Press Conference: Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC, 23 September 2010, Christiana Figueres, Executive Director of the United Nations Framework on the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

Last December the international climate change conference in Copenhagen convened with major world expectations. This year’s conference, called COP16, has less expectations surrounding it.  This year, officials are stressing building a foundation for climate change mitigation instead of coming up with big goals, like in the agreement ending COP15.

Proponents of a deal “seem to have accepted” that no treaty will be written during two weeks of talks in the Mexican resort, and that bodes well for the prospects of taking smaller steps, said Halldor Thorgeirsson, a director at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which organizes the talks.

“The obstacles to a significant outcome in Cancun remain formidable, and the likelihood of a continued deadlock remains significant,” Thorgeirsson said today in a speech at the political analyst Chatham House in London. Still, “a new treaty is by no means the only measure of success,” he said.  (Business Week)

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said some governments are trying to “rebuild the sense of trust in the process and rekindle the commitment to deliver” some agreements and funding.  “Governments have realized this year that you don’t build tall buildings without laying the foundations, unlike last year when they tried to build a very tall building without laying the foundations,” she said.  (AP)

According to UN News:

“We are barely two months away from the UN climate change conference in Cancun, the place where Governments need to take the next firm step on humanity’s journey to meet the full-scale challenge of climate change,” said Christiana Figueres, Executive Director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Ahead of the next conference of parties to the Convention, to be held in November in Cancun, governments will hold a negotiating session in Tianjin, China, next week.

It is in Tianjin, said Ms. Figueres, that they will need to “cut down the number of options they have on the table, identify what is achievable in Cancun and muster the political compromises that will deliver those outcomes.”

She told a news conference at UN Headquarters that governments are converging on the need to mandate a full set of ways and means to launch a new wave of global climate action.

“On the whole, governments have been cognizant this year that there is an urgent need to move forward and they have been collaborating in moving beyond their national positions to begin to identify common ground so that they can reach several agreements in Cancun.”

The UN climate change chief said that negotiations are on track towards reaching agreements on the sharing of technology, jump-starting activities in developing countries dealing with reducing deforestation and degradation, setting out a framework for adaptation, and establishing a fund that would help developing countries with their mitigation and [...]