Lusaka, Zambia - Top UN climate change official Christiana Figueres, said the two-week long climate change conference that ended Friday in Bonn, Germany, made clear advances on key issues and identified areas that will require high-level political leadership ahead of the annual conference in Durban, South Africa. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary, Figueres, said this in a statement issued Friday on the final day of the negotiations. “A central political question that has crystallized during this session is how further emission reduction commitments by developed countries can be taken forward in the broader context of the emerging climate change regime,” she said.

And referring to the link between negotiations on mitigation under the UN Climate Change Convention and mitigation under the Kyoto Protocol, she said “governments are realising that this link needs to be dealt with to get to a global solution and that will require high-level leadership during the year.”

According to her, the Kyoto Protocol remained critically important because it contained key rules to quantify and monitor efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and important market-based mechanisms that enable cost-effective mitigation.

Warning against the possibility of a regulatory gap between Kyoto Protocol commitment periods, the UN climate change top official said “governments can double their efforts and come forward with middle ground solutions and options which are acceptable to all sides.”

On the implementation of Cancun’s comprehensive package to support developing country actions on climate change, Figueres said the Bonn sessions had paved the way for progress at the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban (COP 17) at the end of this year.

“Strong convergence has emerged on how the Adaptation Committee will be governed, what its composition will be and what its specific role will be,” she said, adding “this progress means the committee could be fully operationalized at Durban.”

Figueres also disclosed that progress had been made on the Technology Mechanism that will boost global clean technology cooperation.

The mechanism will include a Climate Technology Centre and Network, which will operate with the strong involvement of the global clean technology stakeholder community.

At the Bonn session, governments made progress on defining the Centre and Network and asked the secretariat to keep a record of stakeholders that are interested in participating.

The statement said the Green Climate Fund, the financial management centre of the future climate regime that needs to build towards a global flow of US$ 100 billion by 2020, was also discussed in Bonn.

The transitional committee has already had two meetings and a third meeting will be held July, in Tokyo.

“The incoming South African presidency has consulted with all governments on what they see as a possible outcome for Durban,” Figueres said, noting that “this includes the Kyoto Protocol and the global mitigation framework; operationalizing the Adaptation Committee, as well as stronger action on adaptation; the design of the Green Climate Fund, as well as identification of sources for long-term funding; and concrete progress on the Technology Mechanism so that it can be operational in 2012.”

Pana  18/06/2011