The Swiss position on the COP15 negotiations is suspended to the EU strategy. They will follow the concessions made by the EU, but not go beyond on their own initiative. Their initial position, which is still valid so far, is 20 % reduction until 2020.
Jo Leinen (Chair of the EU ENVI committee) said yesterday evening in a press communication that the EU will follow a „thirty thirty strategy“, i.e. 30 % reduction of CO2 until 2020 and 30 Billion Dollars of „reparation damage“. Today, the Swiss delegation could not confirm this position yet. Neither for their own country nor for the EU. A session on Thursday is still pending with the decision to be made whether the EU will actually promote these targets. If so Switzerland would probably follow pace. In the FYEG perspective, this is a dire message as the targets are far beyond what is actually required for a 1.5 °C or even 2 °C strategy.
Even worse, the Swiss delegation is following their own strategy to have as many „brackets“ in the documents accredited so that they can be adopted in a potential COP15bis in Bonn, June 2010. This is a typical Swiss strategy and quite disturbing; The Swiss delegation said they were rather shocked at how slow the progress was since Bali two years ago. Yet they are opting for a later conference. Patrick Hofstetter (chair climate policies WWF Schweiz) said „The negotiations are somewhat at a stalemate, but theoretically, we only have lost time. An agreement is still possible.“ However, it rather looks like the enthusiasm has not spread to the Swiss delegation.
The Swiss aren’t known as the ones making steps forward in direction of future. They rather decide to prohibit minarets. One of the big dangers of our time.
Most important that the delegation doesn’t disturb the negotiation. Please keep them busy so they can damage our international reputation even more.
See you guys on Thursday.
Martin