Brussels, 15/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - Off we go again. Experts from across the globe began a new session of climate talks in Bonn on Monday 14 May. The EU hopes that this will provide fresh impetus and lead to progress, the Commission said on Monday. This is the first opportunity offered to all the participants to assess and follow-up on implementation of the results of the UN climate conference in Durban (COP 17, in December of last year) and to prepare the decisions that will be adopted at the next conference of the parties (COP 18) in Doha, Qatar, in December 2012.
Durban was a turning point as governments agreed responsibilities and timetables that provide the best chance of avoiding the worst for climate change in the future, said Christine Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), opening the session. She said that what had to be done now was to bridge the gap that still exists between the agreed target of maintaining the average temperature increase below 2° Celsius and efforts currently being made to remain under that level. All the means needed to bridge the gap are available, but everything depends on greater emissions reduction efforts, with the industrialised countries taking the lead, she added. (AN/transl.rt)