The focus of the UN’s December Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is to agree on a successor for the Kyoto Protocol post 2012. However recent talks between delegates in Germany have left many questioning the level of progress being achieved in the lead up to the conference.

Debate continues over the preferred emissions reductions targets of developed nations, and it remains unclear whether a meaningful agreement will be reached in December. Developing countries are continuing to push wealthier ones to accept emissions cuts of at least 40 percent by 2020. Developed countries however are resisting these demands and the disagreement is proving a significant factor in hampering progress.

China’s Climate Change ambassador, Yu Qingtai said “we’re very disappointed, we came to Bonn this time hoping that we’ll finally focus on the central mandate of this working group”¹ referring to the working group with the task of establishing emissions cuts ranges for developed nations. “Negotiations did not appear to have a full political mandate here in Bonn. There was a very large gap on what is needed,” added David Turnbull, director of the environmental group Climate Action Network².

According to Jonathan Pershing, the U.S deputy special envoy for climate change “negotiations are just starting, this is a complicated subject... finding common ground will take some time”³.  

US making progress
Referring to progress the US has made recently Mr Pershing stated that “we have fundamentally changed the US position with this administration. We’ve gone from a policy which didn’t think that climate change is important, to a policy which thinks that climate change is a central issue to our time and we’ve begun to take serious measures to implement that vision”⁴.

Meanwhile whilst addressing leaders of the European Union, US president Barack Obama expressed his county’s commitment to fighting climate change stating “together we must confront climate change by ending the world’s dependency on fossil fuels” and “ I pledge to you that in this global effort the US is now ready to lead”⁵.

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