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Climate change meeting warms up as nations talk money
Negotiations on climate change warmed up here Tuesday, with promising developments in funds for forests and the issue of compensating countries to stop deforestation
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Negotiations on climate change warmed up here Tuesday, with promising developments in funds for forests and the issue of compensating countries to stop deforestation.
The measures discussed at the ongoing UN talks on climate change are considered urgent in reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions, 20 percent of which come from deforestation.
The Poznan negotiations will carry over into the next conference in Copenhagen, where a comprehensive climate deal will be clinched and adopted after 2012, when the first commitment phase of the Kyoto Protocol ends.
The protocol, aimed at stabilizing harmful emissions, is part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed upon at the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil.
Ahead of high-level sessions this week, Agus Purnomo, head of the Indonesian National Council of Climate Change's secretariat, said two teams had already been set up, one representing large groups including the EU and G-77 and China, and the other comprising lawyers to discuss legal issues over adaptation funds.
"So it looks like there will be a decision on adaptation funds, to make them operational, we hope. And I see strong commitments," he told The Jakarta Post, adding late-night meetings had been held in the past few days.
To help adapt to climate change, developing countries have pushed for funding and technology transfer. The funding is provided through a financial mechanism currently operated the Global Environment Facility.
But many developing countries have set their sights on the Adaptation Fund under the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty -- a further source of funding not yet operational and managed by the Adaptation Fund Board set up at the UN climate conference in Bali last December.
On the issue of compensating forest countries to stop deforestation -- a scheme known as Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) -- Agus said negotiations on methodology and other issues were still underway.
"But since the target is to make the mechanism operational post-2012, what we're seeing now is progress," he added.
REDD will be included in the post-2012 treaty to be agreed upon in Copenhagen next year, he said.
In the Polish capital Warsaw, finance ministers met Tuesday to discuss climate change issues. Indonesia was represented by environment minister Rachmat Witoelar.
Indonesian delegate Fitrian Ardiansyah said the minister would highlight the fact that climate change was a development issue and not merely an environmental one.
"The finance ministers are expected to send signals that if left unattended, climate change will have a bigger impact than the financial crisis will on people and the ecosystem," Fitrian, WWF Indonesia program director for climate and energy, said Tuesday.
A new UN guide on the talks, distributed at Poznan, reported the mechanism could help eradicate poverty while at the same time conserving biodiversity and sustaining vital ecosystem services.
"We need to achieve greater consensus on REDD or else risk the real danger that the world community will exclude an essential part of the solution from the emerging global deal on climate change. We can't afford to let that happen, so real progress at Poznan is critical," said Andrew Mitchell, director of the Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of scientific organizations that compiled the guide.
