Copenhagen is where the next round of negotiations will happen in December. What will it amount to?
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BONN: Official smiles and breezy confidence were firmly on display after the latest round of U.N. talks that aim to build a landmark treaty on climate change.
But only six months are left for completing a deal as fiendish in its complexity as it is unprecedented in ambition. Can it be done?
In the corridors of Bonn's Maritim Hotel, where the 12-day round unfolded under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), many delegates seemed to have quietly acknowledged the impossibility of sewing everything up in December in Copenhagen.
Bali Road Map
That goal is enshrined in the 'Bali Road Map', laid down at a global gathering in December 2007.
The vision is to set curbs on emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases beyond 2012, with intermediate targets for 2020 that would be ratcheted up all the way to 2050.
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer insisted on Friday a "comprehensive" agreement could be reached in Copenhagen, and one "that can give a strong and definite answer to the... climate alarm that has been ringing loudly over the past few years."
European Union negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger said "a ratifiable treaty" was still in sight, and Jonathan Pershing, for the United States, likewise reiterated his endorsement of this aim. If so, a mountain of work lies ahead.
A 50-page draft negotiation blueprint has exploded to more than 200 pages after countries stuffed it with rival proposals, and may expand even further in informal talks in August.
The biggest question
There has been no progress on the biggest question, of how to share the burden of future emissions cuts – and scientists say the proposals that are on the table fall dismally short of what is needed.
No agreement is in sight over helping poor countries to cope with the impacts of climate change and procure clean technology to avoid becoming the carbon culprits of the future.
"I don't see anyone coming forward with anything that could prepare the ground for a breakthrough," said Kim Carstensen of green group WWF. "What I see is the reverse, I see ground being prepared for a battle."
Just as worryingly, ideas are only now starting to be aired about an existential question – the legal status of the future agreement – which could revive friction between the United States and supporters of the Kyoto Protocol.
