Countries agree on need of global response at UN climate change conference

A United Nations climate change conference, preparing the way for a major December summit in Bali, wrapped up in Vienna today, with countries reaching agreement that a global approach is crucial in tackling the issue.

“Countries have been able to reassess the big picture of what is needed by identifying the key building blocks for an effective response to climate change,” said Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said at the five-day conference. “There is a consensus that the response needs to be global, with the involvement of all countries and that it needs to give equal importance to adaptation and mitigation.”

The upcoming Bali summit, scheduled to take place from 3 to 14 December in Bali, Indonesia, seeks to determine future action on mitigation, adaptation, the global carbon market and financing responses to climate change for the period after the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol – the current global framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions – in 2012.

“This is the first step that has laid the groundwork for the Bali Conference,” Mr. de Boer noted. “It shows that Parties have the necessary level of ambition to move this work forward.”

The “Vienna Climate Change Talks 2007” were attended by nearly 1,000 representatives from over 150 governments, business and industry, environmental organizations, journalists and research institutions.

Country delegates also discussed a recent UNFCCC report which underscores the major changes to patterns of investment and financial flows required to tackle climate change in the next quarter century.

“The report clearly shows that energy efficiency can achieve real emission reductions at low cost,” the Executive Secretary said. “It also shows that many cost-effective opportunities for reducing emissions are in developing countries, but also that industrialized countries need aggressive emission reduction strategies.”