Monday, July 7, 2010

Mexico calls for Epoch-making Meeting on Climate Change

Presidency of the Republic

The Office of the Mexican Presidency reports that during the working lunch hosted for G-20 leaders, in Toronto, Canada, President Felipe Calderón called for the COP-16 [16th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] in Mexico to be turned into a watershed in mankind’s fight against climate change.

He said that the problems of the world economy should not detract attention from a problem that will not give the world a second chance: global warming. He stressed that the Conference of the Parties, to be held in Mexico at the end of this year, constitutes an opportunity to achieve significant progress.

He explained that informal consultations in the negotiation process in the run-up to Cancún have yielded tangible results:

·      The establishment of a new mechanism to facilitate sustainable technology transfer from developed to developing countries.

·      Financial resources and specific projects for deforestation and soil degradation have been identified that will benefit developing countries. Mexico received financial support for reforestation from Norway.

·      The United Nations’ creation of an Advisory Group on Medium- and Long-term Financing, led by the Prime Ministers of Ethiopia and Norway. This group reflects the consensus that is beginning to emerge on the need for appropriate financial mechanisms to deal with associated costs in the fight against climate change.

 

The Mexican president also referred to one of the key aspects of negotiation in the run-up to Cancún: the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. He added that developed countries need to show greater commitment and reduce their emissions in a significant, binding manner. At the same time, developing countries must advance in their respective mitigation actions. He declared that all these efforts must be measurable.

At the same time, he urged countries to focus on three areas of negotiation in the months before the start of COP-16:

1.   Quick start funds. In keeping with the pledge made in Copenhagen, some developed countries, such as Japan, European Union members and the United States, among others, have announced their commitment to assigning financial resources to enable developing countries to begin actions to reduce the emission of greenhouse effect gases over the next three years.

2.   Mitigation, in other words the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, must be measurable and comparable.

3.   Progress achieved outside the negotiation framework must be incorporated into the United Nations process, as in the case of financing and reforestation.

 

Lastly, given the short time before the start of the Conference of the Parties in Cancún, President Calderón urged all G-20 leaders to translate their political will into concrete advances, particularly during the round of negotiations to be held in August this year.

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Press Release: Presidency of the Republic, June 27, 2010, Toronto, Canada; translation Presidency of the Republic