New York - Organizers of this year's ambitious climate change talks Wednesday provided a broad range of options to stem global warming in the much-awaited first draft of a document which will be considered next month in Bonn by world governments. The draft treaty sets the first-ever targets for developing nations to reduce carbon emissions blamed for global warming. Emerging economies were until now exempted from any requirement to reduce heat-trapping gasses.
The draft, released in New York by Yvo de Boer, executive director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC,) suggests that developed countries must reduce carbon emissions by 75 to 95 per cent by 2050, measured against levels found in 1990.
Emerging economies such as India and China would have more leeway, with reductions of only 15 to 30 per cent reductions by 2020, and 25 per cent reductions by 2050, measured against a later baseline of 2000.
Governments will meet in Bonn June 1-12 to negotiate the text put together by a working group headed by de Boer. The UNFCC which he heads is the parent treaty of the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, which will expire in 2012.
"This document marks an important point on our road," de Boer said. "It's the first time that a real negotiating text will be on the table, which can serve as a basis for governments to start drafting a Copenhagen agreed outcome."
The Bonn meetings set the stage for talks which will culminate in Copenhagen from December 7-18, when the replacement document is to be formally adopted. The United States has boycotted the Kyoto protocol, but has signalled it could support the next treaty as long as China and other developing economies are also called to task.
De Boer said in releasing the 53-page negotiating text that encouraging developments have taken place this year leading, hopefully, to the December conference.
He said a list of industrialized nations have already pledged to cut emissions of greenhouse gas responsible for the global warming. Such pledges are useful to help governments see and compare to each other the steps they should take to fight climate change.
"Meanwhile, the United States has committed to a Copenhagen agreement and a clean energy future," de Boer said. "Industrialized countries are giving developing nations due credit for the climate change strategies they already have in place."
"With only 200 days before Copenhagen, time gets tighter but the world is not standing still on climate change," he said.
The negotiating text presents a structure for the negotiations and options to be discussed by governments attending the Bonn meeting. The text is composed of draft objectives and guiding principles, actions proposed to mitigate climate change in both rich and poor countries and enhanced actions on financing, technology and capacity building in the fight against climate change.
It presents a shared vision for all participants for the long-term cooperation in fighting climate change.
"Warming of the climate system, as a consequence of human activity, is unequivocal," the negotiating text says right from its beginning, citing reports of the Inter-governmental Panel for Climate Change, which last year spelled out the disastrous consequences of unchecked global warming on Earth.
The impacts of climate change range from the destruction of crop production and food security to human health, housing and the infrastructure.
The draft calls for political determination to confront the "dangerous climate change."
