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Climate talks 'on brink' of deal | |
(about 3 hours later) | |
The UN climate summit in Bali is "on the brink" of a deal, according to the UN's senior climate official, as talks look set to extend into an extra day. | |
The EU has been pressing for a final text committing industrialised nations to specified emissions cuts, but the US, Canada and Japan are opposed. | |
Some developing countries said they were being pressurised to accept cuts in their own emissions. | |
Agreement has been reached on other issues such as slowing deforestation. | |
The climate in the conference is good, and we will have success in the end Sigmar Gabriel, Germany's Environment Minister Q and A: Bali summit UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was returning to the talks from East Timor to assist negotiators. | |
Speaking in the East Timorese capital Dili, Mr Ban said: "I will go back to Bali tomorrow [Saturday] morning again to meet with the delegations... and engage myself in continuing further negotiations." | |
But Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), hinted Mr Ban's intervention might not be needed. | |
"(We are) on the brink of agreement, I think," he said. | |
"Absolutely not deadlocked; people are working very hard to resolve outstanding issues." | |
Bumpy roadmap | |
The key aim of the summit is to set negotiations in train that will eventually lead to a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Its targets for reducing emissions expire in 2012. | |
EU negotiators want this "Bali roadmap" to contain a commitment that industrialised nations will cut their emissions by 25-40% compared to 1990 levels by 2020. | |
The US and its allies prefer a voluntary, non-binding approach. | |
The Indonesian hosts have been trying to bridge the gulf between the two sides with a text that excluded firm numerical targets for 2020, but did contain acceptances that greenhouse gas emissions need to be stabilised by the end of the next decade and that rich nations should play the major part in the effort. | |
Planet Bali's parallel worlds Neither EU nor US has accepted the text; but as talks continued beyond the scheduled close, delegates from both blocs said agreement was possible. | |
"I think the situation is good, and the climate in the climate conference is good, and we will have success in the end," Germany's Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters. | "I think the situation is good, and the climate in the climate conference is good, and we will have success in the end," Germany's Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters. |
The chief US negotiator Harlan Watson told the AFP news agency: "I'm always optimistic. I think we will have an agreement." | |
Both the European and US/Canada blocs have suggested over the last two weeks that at some point, developing countries would need to look at limiting their carbon emissions. | |
Some developing country delegates complained they had been put under "strong pressure" to curb their emissions, according to Munir Akram, UN ambassador for Pakistan who chairs the G-77 bloc of nations. | |
"The developing countries so far have successfully resisted the kinds of pressures and even threats which we have faced to undertake commitments," he said. | |
Mr Munir hinted that "threats" had come in the form of trade sanctions . | |
'Good climate' | |
Away from the issue of emissions cuts, provisional agreement was reached on several ingredients of the Bali roadmap, including paying poorer countries to protect their forests. | |
This is widely acknowledged as the cheapest single way of curbing climate change, and brings benefits in other environmental areas such as biodiversity and fresh water conservation. | |
The Bush administration is well out of step with the American population, and increasingly out of step with US business Chris Miller, Greenpeace class="" href="http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=3924&edition=1">Send us your comments Delegates agreed on a framework that could allow richer nations and companies to earn "carbon credits" by paying for forest protection in developing countries. | |
"We need to find a new mechanism that values standing forests," said Andrew Mitchell, executive director of the Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of research institutions. | |
"Ultimately, if this does its job, (deforestation) goes down to nothing." | |
Mr Mitchell said the only feasible source of sufficient funds was a global carbon market. | |
But many economists believe mandatory emissions targets are needed to create a meaningful global market. | |
'Out of step' | |
Environmental groups sought to maintain pressure on the US as the talks overran their scheduled end. | |
"The Bush administration is well out of step with the American population, and increasingly out of step with US business," Chris Miller of Greenpeace told BBC News. | |
"It's our hope that Europe, developing countries, China and the G-77 stay strong and keep up the pressure on the Bush administration." | |
'No more coal' plea to Brown The US is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, and most parties recognise that climate change talks without it would be meaningless. | 'No more coal' plea to Brown The US is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, and most parties recognise that climate change talks without it would be meaningless. |
Meanwhile, a leading US climate scientist told the BBC he was writing to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel asking them to block construction of coal-fired power stations. | Meanwhile, a leading US climate scientist told the BBC he was writing to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel asking them to block construction of coal-fired power stations. |
James Hansen says that Britain's early industrialisation means it has probably produced more greenhouse gases than any other nation. | James Hansen says that Britain's early industrialisation means it has probably produced more greenhouse gases than any other nation. |