– Ban’s financing panel to present report in October
Negotiations at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Bonn Germany plodded on yesterday focusing on emission reduction targets of Annex 1 (developed) countries, mitigation, adaptation and financing for developing countries in the wake of the disappointing Copenhagen meeting. The meeting – much smaller and less touted than the Copenhagen meeting – looks to set the stage for the forward march to Cancun in November and December 2010. Already, a PR campaign is ongoing with information on Mexico and applications for acquiring that country’s visa being made at the Bonn meeting venue all this week.

On the aim and scope of the long-term vision spoken of in the revised negotiating text, developing countries’ members of the shared vision drafting group proposed framing the vision in the context of equity and “common but differentiated responsibilities.” They also suggested that the shared vision should address all implementation gaps and one of the members of that group proposed text on human rights, including the right of indigenous peoples, women, children and migrants.

The mitigation drafting group spent several hours discussing nationally appropriate mitigation
actions (NAMAs) by developing countries. The parties made numerous textual suggestions to the Chair’s text causing it to be extended from three to 11 pages, covering a range of issues, including new reporting requirements Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV), types and scope of NAMAs and national sovereignty.

Today is the final day of the meeting.

Meanwhile, members of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon’s High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing will provide an update on the work of the group in October by presenting their final report ahead of COP 16 in Mexico in December.

Among the persons serving on the high level panel are President Bharrat Jagdeo and Prime Minister of Norway Jens Stoltenberg. The group is being chaired by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The panel comprises senior ministers, officials from central banks and experts on finance and development.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon established the panel early in 2010 to advance progress on long-term climate change financing. He charged the panel with identifying new, innovative and additional sources from developed countries for financing actions in developing countries.

Experts have cited the need for the fulfilling of commitments made at Copenhagen and other fora to be indeed “new and additional”, since the concern has been raised that some Governments may pass off other types of aid as their fulfilling commitments to, for example, the Copenhagen Accord.

The work of the panel is being guided by the spirit of the political commitments made at COP 15 in Copenhagen in December 2009. This is with a view to making available to the parties recommendations for their consideration and appropriate action at the Cancun meeting. Part of the panel’s mandate is to ensure that the climate change financing to developing countries is separate and apart from overseas development aid given to those countries.

The work of the group is said to be guided by the spirit of the political commitments made at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, with a view to making available to Parties recommendations for their consideration and appropriate action at COP 16 in Mexico.
Speaking at the opening of the Bonn conference on Monday, new Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Christina Figueres, said that governments have a responsibility this year to “take the next essential step” in the battle against climate change.

She said that how Governments achieve the next essential step “is up to them.” But she said that it is politically possible. “In Cancún, the job of governments is to turn the politically possible into the politically irreversible,” she said.

Figueres, who replaced Yvo de Boer some months ago, pointed to the opportunity to capture the promises, pledges and progress that governments have already made, in accountable and binding ways. She said that Governments now need to resolve what to do with their public pledges to cut emissions. “All industrialised countries have made public pledges to cut emissions by 2020 and 38 developing countries have submitted plans to limit their emissions growth. This needs to be captured in internationally agreed form,” she said. “More stringent actions to reduce emissions cannot be much longer postponed and industrial nations must lead,” she added.

The UN climate head urged that nations turn their pledges of funding into reality. “Last year, these countries promised 30 billion dollars in fast-track finance for developing country adaptation and mitigation efforts through 2012. Developing nations see the allocation of this money as a critical signal that industrialised nations are committed to progress in the broader negotiations,” Figueres said.

She noted that industrialised countries further pledged to find ways and means to raise 100 billion dollars a year, by 2020, and that Governments need to achieve clarity on how institutional arrangements, particularly financial arrangements, “lock into other issues.” For example, she asked how could institutional arrangements for financing be linked most effectively to an operational technology mechanism or action on adaptation.