Oct 28, 2009, 20:01 GMT
New York - An agreement remains possible at the much trumpeted climate change summit in Copenhagen if governments, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday.
Ban has struck out a positive attitude while UN negotiators for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol have voiced doubts that Copenhagen could succeed. World governments are scheduled to meet in the Danish capital December 7-18 to agree on a new protocol before the current expires in 2012.
'I am still optimistic,' Ban told reporters who asked whether he would share the views of Yvo de Boer, chief of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, who was not so optimistic after rounds of talks in the last two years.
'This Copenhagen meeting will be an important milestone in our common efforts to address climate change issues,' Ban said.
Speaking in Bonn, Germany, de Boer said there was no chance of a final binding agreement at Copenhagen and at most participants could hope to agree on principles of a future accord. 'Time is running out,' he said.
Ban said 'four political elements' must be met in order to agree on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
The four are: ambitious mitigation targets by rich countries, a strong adaptation framework to help poor countries to mitigate and to adapt, substantial financial and technological support for developing countries and a global governance framework to manage the three elements.
Ban said an agreement on the four elements would bring a 'fairly good success' to Copenhagen.
Negotiators have pointed out difficulties in bridging differences between rich and poor countries over the levels of carbon reduction. The world's foremost industrial nations wanted to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius by 2050 while poor and small island nations called for 1.5 degrees Celsius with strict measures by 2020.
Developing countries have blamed developed nations for causing global warming with their advanced industries.
Differences remained in how much rich countries can finance green technology in poor countries and whether there would be enough political will to sustain the financial support, while developing countries have called for more than 500 billion dollars in technology transfer to combat climate change.
Ban said technical negotiations should follow the Copenhagen summit, building on agreements he assumed the summit would have realized in order 'to make a legally binding, comprehensive, equitable and balanced one (new protocol).'
He said government leaders he with whom he has talked about climate-related issues wanted to work for success in Copenhagen.
'We are not lowering expectations,' Ban said, adding that more talks will take place before Copenhagen in December. Negotiators are scheduled to meet in Barcelona next month to try to overcome the differences, the last round of talks before Copenhagen.
Your Talkback on this Story