Tiempo Climate Newswatch

"We will not be able to mitigate climate change or adapt to its impacts, or prevent desertification and land degradation, if we don't protect our ecosystems and biodiversity," Jose-Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, warned a recent high-level meeting on biodiversity at the United Nations. He called on the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan, next month to adopt a strategic plan that would force all countries "to raise their game; to tackle the key drivers of biodiversity loss; to prevent ecological tipping points from being reached."

During panel discussion, it was recognized that there had been a collective failure to meet the CBD's current target of reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by the year 2010. A major challenge for the October summit will be to agree a workable post-2010 strategy with clear, measurable and communicable targets for 2020. Moreover, progress needs to be made in developing the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which is intended to provide a bridge between the scientific community and policymakers. The overarching issue of fair and equitable sharing of the benefits of biodiversity use is also on the agenda, with developing countries concerned that they should benefit financially from the use of their genetic resources.

The United Kingdom is woefully unprepared for the impact of climate change, according to a government advisory body. The adaptation subcommittee of the Committee on Climate Change reports that, while a lot of preparatory work has been undertaken, there are few signs of concrete action - in many places, the concept of adaptation is just "name-checked". This is despite clear evidence that the British climate is already changing.

"The United Kingdom must start acting now to prepare for climate change. If we wait, it will be too late," said subcommittee chair John Krebs. "It is not necessarily about spending more but about spending smart and investing to save. If we get it right, we can save money in the short term and avoid large extra costs in the future. The time has come to move from talking to acting."

The United States is interpreting the Copenhagen Accord as a move away from the Kyoto Protocol paradigm of mandatory obligations for the industrialized nations and voluntary commitments for the developing world. At a briefing following a meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in New York, climate negotiator Todd Stern emphasized that the United States was "perfectly supportive" of discussions stemming from the Copenhagen Accord that were not legally binding. He said, though, that "if we are in a world... where the negotiation on the table is for legally-binding commitments by some, then I would say... if it's going to be legally binding for the United States or Europe or Japan or Australia or whatever, then it would need to be legally binding for China, which at this point is now the world's largest emitter, and India and other major developing countries."

Russia will seek a non-binding agreement at the Cancún climate summit in December that will encompass developing nations. "28 per cent of the world cannot change anything," argued climate change adviser, Alexander Bedritsky, noting that the industrialized nations bound by the Kyoto Protocol only account for a limited percentage of global emissions. "We want cooperation in the period after 2012 to be all inclusive," he said. India fears that the richer nations, sceptical of a new global deal being achieved in Cancún, are secretly developing ground rules for the next stage of the negotiations, a Mexico mandate, that could undermine developing country interests and the process established by the Bali Roadmap.