PLEASE DO NOT 'REPLY TO ALL' Dear colleagues,
Regards from the climate talks in Barcelona. I am a government delegate in the EU block and write to inform you of an important development here. Yesterday afternoon the Chair of the Convention negotiations Michael Zammit-Gutajar proposed to everyone to drop the idea of a climate treaty for Copenhagen, and to instead aim for a “core decision on political commitment to action.” This would be a nonbinding decision with elements on mitigation, adaptation, finance and tech transfer. The motivation is to buy more time for continued negotiations after Copenhagen. This morning, the head of the UNFCCC Secretariat lobbied coalitions and suggested 6-12 months of talks after Copenhagen.
Reactions from delegations are still coming. For now, the EU will continue to insist on a legally binding agreement. But there are many signs of a weak Copenhagen outcome (NGOs call it “greenwashing”).
The African offensive At the same time, the African Group blocked negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol track. They said, “No further discussions until ‘numbers’ are finalized (on emissions reductions in Annex I countries).” This move suspended KP negotiations for a full day. The blackmail succeeded: to exit the stalemate, yesterday informal agreement was reached to dedicate 60 percent of KP talks to numbers. So the Africans won – and they gave everyone 24 hours grace period before they shut down the talks again if they do not see progress.
Best regards from Spain, Radoslav S. Dimitrov, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Political Science University of Western Ontario Social Science Centre London, Ontario Canada N6A 5C2 Tel. +1(519) 661-2111 ext. 85023 Fax +1(519) 661-3904 Email: rdimi...@uwo.ca
