Nations hope to salvage talks in Mexico

COPENHAGEN, Sunday

The world will find it hard to get UN-led climate talks back on track in Mexico in 2010 after an unambitious deal agreed in Copenhagen set no firm deadline for a legally binding treaty.

Mexico will host the next annual UN ministerial talks from November 29 to December 10, 2010 to build on a “Copenhagen Accord” that seeks to limit temperatures rising to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above those recorded in pre-industrial times.

But it does not spell out how to achieve that goal.

Almost collapsed

For months, the UN had insisted the Copenhagen talks, culminating with a summit of 120 world leaders on Friday, had to be a “turning point” in slowing climate change with nation-by-nation pledges of curbs in greenhouse gas emissions.

On Saturday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged the deal — led by the US and China and which leaves blanks for national commitments — fell short of hopes but was “an important beginning.”

A shift to Mexico, which sees itself as half-way between rich and poor nations, could help negotiations that almost collapsed amid allegations by Sudan and Venezuela that host Denmark were biased in favour of the interests of the rich.

Mexico “can much better...fill this very difficult task of building bridges,” said Kim Carstensen, head of the global climate initiative of the WWF environmental group.

UN documents adopted in Copenhagen say results of work by key UN groups on ways to slow global warming are to be presented “for adoption” in Mexico — but dropped demands by many nations that texts should be a “legally binding treaty”.

Many nations want the Mexico meeting brought forward.

“There’s a big risk that we have lost momentum,” one senior delegate said of the fight to limit emissions to avert predicted sandstorms, more powerful cyclones, species extinctions, droughts, mudslides and rising ocean levels.

US President Barack Obama hailed the deal, originally worked out with China and other leading emerging economies and backed by most other states, as a historic step and promised to build on “momentum established in Copenhagen”.

China and the US are the top of greenhouse gas emitters.

So far the schedule does not reflect urgency. The next planned UN climate meeting is a regular half-yearly session among officials in Bonn, from May 31 to June 11. In 2009 there were three sets of talks in Bonn and other sessions in Bangkok and Barcelona before Copenhagen.

Apart from recognising a 2 degree C ceiling, Saturday’s decision supported a “goal” for a $100 billion annual fund by 2020 to help poor countries fight climate change, with a quick-start $10 billion a year from 2010-12.

The deal was not formally adopted by all nations due to opposition by a handful of developing nations who said it ignored the real needs of the poor.

Analysts said the US and China deal could brighten prospects for action by the US Senate to cap carbon emissions in 2010. The US is the only major nation with no carbon cap. (Reuters)