"We are only eleven weeks away from the UN Climate Change Conference in
Durban, where the world expects governments to take the next significant
step in building an effective, global system to address climate change.
I am confident that governments will be able to take a significant step, if
they solve four key issues in Durban.
The first is the resolution of the political question of the second
commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. There has to be a clear decision
as to how the global collective effort - not only of industrialized
countries (whilst they do certainly have to take the lead) - but how the
global collective effort to reduce emissions will go forward and how that
will be done in a transparent manner, with greater ambition growing over
time.
The second is to define the rules for the review. Under the Cancun
Agreements, countries decided that they would engage in a review starting
2013. But the rules need to be decided on prior to that, and that review
would then be a review of the adequacy of the efforts of countries at that
time with respect to the science.
The third is clarity on climate finance. There I would say there are two
big chapters. One is the approval of the first cut of the design of the
Green Climate Fund, and the other is a process to ramp up climate finance
up to the USD 100 billion a year that was agreed to under the Cancun
Agreements to be available by the year 2020, but certainly necessitating a
gradual ramp-up.
The fourth issue that needs special attention in Durban is the
operationalization of both the new Technology Mechanism agreed in Cancun,
as well as the Adaptation Committee which is the institution that Parties
have developed that will take forward the adaptation efforts around the
world.
Here in New York, the Presidents of Mexico and South Africa are actively
consulting with other Heads of State on at least these four issues, which
are probably the more contentious and the more political issues. And its
very clear that world leaders here will again see that they are in the deep
midst of economic crisis. I certainly sympathize with that.
However, it is also very clear that no matter what short-term solutions
will be put in place by governments to deal with this current economic
crisis, those solutions will not be able to maintain growth and stability
throughout a longer period unless they are imbued within a global climate
change solution. So it is very clear that even if we have short-term
solutions that we need to put in place, we also have to have long-term
solutions that need to devised to take us to a low-carbon and
climate-resilient world."
Regards,
UNFCCC Press Office
About the UNFCCC
With 195 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997
Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by 193 of the UNFCCC
Parties. Under the Protocol, 37 States, consisting of highly industrialized
countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to a market
economy, have legally binding emission limitation and reduction
commitments. The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize
greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will
prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.