Press Conference by Bolivia on Climate Change Negotiations

With Russian forests aflame and Pakistan ravaged by floods, it was increasingly urgent to reach an adequate agreement at the next conference of parties to the climate change treaty, Bolivia’s representative to the United Nations said this morning.

“If it was so important in Copenhagen to come to an agreement, it’s even more important now,” Pablo Solon told correspondents at Headquarters, following his return from negotiations that took place in Bonn, from 2 to 6 August.

He dismissed notions that, because of outstanding issues, expectations should be reduced at the Cancun meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), planned for 29 November to 10 December 2010, given what he saw as the disastrous effects of climate change already occurring.

Agreement in Cancun was possible, if extremely difficult, he said, because a text emerged from Bonn that reflected the views of different States, which was progress from a Chair’s text.  The next text reflected not only the options of the Copenhagen Accord that came out of last year’s conference, but also the People’s World Conference held in Bolivia in April 2010 and other meetings.

To move forward quickly, he proposed that most of the text, minus controversies, could be agreed upon at the October negotiations in China.  The most contentious issues could be the focus of the remainder of time before and during Cancun.

It was crucial, however, that a party-driven process continue, to avoid the drafting of a document by like-minded countries and its imposition on the rest, he maintained.  That narrow process might leave the focus on the 2° Centigrade scenario, he said, adding that with a 0.8° rise, the world was already seeing catastrophic effects.  “Could you imagine this multiplied by three?” he asked.

Even the target of a 2° limit in temperature rise was not achievable through the pledges that developed countries made under the Copenhagen Accord, he maintained, citing studies that showed that the world had a “budget” of 750 gigatons of CO₂ over the next 40 years to have a 66 per cent chance of holding temperature rises to under 2°.  The world had a smaller budget of just 420 gigatons of CO₂ if it wanted to stay below 1.5° C, as many countries were now demanding.

With the current pledges on the table, it was calculated that the industrialized nations were going to spend the whole carbon budget for the next 40 years in the next 10 years, even under the 2° scenario, he said.

In addition, he estimated that the $100 billion of spending pledged by developed countries amounted to only $20 per person in the developing world, for both mitigation and adaptation.  “We think that’s absolutely insignificant for what we’re seeing now”, he said, proposing that commitments upwards of 3 per cent of gross national product (GNP) would be more reasonable.

A strong accountability mechanism to ensure that developed countries abided by their commitments was also critical, he said, proposing the further development of an International Court of Climate Justice for that purpose and noting that a proposal for such a Court was already part of the “Shared Vision” document and other texts.  It would be discussed in the next round of negotiations in China.

Finally, he said that alternative views on how humankind related to nature were important to take into consideration, noting that the Copenhagen Accord took a market view of that relationship, with its provisions for buying and selling carbon rights.  He maintained that it would be better to consider what humans had to do to restore balance with nature, taking into account the rights of Mother Earth.

Asked to sum up the main obstacles to an agreement in Cancun, Mr. Solon said that, despite the fact that everyone in Bonn seemed to want it, when they spoke privately they said that it could not realistically happen, noting that, for example, the United States’ energy law could not move forward before December.  “So why should others move forward?”

Asked if he thought the meeting in Bonn was successful overall, he said, “The Bonn negotiation was a step forward in bringing back the process of negotiation to the United Nations.  It was not successful in getting the developed countries to commit to reduce their emissions.  And that is something to be worried about.”

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For information media • not an official record