The European Union (EU) on Friday vowed to shift international negotiations on a new global climate treaty into higher gear and to press for progress on a range of issues at the UN climate change conference in Poznan, Poland.
The Poznan conference, which runs between Dec. 1 and 12, represents an important staging-post in the international negotiations which were launched in Bali, Indonesia, last December and are due to lead to the conclusion of a new global agreement at the end of 2009 in Copenhagen, said the European Commission, the executive body of the EU.
"The financial crisis has underlined the folly of ignoring clear warning signs," said EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas. "With climate change we cannot afford to repeat this mistake if we are to prevent dangerous and possibly catastrophic economic and social consequences in the coming decades."
Dimas, who will attend the Poznan conference, argued that participants must shift gear from exploratory discussions to concrete negotiations and send a clear signal that the world is on track to conclude an ambitious climate treaty in Copenhagen in December 2009.
At the conference, the EU will be pressing for an agreement on a clear work program to guide the negotiations in 2009, including a possible extraordinary ministerial meeting around mid-year. It will ask for progress toward the adoption of a broad shared vision for cooperative action, including targets for 2020 and 2050; and a firm decision on how to make Kyoto Protocol's Adaptation Fund for developing countries operational as quickly as possible. The EU also wishes to see the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, an important channel of funding and technology for low-carbon development in developing countries.
At the conference, the EU will promote its recent proposals to halve gross tropical deforestation by 2020 and halt global forest cover loss by 2030.
The EU believes that global warming must not exceed two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The target will require global emissions to peak by 2020 and then be at least halved from 1990 levels by 2050, argues the EU.
EU leaders last year agreed to voluntarily reduce emissions by at least 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, and by up to 30 percent if other developed countries commit to comparable reductions under a new global agreement.
The EU believes that developed countries will need to cut their collective emissions by 30 percent of 1990 levels by 2020 while developing nations should contain the growth in their emissions by keeping them 15 to 30 percent below projected "business as usual" levels in 2020.
At their summit that coincides the Poznan conference, the EU leaders will debate a package of measures proposed by the EuropeanCommission in January 2008 on the implementation of the 20-percentemissions reduction target as well as two other key goals: a 20-percent increase of energy efficiency and 20 percent of renewablesin total energy mix by the year 2020.
Source: Xinhua
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