UN climate talks get under way in Poland

A 12-day UN climate talks kicked off in Poznan, Poland today with calls for urgent steps to be completed by the end of 2009, for addressing the problem of global climate change beyond 2012.

The fourteenth conference of the 192 signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the fourth meeting of the 183 signatories to the Kyoto Protocol, is expected to chalk out a framework for the negotiations on an ambitious and effective international response to climate change.

A deal is to be clinched in Copenhagen at the end of 2009 and will take effect in 2013, the year after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires.

Close to 11,000 participants, including government delegates from 186 signatories to the UNFCCC and representatives from business and industry, environmental organisations and research institutions, are attending the two-week gathering.

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, opening the meeting, pointed to the urgent need for progress. ''Scientists share the view that warming in excess of two degrees Celsius will result in irreversible changes to nearly all ecosystems and the human communities. We shoulder the responsibility to prevent changes that could lastingly disturb the symbiosis between humankind and nature,'' he said.

Maciej Nowicki, Polish minister of the environment and president of the conference, warned that the planet had reached the limits of its confined system and that a business as usual scenario was not an option. ''Huge droughts and floods, cyclones with increasingly more destructive power, tropical disease pandemics, a dramatic decline of biodiversity – all these can cause social or even armed conflicts and migration of populations at an unprecedented scale,'' he warned.

''The fact that there is a text on the table offers governments the first real opportunity of moving beyond the phase of exchanging ideas into one where they will be expressing their position on specific proposals,'' said Luiz Figueiredo Machado, chair of the ad hoc working group on long-term cooperative action under the convention. ''I am looking forward to see how this text will be fine-tuned in the course of the meeting,'' he added.

"Science has told us what is necessary and industrialised countries have committed to take the lead,'' said Harald Dovland. "My hope is that the parties to the Kyoto Protocol can agree in Poznañ on an ambitious emission reduction range that can form the basis for intensive
negotiations next year.''

In 2007, parties agreed to consider a greenhouse gas emission reduction range of minus 25 to minus 40 per cent over 1990 levels, a range which could be confirmed at Poznan.

The Poznan meeting will try to find to kind of mechanisms needed to be put in place to deliver on finance, technology and capacity building to
help developing countries curb emissions, spur green growth and to cope with the inevitable impacts of climate change.

Nations are now seeking stronger climate change action.

Developing countries, including India and China, are expected to call for larger emission cuts by the rich countries and a transfer of environment technology to poor countries even as the developed world, hit by the financial and economic downturn, are unlikely to make commitments involving deeper digs into their pockets.

India and China are also likely to resist targeted curbs on their own carbon emissions.

They want wealthy economies to boost financial support to help poorer countries gain access to cleaner technology and cope with the impact of climate change.

''The fact that there is a text on the table offers governments the first real opportunity of moving beyond the phase of exchanging ideas into one where they will be expressing their position on specific proposals,'' said Luiz Figueiredo Machado, chair of the ad hoc working group on long-term cooperative action under the convention.

The issue of technology will be high on the agenda and the conference will deal in depth with the issue of risk management and risk reduction strategies, including insurance.

Parties are also expected to put the finishing touches to the Kyoto Protocol's Adaptation Fund so that is it ready to receive concrete projects as of 2009.

The conference will review the Kyoto Protocol and assess to what extent the Protocol's clean development mechanism can be improved and its geographical reach extended.

The conference will take stock of progress achieved in 2008 and will set out the work programme for the final year of negotiations on the Copenhagen agreement in 2009. At least four major UNFCCC gatherings will take place next year, including the UN Climate Change Conference in Denmark at the end of the year.

The ultimate objective of both the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol is to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.

Under the CDM, projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries and contribute to sustainable development can earn certified emission reduction (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 1,240 registered CDM projects in 51 countries, and about another 3,000 projects in the project registration pipeline. The CDM is expected to generate more than 2.9 billion CERs by the time the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012, each equivalent to one tonne of carbon.

But the very meeting is adding to the very problem it is trying to solve - global warming.
 
The meeting, from 1 to 12 December will add around 13,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) to Earth's greenhouse gases, the UNFCCC said.

At least 8,000 of ab total of 10,657 people registered for the talks are expected to attend the conference.