U.N. OFFICIALS CITE PROGRESS AT CLIMATE TALKS DESPITE EARLY SETBACK

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
6/21/13

United Nations officials last week cited modest progress at the most recent round of climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany, despite an early setback that saw the suspension of a key negotiating track there. Days into a two-week planning session, held June 3-14, aimed at laying the groundwork for high-level talks later this year in Warsaw, Poland, reports circulated that talks within one of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s three negotiating bodies collapsed amid a gridlock over procedure. Delegates working on the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), the panel that manages the implementation of previously-existing UN agreements, as well as climate financing and adaptation, suspended talks after Russia, Ukraine and Belarus insisted that negotiators clarify the underlying rules governing the negotiating track before the group examined any other issues. The trio had reportedly felt blindsided following last year’s negotiations in Qatar, when they accused leaders of pushing through an extension to the Kyoto Protocol over their objections.

The news quickly raised tensions at the Bonn meeting, according to media accounts, and left several key issues like finance and climate compensation untouched leading into November’s Warsaw summit. UNFCCC leaders quickly tried to downplay the incident. “Whilst this development is unfortunate, much good work has been accomplished under the other two bodies at these Bonn sessions of the UNFCCC,” Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said in a June 14 statement following the meeting’s conclusion. “Governments here have made further progress towards the design of the new universal climate change agreement and on identifying ways to immediately respond to climate change so that the world stands a chance of staying below the agreed maximum 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise.” Figueres insisted that SBI negotiators finalize an agenda for the body ahead of November’s meeting. “I now strongly encourage all sides to reach a mutually agreeable solution to this issue as soon as possible,” she said. 

Meanwhile, other UNFCCC leaders cited “concrete progress” on other fronts at the meeting, particularly in hammering out some early details surrounding a key 2015 agreement that will set binding emissions reduction targets for all countries. A United Nations press release said notable progress was made on transparency and accountability, as well as in identifying ways to boost financing, technology development and capacity building, especially in developing countries. “Over the past 12 months, solid foundations have been laid under the process both toward the 2015 agreement and in raising pre-2020 ambition. As a result of the constructive and flexible engagement amongst governments, nations now have a clearer idea of how to move to achieve demonstrable progress at the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Poland and beyond,” the co-chairs of the group working to design the 2015 plan, the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, Jayant Moreshver Mauskar and Harald Dovland, said in a joint statement following the meeting.