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UN chiefs upbeat about Cancun progress

By Chen Weihua (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-12-08 10:55

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses the media at a news conference during climate talks in Cancun December 7, 2010. [Photo/Agencies]

Talk still stuck in the continuation of the Kyoto protocol

CANCUN, Mexico - Top UN officials have set positive tones for the climate change conference as it reaches the last three days.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday afternoon that the conference has made good progress in four areas.

The first is deforestation. "With adequate financial support, we can make this agreement work. Even if it's not a full agreement, we can make good progress," he told an audience of several hundred people participating in a side event of the UN climate change summit in the Mexican beach resort.

Good progress has also been made on adaptation, according to Ban.

"We have to work for these people suffering from the climate change, mostly the poor people," he said, stressing that the climate change has been the top priority for him as secretary general and the UN and all the people in the world and a top agenda for the international community.

Ban also reported expected progress in technology transfer. "We have to disseminate as much and as quickly as possible to those poor and developing countries, which do not have the capacity to mitigate, but they can use this cutting edge technologies," said the UN Secretary General.

"We have significant progress in financing climate change," he said. The fund committed in Copenhagen last year says that developed countries will provide a fund of $30 billion by 2012.

"I think we can do it," Ban said.

But he acknowledges that long term financial support is more important. In Feb this year, Ban was managing to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020. "There is a challenge, but it is feasible and it is possible," he said.

While lauding progress in four areas, the UN Secretary General cautioned that a full agreement is not possible in Cancun.

"Let me be very practical and realistic. This time I do not expect there will be a comprehensive and legally binding agreement in Cancun. That is not the expectation of the world leaders. What we can do is that we have to make progress across the board on all the issues. We can make progress and we have made good progress so far," he said.

"My approach to the participating delegations is that let us not be all perfect and be 'the enemy of good' that we cannot have a perfect agreement this time."

According to projections, there will be 9 billion people on the planet by 2050, a 50 percent increase. "By that time, we have to reduce mandatorily 50 percent greenhouse gas emissions. That is what we called 50-50-50 challenge. We have to start from now and start from Cancun," he said.

Ban admitted the expectation might have been too high in Copenhagen.

UNFCCC (United Nations Frame Convention on Climate Change) Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres also echoed Ban's words by describing the first week as "fruitful and productive."

"We have already had draft regulations of two subsidiary bodies to help move developing countries to support them in mitigation and adaptations. We are glad about the results and they bode well for the second week," she said.

She also said that parties arrived in Cancun with a renewed commitment. "One reason is that the surrounding is much better. I prefer such weather than the weather in Copenhagen," she said, triggering laughs among crowds.

"My sense is that our expectation in Copenhagen is way too high. In our understandable nervousness by this urgent problem that we got ourselves carried away of what we can do and find a magic bullet to solve things. That is clearly impossible," said Figueres.

She said that the current negotiation is still stuck on how parties are going to decide on the continuation of the Kyoto protocol.

"There we have diametrically opposed positions that some countries said very clearly that they cannot commit to set commitment for themselves, and not for others. And we have a larger group, in fact all the developing countries, saying that they need a second commitment period as a sign of commitment of the industrialized countries to this process," she said.

"It comes no surprise that the only solution for them is to find some medium ground," she said.

"I have to tell you that I think there is a deal to be done here in Cancun. I don't think the differences on the table are insurmountable. Countries know this is the time to go beyond their national positions. They need to enter the space where we have commonalities on this very fragile planet. That is to supersede our short-term national interest. I am confident that over the next three days countries will be able to explore that space and come to a common agreement," she said.

However, Figueres admitted that mitigation proposal on the table is totally insufficient and other proposals on the table also lack details.