Bonn Chance, mes amis
This December, our species has one last drink at the Last Chance Saloon. In Copenhagen, from the 7th to 18th, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change grinds into its fifteenth year, with a meeting that aims to replace the “Kyoto Protocol.” The governments of the world - with business, pressure groups and civil society looking on - need to convince the new kids in the carbon emissions game – especially China - to commit to deep cuts.
This will only happen if the US, European Union and other long-term polluters, show willing with cuts of their own and pony up real money for countries already suffering the effects of climate change. In the run up to the Copenhagen meeting, the negotiating texts are being hammered out behind closed doors and at meetings like the Bonn “SBI/SBSTA” meetings, which run from June 1-12. http://unfccc.int/meetings/sb30/items/4842.php
At this meeting the – deep breath – “Ad Hoc Working Group on Long Term Co-operation Action under the Convention” will be meeting for the sixth time. The AWG-LCA is seen by many as a key group because it contains the United States, which has never signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 agreement that committed rich countries to token emissions cuts.
For daily updates from Bonn, see www.iisd.ca/climate/sb30
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