United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Christiana Figueres said that with most climate change concern issues having been threshed out and wrapped up during the meeting in Panama, governments are all set and now ready for the next annual U.N. climate change conference late this year.
«Panama made good progress on preparing the decisions that will help developing countries adapt to climate change and get access to the technologies they need to create their own clean energy futures,» Ms. Figueres said in a statement.
«The progress made in Panama means governments can have more time and space in the coming weeks and during Durban to resolve those outstanding issues on the future of the global climate change regime which will require political guidance.
«Durban will have to resolve the open question over the future of the Kyoto Protocol and what that means for a future global climate agreement. Governments retain different positions but many technical issues related to this have already been brought to conclusion and there is a strong desire from all sides to see a final political decision made,» she added.
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The Kyoto Protocol requires carbon emission cuts from industrialized countries, but the first phase of the agreement ends in 2012.
Accomplishments
Among the accomplishments of the Panama meeting were a concrete plan concerning the disbursement of the $30 billion-fund developed countries have donated and will be donating until 2012; fund-raising plans for a $100-billion Green Climate Fund by 2020 for poor nations to adapt to climate impacts and develop low-carbon economies; and a strategy to ensure governments will meet their agreed goal of limiting global average temperatures under a 2-degree Celsius rise, which include establishing a body that will receive updates on the latest climate change science and its assessments.
«It is critical that no financing gap occurs between the end of fast-start finance in 2012 and the ramp up of long-term finance to 2020,» Ms. Figueres said.
The 195-party U.N.F.C.C.C. is the parent treaty of the Kyoto Protocol. 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.
Meanwhile, the Council of the European Union, which comprises E.U. members’ heads of state, likewise calls for an agreement on a comprehensive and legally-binding framework to maintain the global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius.
The council further calls on all U.N. parties to fully implement all of the elements of the Cancun Agreements, which are a set of decisions reached on December 11, 2010 in Cancun, Mexico in the 2010 U.N. climate change conference to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The council stressed that the Durban conference should deliver the operations of the Cancun Agreements, address the remaining key issues, and advance the question of the legal form of a future post-2012 framework, including a timeline for reaching it.
However, that commitment will only happen provided the essential elements of the Kyoto Protocol are preserved and mechanisms set out in the convention address the key outstanding issues and determines a roadmap, including a timeline with a final date and process taking into account the 2013-2015 review.
In Durban, governments will look to decide the shape of a formal review between 2013 and 2015, which they agreed in Cancun as a reality check on progress towards their temperature goal.
The E.U. Council said a possible second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol will last only until 2020.
E.U. reaffirms commitment
The council also underlined the importance of establishing a global 2050 emission reduction goal and timeframe for global peaking in the Durban conference and stressed the E.U. objective of emissions by 80-95 percent by 2050 compared to 1990 levels as agreed in October 2009 and reaffirmed by the council only in February 2011.
It encouraged developing countries to develop and implement national strategies and action plans when it comes to biodiversity and forest preservation. It also called for the U.N.F.C.C.C. to urge parties to the Montreal Protocol to develop a phase-down schedule for the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons based on the model followed for ozone-depleting substances.
Finally, the E.U. council also reaffirmed its October 2009 conclusions to agree on global emission targets for international aviation and maritime transport and encouraged other parties to take actions to reduce aviation emissions and to include those plans in their action plans to be submitted to the International Civil Aviation Organization in June 2012.
Developing countries are adamant that a second commitment period is non- negotiable and they insist that it should closely resemble the original agreement – wealthy countries must agree unilaterally to cut steeper emissions, and poorer ones would cut carbon voluntarily after financial assistance from the rich.
«Let me then reaffirm the strong commitment of the members of the Group of 77 and China to move forward in Durban in both tracks, based on some fundamental tenets: the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol must be preserved,» Jorge Arg»uello of Argentina, speaking for the G-77 group of developing countries, said in a statement.
«The second commitment period is paramount for the G-77 and China. Efforts must be made in order to achieve its adoption,» he added.
