Latest round of UN climate change talks kicks off in Germany

Talks on strengthening international action on global warming have begun in Bonn, Germany under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The two-week round of negotiations will focus on furthering governments’ commitments to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, and will include discussion on how industrialized countries can meet their emissions reduction targets beyond the first commitment period of the Protocol, which ends in 2012.

“There is a huge global consciousness that urgent international action needs to be taken this year and the next. So we can expect good progress at this meeting,” said UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer.

In Bonn governments will also discuss ways to facilitate the transfer of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries, reduce emissions from deforestation, increase investment for climate change, and improve the emissions trading system established under the Kyoto Protocol.

“These are all key areas in the international response to climate change, both for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as for adapting to the inevitable impacts of climate change,” Mr. de Boer said.

More than 2,400 participants, including government delegates from 172 countries and representatives from business and industry, environmental organizations and research institutions are attending the two-week meeting.

The aim of the negotiations is to create a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. The UNFCCC talks are scheduled to wrap up at a convention to be held in Copenhagen in December 2009.