Brussels, 25/08/2008 (Agence Europe) - More than 1,500 delegates from 180 countries are meeting in Accra, Ghana, from 21 to 27 August) in the latest phase of UN climate change negotiations which aim to bring, in December 2009, an international agreement on a worldwide post-2012 regime for tackling global warming.
The meeting, which brings together representatives from government, economic and industrial sector, environmental organisations and research institutes, forms part of the Bali road map. It includes the third meeting of the ad hoc working group on long-term cooperation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the sixth meeting of the ad hoc working group on the future commitments of developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol. These latter discussions, it is hoped, will lead to an agreement on the means at the disposal of developed countries for reaching their targets for reducing emissions after 2012. This largely means determining how the flexible mechanisms, which will allow the transfer of clean technologies to developing countries, will work and the rules to take account of carbon wells (the ability of forests to absorb CO2).
The French Presidency of the Council of the EU hopes that there will be sufficient progress to convince emerging and developing countries that developed countries are firmly committed to accepting the lion's share of the ambitious post-2012 regime and to encourage them to undertake to make their own contribution to collective efforts. After the Hokkaido G8 Summit (in Japan in July), where the Earth's most heavily industrialised countries agreed on a target of reducing world emissions by at least half by 2050 (though without deciding on a reference year or agreeing on an interim 2020 target), there is a great risk that, if progress is not seen to be made, developing countries will seek to delay post-2012 negotiations, the Presidency said.
As part of the negotiation process on enhancing international action, two thematic workshops will be held, one devoted to forestry and the other to sectoral approaches, as ways of attenuating greenhouse gas emissions. These workshops, it is hoped, will make success more likely at the Poznan Conference, in Poland in December, at which the main points of the post-2012 regime will be discussed. (A.N./transl.rt)