Officials attending the United Nations climate change conference
in Bali, a resort island of Indonesia, Saturday morning have just
resumed talks on a new draft of the final declaration, or Bali
Roadmap.
The preamble of the draft decision says deep cuts in global
emissions will be required to achieve the ultimate objective of the
United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UN
FCCC).
The meeting will continue and the final declaration will
eventually be delivered to the plenary floor.
The mandate will launch draft decision.
The Bali Roadmap will launch negotiations on a global climate
deal by 2009.
"It's slower that I had expected but people feel this a very
important journey that they have embarked on," said Yve de Boer,
head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat told reporters on
Friday.
But the UN climate change chief was optimistic about the Bali
talks.
"We're on the brink of an agreement. We're absolutely not
deadlocked," he said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who left Bali for Timor-Leste
on Friday, will make an unscheduled return to the conference in
Bali on Saturday.
The conference, the 13th Conference of the 192 Parties to the UN
FCCC and the third meeting of the 176 Parties to the Kyoto
Protocol, is being attended by more than 11,000 people, making it
the largest UN climate change meeting ever held.
Next year's Climate Change Conference will be held in Poznan,
Poland.
(Xinhua News Agency December 15, 2007)
