Meeting of minds at Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico

The 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference has been taking place in Cancun, Mexico since November twenty ninth. About two hundred national delegates and thousands of staff, scientists as well as Nongovernmental organizations have congregated to work on a solution that would limit the output of greenhouse gases. Belize plays an important role in the region as CARICOM’s Climate Change Center is located in the capital.  Carlos Fuller, the deputy director for the center, told News Five about the slow progress occurring in Cancun, Mexico.

Via Phone: Carlos Fuller, Dep. Dir., CARICOM Climate Change Centre

carlos fuller

“The issues are very complex. We are asking for a continuation of the due protocol of second commitment period.  We are asking for the commitment of developing countries to increase the causes for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. We are requesting the development of adaptation mechanism for developing countries and we are requesting the development of a fund to address those countries. However all progress depends on movement in other areas. So we make incremental movements in one area, but we don’t economize on anything because every party wants to see their issues are addressed somewhere else. So progress on the whole package depends on the movement of all of them.”

Jose Sanchez

“What role does Belize playing within the conference itself and in the region?”

Via Phone: Carlos Fuller

“The region is asking for targets to ensure that global warming is kept as far away as possible because that is the extent to which the Caribbean will be able to adapt to such a change. We notice that anything above one degree Celsius severely affects our barrier reef, it is already affecting it and so that is why it is essential that global warming be limited below one point degrees Celsius if possible and even with that climate change to uphold, we will need to have the resources, etc required. So that is the position of CARICOM and Belize.”

Fuller says that a technology mechanism is likely to come out of the conference. And it is also possible to develop a framework that can be adapted. However, a framework for new financial commitments may not be works out until the coming year.