The United Nation’s climate change summit in Bonn, Germany ended on Friday leaving many decisions to be made at the annual conference in Durban at the end of the year.

While Christina Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) maintained that progress had been made, she added:
“A central question that has crystallised during this session is how further emission reduction commitments by developed countries can be taken forward.”

A key part of this will be overcoming the deadlock on the future of the Kyoto Protocol, which comes to an end in 2012.

Figueres said that the Protocol remained critical and warned against allowing a gap between regulatory periods.

Progress has been made on the package agreed at Cancun to help developing countries tackle the effects of climate change.

“This progress means that the [Adaptation] Committee could be fully operationalised at Durban,” she said.

But Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute believes that not enough progress was made in Bonn.

“It will be difficult, if talks proceed at this pace, to decide the Cancun rule book by Durban. Still hanging in the air are questions about the future of the Kyoto Protocol and whether the Cancun rules will be plugged into a legally binding agreement.”

For further information:
unfccc.int/2860.php
www.wri.org/

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