SINGAPORE (AFP) — Governments negotiating a new climate change treaty, due next year, remain far apart on many issues, and this should be a "warning sign" that the world is facing trouble, a top UN environmental official said Tuesday.
Talks in Bangkok earlier this month to thrash out firm commitments to battling global warming made little ground and this does not bode well for the 2009 meeting, Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), told reporters.
The Bangkok talks were a follow-up to a UN-brokered global gathering in the Indonesian resort island of Bali in December aimed at drawing up a plan for an ambitious treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
"Two weeks ago in Bangkok, governments met again to once again discuss the Bali road map... I personally believe that that event was a warning sign," Steiner told delegates at the Business for the Environment conference in Singapore.
At the Bangkok talks, countries simply reiterated their positions on cutting harmful greenhouse gas emissions, he said, describing this as "at best disconcerting, and worse, a sign that we are in trouble".
Rich and poor nations were at loggerheads, with developing countries especially suspicious of a Japanese-led proposal on industry standards and demanding greater aid to help them cope with the ravages of climate change.
Several more sessions are due to take place before the Copenhagen meeting in late 2009, with the next meeting to be held in the German city of Bonn in June.
Global concern is mounting that rising temperatures could put millions of people at risk by century's end through drought, floods and other extreme weather.
The Copenhagen talks could end up being "one of the greatest failures of public policy consensus in the history of mankind" but equally, they could lead to "an extraordinary agreement" among nations, Steiner said.
He also called on the business community to play a bigger role in giving momentum to the process.
The Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire in 2012, required industrialised nations to reduce their emissions by 5.2 percent of their 1990 levels -- which must be achieved between 2008 and 2012.
Rich and poor nations now generally agree that the world must take action to halt climate change, but they are divided on how to go about it.
The United States, which never ratified the Kyoto deal, is pushing for fast-developing nations like India, China and Brazil to sign up to binding emissions cuts. The European Union wants industrialised countries to take the lead.
"I'm not saying that Bangkok is a sign that we cannot reach it. But in terms of laying down the pathway with greater confidence, Bangkok did not strengthen our confidence," Steiner told AFP on the sidelines of the conference.
With just 17 months left until the Copenhagen meeting, Steiner said time could be running out.
"I remain convinced that nation states have no alternative. The question is what pressure, what mechanism, what incentives can we find to elevate the ability of the international community to cooperate on climate change," he said.
This is where business can play a role, by seizing the initiative and investing in energy-efficient technology, he said.
More than 500 business executives, government officials, environmentalists and others from 30 countries have gathered for the two-day Business for the Environment conference.
It was organised by the UNEP and the UN's Global Compact, an initiative which brings companies together with the UN and other agencies to support environmental and social principles.
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