UN climate talks agree on pact agenda

Climate negotiators agreed yesterday on an ambitious agenda for talks they hope will lead to a global warming pact, overcoming a heated dispute between Japan and developing countries on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The schedule came after five days of talks in Bangkok and requires negotiators to settle contentions issues, including how countries will cut their emissions and how rich nations will help the poor adapt to climate change.

“Not only do we have the certainty that critical issues will be addressed this year, we now have the bite-sized chunks which will allow us to negotiate in an effective manner,” UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said.

Delegates also welcomed the agreement, but warned significant differences remain over demands from the US and Japan for developing countries to accept binding targets as part of a pact to stabilize greenhouse gases in the next 10 to 15 years and cut them in half by 2050.

“We can live with the work program, but the negotiations ahead will be tough, very tough,” said Prodipto Ghosh, a member of the Indian delegation.

“There are wide divergences between different groups over the nature of the conclusions to be reached,” he said.

Talks had bogged down because of developing nations’ opposition to discussion of a Japanese proposal to set industry-specific emissions reduction targets.

Developing nations want rich countries to agree to set national targets first.

Representatives from 163 countries met in Bangkok for the first negotiations on a pact meant to take effect after 2012.

The agenda postponed in depth discussions of the Japanese proposal until August to satisfy critics in developing nations.

Instead, other issues — such as rich countries’ efforts to help poor nations adapt to rising temperatures — will be discussed first.

Delegates also deleted from an earlier draft a call for discussion of what the US emissions reduction targets might be in the new agreement, delegates said, leaving talk of that for next year — when a new US president will be in office.

The draft schedule also called for talks on the transfer of clean technologies from rich countries to developing ones at the June meeting in Bonn.

A meeting in Ghana in August would address the Japanese proposal, as well as deforestation.

The Japanese plan triggered strident opposition from China, India and other developing countries. They argued it was an attempt to shift the burden from rich to poor nations.

Tokyo hopes for an agreement on energy efficiency targets for specific industries across national boundaries.

Proponents say it would preserve competition, while rewarding countries like Japan that already have high levels of energy efficiency.

Poorer countries, however, fear it would favor nations with a technological edge by allowing them to make fewer cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Ghosh dismissed the Japanese proposal as a “huge protectionist scam,” while the G-77 grouping of developing countries refused to include any reference to it in the work plan.

Japan is campaigning to put its approach at the center of the future agreement, which is to take effect when the Kyoto pact ends in 2012.

Kyoji Komachi, who headed the Japanese delegation, said Japan was not using the proposal to force developing countries into the same emissions targets as wealthy industrialized nations.

But he was happy with the final document.