Nations set up global climate fund

Global talks on climate change yesterday set up a new fund to manage billions of dollars in aid to poor nations in a hard-fought package that turned the page on the bitter Copenhagen summit.

More than 190 countries meeting in Mexico agreed to seek “deep cuts” in carbon emissions blamed for global warming. But negotiators kept ambitions in check and tried to make headway on select areas instead of seeking a treaty.

In a change from Copenhagen’s venomous atmosphere last year, the talks in the beach resort of Cancun ended after two sleepless nights with standing ovations for the chief negotiator, Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who flew to Cancun in the final days to plead for progress, said the negotiations “have delivered important success for a world much in need of it.

“Governments came together in common cause, for the common good, and agreed on a way forward to meet the defining challenge of our time,” Ban said.

The Cancun agreement set up a ‘Green Climate Fund’ to administer assistance to poor nations, which many experts say are already suffering more floods and drought as temperatures steadily mount.

The fund will be steered by a board of 24 members chosen evenly from developed and developing nations. For the first three years, the new international organisation would be overseen by the World Bank – a point of controversy for some activists who distrust the Washington-based lender.

The EU, Japan and the US since last year led pledges of $30 billionin immediate assistance, to rise to$100 billion a year to start by 2020.

A broader issue is how wealthy nations would raise the money, with few governments enthusiastic to commit such large amounts in tough economic times. Some envoys advocated setting taxes on airplane and shipping fuel.

But the talks left much of the hard work to the next talks late next year in South Africa – including the crucial question of by how much all nations will cut emissions.

The agreement called for “urgent action” to cap temperature rises at no more than 2˚ Celsius above pre-industrial levels and asks for a study on strengthening the commitment to 1.5˚ Celsius.

The proposal says it “recognises that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required according to science.”

The accord at Copenhagen included similar language, but it was never approved by the full UN-led talks.

The Cancun deal also agreed on ways forward on fighting deforestation, a leading cause of climate change, and on monitoring nations’ climate pledges.

Bolivia was the main holdout. To the dismay of many bleary-eyed negotiators, Bolivia’s Pedro Solon took the microphone repeatedly after midnight, saying the deal would not halt climate change but “put more humans in a near-death situation”.

Espinosa overruled him, saying that UN rules requiring consensus did not give one country “veto power”.

The vast majority of countries offered support. Australian Climate Change Minister Greg Combet called the deal a “historic step forward”.

Chief US negotiator Todd Stern said: “Obviously the package is not going to solve climate change by itself, but I think it is a big step forward.”

The talks were stuck for days over the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark treaty whose obligations on wealthy countries to cut emissions run out at the end of 2012.

With a new treaty looking distant, the EU led calls for a new round of commitments under Kyoto.

Japan opposed a new Kyoto round, pointing out that the treaty named after its ancient capital covers only 30 per cent of global emissions because top polluters including China and the US are not part of it.

In a compromise accepted by Japan, the Cancun agreement called for work on a second period of the Kyoto Protocol “to ensure that there is no gap” but did not oblige countries to be part of the new round.

Japan faced intense pressure to compromise, with British Prime Minister David Cameron telephoning his counterpart Naoto Kan. Cameron yesterday called the Cancun accord “a very significant step forward” and urged all countries to stick to their promises.