The United Nations climate chief warned on Monday that time was running out to break a deadlock on a global warming pact, telling delegates in Bangkok that failure to do so by December would threaten future generations.
The talks are the next-to-last before a showdown in Copenhagen at the end of the year, when 192 countries must agree on a treaty for tackling greenhouse gases beyond 2010, after the current Kyoto Protocol expires.
“Time is not just pressing, it has almost run out,” said UN climate chief Yvo de Boer — who famously broke down in tears at talks in Bali two years ago, when world governments drew up the “road map” to the Copenhagen deadline.
After two years of haggling, the world is still trying to thrash out a draft text for December’s talks, with major disagreements on the two key issues of cutting carbon emissions and meeting the associated costs.
“There is no plan B, and if we do not realise plan A the future will hold us to account for it,” De Boer said in his opening speech to about 2Â 500 government delegates and representatives from business and environment groups.
“But in two weeks real progress can be made towards the goals that world leaders have set before the negotiations, to break the deadlock and to cooperate towards concrete progress.”
De Boer said that devastating floods in the Philippines at the weekend, which have killed at least 140 people and left nearly half a million homeless, had further highlighted the need for action.
“One of the reasons why countries have gathered here is to ensure the frequency and severity of those kinds of extreme weather events decreases as a result of ambitious climate-change policy,” De Boer said.
The Bangkok talks, part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), run until October 9. The final talks before Copenhagen are in Barcelona from November 2 to 6.
‘Our children and grandchildren will never forgive us’
The meeting in the Thai capital follows last week’s UN climate summit in New York and a G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, both of which failed to break the deadlock on either of the two biggest issues.
“Our children and grandchildren will never forgive us unless action is taken. Time is running out, we have two months before Copenhagen,” Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in his opening speech on Monday.
Experts warn that global temperatures must rise no more than two degrees Celsius by 2100 over pre-industrial times, a target embraced by the leaders of the G8 nations in July.
Scientists also say emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases should peak just six years from now.
Without drastic action, they fear drought, floods and rising sea levels could grip the world by the end of the century, causing famine, homelessness and strife.
On emissions, developed economies have acknowledged a historical responsibility for global warming. Most have put numbers on the table for slashing their carbon pollution by 2020 and by 2050.
But they say that developing nations — especially China, India and Brazil and other major emitters of tomorrow — should also pledge to curb output of greenhouse gases.
Poor and emerging economies refuse to take on their own hard targets but call for rich nations to make higher cuts than they have set themselves for 2020.
President Hu Jintao did vow at the UN last week to make China’s economy less carbon intensive — essentially promising to use fossil fuels more efficiently — by a “notable margin” before 2020. But he set no figures.
China has overtaken the United States as top carbon polluter, according to several scientific assessments. Together, the two nations account for 40%of greenhouse gases.
De Boer said on the eve of the Bangkok talks that they had a 280-page negotiating text which is “basically impossible to work with”.
Campaigners urged United States to take the lead in pushing for a pact, although it has so far offered much lower targets for emissions cuts by 2020 than other developed economies. — AFP