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Top UN officials upbeat as end of Cancun draws near

By Chen Weihua (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-09 06:53

CANCUN, Mexico - Top UN officials have set positive tones for the climate change conference as it reaches the last three days.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday that the conference has made good progress in four areas.

The first is deforestation. "With adequate financial support, we can make this agreement work. Even if it's not a full agreement, we can make good progress," he said at a side event of the UN climate change summit in the Mexican beach resort.

Good progress has also been made on adaptation, Ban said.

"We have to work for these people suffering from the climate change, mostly the poor people," he said, stressing that climate change has been the top priority for him as secretary-general.

Ban also reported expected progress in technology transfer. "We have to disseminate as much and as quickly as possible to those poor and developing countries, which do not have the capacity to mitigate, but they can use cutting edge technologies," he said.

"We have significant progress in financing climate change." In Copenhagen last year, developed countries pledged to provide $30 billion by 2012. "I think we can do it."

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But he said long-term financial support is more important.

Ban cautioned that a full agreement is not possible in Cancun. "I do not expect there will be a comprehensive and legally binding agreement in Cancun," he said.

"That is not the expectation of the world leaders. What we can do is that we have to make progress across the board on all the issues.

"We have made good progress so far."

With the world's population projected to reach 9 billion - a 50 percent increase - by 2050, "we have to reduce mandatorily 50 percent greenhouse gas emissions", he said.

"That is what we called 50-50-50 challenge. We have to start from now and start from Cancun," he said.

Christiana Figueres, the UN climate change chief, described the first week at Cancun as "fruitful and productive".

"We have already had draft regulations of two subsidiary bodies to help move developing countries to support them in mitigation and adaptations. We are glad about the results and they bode well for the second week," she said.

She said the parties came to Cancun with a renewed commitment. "One reason is that the surroundings are much better. I prefer such weather than the weather in Copenhagen," she said, triggering laughter.

"My sense is that our expectation in Copenhagen was way too high."

She said negotiations at Cancun are still stuck on how parties are going to decide on the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, with "diametrically opposed positions".

"It comes no surprise that the only solution for them is to find some medium ground," she said.

But Figueres doesn't think the differences are insurmountable. "Countries know this is the time to go beyond their national positions," she said, adding that they need to supersede "short-term national interests".

"They need to enter the space where we have commonalities on this very fragile planet.

"I am confident that over the next three days countries will be able to explore that space and come to a common agreement."