World climate talks resuming in Mexico shortly could recover lost momentum by crafting a deal on four big issues, including the outlines of a fund to muster hundreds of billions of dollars in aid, the UN climate chief said.
“Everything I see tells me that there is a deal to be done,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The meeting to take place in the resort city of Cancun from November 29 to December 10 is the annual conference of the 194 parties to the UNFCCC.
It caps a miserable year for the UN forum on climate change, stymied by a near-fiasco at last December’s Copenhagen summit where world leaders had been expected to approve a post-2012 pact and by belt-tightening in many countries.
The future treaty will, at best, be completed only at the end of 2011, say sources at the negotiations.
Ms Figueres, however, said Cancun could unlock “a mutually agreeable deal to get action started” in four important areas. These were: Measures to cope with climate change, the transfer of clean technology from rich economies to poorer countries, curbing carbon emissions from forest loss and creating a new fund for long-term climate financing.
Progress in Cancun would be a springboard for “bigger and better agreements every year,” she argued, adding though that compromise was essential.
“I’m not going to underestimate the political gaps that still need to be bridged,” she said.
Ms Figueres pointed to three major areas of discord: burden-sharing on reducing carbon emissions that drive climate change; the future of the UNFCCC’s Kyoto Protocol after pledges expire at the end of 2012; and how to count and monitor national pledges of action.
Even so, a spirit of pragmatism now infused talks after the Copenhagen setback, she told reporters in a teleconference from Bonn.
“Countries have actually learned for themselves... that there is no such thing as one all-encompassing solution,” remarked Ms Figueres.