Pacte sur le climat : riches et pauvres toujours divisés[en] 

Next December in Copenhagen, the global community must decide upon a new international climate agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 (see EurActiv LinksDossier on 'Global options for tackling climate change').

The first round of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) discussions, which pave the way to Copenhagen, took place in Bonn from 29 March–8 April. The talks made little progress on the crucial issues of financing developing countries' efforts to combat climate change, or setting binding mid-term targets for industrialised countries (EurActiv 09/04/09). 

Nevertheless, Bonn did see the launch of talks over a negotiating text. The parties concerned were invited to submit their proposals for a post-Kyoto agreement in terms of the scale of reductions, improving emissions trading, carbon-offset mechanisms, and deforestation, among others.

The proposals are to form the basis of a negotiating text for the post-Kyoto treaty, and will set the tone for the next round of UN negotiations in June. Differing views on sharing the cost of climate change, which have been a stumbling block, persist in the submissions.

Financing still elusive

Developing countries called on industrialised countries to commit around 0.5-2% of their GDP to funding mitigation and adaptation measures in poor countries. Moreover, the idea of using revenue from emission allowance auctioning to do so was floated by China, India and Indonesia, among others. 

Rich countries, meanwhile, have been slow to come up with concrete proposals. The EU's stance is that the bulk of such financing will have to come from the private sector and carbon markets, and the bloc is yet to commit concrete sums to aiding developing countries (EurActiv 18/03/09).

The two-day meeting of the world's 17 biggest greenhouse gas emitters, which ended in Washington yesterday (28 April), indicated the scale of the problems that the world must address before agreement can be reached. 

US President Barack Obama had called the meeting, under the framework of 'The Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate' launched by his predecessor George W. Bush, to forge a consensus on issues like financing and targets for emission cuts by industrialised countries.

Todd Stern, the US special envoy for climate change, said he had come out of the meeting "if anything, a bit more optimistic". "I would not downplay or underestimate the difficulty of getting an agreement in Copenhagen in the first instance, and the enormous difficulty of wrestling this problem to the ground," he nevertheless warned.

Although financing for developing countries was meant to be a major theme of the discussions, participants never even got as far as talking about it. They ran out of time after prolonged discussions on mitigation.

"Unfortunately, the meeting saw no real progress towards greener development pathways for developing countries, and no new financial and technical support from developed countries to make that development possible," Carroll Muffet of Greenpeace said.

Mid-term targets falling short

Developing countries generally insisted that industrialised countries should commit to cuts of at least 40% below 1990 levels by 2020.

China insisted that it made no sense to talk about long-term targets for all parties before developed countries had agreed to such reductions.

In fact, the EU is the only bloc of nations with a binding commitment to a 20% cut from 1990 levels by 2020. It has pledged to raise this to 30% if other developed nations take on comparable targets.

The US, which has previously been focused on setting an 80% long-term reduction target for 2050, has now indicated that it will push for strong mid-term targets too. 

During the Major Economies Forum, Stern said the US would suggest a collective target that was at least as ambitious as the 14% cut below 2005 levels by 2020 as proposed by President Obama for the States. It might even propose targets in line with a draft Congress bill which would cut them by 20%.

"There's no mystery," Stern said, pointing out that the US target would fall somewhere in between the two proposals. 

The US numbers are nevertheless far less ambitious than those proposed by the EU. As they take 2005 as the base level, even the stricter target floated by Congressman Henry Waxman would only stabilise emissions at 1990 levels by 2020.

Stern reportedly said in March that insisting on US cuts of 25-40% would lead to a stalemate. But developing countries are unlikely to be satisfied with the proposed figures, considering the historical responsibilities for global warming borne by the industrialised world.