BONN DECISIONS PROMISE TO SPEED ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE

(Reissued as received.)

BONN, 27 July (UNFCCC) -- Climate change negotiators are departing Bonn today after concluding work on an array of detailed decisions, some completed, others well advanced.  These decisions are based on last Monday’s historic political agreement and will help guide the international response to climate change for many years to come.

The decisions set out the rulebook by which governments will cooperate on making the Kyoto Protocol’s institutions and procedures a reality and increase the flow of financial and technological support to developing countries.

They will be forwarded for formal adoption to the Seventh Session of the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention (COP 7), which is being hosted by the Government of Morocco in Marrakesh from 29 October to 9 November 2001.  Several decisions still requiring some additional work will be finalized at COP 7, and adopted together as a package with the decisions completed here in Bonn.

The Marrakesh conference is expected to start setting up the Kyoto institutions so that the Protocol will be fully operational when it enters into force.  A first step would be to elect the Executive Board of the Clean Development Mechanism.

A system for contributing to and overseeing the various funds for developing countries also needs to become quickly operational.  Following the adoption of the political agreement earlier this week, many developed countries made a joint political statement pledging to contribute $410 million/€ 450 million per year by 2005 to help developing countries manage their emissions and adapt to climate change.

"The Bonn conference has succeeded in making the Kyoto Protocol ratifiable", said Michael Zammit Cutajar, Executive Secretary of the Convention and the senior United Nations climate change official.  "Now Marrakesh must accelerate the transition from the negotiating phase to the implementation phase.  It is my hope that the Kyoto Protocol will be a political and institutional reality in time for next year’s summit in Johannesburg", he said.

The Protocol will enter into force and become legally binding after it has been ratified by at least 55 Parties to the Convention, including industrialized countries (representing at least 55 per cent of the total 1990 carbon dioxide emissions from this group).  So far, 37 countries have ratified, including one industrialized country (Romania).

The COP 6 results are being posted at www.unfccc.int.  For more information, please contact Michael Williams, in Geneva, at +41-22-917-8242.  For interviews with Mr. Zammit Cutajar, contact Carine Richard-Van Maele at +41-22-917-5816.

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