中国气候变化信息网 China Climate Change Info-Net

Friends of the Earth International believes that more commitments are required to ensure a meaningful and genuine Bali mandate to work toward an international agreement on climate change.

Talks on the technology transfer fund and facility have stalled with the United States opposing the establishment of a multilateral fund. This issue could be carried over to 2008 unless Ministers agree in principle to the fund and begin negotiating terms of reference for the mechanism, said the environment group in a press release issued here on Wednesday.

Agreement was reached on the Protocol Adaptation Fund, with developing countries compromising and allowing the Global Environment Facility to at least temporarily manage the fund. This puts the onus on industrialized countries to ensure new sources of funding, other than the levy on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), to dramatically increase the amount of money funneled into the Adaptation Fund, with the UNDP estimating 86 billion U.S. dollars needed per year.

Agreement was reached on the work plan for continuing negotiations on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries. A glaring gap in the next is the absence of support for indigenous Peoples' rights.

Forest protection programs must uphold the land rights of indigenous peoples and other local communities who often have the best understanding of how to conserve forest. This issue is complex and solutions cannot be rushed. Action can, however, be taken right away by building on existing mechanisms such as the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Discussions on emissions reductions have been happening under the Ad-hoc Working Group under the Protocol, where Japan and Canada have been blocking by the inclusion of any targets. The latest science now demands that emissions reduction commitments of at least 40 percent on 1990 levels by 2020 for industrialized countries. The Ministers must officially recognize the need to peak emissions globally within the next decade.

Ministers and high-level government representatives along with six heads of state gathered in Bali on Wednesday to begin the high-level segment of the United Nations Climate Change Conference -- Bali 2007, which is expected to launch negotiations on a new global deal on climate change.

The conference, the 13th Conference of the 192 Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the third meeting of the 176 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, is being attended by more than 11,000 people, making it the largest U.N. climate change meeting ever held.