Tiempo Climate Newswatch

"A critical issue would be financial engineering: how to generate sufficient financial resources that will drive the technology into the market that allows developing countries to act, both to limit their emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change," announced Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat, opening the Bonn Climate Change Talks. China, Brazil and Ghana called for developed nations to create a fund to buy rights for them to use new climate-friendly technologies. "Technology transfer from North to South should not promote transfer of old aged and inefficient technologies," the Bangladesh delegate told the meeting.

Movement along the road to the Copenhagen, where agreement on a follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol is to be achieved in late 2009, is also essential, said de Boer. "The world is expecting a Copenhagen deal to reach the goal set by science without harming the economy. Parties will need to make real progress towards this goal." There was continued opposition to World Bank control of climate funds in Bonn. "With their long-term record of massive fossil fuel financing, the World Bank is spectacularly unqualified to control climate funds," said Karen Orenstein of Friends of the Earth United States. Other issues to be discussed at the meeting include adaptation to climate change and reducing emissions from deforestation.

The United Nations food summit held in Rome last week mapped out an emergency plan to deal with the world food crisis. The summit declaration calls for "urgent and coordinated action to combat the negative impacts of soaring food prices on the world's most vulnerable countries and populations." It also demands more agricultural investment, immediate food aid and the rapid conclusion of the Doha round of trade liberalization. There was much disagreement at the meeting and Franco Frattini, Italy's foreign minister, described the final text as "disappointing relative to expectations" and said that it had been "watered down."

Food and Agriculture Organization officials fear that rising food and fuel prices could increase the number of people facing famine or malnutrition to over one billion. The World Food Programme (WFP) is committing a further US$1.2 billion in food aid to assist people in the nations hardest hit by the crisis. "With soaring food and fuel prices, hunger is on the march and we must act now," said Josette Sheeran, WFP head. There was controversy at the summit over the role of biofuels, with estimates of the biofuel contribution to food price increases varying from three to 30 per cent of the overall rise. A proposal for international standards to ensure biofuels are not produced at the expense of food was ignored by the Rome summit.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) marked World Environment Day with the launch of a new report, Kick the Habit: The UN Guide to Climate Neutrality, intended as a straightforward guide to low-carbon living. Noting that some actions that need to be taken to curb the climate problem are big, such as national policies and taxes, Achim Steiner, UNEP head, emphasized that "others are small, such as perhaps thinking about which appliances we buy, how we travel and where we source our energy. But multiplied across the world and acted upon by 6.7 billion people, the public have the power to change the future."

The Guide concludes that "adopting a climate-friendly lifestyle needn't require drastic changes or major sacrifices" and makes a series of practical recommendations. Using a wind-up alarm clock rather than an electric one would save 48 grams of carbon dioxide emissions a day. Drying clothes on a washing line rather than in a tumble dryer would save 2.3 kilograms a load. Replacing a 45-minute workout on a treadmill with a jog in a nearby park would save nearly 1 kilogram. The global carbon dioxide savings would be 2 million tonnes a year if every airline passenger cut the weight of baggage to below 20 kilograms and bought duty free goods on arrival.