An international gathering on climate change opened in Berlin on Sunday to prepare the ground for a UN summmit on the issue in Durban in December.
The meeting, attended by representatives from some 35 countries, was opened by Germany’s Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen and South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashbane.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was due to address the gathering later on Sunday.
In her weekly video podcast broadcast, she called for the Durban meeting to hammer out a global, legally-binding agreement to ensure that global warming, due to carbon emissions, be limited to 2 degrees Celsius.
“A number of countries have announced [in the wake of the 2010 Cancun summit] voluntary measures, but these will not suffice to reach our objective,” Ms Merkel said.
“We also need measures, targeted measures, and if possible treaties that are legally binding. That’s what will be difficult. But in any case, time is running short as the Kyoto Protocol is soon to expire.”
Mr Rottgen warned that a failure to seriously address global warming would jeopardise global peace and stability.
“Before us stands a world in which hunger and poverty will trigger refugee waves, a world in which political extremism will rise, a world of global but also local instability,” Mr Rottgen wrote in the pages of the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
European Union and US leaders have already warned that there will be no binding deal on emissions at this year’s climate summit in South Africa.
“The good news is that there is a general recognition of the necessity of a legally binding agreement,” EU climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in April.
“The bad news is no legally binding agreement deal will be done in Durban.”
