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A UN top climate official has said that governments must acknowledge that the UN’s Kyoto Protocol for fighting climate change is in danger of falling apart since no agreement has been forthcoming regarding a successor treaty.

After the UN summit in Copenhagen last year fell short of reaching a binding accord it is likely that the climate talks later this year will only lead to laying the groundwork for a new legally binding pact to reduce greenhouse gas effects.

Early last month Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat addressed roughly 45 environment ministers at an informal climate talk in Petersberg, Germany. He said that the question of what would happen after the Kyoto Protocol ends in December 2012 was “on everybody’s mind but, unfortunately, on no one’s lips.”

In essence the Kyoto Protocol binds up to 40 industrialised countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. However the US is not a party to Kyoto and developing nations have no Kyoto targets.

“It is your political responsibility as ministers to take this thorny topic by the horns,” he said, warning ministers that Kyoto backers might become reluctant to set targets beyond 2012 “…and that in turn will mean the end of the Kyoto Protocol.”

According to De Boer it would be next to impossible for Kyoto supporters to agree to new curbs beyond 2012, which are binding in international law if the US only has targets in US domestic laws. Currently the US national legislation for capping emissions until 2020 is stalled in the Senate.

Before they agree to limit the growth of their own emissions, developing nations want industrialised nations to sign up for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol. However, the majority of Kyoto backers want a single new treaty with targets for both rich and poor.

Looking at the general mood surrounding this issue, De Boer said that few fully expect a new treaty to be agreed at the next climate conference in Cancun, Mexico later this year.

“People are not licking their wounds,” he said of the atmosphere after Copenhagen. “There is a shared feeling that we need to put Copenhagen behind us and move forwards. A significant number of countries are saying that perhaps Cancun can do the groundwork — Cancun can adopt a series of decisions that can make climate action operational, but that turning that into treaty text would take more time,” he said.

Decisions could be taken for instance on promoting green technology, unlocking aid to developing nations or launching a new scheme to protect tropical forests. These targets would be easily achievable and unlike the Copenhagen Accord are clearly outlined.

Backed by 120 nations the Copenhagen Accord seeks to limit the rise in average global temperatures to below 2 Celsius above pre-industrial times but it doesn’t say how. $100 billion has been set aside in annual climate aid from 2020 but a document prepared for the Petersberg talks in Germany has said that there is a deadlock over the money. The industrialised countries have told the developing countries that they must act first to prevent climate change before they receive any money, whereas the developing nations have argued that they need the money upfront before they can do that.

“Financing negotiations seem to have been caught by the vicious circle ‘no money, no action – no action, no money’” the report said.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 8:16 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.