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| [PHOTO: UNFCCC / CC BY 2.0] |
Doha: Governments at the UN
Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar, (COP 18/CMP 8) have successfully
launched negotiations and expressed commitment to work to get decision texts ready or as complete
as possible for the attention of the high-level ministerial part of the meeting
from December 4.
“Work has been launched as scheduled in all the negotiating
bodies and governments have shown commitment here to achieve the objectives of
this important conference, which must set the stage for a new leap in global
ambition to respond to climate change,” briefed Christiana Figueres, Executive
Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
“Let us remind ourselves again, here in Doha, that international
commitments to cut greenhouse gases and deal with the impacts of climate change
are higher than they have ever been yet are still not sufficient to prevent the
global average temperature rising beyond the 2 degree centigrade target that
governments themselves have agreed to,” she said.
In Doha, governments are expected to usher in a renewed
commitment under the Kyoto Protocol (KP), move the broad infrastructure of
support they have been building for action in the developing world into firm
implementation, and decide how to resolve policy issues that remain outstanding
under the UNFCCC.
In the opening plenary of the Kyoto Protocol, earlier on Tuesday,
governments expressed commitment to leaving Doha with the necessary amendments
to the KP.
Nations will also decide how to stick to the task and
timetable they set themselves to reach an effective, fair and ambitious
universal climate agreement that is to be adopted in 2015 and to enter into
force in 2020, and to raise the current inadequate global ambition to address
climate change and its impacts before 2020. The new body negotiating this is
the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP).
In addition, countries meeting in Doha need to reach a
better understanding on how to mobilize long-term finance to support action in
developing nations, which they have agreed must reach a level of USD 100
billion a year by 2020.