Bonn Climate Talks End Fruitlessly

August 16, 2009

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Global climate ministers left the latest round of climate talks with a feeling that momentum is fading for a positive outcome at the December talks in Copenhagen.

The talks, which just ended in Bonn, Germany, prompted Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, to comment that “the speed of the negotiations must be considerably accelerated at the [next] meeting in Bangkok,” reports the New York Times.

The purpose of the Bonn talks was to winnow down the plethora of number of options in the 200-page main negotiating document. The document has some 2,000 bracketed statements – items on which nations disagree.

The chief climate negotiator for the U.S., Jonathan Pershing, also was nonplussed with the most recent meetings, which concluded Aug. 14.

Much depends on the outcome of climate legislation in the Senate. Pershing has said the U.S. will use the results of U.S. climate legislation as the basis for what he offers in global carbon reduction negotiations.

Pershing has indicated that he expects the eventual agreement will not mandate a single percentage reduction for wealthy nations, but instead would be “conceived country by country.”

The United States is looking for developing countries to agree to legally binding actions, but not necessarily legally binding targets.

More than 2,000 global climate representatives were on hand for the Bonn talks.

Stateside, Democrats are trying to ensure that Wall-Street does not have undue influence in the carbon trading world.

New proposals from Democratic senators working on climate change legislation would bar companies like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. from trading in the U.S. carbon- emissions market, or at least face trading restrictions, according to the Washington Examiner.

The lawmakers say that Wall Street banks could cause unwarranted speculation in a carbon-trading market, with excessive price swings.

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