'Snail's pace' row over progress at UN climate talks

UN officials have reacted sharply to criticism from their Secretary General that climate talks are going at a “snail’s pace”.

Ban Ki-moon has been concerned that the negotiations are moving too slowly to deliver a new global deal in December. His views were echoed by many delegates at this latest meeting in Germany. But one of the men tasked with drafting a new text said that even going at the pace of a mollusc, a draft agreement would be ready for Paris. And referring to Mr Ban’s lofty New York office, Ahmed Djoghlaf said that it was difficult for someone living up on the 38th floor to know what was going on in the basement.

Mr Djoghlaf was speaking here in Bonn where he and his fellow co-chair of the talks, Dan Reifsnyder, were again tasked with producing a draft agreement that would be ready for countries to negotiate over in the French capital at the end of the year. Their first effort, completed in June, was a compilation of almost all the positions that have developed over the past three years. It ran to an unwieldy 83 pages. Divided into three parts, the first was the draft of a legally binding agreement, which would define and set a long-term goal for dealing with climate change. The second part was a so-called “decision of the COP,” a less powerful instrument that would lack legal teeth. The third and largest part of the original document comprised the bits that no-one could agree on. Now, after a week of slow progress in Bonn, delegates from a large number of countries say they need another, slimmer version of the text, and they have asked the co-chairs to try again. “It is extremely frustrating, the slow pace at which we’ve worked this session,” Amjad Abdulla, of the Maldives and chief negotiator for small island states (BBC).  

‘Snail’s pace’ row over progress at UN climate talks

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