U.N. hopes for fresh climate start in Bonn

BONN, Germany, June 1 (UPI) -- A fresh round of climate negotiations are under way in Germany with delegates from more than 180 governments trying to reinvigorate the deadlocked U.N. process.

"Governments have repeatedly said they want progress, and now they have to show it," the United Nations' top climate official, Yvo de Boer, who is leaving his post July 1, said during a news conference Monday in Bonn.

Negotiators of more than 180 countries are attending the 2-week-long talks to set the agenda and work on treaty drafts for the 16th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change -- or Cop 16 -- in the Mexican resort of Cancun this December.

Climate negotiations have been deadlocked since Cop 15 in Copenhagen ended in acrimony.

Leaders couldn't agree on concrete emissions reduction targets or a way to measure them. They also failed to come up with a system of funding from rich to poor nations to help them cope with climate change.

The summit culminated in the publication of the so-called Copenhagen Accord, a weak declaration agreed between the United States, China, Brazil and South Africa after larger negotiations had broken down. The accord wasn't adopted but merely noted by countries, many of which denounced it.

The Copenhagen meeting "postponed an outcome for at least a year, but they can't postpone the impacts of climate change," said de Boer, who will be succeeded by Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica, who has vowed to inject the negotiations with new trust and life.

Poorer countries felt that the talks were being dominated by a few large industrialized nations.

Figueres, upon her nomination last month, acknowledged those differences, stating that her immediate priorities are to strengthen trust in the process and to support the Mexican presidency as well as all other Parties in the preparation to ensure a successful summit in Cancun.

A climate negotiator for her country since 1995, Figueres has helped draft climate protection strategies all over Latin America and has represented Latin America and the Caribbean in international negotiations.

Industrialized and developing nations are still at odds over how to limit the global temperature rise to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. A rise beyond that limit would result in potentially catastrophic consequences for humanity, with meteorological disasters increasing, scientists say.

Indian, Chinese and European officials during the past months said hopes for a comprehensive climate treaty to emerge from Cancun are virtually zero.

Developing nations have resisted a legally binding treaty because they claim rich nations that have benefited from emitting during the past decades should shoulder more of the burden.

Industrialized countries argue the developing nations need to commit to concrete reduction targets to enable a global effort. The European Commission recently backtracked on a plan to unilaterally boost the bloc's greenhouse gas emissions reduction target from 20 percent to 30 percent.

The European Union has committed itself to reduce its CO2 levels by 20 percent until 2020 and boosted that target to 30 percent if the world's other major emitters -- the United States and leading emerging economies such as India and China -- come together for a binding climate protection deal.

China recently overtook the United States as the world's biggest emitter of heat-trapping greenhouse gases but still emits far less on a per capita basis.