The UN climate change conference in the Polish city of Poznan concluded in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday with a commitment from governments to shift into full negotiating mode next year and then to sign an historic pact in Copenhagen in late 2009.
At the closing session, which went on hours after midnight, governments agreed to submit proposals for the treaty's text before the next conference in Copenhagen.
The Poznan conference was the halfway point in a two-year negotiation aiming to produce a new climate treaty to bring down emissions after 2012, when the only treaty in town, the Kyoto Protocol, terminates.
"We will now move to the next level of negotiations, which involves crafting a concrete negotiating text for the agreed outcome," said the conference President, Polish Environment Minister Maciej Nowicki.
Parties agreed that a first draft of the text would be available at a meeting in Bonn by June of 2009. Apart from the Copenhagen climate change conference next year, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will organize at least three meetings next year.
The Poznan talks made progress on a number of issues that are important in the short run up to 2012 -- particularly for developing countries -- including adaptation, finance, technology and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
In the technology transfer area, the conference endorsed the Global Environment Facility's strategic program on technology transfer which aims to scale up the level of investment by levering private investments required by developing countries for mitigation and adaptation technologies.
The Poznan talks also put the finishing touches to the Kyoto Protocol's adaptation fund, enabling the fund to receive projects in the course of 2009.
"I think this is a very important accomplishment, making the adaptation fund operational," said head of Indonesia's National Council for Climate Change secretariat, Agus Purnomo.
The parties also agreed that the fund, fed by a share of proceeds from Kyoto's carbon trade mechanism known as CDM and voluntary contributions, would have a legal status.
But the meeting did not reach consensus on how to boost the fund's coffers to scale the money desperately needed to help poor countries deal with climate change impacts.
Decisions were also made to streamline and speed up CDM, with parties asking the CDM Executive Board to explore procedures and methodologies to enhance regional and sub-regional distribution of projects.
Under the CDM, projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries and contribute to sustainable development can earn certified emission reduction or CER credits. Countries with a commitment under the Kyoto Protocol buy CERs to cover a portion of their emission reduction commitments under the Treaty.
There are currently more than 1240 registered CDM projects in 51 countries, with about 3000 more projects in the process of registration.
Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, praised governments for sending a strong political signal that despite the global crisis, significant funds can be mobilized for both mitigating and adapting to climate change.
"We now have a much clearer sense of where we need to go in designing an outcome which will spell out the commitments of developed countries, the financial support required and the institutions that will deliver that support as part of the Copenhagen outcome," de Boer said.
But green activists were not happy about these results. The World Wife Fund for Nature (WWF) criticized a lack of progress and "a major missed opportunity".
"This was a moment in time when real leaders would have stepped up and taken the positions that would combat the economic and climate crisis at the same time," said Kim Carstensen, Leader of the WWF Global Climate Initiative. "Instead, industrialized countries preached sermons about the importance of climate protection in the Poznan plenary while lacking or attacking policies to make it happen at home -- a serious sign of climate hypocrisy."
