News | Climate Change

http://www.risk.net/energy-risk/news/1594517/yvo-boer-cop-won-t-produce-binding-agreement

Countries such as China and India will not enter a legally binding agreement at the next United Nations Climate Change conference (Cop16) in Cancun, Mexico at the end of 2010, predicts Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. However, he does expect crucial progress to be made there.

"The idea for the meeting in Cancun is to reach what I expected for Copenhagen," said De Boer, who is stepping down from his post on July 1. "This would be to deliver a functioning architecture, adopted through decisions that you could then turn into a treaty afterwards. It is not feasible to get this architecture in place as well as finalising a treaty text in the two weeks."
Speaking at a carbon conference in Amsterdam on Wednesday, De Boer said he understood uncertainty is preventing developing countries signing up to a legally binding agreement. Just like a house, you would not like to sign a lease without seeing it first, he said.
However, he still has big hopes for Cancun. "The meeting will create an international architecture in adaptation, mitigation, technology and finance that will create in the medium and long term a broader framework for sustainable development," he said.
De Boer talked about what needs to be tackled by his successor.
"It is incredibly important for my successor to tackle trust building and be sensitive when creating the implementation architecture to the needs and concerns of developing countries," said de Boer. "However, to mainly get the developing countries on board, the developed world needs to push through short-term financing to provide more confidence for countries such as India and China and [make sure] that they are not shifting economic imbalances to them."
"Business is not involved enough and there is insufficient public/private dialogue. What I want to see is the private sector entering a dialogue with the public sector to draft a policy, rather than just follow a policy the public sector decides on alone," he added.
In February, de Boer announced he would step down from his post. He said he will take up a post as global adviser on climate and sustainability at consultancy giant KPMG, adding it was the private sector that will ultimately deliver the deep cuts in carbon emissions that are required.