment spokesman, said both rich and poor nations "found a reasonable solution." Developing countries agreed to return to all negotiating groups that they had abandoned earlier Monday, said Anders Frandsen, a spokesman for conference president Connie Hedegaard of Denmark.
The developing countries want to extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which imposed penalties on rich nations if they did not comply with its strict emissions limits but made no such binding demands on developing nations.
"We are really prepared to discuss all issues in the negotiations. It means also absolutely all issues under the Kyoto Protocol," Carlgren said.
The dispute came as the conference entered its second and critical week. Poor countries, supported by China, said Hedegaard had raised suspicion that the conference was likely to kill the Kyoto Protocol.
The United States had withdrawn from Kyoto over concerns that it would harm the US economy and that China, India and other major greenhouse gas emitters were not required to take action. China is now the world's largest greenhouse gas polluter.
"We are seeing the death of the Kyoto Protocol," said Djemouai Kamel of Algeria, the head of the 50-nation Africa group.
It was the second time African envoys have disrupted the climate talks. At the last round of negotiations in November, the African bloc forced a one-day suspension until wealthy countries agreed to spell out what steps they will take to reduce emissions.
"They are trying to put the pressure on" before Obama and other world leaders arrive, said Gustavo Silva-Chavez of the Environmental Defense Fund. "They want to make sure that developed countries are not left off the hook."
Canada's Environment Minister Jim Prentice said the dispute was a setback to negotiations.
"We have lost some time. There is no doubt about that," Prentice said. "It is not particularly helpful, but all in all it is our responsibility to get on with it and continue to negotiate."
UN: Don't leave tough climate issues to leaders
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is warning that if negotiators at the climate change conference in Copenhagen leave the tough issues to global leaders to resolve the world risks having a weak deal or no deal.
He told reporters Monday before flying to Copenhagen that he is reasonably optimistic the UN conference will end with a politically binding deal that is fair, comprehensive and equitable.
Ban said there is strong support among the 192 UN member states for 10 billion US dollars in fast-track, short-term funding to help developing countries deal with climate change starting in 2010.
He said he will be urging agreement on longer-term and a larger financial support package up to 2020 and beyond to help developing nations cope with global warming.
Russian call on big emitters
An agreement between the US, Brazil, India and China can form the basis of a global deal, says Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev.
Four countries hold the key to combating climate change successfully. If the US, Brazil, India and China coordinate their commitments, an agreement will be found at the ongoing UN-led negotiations in Copenhagen – according to Russia’s president.
“These must be simultaneous commitments and commitments that we all abide by. Trying to do this by our own will be fruitless and pointless,” Dmitry Medvedev says, according to Bloomberg.
China, the US and India are three of the world’s largest emitters, while Brazil has a large impact on the global climate through its management of the Amazon forest.
Russia accounts for roughly six percent of global emissions and has recently pledged to reduce its emissions by 25 percent over the coming years. The cornerstone of the government’s plan is a huge rise in energy efficiency and more nuclear power.
Malaysia is ready to cut emissions
"Developed countries should do most, but Malaysia is ready to do its share," says Prime Minister Najib Razak.
As Najib Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia, joins the UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen later this week, his agenda will go beyond placing demands on industrialized countries.
“We are willing to offer our commitment. I am not just going to call on the developed world. I am going to commit Malaysia and I am going to commit Malaysia to very credible cuts which means we have to spend, which we will do,” Najib Razak tells Reuters.
According to UN data, Malaysians emit 7.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per capita (2006 figures) – which is not so much less compared to an average person in the industrialized world.
Najib Razak says that “all nations must contribute” to a new global deal and that “it has to be predicated on the fundamental principles of the Kyoto Protocol and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change”.
The Prime Minister also hopes that a solution on international funding that may help developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change will be found in Copenhagen: “Otherwise we are just going to face a very uncertain future and the effects will be quite catastrophic.”
Miliband: Get your act together
The British Climate Change Secretary says that the climate negotiations are moving too slowly and urges environment ministers to leave only few issues behind to be resolved by world leaders.
Environment ministers from all over the world have now arrived at the ongoing UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, and Ed Miliband urged his colleagues to leave only few issues behind to be resolved by heads of state and government.
''I've always said the leaders' role in this process is incredibly important to get the final pieces of the jigsaw in place. But what we cannot do is leave a whole slew of issues to leaders,” Miliband said, according to The Telegraph.
''I think that the very clear message for negotiators and ministers is that we need to get our act together and take action to resolve some of the outstanding issues that we face… We're now getting close to midnight in this negotiation and we need to act like it.“
In an explanation of why the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will arrive two days early to Copenhagen, Miliband said: “It’s a sign that negotiations are moving too slowly. He can play a very important role in brokering and negotiating key issues but frankly it’s up to negotiators and ministers not to leave everything to the leaders.”
Ed Miliband stressed two important outstanding issues: “There are two outstanding issues that I think all countries face, frankly, in this, which is whether we are willing to stand behind our commitments and say that we're going to do what we promise and, secondly, the precise system of monitoring, reporting and verification to make sure people actually follow through on what they promise.''
New model for climate funding
Norway and Mexico launch a joint model to provide predictable funding for climate actions in developing countries, starting in 2013.
