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http://unfccc.int/2860.php
http://news.unfccc.int/web/nllp.asp?o=v9dwzt3f&s=hkomb5gqcoxzcnwd
UN climate change officials told to cut carbon footprint with permanent home
It is a giant travelling circus that has spent 20 years touring some of the world’s most exotic locations — Bali, Marrakesh, Barcelona, Rio, Buenos Aires — all at taxpayers’ expense.
But the good times may soon be over for the 20,000 people who attend the annual climate change summit because the Government wants to reduce its carbon footprint by choosing a permanent location.
The proposal will prompt an international squabble over which city should win the right to host all future Conferences of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
More than half of those who attend come from Europe and, with flights contributing more than 80 per cent of each summit’s carbon footprint, a European city might seem the obvious choice.
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The UNFCCC’s secretariat is based in Bonn, which already hosts several smaller climate meetings each year. The last summit was in Copenhagen, which has one of Europe’s biggest convention centres.
However, developing countries will be bound to argue that Europe and the US already have more than their fair share of UN institutions.
The climate circus will set up its next camp in November in the Mexican resort of Cancún. Next year’s summit is due to be held in South Africa but, under the Government’s plan, from 2012 there would be a permanent home.
A Government official said: “We want to strength the UNFCCC by creating a permanent governing council and appointing a new head with additional authority.
“We also want to reduce the air miles of the meetings by having a permanent location.”
He said that the current system of holding the two-week summit in a different city each year distracted from the negotiations. The host country, which chaired the talks, spent much of the time organising facilities for the visitors.
Kat Watts, climate adviser for the environmental lobby group WWF and a veteran of several summits, welcomed the idea of a permanent home but said that there were some advantages to varying the location.
“The atmosphere of the location can make a difference to the mood of delegates. There is a difference between being able to go out to a café by the sea in Bali and have a discussion as opposed to winter in Poland.”
The Copenhagen summit, attended by 20,000 delegates, lobbyists, activists and journalists, had a footprint of around 46,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide: 6,000 tonnes emitted in the city and a further 40,000 tonnes by the attendees' flights.
The Government tried to move beyond the failure of the Copenhagen summit by saying that it would accept two separate treaties covering emissions cuts by different countries.
The EU had been pushing for a single deal to cover all countries and replace the Kyoto Protocol, which only requires developed countries to reduce their emissions. The negotiations at Copenhagen were hampered by the demand from China, India and other developing countries that the protocol be retained.
Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said: "We do not want to let a technical argument about whether we have one treaty or two derail the process. We are determined to show flexibility as long as there is no undermining of environmental principles."
Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, hosted the first meeting of an international group of politicians and financiers seeking ways of raising up to $100 billion a year to help developing countries adapt to climate change.
The meeting at Downing Street was attended by Guyanan President Bharrat Jagdeo, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Ethiopian Premier Meles Zenawi, as well as US President Barack Obama's chief economic adviser Larry Summers and the billionaire financier George Soros.
The group, the creation of which was one of the few positive outcomes of the Copenhagen summit, is considering several options, including a tax on international financial transactions, a levy on global aviation and shipping and schemes that would raise money from auctioning off "permits" to emit greenhouse gases. It is due to make recommendations in time for the Cancún summit.
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