U.N. climate talks agree on green fund, new adaptation mechanism+

CANCUN, Mexico, Dec. 11 Kyodo -
Delegates at a U.N. climate change conference in Mexico agreed Saturday to
create a fund to help developing countries tackle global warming and to
establish a new framework to help them adapt to its impact.
The eleventh-hour agreement capped the 13-day negotiations in the beach resort
of Cancun, marking a step forward in efforts to design a new framework to
combat global warming beyond 2012, after they suffered a setback at last year's
climate conference in Copenhagen.
The current commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol during which developed
countries are obligated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ends at the end of
2012.
Major sticking points at this year's conference were postponed to next year's
meeting in Durban, South Africa, including whether to continue developed
countries' commitments to slashing their greenhouse gas emissions under the
pact after 2012 -- a move adamantly opposed by Japan.
But the agreement that was reached urges discussions about developed countries'
reduction targets under the protocol to avoid a ''gap'' period in 2013 and
after during which no country is obligated to slash its emissions.
Observers say Saturday's deal is likely to guide future climate negotiations
toward parallel tracks -- the Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding obligations
for developed countries, and a new international framework that would include
the United States and China.
Japan accepted the agreement because it has reserved the right to reject
setting new targets under the protocol, a Japanese official said. But its
position that a single framework should govern global greenhouse gas emissions
cut efforts has found Japan in the minority.
Japan has rejected setting a new emissions reduction target under the Kyoto
Protocol, arguing that the United States and China, the world's two largest
carbon dioxide emitters, are not subject to the pact's reduction commitments.
In the early hours of Saturday, Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa, the
conference's president, made the agreement official despite Bolivia's
objections, saying the principle of consensus does not confer veto power on one
country.
The creation of the Green Climate Fund and the Cancun Adaptation Framework
would boost assistance to developing countries, while the agreement put off
decisions on tough issues, including setting new greenhouse gas emissions
targets beyond 2012.
The agreement calls for reaching a conclusion as soon as possible on new
emissions targets for developed countries from 2013 to avoid the ''gap''
period.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 addendum to the U.N. climate change treaty,
developed countries are bound to reduce their emissions only over the five-year
period between 2008 and 2012 by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels.
The United States has refused to ratify the protocol.
Saturday's agreement calls on developed countries as a whole to reduce
emissions within a range of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, without
obligating new emissions targets for each country.
Recognizing the goal of holding rising global temperatures below 2 C above
pre-industrial levels to avert serious impact, the accord says countries will
consider at next year's climate conference in South Africa how much global
emissions should be reduced by 2050.
The agreement also says developing countries, which are not required to reduce
their greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto pact, will take action to lower
their emissions, so that the growth in total emissions would be curbed in 2020
as a group.
A new structure would also be set up to verify the countries' efforts to reduce
emissions under the agreement.
The accord also reaffirms the emissions reduction targets submitted by
countries on the basis of the Copenhagen Accord, a nonbinding political
document of which the U.N. climate conference last year merely took note.
At the outset of the latest U.N. conference, Japan declared that it rejects
setting post-2012 binding emissions targets under the Kyoto pact under any
circumstances, souring the atmosphere at the event and hardening the positions
of developing countries.
Developing countries want developed countries to continue to assume emissions
cut obligations under the 1997 pact, arguing that the centuries of emissions by
the latter since the Industrial Revolution have led to today's global warming.
==Kyodo
2010-12-11 23:25:45