Contributions to the Green Fund should come both from public budgets and from auctioning of emission allowances. According to the proposal, the scale of the Green Fund could start around 10 billion dollars per year by 2013 and increase to 30-40 billion dollars by 2020.
Mexico's President Felipe Calderón (photo above) and Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg "hope that through our joint proposal we can help develop a funding model everyone can endorse," they say in a common statement.
"To achieve an ambitious outcome in Copenhagen, it is crucial that we reach an agreement on financing climate actions in developing countries," they say.
Both countries find the resources so far raised for funding climate actions in developing countries inadequate. At an earlier stage in the negotiations both Norway and Mexico tabled proposals that could give increased predictable funding for climate actions in developing countries. The new model combines these proposals.
Norway's proposal is a model where a certain percentage of the total UN-allowances should be set aside for international auctioning to finance climate actions in developing countries. Mexico has proposed to establish a Green Fund that draws funding based on each country's emissions, GDP and population. The joint model uses both sources of income.
"In order to raise an adequate amount we will combine complementary sources of financing. This money should both finance adaption and mitigation efforts in developing countries. Financing should be based on results," Calderón and Stoltenberg say, according to a press release.
Backwards step for forest deal
A proposal aimed at saving the world's tropical forests suffered a setback Sunday, when negotiators at the UN climate talks ditched plans for faster action on the problem because of concerns that rich countries aren't willing to finance it.
Destruction of forests — burning or cutting trees to clear land for plantations or cattle ranches — is thought to account for about 20 percent of global emissions. That's as much carbon dioxide as all the world's cars, trucks, trains, planes and ships combined.
So a deal on deforestation is considered a key component of a larger pact on climate change being negotiated in Copenhagen.
On Sunday, language calling for reducing deforestation 50 percent by 2020 was struck from the text being considered. And the document only mentions financing without saying how much would go to the more than 40 developing nations in Latin America, Asia and Africa.
The Europeans want to put in a shorter-term goal, "and the rain forest nations are saying that we are happy to have a goal as long as it's balanced by appropriate funding ... which is missing from the text," said Federica Bietta, the deputy director of the Coalition for Rain Forest Nations. The group represents most of the countries that could take part in a forest scheme.
Antonio Gabriel La Vina, the lead negotiator in the forest talks and author of the latest draft, downplayed the changes and said it was a compromise between those who wanted hard targets and those who didn't.
Environmentalists earlier this month hailed the forest talks as one area where negotiations were progressing and some suggested they could serve as a catalyst to inking a larger climate deal here in Copenhagen.
But they have fallen victim to the same bickering between rich and poor nations which has slowed progress on the wider agreement. There are still no firm figures on financing or cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the larger agreement
France promotes plan to fight deforestation
The presidents of France and Indonesia say representatives at the UN climate talks must provide adequate funding for a plan to reduce emissions from deforestation.
France is supporting a plan for fighting deforestation at the talks. The issue is important for Indonesia because it is home to 10 percent of the world's forests.
A proposal aimed at saving tropical forests — and reducing emissions by doing so — suffered a setback this weekend when climate negotiators dropped plans for faster action on the problem because of financing concerns
Rich countries behind green technology fund
The White House on Monday announced a new program drawing funds from international partners to spend 350 million US dollars over five years to supply developing nations with clean energy technology.
The funding plan grew out of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) established among the world's top economies earlier this year, with a decision to produce detail plans and spending at the July summit meeting in L'Aquila, Italy.
The US share of the program will amount to 85 million US dollars with the remainder coming from Australia, Britain, Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland, the White House said in a statement by spokesman Robert Gibbs.
He said President Barack Obama had assigned Energy Secretary Steven Chu to coordinate with partners in the MEF to insure immediate action on the program
India sets Tuesday night deadline
When the first heads of state arrive at Copenhagen on Wednesday, they must have an agreed text to look at, says India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.
According to The Economic Times of India, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh “categorically” insists that an agreed text on a global deal reaching beyond the present period of the Kyoto Protocol must be worked out during the night of Tuesday, December 15.
“Ministers and heads of state and government cannot negotiate a text. The heads of state and government will be arriving from December 16 and they have to work on adopting a political statement,” Jairam Ramesh says.
According to the Indian newspaper, the country is contributing to reaching a deal by “displaying flexibility in its climate change position by offering to adopt the international guidelines under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)” – meaning India is prepared to let the UNFCCC verify that internationally funded projects are yielding the expected results.
“We have agreed to a national communication once in two years for both supported and unsupported actions. For the unsupported efforts the monitoring will be domestic only. The manner in which we do our domestic evaluation would be on the international guidelines as prepared by UNFCCC,” says Jairam Ramesh.
According to The Economic Times of India, this approach should satisfy both the international community – seeking verifiability – and the domestic audience, who fear India will give away too much control over its own development.
Mr. Ramesh also dismisses any suggestions of replacing the Kyoto Protocol with an alternative agreement: “India is not here to renegotiate agreement. The mandate enables (the) existing two track approach of the Kyoto Protocol and the Long-term Co-operative Action to move ahead. The two tracks must be completed by 2010 at the latest.”
Source> http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2988
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