The issue of who will provide funding to assist developing nations in reducing carbon emissions has emerged as a significant challenge during a five-day U.N. climate meeting concluding Friday in Bonn.
The negotiations had many participants frustrated with the lack of progress just four months ahead of an upcoming U.N. conference in Copenhagen to agree upon a successor treaty to the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012.
Some say the best that can be expected from the December meeting is an “interim agreement” that outlines the basic framework of a post-Kyoto agreement, with firm details to worked out in 2010.
Efforts this week to par down an awkward 200-page document into a draft treaty have been thwarted by a deep dispute between wealthy and poor nations over funding. Disputes over how much rich countries must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and whether pledges made by developing nations should be binding, have also helped slow the process.
Indeed, the more than 180 nations participating in the discussions cannot even agree on a procedure for drafting the text.
“There really isn’t a very strong climate of confidence,” France’s climate ambassador, Brice Lalonde, told the AFP news agency.
The most significant obstacle today is funding, according to some participants.
“The fact that there are no proposals for financing on the table is preventing progress,” said Swiss negotiator Jose Romero.
“This is the big issue,” the AFP quoted him as saying.
The cost of mitigating and adapting to climate change will increase to $200 billion and $100 billion per year, respectively, by 2020, according to U.N. estimates.
A group of least developed countries and small island states said on Friday that wealthy countries should allocate one percent of their gross domestic product (GDP), or roughly $400 billion a year, to assist poor nations.
Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate official, has called for an initial commitment of $10 billion in Copenhagen to help developing nations establish “solid strategies to limit the growth of their emissions.”
But wealthy nations have backed away from that figure amid struggling economies and concerns about the money will be managed.
“So far, only less than one billion dollars has been made available to address urgent needs for adaptation,” said Dessima Williams, U.N. ambassador for Grenada, speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States.
It is not simply the amount of funding that matters, but also the framework, de Boer told the AFP news agency at the beginning of the negotiating session.
“The thing that I find most worrying today is that there is little or no clarity on how financial resources are going to be mobilized to allow developing countries to engage,” he added.
With the U.N. process stalled, several participants are quietly scaling back their expectations for the upcoming Copenhagen meeting, although they remain optimistic for the long-term prospects of reaching an agreement.
“The general impression is that in Copenhagen we are not going to have the complete and perfect accord,” Lalonde said during an interview with the AFP.
“We are moving toward the idea that we may wind up with a political accord, one that will continue to evolve.”
“The best likely outcome in Copenhagen may be an interim agreement nailing down the basic architecture,” said Elliot Diringer of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a Washington-based think tank with close ties to the Obama administration.
If crafting a global treaty rolls into 2010, it should not necessarily be viewed as a setback.
“Far from a failure, that would actually be a huge step forward,” Diringer said.
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