Another step towards new climate change pact taken with online UN publication

Progress towards achieving an ambitious new treaty on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is gathering pace, the top United Nations climate change official said today, announcing the online publication of the text to be negotiated by nations this December in Copenhagen.

“This document marks an important point on our road,” said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “It's the first time [a] real negotiating text will be on the table which can serve as a basis for governments to start drafting a Copenhagen agreed outcome.”

Governments attending the Copenhagen conference on climate change are expected to adopt an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, whose first commitment period for reducing greenhouse gas emissions ends in 2012.

The negotiations on reductions to be achieved by industrialized countries after 2012 centre on issues related to the scale of the reductions, improvements to emissions trading and the Kyoto Protocol's carbon offset mechanisms, as well as concerns relating to land-use change and forestry.

The 53-page negotiating text covers a shared vision for long-term cooperative action, along with an action plan for strengthening adaptation and mitigation measures, as well as finance, technology and capacity-building.

“Meanwhile, the United States has committed to a Copenhagen agreement and a clean energy future. Industrialized countries are giving developing nations due credit for the climate change strategies they already have in place,” noted Mr. de Boer.

He stressed that with only ? days before Copenhagen, time gets tighter but the world is not standing still on climate change.”

Before the UNFCCC conference in Copenhagen, some 3,000 participants, including government delegates, representatives from business and industry, environmental organizations and research institutions will gather in Bonn from 1-12 June for talks on the negotiating text.