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The "Vienna Climate Change Talks 2007" were attended by more than 900 delegates from Parties, representatives from Intergovernmental Organisations, NGOs and members of the press. They were designed to set the stage for a major United Nations conference in December in Bali.

The meeting in Indonesia will seek to advance future action on climate change post-2012, when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires.

Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, said:
"Countries have been able to reassess the big picture of what is needed by identifying the key building blocks for an effective response to climate change. There is a consensus that the response needs to be global, with the involvement of all countries and that it needs to give equal importance to adaptation and mitigation."

Government delegates also debated how the response could be enabled by an approach that opens the way for financial flows to climate-friendly and climate-proof investments. This was based on a report on the investment and financial flows relevant to the development of an effective and appropriate international response to climate change, presented to the conference by the UN Climate Change Secretariat.

Yvo de Boer said:
"The report clearly shows that energy efficiency can achieve real emission reductions at low cost. It also shows that many cost-effective opportunities for reducing emissions are in developing countries, but also that industrialised countries need aggressive emission reduction strategies." Through the potential of the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), industrialised countries are permitted to invest in sustainable development projects and thereby generate tradable emission credits.

The conference comprised the last workshop of the "Dialogue on long-term cooperative action to address climate change by enhancing implementation of the Convention" and negotiations under the Kyoto Protocol designed to identify emission reduction ranges of industrialised countries.

A number of Parties, including Indonesia as the host country of the UN Climate Change Conference 2007, in Vienna called for Bali to launch a formalised way to continue this work, which represents one of the options for taking the outcomes further.

At Vienna, the "Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments of Annex I Parties (industrialised countries) under the Kyoto Protocol, the Ad Hoc Working Group, officially recognised the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) indication that global emissions of greenhouse gases need to peak in the next 10 to 15 years and then be reduced to very low levels, well below half of levels in 2000 by mid-century, if concentrations are to be stabilised at safe levels.

The group also officially recognised that avoiding the most catastrophic forecasts made by the IPCC, including very frequent and severe droughts and water-shortages in large parts of the world, would entail emission reductions in the range of 25-40% below 1990 levels by industrialised countries. The mitigation potential of industrialised countries increases through the use of the CDM.

"This is a first step that has laid the groundwork for the Bali Conference", said Mr. De Boer. "It shows that Parties have the necessary level of ambition to move this work forward," he added.

American response
Speaking at a press conference during the week, Dr Harland Watson, the Senior Climate Negaotiator leading the US participation, said:
"There are more areas of agreement than disagreement. We're working hand in hand in a number of technology areas. We have both recognised the importance of technologies and a global effort. The atmosphere [between the parties] is very good moving forward."

Asked about expections from developing countries, Dr Watson replied:
"There is an opinion that developing countries are doing nothing, but this is false.  Of course their emissions are growing, but they are doing a lot.  This is an opportunity for them to bring forward what they are doing.  I think you will see an enormous contribution.  The fruits of their efforts over the midterm remains to be seen, but substantial efforts are being made.  It will depend on how much low carbon technologies will be deployed."