The United Nations (UN) kicked off a new round of climate change talks in Bonn, Germany yesterday amid a growing sense of urgency on climate change.
Speaking on the opening day of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations, taking place from 6 to 17 June, UNFCCC executive secretary Christiana Figueres said negotiators are working hard on a plan to reduce global emissions fast enough to avoid the worst climate change.
“Governments have a very ambitious agenda, which goes all the way from the procedural to the political. They are arriving here with high expectations of themselves and their partners and a decisive willingness to come out of Bonn with significant progress,” she said.
Significant progress means designing an international plan for reducing the world’s carbon emissions enough to limit a global average temperature rise to two degrees Celsius, a target reaffirmed at last year’s UN climate talks in Mexico’s Cancun.
The Cancun talks ended with a commitment to a major international effort at a transition to a low-emission society, but stopped short of a concrete plan to achieve it. With the world’s only binding treaty on reducing carbon emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, expiring next year, governments are under pressure to come up with a new plan.
Such a plan may centre on voluntary emissions reductions rather than binding targets: Ms Figueres stated that governments have missed the deadline for having a replacement treaty in place by the end of 2012.
“Now, more than ever, it is critical that all efforts are mobilised towards living up to this commitment,” said Ms Figueres.
Recent findings from the International Energy Agency (IEA) showed record levels for greenhouse gas emissions from energy generation for 2010. At 30.6 gigatonnes (Gt), that emission rate puts the world closer than expected to the IEA’s recommended annual emissions cap of 32 Gt by 2020. The IEA estimates global emissions need to be kept below this cap to avoid the worst climate change impacts.
The Cancun objectives included measures to aid developing nations adapt to climate change and develop sustainably. Those measures are a climate change adaptation committee to help poorer countries cope with more frequent climate-related disasters and rising sea levels, new initiatives for sharing low-emissions technology, and the creation of a Green Climate Fund to provide poor nations with US$100 billion a year in aid from 2020.
The Bonn negotiations, attended by more than three thousand government delegates, representatives from business and industry, NGOs and research institutions, are preparation for the UN climate summit in Durban, South Africa beginning in November.
For success in Durban, governments should build on the existing progress on low-emissions growth, stressed Ms. Figueres, saying that new policies promoting low-carbon growth and increasing clean technology investment from the private sector were improving the uptake and effectiveness of low-emissions technology.
Investment in clean energy totalled US$243 billion last year, according to Bloomberg’s New Energy Finance. Experts say annual international investments will have to reach US$500 billion to attain climate change targets.
The UN’s Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) recently warned that lack of progress on international climate change negotiations could stifle new investment due to continued uncertainty on policies meant to unlock new funding. Other investment experts say the world might have to look elsewhere for clean technology incentives, citing numerous national and sub-national level policies.
Ms Figueres isn’t ready to give up. She reminded governments they have an “unavoidable responsibility” to make clear progress towards the 2011 climate objectives agreed in Cancun.
“The clean and renewable energy revolution has already begun - the challenge is to complete it in time,” she said.
