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UNFCCC Executive Secretary- Yvo de Boer

The UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún must do what Copenhagen did not achieve

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

As climate talks resumed in Bonn, Germany on 9 April 2010, following the chaotic conclusion of the Copenhagen meetings in December last year, developing countries called for the rebuilding of trust and confidence.

The African Group, represented by the Democratic Republic of Congo said that if “we are to avoid the repeat of what happened in Copenhagen and repair this damaged process, then we must learn from Copenhagen.”

The African Group, reflecting on what happened in Copenhagen said that it saw “the sidelining of the two-track multilateral process, the emergence of a secret text put together by a selected few that later became known as the Copenhagen Accord and the blatant attempt to discard the Kyoto Protocol. These mistakes fundamentally broke the trust that is very necessary for any partnership that aspires to be successful and enduring to work.”

The ninth session of Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the eleventh session of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex 1 Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) are set for a brief session of three days which ends on 11 April, to mainly focus on the organization of work and organizational matters for the two working groups for agreed outcomes at the UN climate change conference to be held in Cancun, Mexico in December this year.

Speaking for the G77 and China, Ambassador Abdullah M. Alsaidi of Yemen said that the mandate of the AWG-LCA is to continue its work for an outcome in Mexico, and that the work process must be an open, democratic, party-driven, transparent, inclusive, legitimate and accountable one which centers around the implementation of the Bali Action Plan.

With respect to the organization and methods of work of the AWG-LCA in 2010, the G77 and China highlighted the following:

- The centrality of the UNFCCC must be preserved and respected i.e. that the only venue for climate change negotiations is the UNFCCC framework;
- The AWG-LCA must resume its work as soon as possible and make progress on the four building blocks of mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology as well as the shared vision, with the objective of the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention;
- Sufficient sessions for negotiations for the AWG-LCA are necessary and should be no less than three; likewise, the participation of the developing countries, especially from the least developed countries (LDCs) and small island states (SIDS), in these meetings must be supported. In this regard, the Group pointed out its preference to holding such meetings in New York or Geneva to ensure greater participation by developing countries.

The G77 and China reiterated its belief in the importance of maintaining the centrality of the multilateral process within the UNFCCC framework.

Speaking for the African Group, the Democratic Republic of Congo said that if “we are to avoid the repeat of what happened in Copenhagen and repair this damaged process, then we must learn from Copenhagen.”

The African Group said that the priority must therefore be to restore the trust, rebuild confidence and thereby salvage the process. This it said can be done by:

-Returning to the two-track multilateral negotiation process;
-Committing to the UNFCCC process as the only forum for the negotiation of a global and legally binding outcome;
-Working on the basis of the AWG documentation forwarded from COP 15 and the CMP 5 (referring to the meeting of Parties under the Kyoto Protocol); and
- Negotiating the terms of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

Grenada, speaking for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) said that Copenhagen did not achieve the outcome that was expected from Bali which was to address the climate challenge as reported by the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Lesotho, speaking for the LDCs called for the restoration of confidence and the building of trust in the process. It said that the negotiation process must be transparent and inclusive.