Climate treaty failure to dent trust in UN

Another failure in the quest for a treaty on climate change would cripple trust in the United Nations' ability to tackle global warming, the UN's climate pointman warned as new talks ground into their final day yesterday.

Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said the global process hinged on a November 29-December 10 meeting in Mexico.

After the disappointment of last December's Copenhagen Summit, it was vital for Cancun to yield a "functioning architecture" on big questions, including agreement on how to curb carbon emissions and provide aid for poor countries, he said.

"We reached an agreement in Bali [in 2007] that we would conclude negotiations two years later in Copenhagen, and we didn't," De Boer said.

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