Country representatives attending upcoming United Nations climate change conferences in Poland and Denmark have agreed to build their discussions on the results of last December’s Bali conference, the Indonesian environment minister said Saturday.
Rachmat Witoelar said the agreement was reached during a video conference involving Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on the sidelines of an ASEAN-European meeting in Beijing on Friday.
The video conference was mediated by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
“Leaders of Indonesia, Poland and Denmark, known as Troika climate change, agree to make the Poznan conference a success by using the Bali road map ahead of the Copenhagen meeting in 2009,” Rachmat, also the president of the UN climate change conference, told The Jakarta Post.
Poland will play host to the next conference in Poznan from Dec. 1 to 12 this year. Some 8,000 participants will attend the event.
Denmark will host a similar climate change in December 2009.
Rachmat said the Troika leaders had called on the world to continue efforts to fight global warming despite the current global economic downturn.
“The global economic crisis should not disturb the focus on the fight against climate change both in developed and developing nations,” he said, quoting the outcome of the video conference.
The interview concluded that negotiations began during the Bali conference to produce new commitments on emissions cuts to replace those stipulated under the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, will be finalized in Denmark in 2009.
The Kyoto Protocol, which is only enacted by Annex I countries, was designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the countries by 5 percent over the period from 1990 emissions levels.
The United States is the only Annex I country to have rejected the conditions of the protocol, citing that it would only enact the law if rising industrial giants China and India did too.
The protocol grants funding to developing countries employing emissions reducing projects. However, the Bali road map puts developing nations at the forefront of leading the fight against emissions.
Kyoto Protocol countries have attempted of late in various meetings, including in Thailand, South Africa, Germany and Poland, to renegotiate the terms of the protocol, but have failed to reach an agreement on targets for emissions cuts.
A source told the Post that a number of developing countries that had supported the Bali road map have decided to pull out of negotiations in Poznan.
“The developing nations from G-77 are not solid enough in their commitment to ensure the Bali road map proves a success. They oppose particularly the terms proposed by developing and developed countries,” the source said.
“Several developing nations, including the Philippines and China, are worried they will be bound to emissions cuts targets as early as the next climate conference if the Bali road map is upheld.”
