UN climate talks ends with some progress amid rifts on 'imbalanced text'
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"Imbalance" became the key word on the last day of the UN (the United Nations) climate talks in Bonn, as delegates criticized a new blueprint for a UN legally- binding climate treaty on Friday. However, the split could not cover some progress made during the past 12 days, even it might be just a little.
Although a widely-accepted treaty still seemed unlikely this year and debates among parties were heated as usual, a positive atmosphere is restored in the two-week conference, the largest gathering of delegates of 185 countries since the Copenhagen summit in late 2009.
"A big step forward is now possible at Cancn, in the form of a full package of operational measures that will allow countries to take faster, stronger action across all areas of climate change, " said Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).
The outgoing UN climate chief said the progress was made in fleshing out the specifics of how a climate regime can work in practice, including climate funds, transfer of clean technologies, slowing deforestation and capacity building.
"Most importantly, countries are talking to and with each other and not at each other. It shows that the UN provides the forum for countries to work together when there is the will," de Boer said.
However, the Bonn meeting ended with rifts on the draft negotiating text, which was prepared by Margaret Mukahanana- Sangarwe of Zimbabwe, chairperson of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA). Many parties criticized and rejected the revised text, which was issued on the midnight of Thursday and aimed at drawing up a blueprint for a widely-agreed treaty.
Delegates of Yemen, which also represents the Group 77 and China said that the text reflected too many thoughts from the Chair rather than the parties and it failed to embody major viewpoints proposed by developing countries in the past two weeks.
African delegates said the text was imbalanced, as it confused the independent emission cuts of developing countries with the mandatory cuts of developed countries, while negotiators from South Africa noted that many of their concerns on forest protection, food security and small islands' future were left out in the text.
Bolivian Climate Ambassador Pablo Solon said the new text clearly favors rich countries and could not serve as a basis for further negotiations.
"When I first saw the imbalanced text, I was shocked," China's top negotiator Su Wei said. "Most of the text has deviated from the Bali Roadmap and also seriously violated the principles set by the Kyoto Protocol, therefore China cannot accept it."
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