US and German blocs at odds over Bali Roadmap at UN Climate Change Conference: To agree simply to meet again is a failure, say Germans

At the UN Conference on Climate Change at Bali, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that the major goal of the conference was to agree to negotiations for a treaty that would be agreed at Copenhagen in 2009, and replace the Kyoto Treaty.

The US, supported by Japan, and Canada, oppose setting a 25-40 percent emissions reduction target in the Bali Roadmap which would set a framework for negotiations.

However, other countries, led by Germany, have said that emerging from Bali with nothing more than an agreement to talk more would be a failure. Secretary Ban’s comments were seen as tacit acknowledgment of the US position that specific reduction targets would have to be negotiated at a later time.

Assessing the commercial implications of a new treaty, Lord Nicholas Stern, chairman of IDEACarbon, said Bali is setting in motion a process that would create a “global carbon market worth EUR 240 – 450 billion by 2020. Up to 13 billion tons of CO2 could be traded each year.”

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