UN climate talks face impasse on mitigation pledges

London, 22 May (Argus) — Negotiators at UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany, remained divided today over the key issue of increasing short-term emissions cuts, causing an impasse that threatens to derail discussions for the remainder of the meeting and beyond.

A powerful coalition of almost 40 countries including China, India, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia reiterated calls to remove a specific reference to enhanced mitigation from the proposed agenda for the working group on the Durban platform for enhanced action (ADP). They argue that it undermines the Kyoto protocol and discriminates against other important areas of action such as climate adaptation and finance.

The newly formed ADP, which was agreed at last year's UN Conference of the Parties in Durban, South Africa, is tasked with agreeing a legally binding climate treaty by 2015. One item on a provisional agenda singles out enhanced mitigation as a priority area for action and calls on the ADP to consider ways in which 2020 emission targets can be increased to help close the gap between existing pledges and the demands of climate science.

But in a statement read out at an ADP plenary session earlier today, the coalition warned that highlighting enhanced mitigation in this way would “render meaningless” discussions in the two other working groups covering the Kyoto protocol and long-term co-operative action, delaying action in those areas. In particular, it would weaken the legally binding nature of emission reduction commitments made under the Kyoto protocol in favour of a voluntary process and would “jeopardise the fundamental equity principle of differentiation” between industrialised and developing countries embedded in the protocol, the countries said.

“Deliberately pigeon-holing ambition in one area of discussions will pull the plug on the Kyoto protocol,” the Philippines' Naderev Sano warned delegates in support of the coalition's demands.

The countries' willingness to hold firm on removing the agenda item caused outrage among other negotiators, who want to see the agenda adopted and substantive discussions begin. They accused the group of trying to unravel the agreement reached by ministers at Durban, which specifically promised to launch a work plan to look at ways mitigation pledges can be increased. “It is our job to implement those decisions not to revise them,” US chief negotiator Jonathan Pershing said. The EU, Russia, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, Australia as well as a host of small island states also weighed in to insist that enhanced mitigation must be prioritised within the ADP.

With only two negotiating days left, delegates conceded that the dispute, which first surfaced at a plenary over the weekend, was no longer procedural but had become a critical question of substance that would need further detailed negotiation. An informal session was scheduled by the ADP interim chairman for later in the day to see if both sides could find some common ground.

In particular, the argument touches on continuing tensions among industrialised countries and major emerging economies on the exact responsibility for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Industrialised countries want to see major emitters such as China and India take on more of the burden, reflecting the reality of current and future emissions. But developing countries counter that the obligation should continue to fall primarily on those countries with historically high emissions.

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