The main aim of the UN talks process was to agree a legally
binding deal by 2012 but it has gradually turned to mobilising
voluntary action and funds to fight global warming.

The Kyoto Protocol binds almost 40 industrialised countries to
emissions cuts from 2008-2012. Poor and emerging economies want to
extend the pact, while industrialised nations prefer to replace
it.

Canada confirmed on Wednesday that it would not support an
extended Kyoto Protocol after 2012, joining Japan and Russia in
rejecting a new round of the climate emissions pact.

After years of wrangling over the future of the pact, countries
may now try makeshift measures to plug the gap after 2012, such as
rolling over existing targets.

“Without a global climate agreement, we
will never be able to achieve the levels of emissions reductions
that are needed and with every year that passes, the time window is
getting narrower.” Achim Steiner, UNEP’s executive
director.

To agree new targets with equal legal force to Kyoto, countries
would have to ratify those in their parliaments. But they have run
out of time given that their next chance to do a deal is in
December this year at a conference in Durban.

“Even if they were able to agree on a legal text […] that
requires an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol, it requires
legislative ratifications on the part of three-quarters of the
parties, so we would assume that there’s no time to do that between
Durban and the end of 2012,” said Christiana Figueres, head of the
UN’s climate secretariat.

“Countries have realised this, that they actually stand before
the potential of a regulatory gap, and are involved in constructive
negotiations as to how they’re going to deal with that,” she told
reporters on the first day of 6-17 June climate talks in Bonn,
Germany.

A deal in Durban is widely viewed as unlikely.

The European Union’s chief climate negotiator told reporters
that 2014 or 2015 was a more realistic target for a full legal
framework. “Let’s say 2014, 2015 is a broadly realistic time, but
if parties could agree to do that earlier, the EU would be happy to
do so,” said Artur Runge-Metzger.

US says not to blame

One of the biggest casualties of failure to agree new, binding
targets will be international carbon markets, under which developed
countries pay for emissions cuts in developing nations to offset
against their own targets.

The market in carbon offsets slumped last year to $1.5 billion
compared with $7.4 billion in 2007, says the World Bank. The UN
talks have stalled over sharing the burden of emissions cuts
between industrialised and emerging economies.

The world’s second biggest carbon emitter, the United States,
demands that top emitter China makes commitments with equal force
to its own. China says its priority must be to grow its economy to
end poverty.

That has resulted in a stalemate, with a set of voluntary
actions agreed in Cancún, Mexico, last December. Many analysts
ultimately lay the blame for the delay at the door of the United
States, which has struggled to find support for climate action in
its Senate.

The United States blames the slow progress on countries which it
says are reluctant even to stand by voluntary action agreed in
Cancún.

“The fact that it’s such a difficult battle, so much of an
uphill discussion, suggests to me the problem is not the United
States but others who are not yet ready to move forward on
commitments they’ve made,” said the head of the US delegation in
Bonn, Jonathan Pershing.