Time running out for climate change agreement

Wasantha RAMANAYAKE in Bangkok

Time is running out for the parties to reach an agreement on basic issues but officials expressed confidence that the remaining five days before the Copenhagen summit would be sufficient to come to a finality, United Nations Frame Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Yvo De Boer told reporters yesterday.

He said that one day in Bangkok and five days more in UNFCCC intercessional summit in Barcelona would be sufficient before the final summit on climate change in Copenhagen.

“This is not the only game in the town,” he told reporters pointing out some possibility of high level meetings of leaders of the developed countries.

He said that the key issues such as the financing and the binding targets on CO2 emission cuts by developed countries after the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012 are yet to be agreed.

While asserting that the UNFCCC would not desire to have a new protocol, he said that if the US would not sign the Kyoto Protocol, it is still a valuable instrument although not a party to the convention.

He said that the UNFCCC will not incline to ask for a new treaty for the Kyoto Protocol since the UNFCC had worked through a generation of text to come to this point.

“Don’t throw away your old shoes until you get a new one,” Boer said.

Meanwhile the Group -77 Chairman Lumumba Di-Aping told reporters although the developed countries are committed to the Kyoto Protocol that there are indications that the developed countries would not negotiate to cut emissions for the second commitment period starting from 2013.

He said that radical changes are needed to address the climate change issue.

Negotiating a new treaty by any means is counterproductive.

What is needed is to rise up to the challenge, he said.”

The second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol was one of the critical and important to keep the average temperature rise below 2 Celsius by 2050, which would have drastic irreversible effects on the global climate.

Responding to a question by a reporter that Saudi Arabia who is a member of the G-77 is blocking from behind the consensus among the member countries, Chairman hinted that the European states prefer to create divisions among developing countries to jeopardize unity among the group, which is essential for the implementation of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.

Meanwhile issuing a press release INGO Oxfam said the G77 and China are justifiably outraged about moves in Bangkok by rich countries to re-write cornerstones of the Bali Action Plan and the UN Climate Convention.

“In Bangkok, not only have rich countries tried to change the rules of the game, but they’ve tried to change the game itself,” Oxfam’s senior climate advisor Antonio Hill said yesterday.