UN pleads for climate deal as summit opens

CANCUN - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made an urgent appeal to government ministers to take serious steps to curb global warming as he opened the high-level round of a climate change summit Tuesday in Mexico.

“The longer we delay, the more we will pay - economically, environmentally and in human lives,” Ban said in his opening speech at the sprawling Moon Palace Hotel in the Mexican resort city of Cancun.

Ban spoke as environment ministers from more than 190 countries arrived in Cancun, aiming to reach a global deal by Friday night that could help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and help countries confront the growing consequences of climate change.

But there remained many stumbling blocks, with few ministers willing to predict that a deal will be in place by Friday. Major disputes involved whether to extend the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that places curbs on industrial country emissions, as well as exactly what form any future global framework tackling climate change should take.

Ministers and environmental activists hope Cancun will yield at least some concrete progress after the widely viewed failure of the December 2009 summit in Copenhagen, where setting up a new climate treaty eluded world leaders.

“There was high expectation, maybe too high expectation” in Copenhagen, Ban told reporters later Tuesday. “This year in Cancun, I think we need to be a little bit practical and realistic.”

There is no hope for a new global treaty, but Ban said other issues were “rife for adoption”, including new mechanisms to reduce deforestation, improve technology cooperation and programmes to boost poor countries’ defences against climate change’s impacts. Ministers may also create a Green Fund for climate aid to the poor.

The ministers hope to build on some positive momentum from their lower-level negotiators, who have been meeting in Cancun since November 29. About 8,000 demonstrators meanwhile gathered in separate protests in Cancun Tuesday, according to organisers.

“The crucial countdown for the conference is beginning,” Mexican President Felipe Calderon told the gathering. He called on ministers “to open a new path when it comes to fighting climate change”.

While many of the technical details of an agreement had been worked out, there remained many disagreements. German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen would not say whether a deal was possible, but said there was “clearly a different atmosphere here than in Copenhagen”.

Among the biggest sticking points: Developing countries have demanded progress on an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Japan, which hosted the 1997 Kyoto talks, is leading a bloc of countries refusing to back a new treaty without the participation of the US and China, the world’s two largest emitters.

Asked how he would characterise the talks in Cancun on extending Kyoto, India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said: “disturbing”.

China’s envoy Xie Zhenhua reiterated Tuesday that any compromise would have to start with wealthy countries committing to a new round of greenhouse-gas emissions cuts under Kyoto.

Industrial nations that didn’t join Kyoto would have to sign up to their own binding emissions cuts under a separate treaty. Zhenhua said China would then be willing to consider a binding UN agreement that included voluntary emissions targets for emerging powers.

The US never signed the Kyoto Protocol because it did not include growing economies, like India and China. US climate envoy Todd Stern said he didn’t see “anything new” in China’s offer, because the Asian power’s own emissions cuts would still be voluntary.

Stern also complained that drafts of a final Cancun agreement included far too little on transparency on countries’ climate actions. He welcomed an Indian proposal to have those contributing more than one percent to global emissions offer regular UN reports on progress, but suggested China was blocking a deal.

“So far, the transparency issue is lagging way behind,” Stern told reporters Tuesday.

The European Union is meanwhile hoping to keep Kyoto and the wider talks alive, but not at any cost. The EU’s Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard Tuesday warned governments against dooming the entire international climate process.

“It is absolutely imperative that we deliver something, something substantial,” she said in a speech to the conference. “To come out of Cancun with nothing is simply not an option.”