After Bonn-2: as the clock is ticking, high-level political intervention will be critical

In December 2007, the 13th conference of the parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Bali Road Map, initiating a two-track negotiation process towards a comprehensive post-2012 climate agreement. Besides providing the necessary institutional framework for the discussions on the future shape of the climate regime, one of its major achievements was to clearly indicate COP-15 (which will take place in December 2009 in Copenhagen) as a deadline by when negotiations had to be finalized. 545 days and numerous meetings later, the outcomes of the most recent round of negotiations, held between 1 and 12 June 2009 in Bonn (and referred to as Bonn-2), strongly suggest that negotiators have begun to come under serious pressure to meet this deadline. Progress at both the 6th meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) and the 8th meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) has been slow.nrpages: 8status: publishe