With less than six months to go before Copenhagen, the global climate negotiations are at a pivotal moment. After a two-week negotiating session in Bonn, the negotiations are turning the corner.
Or are they?
For the first time, negotiators in Bonn debated the draft text of a global deal – a mixed bag of good, bad and fuzzy proposals for tackling climate action — proposals that will form the basis of negotiations over the next six months.
Many key issues remain contentious, including the wide gap between what developed countries are prepared to do on emissions reductions and what developing countries and the science itself demands. But it’s the financing issue that could break the camel’s back.
Walking around the negotiating halls in Bonn the past two weeks, there was an unmistakable buzz: What are we going to do to support vulnerable developing countries facing severe climate impacts? And how are we going to finance developing countries’ shift to clean energy pathways?
As the talks progress, it is becoming very clear that unless those issues are addressed in a serious way, we won’t see a deal this December... Read more
