Trócaire Blogs

It has been a tense few days in the Bella Centre. In the negotiations, sessions have opened, closed instantly, and reconvened only to report no progress. There have been many disagreements over the process, including renewed anger on behalf of developing countries at the suggestion by the Danish President of the talks suggesting substituting the texts that parties have been working on with a text developed by the Presidency alone.

European leaders have been meeting in Brussels for the last time before coming to Copenhagen next week. What they needed to do was inject some leadership and momentum into the talks here by firstly, agreeing to 40% emission reductions by 2020 or the very least stepping up to the 30% they had indicated they might, but have yet to do. Secondly by closing the loopholes that mean they can hide emissions, and thirdly, by clarifying that climate finance will be for the long term and will not be recycled aid commitments.   

In the opening plenary session kicking off the Copenhagen talks developing countries gave a damning appraisal of industrialised countries’ approach to the last two years of negotiations.

Expectations were high for the UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development which ended in New York on 26 June 2009. Civil society and Southern governments had fought hard last year in the UN Doha Conference on Financing for Development to ensure that the UN would play a part in world efforts to counter the impacts of the financial crisis on developing countries.