Having learnt “lessons” from the failure of last year’s climate change talks in Copenhagen, steps are being taken to ensure that no country is left out of the negotiation process and transparency is maintained at the Cancun summit in November, the new UN climate chief said.
”...I think that the lessons have been learnt,” Christiana Figueres said yesterday on the failure of the Copenhagen meet which was plagued with “trust deficit” as small groups of nations alleged they were ignored during the negotiations.
“At Copenhagen during the last minute negotiations, there was a top-down decision of who gets to be in the room of the small groups and that definitely erodes trust.
“So there is a definite commitment to trust and transparency and it would be ensured that every group has self-appointed representatives. So that every country will have trust that their interests are being represented in the small groups,” she told a small group of journalists here.
Her comments came against the backdrop of accusations by developing countries particularly smaller ones that Copenhagen talks were “hijacked” by the host government, Denmark, whose prime minister convened a meeting of only 26 leaders in the last two days of the conference against the UN mandate.
Figueres, who was on a day’s visit to India ahead of the major climate change meet at Cancun in Mexico in November-December, however assured that everybody is heard at Cancun.
She also welcomed presence of several groups of nations such as G-77 comprising major developing nations set up to take up their cause at the global climate meet.
“It (so many fragmented groups) makes harder (for negotiations) but it makes also more democratic as they will have their voice heard. Every single country is hard hit by the climate change.”
Noting that the process was one of the major problems in Copenhagen where many participants were left out, she said, “the Secretariat (UN) is working very closely with the Mexican government to form a team with it which would be taking on the political leadership role during negotiations at Cancun.”
“We have looked at Copenhagen and we have identified several concrete ways by which the process can be improved, electronic registration system being one of them,” she said.
On her appointment as the United Nations Framework Conventions on Climate Change (UNFCCC) climate head in July, Figueres who hails from Costa Rica said, “It is no co-incidence that the Secretary General (Ban Ki Moon) chose a person of the developing world to head the Secretariat...
“And I think that is very much a reflection of the recognition of the increasing important role that the developing countries have in the climate change negotiations,” she said.
The appointment of the Costa Rican negotiator as the executive secretary of the UNFCCC has been widely welcomed, particularly among developing countries which hope she will increase pressure on industrialised countries to deliver deeper cuts in carbon emissions.
