The world is set to fail to make deep enough cuts in greenhouse gases in the next decade to tackle global warming. This from UN’s top climate change official Yvo de Boer, midway through two weeks of talks in Bonn among senior government negotiators from about 185 nations. Despite his gloomy short-term outlook, Mr de Boer, who will step down on July 1 after about four years in the job, expressed confidence governments would eventually enact sufficiently tough goals, such as an emissions cut by rich nations of 80% by 2050.

By Alister Doyle, Reuters Environment correspondent (7 June 2010):

OSLOThe world is set to fail to make deep enough cuts in greenhouse gases in the next decade to tackle global warming, the U.N.’s top climate official  in a bleak assessment of the prospects for a U.N. deal.

Despite his gloomy short-term outlook, Yvo de Boer, who will step down on July 1 after about four years in the job, expressed confidence governments would eventually enact sufficiently tough goals, such as an emissions cut by rich nations of 80 percent by 2050.

“I don’t see the process delivering adequate mitigation targets in the next decade,” de Boer told a news conference midway through two weeks of talks in Bonn among senior government negotiators from about 185 nations.

“Over the longer term we will get this issue under control,” de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, added in a webcast news briefing. Targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions are referred to as “mitigation”.

The U.N. panel of climate scientists has suggested that industrialised nations would have to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to put the world on track to avoid dangerous global warming.

Under that scenario, developing nations led by China and India are expected to slow the growth of their emissions by 2020 in a first step to help avert more floods, droughts, desertification, heatwaves and rising sea levels.

CUTS INSUFFICIENT

De Boer said that promises so far by developed countries made at the U.N. summit in Copenhagen in December “take us to 13-14 percent below 1990 levels…and clearly we need to move beyond that.”

Environment ministers will meet in Cancun, Mexico, in late November for annual talks with some nations still hoping to reach a new binding climate treaty. De Boer has said in the past that a legally binding deal is out of reach for 2010.

Copenhagen ended with a non-binding accord to limit a rise in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.

De Boer said that almost all industrialised nations at the summit had favoured an 80 percent cut in their emissions by 2050. “I think we are working towards that in the longer term and I do think that is adequate,” he said.

De Boer spent much of his time in the run-up to Copenhagen cajoling both rich and poor nations to be more ambitious. “I am confident that we will get there in the longer run. Having said that, I do believe it’s a longer journey,” he said.

He said that a first step had been agreement in 1992 on the U.N. Climate Convention, followed by the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol in 1997 that binds all industrialised nations except the United States to cut emissions by an average of at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

In the United States, legislation to cap emissions is stalled in the Senate.

Source: www.in.reuters.com

UN’s Yvo de Boer says NGO work on climate talks has been “incredible”

In an exclusive interview with CAFOD, outgoing UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer spoke of the “incredible” work of NGOs during the climate change talks and highlighted the input of faith-based organisations.

Yvo de Boer announced in February this year that he would step down as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Next month he will be succeeded by Christiana Figueres who was previously Costa Rica’s lead negotiator at the talks.

De Boer has led the UNFCCC for four years and faced criticism from many sides, especially after the collapse of the Copenhagen summit last December. But his even-handedness, commitment to the cause and defence of the UN system has also brought him the deepest respect.

This week at the mid-year UNFCCC meeting in Bonn, Christiana Figueres has emerged from the wings to begin the public handover process. While she was doing her first press briefing today (Wednesday), CAFOD’s Pascale Palmer spoke to De Boer on the role of NGOs and faith-based organisations in the talks, the hope for a fair climate deal and any regrets the outgoing Executive Secretary has.

Yvo de Boer said: “The impact of NGOs at the UN climate change talks has been incredible in so many different ways. Without NGOs the public wouldn’t have understood that climate change was even an issue. Also, the support role of the NGOs at these negotiations for smaller countries with limited resources to ensure they understand their interests and how issues relate to them is paramount. NGOs also act as the conscience of the talks – pointing out when questionable issues are raised.

“Faith-based organisations, like CAFOD, bring something additional to the talks because at the end of the day this is a negotiation about global ethics and faith-based organisations look at the world through that lens, and they take the issue and the discussions into the community in many different ways.

“There is hope for a fair, ambitious and legally binding deal in South Africa next year. If Cancun can deliver the operational architecture which gives countries the confidence to turn this into an agreement that is to their advantage, it can happen. There is the phrase that ‘form follows function’ and this is the order the talks must follow to succeed: talking about the legal form first is the wrong order.

“I do regret not having spent enough time with my family during my term as Executive Secretary. And perhaps one regret is that the talks should have had more discussion and less negotiation. Stating a position is only so useful but understanding the underlying interests at stake is the only way to find a solution. I suppose I could have pushed more on this, but people have certain expectations from my role as Executive Secretary – I have done many things such as speaking to the press which are not usually associated with the role. I have also managed to facilitate more discussion and ensured two extra UNFCCC meetings took place.”

Source: www.cafod.org.uk