The United Nations climate body said it has received submissions of national pledges to cut and limit greenhouse gases by 2020 from 55 countries, who together account for 78 per cent of global emissions from energy use.
The announcement by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) comes after the Jan 31st deadline set out in the Copenhagen Accord taken note by UN nations at the end of the climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.
UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer said that the pledges “represents an important invigoration of the UN climate change talks under the two tracks of Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol”.
“The commitment to confront climate change at the highest level is beyond doubt. These pledges have been formally communicated to the UNFCCC. Greater ambition is required to meet the scale of the challenge. But I see these pledges as clear signals of willingness to move negotiations towards a successful conclusion,” he said.
Mr de Boer said recently at a press conference that the Jan 31 deadline is “soft”.
“We are not asking countries to adhere to the accord, we are asking them to associate with the accord,” he said then.
“If you fail to meet it you can still associate with the accord later,” said Mr de Boer. “There is no indication that countries want the accord to take on a life of its own, countries want it to further the UN negotiating process.”
Under the terms of the accord, industrialised countries are expected to register their commitments to emission cuts by 2020, and developing countries can indicate which national actions they are prepared to take to mitigate their emissions.
Climate change negotiators highlight that not only are the commitments entirely voluntary, but each Annex I country is able to set their own “base line” for measuring its emissions reductions.
The developed countries who have listed their pledges include Australia, Canada, Croatia, the European Union, Japan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Norway, the Russian Federation and the United States of America.
The developing nations in Asia who submitted their nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) include Singapore, China, Korea, India and Indonesia.
The rest were: Brazil, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Macedonia, Madagascar, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Moldova, Morocco, Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, and South Africa.
The UNFCCC said the next round of formal negotiations is scheduled to be in Bonn, Germany, at the end of May 2010.
Several countries have indicated their wish to see a quick return to the negotiations with more meetings than the scheduled sessions. “We are seeking further guidance from governments,” Mr de Boer added.
The UNFCCC said it will continue to maintain and update the lists on its website.
