As UN Barcelona Talks Wrap Up, Yvo de Boer Says Climate Deal May Take Another Year. By Alex Morales, Bloomberg, November 6, 2009. “The deadline for 192 countries to complete a new global-warming accord may slip by as much as one year, as negotiators hold back on pledges to slash emissions or pay financial aid to poor nations. Yvo de Boer, the United Nations supervisor for climate talks, said yesterday in an interview that too little progress has been made to conclude a treaty at a summit in Copenhagen next month, and it may take another year. He spoke in Barcelona, where the final talks before Copenhagen end today. The most powerful nations are holding back their biggest cards in what envoys liken to game-playing. The U.S., the second-largest greenhouse-gas producer after China, won’t say how much aid it may offer. China has pledged no specific emissions goals. And Japanese and European delegates said they may not put concrete numbers for funding on the table until the two-week Danish summit is almost finished.”

EU Agrees on Financing Stance for Post Kyoto Treaty. Reuters, October 30, 2009. “European Union leaders agreed on an offer Friday to put on the table at global climate talks in Copenhagen in December after healing a rift over how to split the bill. Developing countries will need 100 billion euros ($148 billion) a year by 2020 to battle climate change, and 22-50 billion of this will have to come from the public purse in rich countries worldwide, rather than industry, leaders said. The two-day EU [Brussels] summit secured a complex negotiating mandate for the Copenhagen talks to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol… ‘We managed to reach an agreement on climate finance,’ Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said. ‘The EU now has a strong position in view of Copenhagen.’”

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