Scuppered US climate bill overshadows launch of UN climate talks

The latest round of UN-backed climate change negotiations got underway in Bonn this morning amid expectations that the talks will be dominated by the decision Democrat leaders in the US Senate to effectively scrap plans for a wide-ranging climate bill.

The controversial decision to drop proposals that would cap US greenhouse gas emissions and impose a price on carbon in favour of a much narrower energy bill is set to reignite accusations from developing countries that the US is not doing enough to cut its own emissions.

The fallout from the US decision will provide a major test for newly appointed head of the UN climate change secretariat Christiana Figueres as she takes the reins at her first official negotiating session.

Speaking ahead of the five-day meeting, Figueres signalled last week that she wanted the final few rounds of talks ahead of the full UN summit in Cancun Mexico later this year to focus on areas where tangible agreements can be reached.

In particular, this week's talks are expected to address how to ensure that the $30bn in "fast start" finance promised by industrialised countries is delivered to developing nations over the next three years.

Following a meeting in Rio de Janeiro last week, environment ministers from Brazil, China, India and South Africa – the so-called BASIC group – issued a statement insisting the delivery of the promised $30bn of additional financing would be key to the achievement of any sort of agreement in Cancun.

The latest Bonn talks are also likely to feature further discussions on proposed measures for protecting forestry and verifying pledged emission reductions.

Negotiations will centre on the latest version of the 45-page draft negotiating text, which attempts to build on last year's Copenhagen Accord agreement and provide the framework for a formal treaty to replace or extend the Kyoto Protocol.

The schedule for the meeting also reveals that discussions will touch upon the scale of the emission reduction commitments put forward by industrialised Annex 1 countries and provide an update later today on emission reduction action plans submitted to the UN by developing economies.

Only one more round of official UN negotiations are scheduled before the Mexico Summit in late November with China expected to host a week of talks.

There had been reports that the previous round of talks in Bonn in June had been conducted in an improved atmosphere following the rancorous fallout from last year's Copenhagen summit, which saw rich and poor nations accusing each other of deliberately scuppering the negotiations.

However, the US decision to effectively abandon its push for binding climate change legislation will cast further doubts over President Obama's ability to deliver on his pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions 17 per cent on 2005 levels by 2020 – a target already seen as inadequate by many countries.

The White House has not officially abandoned the target, hinting that it can still regulate greenhouse gas emissions through the US Environmental Protection Agency. But the US negotiating team will be expecting fierce criticism from poorer nations already angered by industrialised countries refusal to adopt more ambitious emission targets.