Recriminations over adaptation fund overshadow Poznan close

It was a case of two steps forward, two steps back for international negotiations on climate change this weekend, after the announcement that the EU had reached a deal to finalise its own carbon legislation was followed by a series of recriminations at the close of the UN's Poznan conference.

UN officials maintained that the meeting in Poland had met all the goals set for the conference, and expressed confidence that the negotiations were on track for a successful completion this time next year in Copenhagen.

Delegates agreed the timeline for further talks leading up to the Copenhagen meeting, scheduling two conferences in late March and early June to be hosted in the German city of Bonn and a third meeting in August or September. They also agreed to have a draft text of the climate pact in place by June, by which point it is hoped that incoming US president Barack Obama will have been in office long enough to begin shaping the talks.

Some progress was also made on reforming the UN's offset scheme, the Clean Development Mechanism, with delegates drafting measures on how to speed up the process for approving new carbon reduction projects, although decisions on whether or not to allow forestry and carbon capture and storage projects to sell carbon credits under the scheme.

However, the one concrete decision to arise from the conference prompted stark disagreements between developed and developing countries, after the UN announced the launch of an adaptation fund for developing economies initially worth about $80m (£53m) a year and potentially rising to $300m a year by 2012. The fund will draw on cash raised through a two per cent levy on the CDM.

Delegates from developing economies slammed the fund as being derisory, particularly given the UN's own estimates claim that poorer nations will require between $50bn and $80bn to adapt to the worst effects of climate change.

Echoing the comments of many negotiators from developing countries, Colombian Environment minister Juan Lozano said he was "so sad and so disappointed" by the deal.

"The human side of climate change is the suffering of our orphans and our victims and that was not considered here," he said. "It's a bad signal on the road to Copenhagen".

However, speaking to reporters after the close of the talks late on Saturday night, the UN's top climate change official Yvo de Boer hinted that the relatively small size of the adaptation fund could represent a negotiating gambit from the developed economies designed to extract greater concessions on emissions targets from emerging economies.

"Doing a deal in Copenhagen is, to an important extent, about engaging developing countries," he said. "And an important part of engaging countries is providing funds. Politically, this was not the time to do it."

Meanwhile, Russian negotiators raised the prospect of their refusing to sign up to any post-Kyoto deal.

Speaking to Reuters, Alexander Pankin, deputy head of the Russian delegation in Poznan, hinted the country would not sign up to a deal that threatened to damage its economy.

"If the conditions for the international agreement are not favourable for us we may not join such an agreement," he said, adding that while Russia would set its own national targets, it would not sign up to an international deal that did not extract more demanding targets from richer nations.

But despite the various recriminations, optimism remained that the pace of the talks can be accelerated ahead of a deal being done in Copenhagen.

Delegates expressed hope that commitments from Mexico and South Africa to cut carbon emissions provided evidence that emerging economies are increasingly willing to agree to emission reductions, while UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon endorsed proposals for a "Green New Deal" that would simultaneously create jobs while tackling climate change.

John Kerry, designated head of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and widely perceived as president-elect Barack Obama's unofficial representative at the talks, told the conference that "President Obama will be like night and day compared to President Bush", hinting that further progress would be made once he takes office.

Meanwhile, UK energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband said that the EU's deal to cut emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 had given the UN talks a renewed impetus. "I'm more optimistic now than when I arrived here [in Poznan] that a deal is possible by the end of next year," he said. "It's not a done deal but I think it's doable."