Oct 9, 2009, 14:22 GMT
Bangkok - Two weeks of UN-sponsored climate talks in Bangkok wound up Friday with progress made in finalizing a negotiating text for a climate summit in Copenhagen in December, but tough political decisions remained unmade.
'All the ingredients for success are on the table, and what we must do now is step back from self-interest and let common interest prevail,' said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the secretariat for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The meeting, drawing 4,000 negotiators and observers to Bangkok for two weeks to prepare for a new climate deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, succeeded in its main task of shortening a draft negotiating text from 280 pages to about 100.
There will be one more session of talks in Barcelona next month before Copenhagen.
The tougher political decisions on climate change, mainly a commitment by developed countries to drastically reduce carbon emissions by 2020, agreements on finance for developing countries and mitigation commitments remain to be made by the participating governments between now and the Copenhagen meeting.
The Bangkok conference has pitted developed and developing countries against one another, especially over suggestions to drop the Kyoto Protocol, raising fears among developing countries of back-tracking on past commitments by the developed world.
The European Union has mooted the possibility of incorporating the Kyoto Protocol 'architecture' into a new single agreement to be inked in Copenhagen.
'We are not trying to kill the Kyoto Protocol,' said Anders Turesson, chief negotiator for Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency.
'We want to preserve the Kyoto Protocol. We believe the only way to do that is to find a new home for it within a single legal structure,' Turesson told a press conference.
But many within the Group of 77 developing countries viewed the suggestion with suspicion, seeing it as a ploy by the industrialized nations to sidestep commitments to drastically cut their carbon emissions by 20 to 40 per cent by 2020. Those commitments would be incorporated into a second-phase Kyoto Protocol after the current one ends in 2012.
'It's not only fundamental, it is the only acceptable legal, binding instrument that gives us the certainty of moving rapidly to face the threats that are faced by billions of citizens of the world,' said Lumumba Di-Aping, chair of the G77 at the climate talks and Sudan's ambassador to the UN.
The EU's position is that a Copenhagen deal must involve all major countries, including the US, which never ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
'A deal that excluded one or more major emitters would not be able to prevent global warming from reaching dangerous levels,' said chief European Commission negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger.
Although US President Barack Obama has committed the US to significant carbon emission cuts under new legislation, the bill has yet to pass the Senate.
There are hopes that Congress will approve the legislation before Copenhagen.
'The US is committed to a deal in Copenhagen,' said Jonathan Pershing, the US lead negotiator at the Bangkok talks.
The EU noted that while parties finally got down to real negotiations in Bangkok, the need for 'greater speed and ambition' was still needed to reach a deal in Copenhagen.
The negotiations still lacked focus on the core issues that need to be resolved, such as the depth of emission cuts to be undertaken by industrialized countries and action by developing countries to curb their emissions growth, the EU presidency's statement said.
'This in turn makes it difficult to discuss financial assistance in concrete terms,' the EU said. 'Time is running out.'
To get the US on board, the EU has been pressuring the developing countries to commit to clear mitigation measures. The lack of these measures has been cited as among the reasons for the US's refusal to endorse the Kyoto agreement.
'We want developing countries to commit to action,' Turesson said.
Your Talkback on this Story