Senior UN official urges rich countries for deeper cuts in emissions

(Nov.03,2009): The final round of United Nations talks, ahead of next month’s landmark climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, kicked off on Monday, with a warning from the chief UN negotiator, that time is running out to produce a comprehensive, fair and effective new deal to fight global warming. This last negotiating session in the Spanish town of Barcelona, was designed to close the gap between industrialized and developing nations on issues, such as funding to aid adaptation to global warming, technology cooperation, and action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation in developing countries.
Speaking to over 4,000 participants from 181 countries at the five-day gathering, aimed at hammering out a negotiating text for the 7 to 18 December conference in Copenhagen, the UN official said that progress at these talks are critical to the success of any treaty. “After almost two years of negotiations, the clock has almost ticked down to zero,” stressed Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty encouraging nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“The targets of industrialized countries that are presently on the table are clearly not ambitious enough,” said de Boer in light of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) study, which found that to stave off the worst effects of climate change, industrialized countries must slash emissions by 25 to 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, and that global emissions must be halved by 2050. There are only 5 days to further narrow down options and come up with a working texts for Copenhagen, but I am convinced that this can be done, the UN official said.