News | Climate Change

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Be-optimistic-about-Cancun-says-Mexico/articleshow/6026304.cms

BONN: The concerted attempt over the past few months to lower expectations from the Cancun conference on climate change has not gone down well with
Mexico.
On Tuesday, Mexico responded by saying that Cancun can deliver results, and that the world community needs to be “ambitious yet pragmatic and realistic” when it comes to dealing with climate change.
Mexico’s ambassador for climate change Luis Alfonso de Alba said, “it is irresponsible and contrary to common objective to say that we can’t achieve something in Cancun. The second mistake is to say that what we cant achieve in Cancun will happen in South Africa.”
Mexico has argued that the bar of expectation was set too high in Copenhagen, which is why it failed to achieve its stated goal of an agreement. Over the last few months, there has been increased pessimism over the possible outcome at Cancun , many leaders have suggested that a deal would possibly be worked out at the Cape Town conference in 2011.
An important impact that Mexico hopes to make in Cancun and during its presidency of the conference of parties is to “restore faith and confidence in the process.” A fall out of the Copenhagen conference where a small group of countries negotiated the Copenhagen accord and then presented it to the plenary session of the conference of parties as a fait accompli helped to erode the trust in the climate change negotiation process. This appears to be the effort by the UNFCCC as well. Outgoing executive secretary Yvo de Boer has also said that “rebuilding the trust” was an important goal. According to Mr de Boer, movement on the $30 billion fast track funding would represent an important step in this trust rebuilding exercise.
For its part, Mexico has been conscious of its responsibility on this score. As the country holding the presidency of COP 16, Mexico has attempted to inject a sense of transparency in the negotiation process. Ambassador de Alba made it clear that discussions and consultations will happen in small groups but “no decisions are being taken in these small groups.”
As regards an outcome in Cancun, he said, “we could have it in a few weeks or in months, if there is clarity and political will.” Looking ahead to Cancun, he said, “we are trying to identify issues in each chapter, how much progress has been achieved and how much is pending.”
The Mexican ambassador for climate change said that there was no need to simplify matters to just talk about “legally binding treaty” or not. Instead, the focus could be on “separating issues”