UN climate talks will end in Bonn on Friday (11 June) with little achievements made, leaving only two weeks of official negotiating time before the December high-level conference in Cancún, Mexico.
Negotiators from the 194 nations represented in Bonn have spent the last two weeks trying to build bridges between rich and poor nations on how to tackle climate change.
The general mood has been described as more constructive than during the previous round in April, where the blame-game after the failure of the 2009 Copenhagen conference was working at full pace.
But difficult issues such as climate finance for poor countries and mid-term emissions reduction targets for rich nations have remained impossible to crack.
De Boer: Aim is to reach agreement in 2011
Yvo de Boer, who was bidding farewell to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) after four years spent as secretary-general, called for a greater sense of urgency in the negotiations.
"We got the yellow card in Copenhagen and the referee's hand will edge towards the red one if we fail to deliver in Cancún and beyond," he warned.
De Boer admitted that deciding how rich nations should contribute to a common goal of reducing emissions by 80% by mid-century will require more than one round of negotiations.
But he emphasised that determined action cannot be postponed much longer. "As things stand, we will not be able to halt the increase in global greenhouse gases in the next ten years. The two degree world is in danger, and as a result the door to a 1.5 degree world is rapidly closing," he said.
The Dutchman confirmed that an agreement over a new international climate treaty at the end of the year was unlikely. But he said the December Cancún talks could provide a "fully functional architecture" in several areas: adaptation, mitigation, technology, finance, capacity building and reducing emissions from deforestation (REDD).
The aim, he added, was to reach agreement on a new treaty at the December 2011 talks in South Africa.
The outgoing UNFCCC chief stressed the importance of building milestones on the way towards a new treaty. He added that the possibility of a "broad review" in 2015 of progress made towards the targets has been on the table in Bonn.
New UNFCCC chief: Nations have 'no choice'
De Boer said he felt the time was right to step down because Copenhagen had been a politically "significant" moment despite failing to deliver a new treaty. "This is not a job you can do for very long with enthusiasm and energy," he told journalists.
Christiana Figueres, a Costa Rican diplomat who will replace de Boer in July, yesterday told journalists that nations have "no choice" but to meet the challenge.
But she stressed that emphasis on achieving a binding climate treaty with set emissions reductions goals should not be the main focus, as scientific advances will set new targets.
Instead, the Cancún summit should focus on delivering emissions cuts and finance for developing countries to adapt to climate change, Figueres explained.
