NEW DELHI (AFP) –
The head of the Nobel-winning UN panel of climate scientists has said the outcome of the Copenhagen summit was a start but urged countries to work quickly towards a legally binding pact.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), described the Copenhagen Accord, passed Saturday after two weeks of frantic talks as "an agreement that will really not be the final word.
"We will have build on it, we will have to make sure it moves quickly towards the status of a legally binding agreement and therefore I think the task for the global community is cut out," he told the NDTV news channel.
"In the next few weeks and months we will have to work very hard to see that, before the end of 2010 if not earlier, we get a binding agreement that really moves action in the direction we need," he said in the interview broadcast Sunday.
"We really have to move on rather quickly to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. There is growing evidence of the impacts of climate change and if we delay action these impacts are going to become much worse, far more serious," he warned.
The Copenhagen pact was reached at the last minute by a small group consisting of leaders of the United States, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and major European nations, after it became clear the summit was in danger of failing.
It set a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), but did not spell out the important stepping stones -- global emissions targets for 2020 or 2050 -- for getting there.
Nor did it identify a year by which emissions should peak, and pledges were made voluntarily and without tough compliance provisions.
Pachauri said Mexican President Felipe Calderon had agreed to a proposal by former US vice president and environmental activist Al Gore to host a summit in the middle of next year to finish the climate treaty.
"But I am not too sure whether the Parties to the Convention (countries) would be willing to advance it to such an extent," Pachauri said.
"However, irrespective of whether we have the COP (Conference of Parties) in June or July, the subsidiary bodies of COP, I think, can come into session and make sure that by the middle of the year we have something pretty close to a binding agreement," he said.
Despite the pact, doubts persisted among countries about possible conditions attached to climate change funds promised by developed nations to help them switch to low carbon technology, Pachauri said.
"I believe that there is a lot of negotiation that still needs to be carried out. Developing countries, certainly Africa, are very concerned and very suspicious of the developed countries on whether they are really genuine in making these offers," Pachauri said.
So far, the United States has promised to contribute 3.6 billion dollars in climate funds for the 2010-2012 period, with Japan contributing a total of 11 billion dollars over the same period, and the European Union 10.6 billion dollars.
