Tag: Copenhagen Accord

UN talks have run out of time to meet a December 2012 deadline to put in place a binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol on curbing greenhouse gases, the UN's top climate official said on Monday (6 June).

Fighting world poverty cannot be separated from managing climate change, write Trevor Manuel, South Africa's minister for planning and Nicholas Stern, a member of the UK House of Lords and author of the Stern Report on the economic impact of climate change.

The EU last week (3 June) took the first step to bring clarity to international climate financing pledges by outlining at the Bonn climate talks how it intends to implement its funding commitment to help developing countries fight global warming. But poor countries are still concerned that the money will be recycled from existing aid budgets.

Leaders did not deliver an international agreement in Copenhagen and the US is dragging its feet on a climate bill, but all is not lost as positive action on reducing carbon emissions is developing quickly and we are rapidly approaching the climate-energy tipping point, American climate guru Lester Brown told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

The economic slump has cut the cost of meeting the EU's current 2020 emission reduction target by nearly a third, making a move to a 30% cut affordable, according to a draft European Commission communication seen by EurActiv.

The UN conference in Cancún next December needs to set the basis for a new climate change treaty in 2011, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

Mexico, the host of the next high-level UN climate conference on climate change, is working to draw up objectives for the Cancún talks, which will continue the search for a new international climate agreement at the end of the year .

Much more initiative by the private sector will be required to take the UN climate negotiations forward after the weak Copenhagen Accord agreed in December, Mark Dominik, vice president of Deutsche Bank Group, told EurActiv in an interview.

Global agreements in areas such as cement or steel could offer a solution if the UN negotiation process fails to deliver a binding climate treaty, said Jo Leinen, chairman of the European Parliament's influential environment committee.

European concern is growing about the prospects of securing a new international climate treaty, as support appears to be waning in the US for domestic climate legislation that would include a cap-and-trade system.