De Boer Pessimistic About Cancun Climate Negotiations

Outgoing U.N. climate change head Yvo de Boer said he expected the Cancun climate change talks in December to fail to produce an agreement on GHG emissions cuts, the Associated Press reported. De Boer declared that "a good outcome of Cancun will be an operational architecture on climate change. And then we can decide on a treaty." He added that Cancun was unlikely to provide "enough of an answer" to ensure a 25-percent-to-40-percent cut in 1990 GHG emissions levels by 2020 in industrialized nations. De Boer said those nations needed to provide developing nations with more assurance about the formation of a $100-billion annual financial aid fund.

Reuters reported that in speaking to environment ministers holding informal climate talks in Germany, de Boer said they must take the "thorny topic" of developing a successor to the Kyoto Protocol by the horns: "A significant number of countries are saying that perhaps Cancun can do the groundwork: Cancun can adopt a series of decisions that can make climate action operational, but that turning that into treaty text would take more time." U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said his country sought "solid, pragmatic progress" toward a climate treaty at the Germany talks. However, Stern said the U.S. was seeking a symmetrical treaty that included China, India and others, the Irish Times reported.