UN climate talks to seek speed amid discord

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-08-23 19:56

LAGOS - The latest round of UN climate talks began Thursday in Accra, Ghana, in a bid to overcome disagreements over the tools that countries can use to cut greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate progress towards a new climate treaty by the end of 2009.

According to UN framework convention on climate change official website on Saturday, an official statement said "There is little time left to get a solid negotiating text on the table. Clearly the clock is ticking," Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), has told some 1,000 delegates from 160 countries at the opening of the six-day meeting.

The official statement of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change said the meeting is the third UN climate change conference since nations committed, in Bali, to adopting a global climate pact by no later than December 2009.

But progress was slow at the last two meetings in Bangkok and Bonn.

Onlookers believe disagreements between developed and developing nations as well as uncertainties about the direction of US climate policy after President George W. Bush leaves office, the economic slowdown and the recent collapse of global trade talks at the WTO will mean delegates at the Accra talks will be uneager to make any firm commitments.

In Accra, experts are to attempt to reach agreement on the rules and tools that developed nations can use to reach their emission reduction targets, de Boer explained.

Among the means being considered are the Japanese-led proposals for sector targets, a 'bottom-up' approach whereby different emissions reduction targets would be set for individual industry sectors, such as steel or power generation, according to their specific characteristics and circumstances.

But developing countries are wary of such approaches.They fear that developed nations could use sector benchmarks, such as the amount of energy required to produce a tone of cement, as a means of effectively blocking goods from developing countries' less efficient industries.