New York - A week of informal climate talks in Bangkok has allowed Member States to make
concrete progress on key issues, providing a positive momentum for the upcoming
United Nations Climate Change Conference in November in Doha, Qatar, a UN senior
officialsaid. 


“The investment in Bangkok has paid off. Government negotiators have pushed
forward key issues further than many had expected and raised the prospects for a
next successful step in Doha,” said the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres. 

“There are still some tough political decisions ahead, but we now have a
positive momentum and a greater sense of convergence that will stimulate
higher-level political discussions ahead of Doha and set a faster pace of work
once this year’s conference begins,” she added. 

During the previous UNFCCC conference, in Durban, South Africa, 194 parties to
the UNFCCC agreed on a package of decisions – known as the Durban Platform –
which include the launch of a protocol or legal instrument that would apply to
all members, a second commitment period for the existing Kyoto Protocol, which
legally binds developed countries to emission reduction targets, and the launch
of the Green Climate Fund, which was created to help developing nations protect
themselves from climate impacts and build their own sustainable futures. 

Nations also set specific objectives for the meeting in Doha, which will take
place from 26 November to 7 December. These objectives include triggering a new
phase of climate action and filling in the gaps in the international policy
response to climate change.  

According to UNFCCC, the Bangkok climate talks began to address these
objectives, and produced a document outlining what needs to be done to resolve
differences of opinion among countries. 

The talks also made progress in various areas, including plans for a mechanism
to boost international cooperation on climate action, financing for the
initiative to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and
identifying points where negotiating groups might need additional decisions in
Doha in order to close successfully. 

During the Bangkok talks, countries also discussed the necessary steps to
negotiate a global climate change agreement that could be adopted in 2015 and
enter into force in 2020, as well as ways to raise global ambitions to cut
greenhouse gas emissions faster. 

There are now 195 Parties to the Convention on Climate Change, which sets an
overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by
climate change. The treaty also recognizes that the climate system is a shared
resource whose stability can be affected by industrial and other emissions of
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.