

Setting an agenda and a date for completion of negotiations on a post-2012 climate change agreement at the upcoming conference in Bali is of great importance, stated Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in an interview given to Inter Press Service last week.


The draft decision proposed by the President of the Conference today however, no longer included the numbers, but did make reference to the latest report by the international body of scientists that is charged with assessing the current state of knowledge on climate change.


The talks being held in Bali are expected to lead to a roadmap for negotiations on greenhouse gas emissions caps for after 2012, which is when the current first phase of the Kyoto protocol is going to run out.


Asked what he knew of the matter at an earlier press conference, Yvo de Boer of the UNFCCC stated that Stavros Dimas, the European Commissioner for the Environment, had voiced his opinion that if no agreement is reached now, than there would be no need for the Major Emitting nations meeting to be held, because, so he apparently stated, the MEM is meant to feed into the UN process, and you could not feed something into nothing.
 The decision was made at this year's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali.
 This agreement is expected to include the setting, for industrialized nations, of reduction targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, amongst other things.
