Make no doubt about it. Christina Figueres gets it. In a meeting today with youth activists at the Bonn Climate Talks, the UNFCCC executive secretary reiterated her clear understanding that climate change is THE primary human rights issue in the world and that science must inform all decisions relative to appropriate action.
Eventually, she said, economists “…need to, have to, reconfigure themselves and get what this is really all about.”
Four days into the Bonn Talks, negotiators finally agreed on an agenda, amidst mounting pressure to reach common ground to extend the Kyoto Protocol -- currently the only treaty which caps GHGs beyond 2012 -- at the November 28-December 9 COP17 in Durban, SA.
Under Kyoto, the EU along with 35 other nations formally agreed to 5.2% reductions of GHGs from 1990 levels by 2012. The United States did not ratify Kyoto, and Japan, Russia and Canada last year announced their unwillingness to sign on to a Phase II unless all major economies ratify the treaty.
Figueres suggested Tuesday the worst case scenario might be a gap between rounds one and two of Kyoto, most likely due to insufficient time and the apparently implacable policies of some of the industrialized countries, which continue to thwart the successful negotiation of a solution by 2012. Under the Copenhagen Accord, a 2013-2015 review -- also approved in the Cancun Agreements -- was accepted by the plenary to evaluate whether the global 2 °C goal is adequate, or if it should be decreased to 1.5.
At the conclusion of today's talks, Ambassador Argüello of Argentina and Chairman of the Group of 77, expressed his eagerness to get down to the formal business of mapping out the agreements for adoption at the upcoming talks in Durban.
"At this point, this is a two-track negotiation where the progress in one track necessarily affects progress in the other," he said. "We cannot go home empty-handed. We are doing everything in our power to ensure that the political conditions for a meaningful second commitment period are there, and hope all actors are doing the same."
Stating that the sense of urgency is contributing to the slowness of the process in that it is causing some inflexibility among delegates who sense this is the final opportunity "to promote interests that are vital to them," Argüello said, "there is a real will at least from the Group of 77 and China, to complete the mandate we have and to extend the international climate regime for the next five years, including a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol with binding obligations of high levels of ambition that can actually move us to our goal ... We need definitions, people want to know whether the important issues are on the table, or not."
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