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Climate Action and Inaction in Bonn Print E-mail
Written by Dave Loos   
Monday, 09 June 2008

More than 2,000 delegates from 162 nations have completed the first of two weeks of climate negotiations in Bonn, meetings that have officially launched the 18-month process of crafting a climate agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol at the end of 2012.

These are early days in what promises to be an arduous process. At this point, many of the discussions are technical in nature, though delegates also traded ideas last week about how to finance climate change solutions. Among the proposals bounced around, as nicely summarized by It's Getting Hot In Here:

  • Switzerland suggested a global CO2 tax of $2/tonne on all fossil fuel emissions, with an exception for less developed countries.
  • Norway proposed auctioning emission allowances to finance adaptation.
  • China proposed an approach for funding from developed countries as a percentage of their national income to be channeled by the UNFCCC.

Meanwhile, the "Fossil of the Day Awards" come to us from the Climate Action Network, a group of more than 400 NGOs. They gave out the awards this morning to countries that were the most active in attempting to undermine the UN negotiations. Today's winners:

  • 1st Place: Canada, "for their bringing to LULUCF negotiations approaches
    that would create credits without dealing with real emissions from this
    sector."
  • 2nd Place: Japan, "for nothing but a lack of sense of urgency. The vision includes that Japan would cut emissions by 14 percent from the current level by 2020 ... In fact, this is actually mere 4 percent reduction, compared to the 1990 levels."
  • Australia, "a country who burns a lot of coal but sells even more to the rest of the world."
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