Bumpy ride ahead for UN climate talks[fr][de] 

"This first negotiating session this year is critical for moving the world closer to a political solution to climate change," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). "The clock is ticking down and countries still have much work to cover," he added.

Many of this year's talks will revolve around industrialised countries agreeing on ambitious emissions reduction targets. 

US envoy on climate change Todd Stern yesterday (29 March) recognised his country's "unique responsibility as the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases" for creating a problem that threatens the entire world.

"We are very glad to be back. We want to make up for lost time, and we are seized with the urgency of the task before us," Stern told the 2,600 delegates.

Industrialised countries slowing down negotiations? 

In recent weeks, however, senior figures in the Obama administration have warned that the president may need at least another six months to win domestic support for any proposal.

Indeed, Americans would prefer to have the green light from Congress and fear that if the US signed up to a deal without the House and Senate's approval, it would result into a serious domestic backlash, as was the case with the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed by President Clinton but never ratified (EurActiv 19/12/08). 

Consequently, most delegates and UN officials seem to concur that a framework agreement covering broad principles is more likely to emerge in Copenhagen, leaving details to be hammered out in 2010. 

Other countries have also asked for more time. Japan has said it will not set a national emission reductions target before June. Russia and Ukraine must also put offers on the table. 

Timid progress towards a deal… 

Overall, countries have not come forward with specific proposals on how aspects of the Copenhagen agreement can work in practice, UN climate chief Yvo de Boer told EndsEurope recently, referring to the proposals submitted by different nations. But he said he has "high expectations" for the first round of meetings in Bonn. 

According to officials close to the negotiating table, the Bonn meeting will discuss the more practical nuts and bolts of how a new climate treaty could work, including monitoring and verification of developing-country mitigation actions. 

A major feature of the preparatory document for the Bonn talks is a proposal - submitted by South Korea and South Africa and backed by the EU - to establish an international registry to record the mitigation actions of developing countries, such as China and India, and match them with pledges of financial and technological support by developed nations. 

Countries are "converging" on how the registry would work as part of UN climate talks this year, said de Boer last week. However, countries are still far from reaching consensus on developed-country funding for greenhouse gas mitigation and a proposed reform of the UN's clean development mechanism (CDM), a scheme which allows developed countries to finance projects in poor countries and claim carbon credits in return. 

Emission cuts: Distribution and classification 

There is still strong resistance to a new classification of countries' emissions according to GDP or other means. "It may be considered that a more productive way forward towards an agreed outcome [in Copenhagen] would be to consider differentiations of mitigation actions as something that is nationally appropriate in their respective national circumstances and to encourage - through leadership, cooperation, incentives and negotiation - the highest achievable levels of ambitions for these actions," reads the preparatory text. 

In January, a European Commission communication  suggested taking into account four criteria for calculating each country's contribution in different ways: GDP per capita, emissions per unit of GDP, emissions trends between 1990 and 2005, and population trends over the period 1990 to 2005 (EurAcitv 29/10/09). 

After Bonn this week, negotiators will meet once more in Bonn in June and in Bangkok in the autumn, before convening in Copenhagen.