UN secretary general says Bali summit unlikely to set emissions targets

UN secretary general says Bali summit unlikely to set emissions targets

	Published : Wed, 12 Dec 2007 07:30 By : Agencies Print this Story

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Thomson Financial) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon played down Wednesday expectations that a key conference on climate change will set a numerical target for reducing future greenhouse gas emissions.

'Frankly speaking, realistically, it may be too ambitious if delegations would expect to be able to agree on targets of greenhouse gas emission reduction,' said Ban, who had earlier called for a breakthrough at the talks.

'Sometime down the road we will have to agree on that,' Ban told reporters in Bali, Indonesia.

'For the international community to agree on these specific targets we may need to engage in further negotiations,' he said.

The Kyoto Protocol requires developed nations to slash greenhouse gas emissions through 2012.

The US, the only major industrial nation to reject the Kyoto Protocol, Japan and other countries have opposed EU-led calls to immediately set targets for post-2012.

The US and others have argued that the Bali summit, which aims to set out a plan for a new climate deal when current Kyoto commitments expire, should instead set broad guidelines.

'The reality is in this business that once numbers appear in text it predetermines outcomes and tends to drive negotiations in one direction or another,' said US negotiator Harlan Watson.

'We want to be sure that the text that we have before us is going to be neutral,' Watson said. 'It will leave all options on the table and, again, will not prejudge outcomes, which should be something that comes at the end of the two-year process.'

Kyoto Protocol parties agreed at a meeting in Vienna in August to recognise the need for rich countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25-40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels.

Environmental groups are pushing for those figures to be included in the Bali roadmap, not as a binding target, but as a guideline for future talks.

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