THOUSANDS OF delegates began meeting in China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter, yesterday to try and settle some of their differences on combating climate change and avoiding environmental catastrophe.
The talks, which run for a week and include negotiators from more than 170 countries, take place in the northeastern city of Tianjin, and are the last chance the global climate change community has to narrow its differences on key issues such as melting glaciers and rising temperatures, ahead of the UN climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, at the end of the year.
“Now is the time to rise to your challenge . . . now is the time to accelerate the search for common ground,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, in her opening address.
There is mounting public pressure to come up with some measures to address climate change in a number of countries including China, which has suffered the worst flooding in years, Pakistan, which has been devastated by flooding and Russia which has seen terrible drought.
While Ms Figueres’ sentiment was applauded, there was little optimism about finding a deal to curb greenhouse gases after last year’s failed summit in Copenhagen, and negotiators meeting this week were setting their sights on less-ambitious goals.
There are major trust issues at stake in the talks between rich and poor nations over who pays for measures to address climate change, as well as calls for more transparency about emission reductions and for the rich to do more.
Rather than look to big-picture issues, the focus for now is to come up with a package of small deals on specific issues, such as co-operation on clean energy technologies and rewarding developing countries for not cutting down rainforests.
The event is the first time that China, the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gases, which scientists say cause global warming, has hosted a meeting.
China was blamed by many for knocking the Copenhagen talks off track and is hosting the event to show that it is serious about playing its part in addressing climate change.
Last year, China pledged it would cut its carbon intensity – emissions per unit of GDP – by 40 to 45 per cent by 2020 from the 2005 level. Efforts have also been made to reach the goal of improving energy efficiency by 20 per cent from 2005 to 2010.
“A concrete outcome in Cancun is crucially needed to restore the faith and ability of parties to take the process forward, to prevent multi-lateralism from being perceived as a never-ending road,” Ms Figueres said.
Her tone reflects the tortuous aspect to the whole process of negotiation, and ultimately the aim is to come up with a treaty to limit greenhouse gases, which many believe could emerge late next year at a UN summit in South Africa, in time to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires at the end of 2012.