Roundup: UN climate negotiations resume in Bonn

The United Nations' formal negotiations on climate change resumed in Bonn, Germany on Monday, three months before a new deal is to be signed in Paris to guide global efforts to control global warming.

The new round of negotiations, the penultimate one before delegates travel to Paris, will last until Friday.

The meet is expected to streamline a negotiating text of the new deal which now runs over 80 pages and raise countries' ambitions to address climate change before 2020 when the new deal enters into force.

Despite positive assessments from negotiators in Bonn, the progress of previous negotiations was criticized by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as "moving at a snail's pace."

In his opening speech on Monday, the negotiations' co-chair Daniel Reifsnyder said officials from over 190 countries and regions aimed to "start substantive negotiations without delay" in the coming week.

"We need to accelerate the pace of our work," said China in a statement on behalf of a group of developing countries.

Key disagreements include how to share responsibilities to cut carbon emission between countries and how developed countries would meet their obligations to offer financial and technology support to developing countries.

Developed countries request developing countries to take a similar binding responsibility of absolutely reducing carbon emissions.

Due to their limited capability and need to develop the economy and phase out poverty, developing countries, meanwhile, insist that a principle of "common but differentiated responsibility" must be respected in the new agreement.

"The Paris outcome must not be mitigation-centric," emphasized China in a statement, adding that all elements, including mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology development and transfer, capacity building and transparency of action and support, should be comprehensively reflected in a balanced manner.

China, on behalf of a group of developing countries, also pointed out that raising global efforts pre-2020 to address climate change is "vitally important."

To date, only 42 countries and regions have ratified the extension of Kyoto Protocol, the only instrument which binds developed countries' emission reduction, far less than the 144 ratifications that are required to bring the extension from 2013 to 2020 into force.

Developed countries also failed to clarify how they would meet their promises made in 2009 to provide developing countries 100 billion U.S. dollars per year by 2020. Endit