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Source: BBC News website
Negotiators from more than 172 countries are meeting in Bonn to hammer out a deal that may culminate in a new global climate agreement. In this week's Green Room, UN climate chief Yvo de Boer argues that negotiators want to see more of the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, not less.
The challenge is now to design a deal that will deliver the type of emission reductions that the scientific community tells us are urgently needed
When countries gather for UN climate change negotiations, they meet to respond to what can arguably be described as the greatest challenge ever to face humanity.
The prospect of rising sea levels, ever more incidences of drought and flooding, along with water and food shortages for billions of people, are monumental threats.
The extent to which greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced will determine our future, that of our children, and of generations to come.
Designing a new international climate change agreement, possibly the most complex and most ambitious ever conceived, is a tough task.
Delegates meeting this week in Bonn are looking at how to provide the clever financial architecture that will enable countries, not least those developing rapidly, to green their economic growth and avoid the mistakes made by the developed world.
Whilst a new agreement is currently being negotiated, the Kyoto Protocol is already up and running. It already provides part of the blueprint of the "Copenhagen outcome", the agreement that negotiators are hoping to achieve when the Danish capital hosts the annual UN climate summit in 2009 .
For example, the protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows industrialised countries to generate emission credits through investment in emission reduction projects in developing countries. This measure is in addition to the implementation of climate-friendly policies at home.
The issue is whether sustainable development projects would take place without the incentive of carbon credits
The CDM has managed to create an internationally recognised currency for trading emission cuts: the Certified Emission Reduction (CER).
Each CER is equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide, and it has brought the power of the market to bear on the problem of climate change, engaging the private sector in the developed and developing world.
Around two billion CERs are expected to be generated by the end of the first phase of Kyoto in 2012.
Read full article on the BBC News website
