Delegates from 175 countries met in Bonn over the weekend (9-11 April) to draw up a plan for a new legally-binding global climate treaty.
They agreed to beef up the negotiating calendar with two additional meetings. The new gatherings will both last at least a week and will be held during the second half of the year. They also gave the chair of the talks, Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe of Zimbabwe, a mandate to draw up a draft text for the next round of negotiations in Bonn between 31 May and 11 June.
But while the negotiators spent hours agreeing on the relatively simple matter of the number of meetings, they failed to draw up a timetable for achieving a final agreement and the milestones to get there.
The Bonn meeting brought to the surface underlying disagreements between developed and developing countries, which have become evident in the debate surrounding the role of the non-binding Copenhagen Accord agreed at the close of the Copenhagen climate conference in December.
The US would like to see the Copenhagen Accord, endorsed by two-thirds of the countries that attended the talks, form the basis for the new negotiations. But many developing countries, headed by China and India, argue that the negotiations need to be kept under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The accord's main advantage for developing countries is that it includes a commitment from industrialised nations to provide climate funding for poor countries. But it does not include any country-specific emissions reduction targets. Analysis shows that the pledges currently on the table will fall far short of keeping global warming below the agreed 2°C.
The meeting's conclusions do not mention the Copenhagen Accord specifically, but leave open the possibility for the chair to draw upon the document when compiling the new negotiating text.
No treaty in sight
The lack of a specific roadmap means that the June talks in Bonn will have to continue to debate operational issues rather than moving on to debating the substance of any future treaty.
After the Bonn meeting, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) chief Yvo de Boer repeated his belief that it will not be possible to conclude a new agreement in Cancún (EurActiv 25/03/10).
Negotiations this year will 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.
