Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 13 • Number 32 • 23rd September 2009

World is ‘One Step Closer’ to a Climate Deal after NY Summit: UN Chief

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A climate-centred meeting of roughly 100 heads of state convened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon drew strong assertions from several world leaders 70 days before negotiators meet in Copenhagen to try to strike a deal on global warming.

Chinese President Hu Jintao said that his country would reduce its emissions per unit of GDP by a ‘notable’ margin, but did not specify further. Japan’s Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, renewed his vow that Japan would cut its greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, and Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed pledged that his country would become climate neutral by the same year.

US President Barack Obama admitted that the United States had been slow to react to climate change, but said that the country had entered ‘a new era’.

“Yes, the developed nations that caused much of the damage to our climate over the last century still have a responsibility to lead,” Obama said. “But those rapidly-growing developing nations that will produce nearly all the growth in global carbon emissions in the decades ahead must do their part as well.”

Ban praised the leaders for the commitment they displayed and called on them to keep working. “While the summit is not the guarantee that we will get the global agreement, we are certainly one step closer to that global goal today,” Ban told the summit.

The all-day meeting in the UN General Assembly Hall was long on rhetoric but short on substance. Over the weekend, however, lead negotiators from key countries discussed technicalities of a potential deal with Ban, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former World Bank economist Nicholas Stern, Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs and OECD chief Angel Gurría.

Those present agreed that a new global climate deal should include a comprehensive adaptation programme, and that it should prioritise the delivery of financing - from a variety of sources - to least-developed countries and small island states.

ICTSD reporting.