Ghana climate talks move "beyond rhetoric"

Delegates at the latest round of international climate change negotiations in Accra, Ghana this week are reporting that the talks are making good progress, despite continued disagreements over proposed moves to curb deforestation and emissions from heavy industries.

The UN's top climate change official Yvo de Boer, said yesterday that the talks were proceeding "pretty well now", telling reporters that "We're getting beyond some of the rhetoric, people are beginning to understand each other better."

The news follows warnings at the opening of the conference last week that the delegates were falling behind schedule if they wanted to have an international deal to succeed the Kyoto Agreement in place by the end of next year.

The latest round of talks are focusing on measures to help halt deforestation of tropical rainforests and Japanese proposals for emissions caps on some of the world's most carbon intensive industries, such as cement and steel manufacture.

Echoing the optimism expressed by de Boer, Luiz Figueiredo Machado, a Brazilian expert chairing parts of the talks, told Reuters that the meeting was exceeding expectations. "The chances that it [a new UN scheme to slow deforestation] will go ahead, in my mind, are much higher," he said, adding that there was "overwhelming consensus" that new mechanisms for tackling deforestation are essential.

He also hinted that Japanese delegates had enjoyed some success with their proposals for a so-called "sectoral approach" to tackling emissions.

The proposals for international standards and emission caps that would force producers of cement and metals to cut emissions had faced criticism from emerging economies who suspected that any standards could be used to impose trade barriers against their less carbon-intensive heavy industries. However, the Japanese delegation insisted that caps would vary from country-to-country and initiatives to enhance the efficiency of industries in developing economies such as China and India would be supported by international development funds.

"What I saw and heard in our debates on sectoral actions and approaches was a very fruitful debate," Machado told Reuters. "It clarified the issue."

However, several dissenting voices remained with newswire AFP reporting that delegates are divided on how best to cut emissions from deforestation. The UN is proposing a mechanism whereby projects that protect tropical rainforests would be able to sell credits on the global carbon market, providing governments with a financial incentive to expand forested areas. But critics claim this will simply provide the developed nations that buy the credits with a justification not to curb emissions at home, while failing to address the underlying pressures on land use that contribute to deforestation.

Meanwhile, chief US negotiator Harlan Watson poured cold water on the widely held belief that the next president will sign up to the deep emission cuts endorsed by European leaders.

Speaking to Reuters, Watson said that any targets the US does sign up to are likely to fall short of those being called for by other countries. " It is going to be a heavy lift," he said, adding that the next president would have to deal with the reality that any measure that raises electricity prices will present a major "political problem".