Bonn, 11 April 2010
- The first round of UN climate change talks
since the UN Climate Change Conference in
Copenhagen at the end of 2009 concluded
Sunday in Bonn with agreement to intensify
the negotiating schedule in order to achieve
a strong outcome in Mexico at the end of
the year.
In addition to the negotiating
sessions already scheduled for 2010, governments
decided at the Bonn April meeting to hold
two additional sessions of at least one
week each.
The additional sessions
will take place between the 32nd session
of the UNFCCC Convention subsidiary bodies
from 31 May to 11 June 2010 and the UN Climate
Change Conference in Mexico from 29 November
to 10 December 2010.
The Ad Hoc Working Group
on Long-term Cooperative Action under the
Convention (AWG-LCA) invited its Chair to
prepare, under her own responsibility, a
text to facilitate negotiations among Parties,
in time for the May/June sessions in Bonn.
"At this meeting
in Bonn, I have generally seen a strong
desire to make progress," said UNFCCC
Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer. "However,
whilst more meeting time is important, it
is itself not a recipe for success,"
he cautioned.
The UN's top climate
change official called on governments to
overcome differences, and work for greater
clarity on what can be decided in the course
of 2010 in the UN Climate Change negotiations.
"We need to decide
what can be agreed at the end of this year
in Cancún and what can be put off
until later," he said.
According to Mr. de
Boer, negotiators must tackle three categories
of issues in the course of this year: issues
which were close to completion in Copenhagen
and can be finalized at the UN Climate Change
Conference in Cancún at the end of
the year; issues where there are still considerable
differences, but on which the Copenhagen
Accord can provide important political guidance;
and issues where governments are still far
from agreement.
"The UN Climate
Change Conference in Cancún must
do what Copenhagen did not achieve: It must
finalize a functioning architecture for
implementation that launches global climate
action, across the board, especially in
developing nations," said Yvo de Boer.
"Specifically,
negotiations this year need to conclude
on mitigation targets and action, a package
on adaptation, a new technology mechanism,
financial arrangements, ways to deal with
deforestation, and a capacity-building framework,"
he said.
Yvo de Boer also referred
to the necessity for high level political
guidance at the appropriate time: "We
must seek political guidance where and when
needed," he said.
The first round of UN
Climate Change Talks in Bonn in 2010 (9-11
April) was attended by more than 1700 delegates
from 175 countries
Notes to Editors:
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 190 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.
UNFCCC media office: http://unfccc.int/press/items/2794
