Climate Policy - UN climate talks in Bonn

A third round of UN climate talks in 2010 has taken place in Bonn, Germany, last week. The conference in Bonn has seen a backslide from the outcome of last year’s Copenhagen Conference. Whilst going trough a negotiating text line by line, Parties kept adding options instead of narrowing them down. Many participants have been reminded of last years situation, when the texts had grown up to 191 pages before COP 15.
It has become clear that a new global deal cannot be expected in 2010. Christiana Figueres, the top U.N. climate official, said Parties should instead focus on agreeing on practical steps that could take effect quickly, such as financial and technological help for poor countries.
On the basis of a paper on legal considerations published by the UN climate secretariat in July, a lot of discussion has taken place about a possible gap between commitment periods. Kyoto Parties have different strategies of addressing the issue. Japan is advocating a single legal binding instrument. The EU and Australia would accept a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. They emphasized that the decision about a continuation of the CDM and JI is up to Parties.
The last round of negotiations before Cancún will take place in Tianjin, China, from October 4-9.
With the slow pace in the international process it becomes increasingly apparent that, for the time being, global climate governance is increasingly being shaped by initiatives at regional and bi- or multilateral levels.