UN Breakthrough on climate change reached in Bali

187 countries meeting in Bali on Saturday 15^th December 2007 agreed to launch negotiations towards a crucial and strengthened international climate change deal. The decision includes a clear agenda for the key issues to be negotiated up to 2009. These are: action for adapting to the negative consequences of climate change, such as droughts and floods; ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; ways to widely deploy climate-friendly technologies and financing both adaptation and mitigation measures. Concluding negotiations in 2009 will ensure that the new deal can enter into force by 2013, following the expiry of the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol.

Indonesian Environment Minister and President of the conference, Rachmat Witoelar said: “We now have a Bali roadmap, we have an agenda and we have a deadline.” “But we also have a huge task ahead of us and time to reach agreement is extremely short, so we need to move quickly,” he added.

Earlier, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a finding that if left unchecked, the world’s average temperature could rise by as much as 6 degrees centigrade by the end of the century, causing serious harm to economies, societies and ecosystems worldwide.

“This is a real breakthrough, a real opportunity for the international community to successfully fight climate change,” said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “Parties have recognised the urgency of action on climate change and have now provided the political response to what scientists have been telling us is needed,” he added. While a new global deal is envisioned for 2013, countries also agreed on a number of steps that need to be taken immediately to further implement the existing commitments of Parties to the UNFCCC. These issues are particularly important for developing countries.

The conference was attended by around eleven thousand participants, among them two members of City Managers’ Association Orissa participated. They include Mr. Mihir Kumar Mohanty, Mayor (Patron CMAO) and Ms. Aparajita Sarangi (Vice President CMAO) Municipal Commissioner, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation.