Cancun Update: U.S. Delegation Press Briefing 4

At the daily U.S. delegation press briefing yesterday afternoon, U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern struck a less conciliatory note than in previous updates, saying “if there’s an agreement to be had, there are a lot of difficulties.” The session was centered primarily around transparency, and Stern once again identified the issue of MRV as one issue that has made the least progress in the eyes of the U.S., saying “the areas that I think where there’s the most that is still in play from our vantage point are mitigation,” and identified the main issue as lack of progress in the text rather than a lack of compromise ideas: “the issue where there is clearly insufficient amount of development and by development I mean what’s in the text. It’s not policy development in the sense that we don’t have the ideas. The ideas are perfectly clear.”

In response to a question about Indian Minister Ramesh’s compromise proposal, Stern said that he sees a lot of support for it coming from Latin American countries, AOSIS, the LDCs and Africa, but “not from everyone who matters yet.” Stern said that he thought the drafting group on mitigation’s latest document, issued yesterday morning, represents forward progress but is “not adequate yet.”

Stern also denied rumors that the United States is pushing hard on MRV but not making a corresponding effort on transparency with regards to how climate finance is disbursed to developing countries. He defended U.S. pressure on developing countries on transparency by saying “with respect to the question of the MRV of finance, I think there is absolutely more energy by Parties generally on the issue of the ICA for developing country Parties, for the simple reason that it doesn’t exist now and we’re trying to create a new system.”

On US-China relations, Stern noted the central importance of the U.S.-China relationship, saying that he meets regularly with his Chinese counterpart “for whom I have enormous respect and fondness, I might say. I think we have a good relationship, I think that we do not always see eye to eye on issues, and we always try to make progress on that as much as possible.”

Find a transcript of the briefing here.