UN's top climate change official calls on governments

UN's top climate change official calls on governments to maintain momentum
in order to deliver on agreed timelines of Cancun Agreements

(Mexico City, 24 March 2011) – Less than two weeks ahead of the UN Climate Change Change Conference in Bangkok (3-8 April), the UN's top climate change official has called on governments to maintain momentum to ensure that the timelines agreed at the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun in December of 2010 are met.

"The world was at a crossroads in Cancun - and took a step forward towards a climate-safe world," said UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres. "Now governments must move purposefully down the path they have set, and that means maintaining momentum at Bangkok in order to take the next big climate step in Durban at the end of the year," she said.

Ms. Figueres was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of Ministers in Mexico City who gathered to discuss the implementation of the Cancun Agreements and to prepare the upcoming meeting in Thailand. The meeting in Bangkok will be the first time governments will gather after Cancun to take forward their agreed objectives.

"Governments need to maintain momentum at Bangkok by agreeing to a clear work-plan for 2011 and by taking forward outstanding substantive work," Ms. Figueres said. "This includes work on making the institutions for climate funding, technology cooperation and adaptation fully functional within the deadlines agreed in Cancun," she added.

New institutions agreed in Mexico last year include a Green Climate Fund to house the international management, deployment and accountability of long-term funds for developing country support; a Technology Mechanism to promote clean technologies; and an Adaptation Framework to boost international cooperation to help developing countries protect themselves from climate change impacts.

In highlighting progress that has been made since Cancun, Ms. Figueres said that the Transitional Committee that will design the Green Climate Fund is now being constituted and would take up its task at the end of the month at a first meeting in Mexico City (28-29 April). According to Ms. Figures, progress has also been made on the Adaptation Committee, where countries have put forward proposals for the institutional functioning that will boost adaptation. On technology cooperation, detailed discussions on how to operationalise the technology mechanism, which is to become fully operational in 2012, will take place in Bangkok in the form of a workshop (4-5 April).

In Mexico, Ms. Figueres announced that the UN Climate Change Secretariat had begun to design an initial prototype for a registry matching developing country actions to developed country support and to prepare a simple prototype in time for the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn in June. The prototype is to be gradually transformed into a fully functional registry as clarity on the actual needs emerges from the negotiations in the course of 2011.

Ms. Figueres warned that a very significant global effort will be required for the world to stay below the maximum 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise agreed in Cancun. Governments would need to substantially increase the speed of their emissions reductions they have already promised in order achieve that goal. The sum of promises so far equals only 60% of what science says is required by 2020 to stay below the two degrees threshold.

In this regard, the Bangkok agenda includes two important workshops ahead of the formal negotiations which can bring further clarity to the emission reduction plans of industrialised countries and the emission efforts of developing countries.

Last week, the UN Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn published a compilation of information on developed country emission targets and developing country actions, as called for in Cancún. These documents will form the basis for mitigation workshops in Bangkok on 3 and 4 April.

"Taking forward issues from Cancun also means that Bangkok needs to address building strong mechanisms and possible market incentives that allow everyone to work together to cut emissions at a cheaper and faster rate," said Ms. Figueres.

In looking ahead to COP 17 in Durban, South Africa, Ms. Figueres said that governments in the course of this year need to resolve remaining issues over the future of the Kyoto Protocol and to address growing concerns that there may be a gap in the promised efforts of countries within the world's only working and binding international model to reduce emissions.

All of the workshops, plenary sessions and press briefings at the UN Climate Change Negotiations in Bangkok will be open to the media and be webcast live and on demand. The UN Climate Change Secretariat will give a first press conference on Monday, 4 April 2011 at 13:15 Bangkok time. The closing UNFCCC briefing is scheduled for Friday, 12:00. Governments and observer organizations will be giving press conferences as of Sunday, 3 April in the press briefing room of the UNESCAP center. Details will be posted as they become available on the press page of the website.

ENDS

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