Climate Talks Scheduled to continue in Bonn

Talks are due to continue on 6 June 2011 under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention with the struggle against climate change in focus. The European Union will be represented at the Bonn negotiations by the Hungarian Presidency and the European Commission. The purpose of the meeting, which is scheduled to finish on 17 June, is to bring about a new, comprehensive, global, and legally binding climate change agreement for the period to follow the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol.

The primary task of the Bonn UN meeting is to pave the way for the South African climate summit at the end of the year. The workshops to be held as part of the meeting will serve as fora for the developing and developed countries to clarify their commitments regarding emission reduction and reinforce their agreement to stabilise global warming by less than 2 degrees Celsius.

During the two-week round of talks, continuous and intensive interest reconciliation will take place between the interest groups, which unite the 194 countries into smaller coalitions. The European Union is usually one of the most active participants in the talks. The negotiations will be conducted simultaneously in multiple forms – including plenary sessions and other smaller formations.

The December 2010 climate conference ended with the conclusion of an agreement package to prepare the new global climate change framework for the post-2012 period. Although as a result of the talks, progress was made in a number of key issues in the interest of establishing a new climate regime; the agreement package made at the Cancún climate conference can only be considered as a point of departure on the basis of which a legally binding agreement may be achieved at the earliest during the South African conference in late 2011. The decisions adopted at former meetings are important interim building stones on the path leading to a new climate change framework agreement. One of the most important achievements of the Cancún negotiations is that it helped restore confidence in international talks.

After the Cancún climate conference the parties met again in Bangkok in April 2011. Following a long debate, they finally managed to arrive at a compromise solution, and set the key discussion items for the months ahead. The implementation of this Work Programme is now scheduled to start in Bonn. The Hungarian delegation and the European Commission will hold a joint press conference on 6 and 17 June, which can be followed live at www.unfccc.int. All relevant events and developments will be published on the website of the Presidency at www.eu2011.hu.

(Ministry of National Development , Department of Communication)