US delay overshadows climate-change talks

Concern that US decision will affect Bonn talks, which will set the stage for Cancún summit.

European Union negotiators head to Bonn next week to conti-nue international climate-change talks in the shadow of delays to US legislation on the environment. 

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The official task is to work on a negotiating text supposed to become a legally-binding global treaty to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. But the five-day meeting (2-6 August) will also be a chance to test reactions to a decision by the US Senate earlier this month to postpone draft legislation that would cap emissions from large swathes of the economy.

The EU is concerned about the impact the delay will have on already faltering talks. “Quite a number of countries might use this as an excuse to do less,” said a senior European Commission official.

The talks in Bonn will set the stage for a ministerial meeting in Cancún, Mexico, at the end of the year. But expectations have diminished since the build-up to the Copenhagen talks last December, and no one expects a legally binding, signed and sealed deal in Cancún.

Capacity-building

In Mexico, the EU hopes to strike agreements on adaptation, de-forestation and “capacity-building” – that is, ensuring professionals and institutions in developing countries can oversee the monitoring, reporting and verification systems that will underpin any global deal. These policies are to be helped with $30 billion (worth €23bn today) of fast-track funds that rich countries have promised for 2010-12.

Negotiators have embraced a new ‘stepwise approach’, which focuses more on ticking off outcomes one-by-one, to replace the ‘all-or-nothing’ approach that came unstuck at Copenhagen.

But questions remain about whether the UN process can cross the finish line and get a legally binding deal on time. Last week, the UN secretariat published a contingency plan, outlining options if there is no agreement to replace the Kyoto protocol when it expires in 2012.

Ulriikka Aarnio, a senior policy officer at the Climate Action Network, said that she thought a legal agreement in 2011 was still possible. She noted that the EU was looking beyond the US to make progress: “They will hopefully see that it is with the BASIC countries [Brazil, South Africa, India and China] and the developing countries that they should build alliances.”

For EU negotiators, the credibility of the UN process is at stake. The Commission official said: “There is a sense of responsibility in the climate negotiations. I think people have the feeling that if Cancún is not going to deliver, why are all these people flying around the world to meetings?”

The official added: “We are there in order to address a huge problem and we have to deliver in a responsible way.”