19 May 2008 | Luca Del Buono

 

The next round of UN-sponsored global climate change negotiations is set to begin in Bonn, Germany, on 2 June 2008. A major focus of the UN Climate Change Talks - Bonn, 2008 will be on a strengthened and effective international climate change deal, to be clinched in Copenhagen next year.

Around 2,000 people, including government representatives, participants from business and industry, environmental organizations and research institutions are expected to attend the two-week meeting. This constitutes a record number of participants for the annual Bonn sessions of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

On the one hand, the Bonn Climate Change Talks will take forward the new negotiation process on strengthened international action against climate change, as agreed at Bali in 2007.

Workshops in this context will take place on the issues of adaptation, finance and technology transfer. On the other hand, talks on further commitments for Parties to the Kyoto Protocol will include considering the possible tools available to industrialised countries to reach future emission reductions.

Furthermore, the Bonn climate change will advance ongoing work on technology, adaptation, reducing emissions from deforestation and capacity building in developing countries.

"Time is incredibly short to design a future agreement that will significantly step up action on adaptation, successfully halt the increase in global emissions within the next 10-15 years, dramatically cut back emissions by 2050, and do so in a way that is economically viable and politically equitable worldwide," said Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC Executive Secretary. "We urgently need to make progress in Bonn, seeing that there is only slightly more than a year to come up with a set of drafts for a ratifiable deal at Copenhagen."

In addition to the two working groups explicitly designed to negotiate the Copenhagen deal: the second session of the "Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention" and the second part of the fifth session of the "Ad hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol", the twenty-eighth sessions of the "Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice" and the "Subsidiary Body for Implementation" of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place from 4 to 13 June 2008.

All the meetings will take place at the Hotel Maritim, Bonn, Germany. The UNFCCC will give a curtain-raiser press briefing on Sunday, 1 June (12:30), an opening press conference on Monday, 2 June (13:15) and a closing press conference at the conclusion of the meeting on Friday, 13 June (from 18:00).Parties and non-governmental organisations will also give press briefings throughout the meeting, the times and locations of which will be posted on the UNFCCC website closer to the date. Media must have prior accreditation in order to attend UNFCCC and other briefings.

Source: UNFCC

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