Panama is the piece of land that joins North and South America.
The Panama Canal is the body of water that flows between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
- And hopefully, the Panama climate talks, which began today, will be the bridge which brings countries together, rich and poor, to lay the foundations for success at the UN Climate Summit in Durban later this year.
However, to build a bridge you need ambition, some solid plans and a little bit of money.
Ambition – Today, quite a few nations including Australia, the European Union and the African group called for greater emission reductions so as to limit global warming to below the 2 degrees target set at last year’s UN Climate Summit in Cancun.
Plans – During the opening plenary, negotiators talked at length around plans for the future of the Kyoto Protocol. The agreement signed at the UN in 1997 to fight climate change is due to expire at the end of 2012. The European Union’s negotiator said they were willing to consider extending the Kyoto Protocol post 2012 whist Argentina negotiator’s speaking on behalf of the G77 (a group of 77 developing countries + China) reiterated their call for extending Kyoto.
Money – In the second session, there were passionate calls from Central American countries about sources of money for the UN Climate Fund. At the Cancun Climate Summit in 2010, negotiators agreed to provide $US 100 billion a year by 2020 to assist poor people in developing countries deal with the devastating impacts of climate change. Currently, there is still a lot of work to find where the money will come from. Interestingly, Non-Government Organisations also held a press conference highlighting how a levee on shipping and aviation emissions could raise much needed money and reduce emissions at the same time.
So after a long first day, I’m hopeful that with six more days to go, these talks will build the bridge that is needed for countries to work together to act on climate change.
Let’s hope the world’s negotiators will be able to get over it…
I’m also blogging for our sister site in Australia (www.aclimateforchange.org).
You can also follow me @clancymoore
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