Bonn Climate Delegates Make One Notable Cut - Most Ambitious Emissions Reduction Target Now Gone

[hatrack]

Negotiators from 185 nations end two weeks of talks on a new climate treaty on Friday with a new blueprint for a pact that omits the most draconian options for greenhouse gas cuts by 2050.

The streamlined 22-page draft also cuts all references in a previous text to "Copenhagen," the host city for a U.N. summit in December that fell short of a binding deal to slow a rise in temperatures blamed for heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels. The May 31-June 11 talks are the biggest since the summit, trying to get negotiations back on track even though many delegates say that a legally binding deal is out of reach for 2010 and is more likely in 2011.

The new text, issued shortly before midnight (2200 GMT) on Thursday, is meant as a blueprint to guide negotiators to overcome rifts between rich and poor nations when they reconvene at a next session in early August in Bonn. It outlines a goal of cutting world emissions of greenhouse gases by "at least 50-85 percent from 1990 levels by 2050" and for developed nations to cut emissions by at least 80-95 percent from 1990 levels by mid-century.

The text drops far more radical options, championed by Bolivia in the previous draft, for a cut of at least 95 percent in world emissions by 2050 and for rich nations to cut their emissions by "more than 100 percent by 2040." "It's too early to say how this will be received," one delegate said of the text, prepared by Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe of Zimbabwe who chairs the U.N. talks on global action. "People will need to study it more."

EDIT

http://tinyurl.com/25cnttw

[OrpheusSang]

1. This is terrible

WHat wil it take for these negotiators to tak e climate change seriously?

[pscot]

2. This is a big metric for Obama

Big fail.