Progress Slow at UN Climate Talks in Bonn

The latest round of UN climate talks held in Bonn, Germany June 1-12, made progress on technical issues but little headway on the major elements that need to be fleshed out to achieve a new global climate treaty. Key issues still to be resolved are greenhouse gas emission reduction targets by developed countries, financing commitments by developed countries to help developing countries reduce emissions and financial assistance for developing countries to adapt to impacts of the climate change that are already taking place.

A draft agreement, which was introduced just before the talks in Bonn, has now ballooned to 200 pages from 53 leading into the talks. Michael Zammit Cutujar, the head of the UN working group overseeing the negotiating text, said the expanded document has gotten difficult to read and he doesn't expect major breakthroughs on it until Copenhagen. "This is like the evolutionary process in reverse - the Big Bang comes at the end," he said.

Developing countries continued to call for developed countries to commit to 40% reductions below 1990 levels by 2020, a goal that Todd Stern, US special envoy for climate change, has said is "not realistic." According to Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, the most optimistic analysis of targets proposed by developed countries within the Kyoto Protocol averages out at 24 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, below the 25%-40% range recommended by the IPCC. But that figure excludes the United States, Russia and New Zealand, which would have a "huge impact on the total range," said de Boer.

Little progress was made on financing emission reduction efforts in developing countries. China's call for developed nations to commit 0.5 to 1 percent of their GDP to finance developing country reduction efforts did not gain traction. Developed countries instead looked to private sector investment, largely via carbon market mechanisms, to fund such actions.

Despite the lack of progress on the major issues, de Boer said he was still confident that a broad outline of an agreement with be reached in Copenhagen, with details to be worked out following the negotiations.

U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said that President Obama is considering going to Copenhagen this December, which would be the first visit to the annual U.N. conference by a sitting president since George H.W. Bush in 1992 to Rio de Janeiro. Read more at Carbon Positive