气候大会闭幕 未签减排协议

在墨西哥海滨城市坎昆举行的联合国气候谈判大会于周六闭幕，各国在对抗气候变化方面仅做出少量承诺，并同意为贫困国家提供更多资金，但有关大规模减排的艰难协议要到明年才有可能达成。根据坎昆会议达成的协议，各国将成立一个绿色气候基金，在2020年前向贫困国家每年提供1000亿美元的援助资金；同时各国还同意采取措施保护热带雨林，分享清洁能源技术，协议还表示要将全球气温相对于前工业化时代的升幅控制在2摄氏度以内。但在如何延续《京都议定书》的关键问题上，本次大会没有取得重大进展。协议也没有具体阐明如何筹集绿色气候基金的每年1000亿美元的援助资金。明年的气候大会将在南非举行。

The world's governments agreed on Saturday to modest steps to combat climate change and to give more money to poor countries, but they put off until next year tough decisions on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The deal includes a Green Climate Fund that would give $100 billion a year in aid to poor nations by 2020, measures to protect tropical forests and ways to share clean energy technologies.

Ending a marathon session of talks in the Mexican beach resort of Cancun, almost 200 countries also set a target of limiting a rise in average world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) over pre-industrial times.

But there was no major progress on how to extend the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges almost 40 rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The failure to resolve the central problem of emissions dismayed environmental groups. It was also unclear how the $100 billion a year for the Green Climate Fund will be raised.

The first round of Kyoto expires in 2012, it does not include China and the United States -- the world's two biggest emitters -- and there is no consensus over whether developing countries should have binding targets to cut emissions or whether rich countries have more to do first.

The main success in Cancun after two weeks of talks was simply preventing the collapse of climate change negotiations, promoting support for a shift to low carbon economies and rebuilding trust between rich and poor countries on the challenges of global warming.

Major players were relieved there was no repeat of the acrimonious failure seen at the Copenhagen summit last year, but they warned there was still a long way to go. The Cancun accord builds on a non-binding deal by 140 nations in Copenhagen.

"The most important thing is that the multilateral process has received a shot in the arm, it had reached an historic low. It will fight another day," Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told Reuters. "It could yet fail."

"We have a long, challenging journey ahead of us. Whether it's doable in a short period of time, to get a legally binding deal, I don't know," the European Union's climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said of a deal beyond 2012.

U.S. President Barack Obama, whose domestic plans to legislate cuts in greenhouse emissions have stalled, said the Cancun meeting was a success and advances the world's response to climate change.

Carbon offset markets worth $20 billion depend on Kyoto emissions caps to drive developed countries to pay for cuts in greenhouse gases in developing nations as a cheaper alternative to cutting their own greenhouse gases.

The Cancun agreement would "build upon" such markets, giving them some support despite the doubt over Kyoto itself.

Abyd Karmali, global head of carbon markets for the Bank of America Merrill Lynch said the deal lays the foundation for progress.

But experts said that current pledges for curbs in greenhouse gas emissions were too weak for the 2 Celsius goal.

Existing government policies will lead to a rise in world temperatures of about 3.6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, according to Niklas Hoehne, director of energy and climate policy at consultancy Ecofys.

The agreement reached on Saturday set no firm deadlines for an elusive legally binding accord to succeed Kyoto. The next major global climate talks will be in South Africa at the end of 2011 and ministers will not meet on Kyoto before then, although lower-level negotiations are possible.