News | Climate Change

http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=147645

THE comprehensive Copenhagen Accord on climate change formulated last year in Denmark will have to wait another year before it becomes a legally-binding treaty.

In a statement by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, the outgoing head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Yvo de Boer said it was unrealistic to expect the next Conference of Parties to be held in Mexico this year to produce a legally-binding agreement.
"A fully-fledged treaty would probably have to wait another year until the next COP in South Africa in 2011," he said in the release.
"I think developing countries especially would want to see what an agreement would entail for them before they are willing to turn it into a legally-binding treaty.
"I think if we are to get to a treaty, South Africa a year later is much more realistic."
According to the statement, one of the divisive issues before climate change negotiators was the push by the United States and 20 other nations, mostly developed countries, to integrate the Copenhagen Accord into the negotiating text to be considered in the 12 days of talks in Bonn, Germany, beginning May 31.
"The status of the Copenhagen Accord has been one of the main sticking points for the long-running negotiations since the end of the Copenhagen summit," the statement said.
"Richer nations are arguing that it provides a better framework for a binding deal than the existing Kyoto Protocol and poorer nations are warning that any move away from the Kyoto Framework risks resulting in a weaker agreement."
Mr De Boer said governments needed to act now to develop greater clarity on the future of the Kyoto Protocol.
He had earlier indicated that the Accord should be included in the formal UN negotiations even though it is not endorsed by all the UNFCCC's 193 Parties.
The Copenhagen Accord was drafted by the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa on December 18 last year and judged a "meaningful agreement" by the United States Government but was not passed unanimously when put for voting.