Climate Negotiations Resume Following Copenhagen Accord

International climate change negotiations resume today for the first time since December’s Copenhagen summit, which left as many questions as it did answers for the future of a binding treaty.

Delegates are in Bonn, Germany to discuss a schedule for meetings this year and how to move forward following the non-binding Copenhagen Accord. That agreement has now been officially backed by more than 110 countries, including the US, China, Russia and India. But it is anything but a specific plan of action, and negotiators have much work to do if they truly want to limit worldwide temperature increases to 2 degrees celsius.

Two additional rounds of UN talks are expected to be added to this year’s schedule, leading up to the annual ministerial meeting in Mexico at the beginning of December. The US will also host a major economies forum (MEF) meeting later this month. But it doesn’t seem likely that a binding treaty will be reached this year.

"I don’t believe that the Copenhagen Accord will become the new legal framework," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told reporters last week.

Read Reuters coverage at the link below.