By December 10, the 12-day gathering hopes to kickstart operational work after a year in which political interest in climate change has all but dropped off the map.

"The discussions yesterday were generally good, but there are holes," said Nina Jamal of Indyact, a watchdog on green and social issues.

"But the negotiations are going to be complex if there is no flexibility by the parties and no political will."

The mood in Cancun remains darkened by memories of the December 2009 Copenhagen summit, where more than 120 world leaders came close to a historic fiasco.

They had gone to the Danish capital to bless an expected post-2012 pact to brake man-made greenhouse gases, blamed for driving the planet to a future of flood, drought, rising seas and freakish storms.

Instead, they entered a maze of national interests and reluctance to pick up the tab for easing dependence on fossil fuels, the backbone of the world's energy supply.

To get the process back on track, the 194 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are under pressure in Cancun to consolidate pledges on carbon emissions and devise ways of monitoring these promises.

They are also being urged to give at least an official start to a so-called Green Fund that would help channel hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to climate-vulnerable countries.

Technology transfer, help for coping with climate change and averting carbon emissions by deforestation are other areas that look promising.

But there was no guarantee that the UNFCCC will exorcise the devil of inter-connectedness -- in other words, a country or bloc of countries will refuse to sign up to one particular deal unless it gets a break in another.

In an early sign that this problem could revive, Brazil warned that developing countries expected a decision to extend commitments under the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 as part of an overall deal.

"If we don't have a very clear decision on this in Cancun, it will be impossible to have decisions on other issues because we would not have the necessary balance," its chief negotiator, Luiz Figueiredo, said on Monday.

The future of the Protocol lies in a second track of the Cancun talks. The treaty ties almost every rich country to targeted curbs on carbon emissions, in a roster of pledges that runs out at the end of 2012.

The problem, though, is that the treaty only covers 30 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, as China and the United States -- the world's No. 1 and 2 polluters -- remain outside its obligations.

Even the European Union (EU), the Protocol's most ardent supporter, says this burden is unfair. But it says it could accept a deal if China and the United States set down promises on emissions that were not only ambitious but verifiable.

"The big give-and-take on this is transparency," said EU chief negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger.

Another bugbear is the status of the Copenhagen Accord, a compromise agreement stitched together in the dying hours of last year's summit by a small group of leaders but rejected as official text by some developing countries.

"We must avoid a repetition of what happened in Copenhagen, at three o'clock in the morning, with a document that was not discussed by all parties," said Bolivian delegate Pablo Salon.

earlier related report
Stakes are high for Philippines in Cancun
Manila, Philippines (UPI) Nov 30, 2010 - The Philippines will push for climate change adaption financing at the Cancun, Mexico, meeting on climate change, yet it is not optimistic about the outcome of the talks, officials said.

Mary Ann Lucille Sering, vice chairwoman of the country's Climate Change Commission, said the Philippines wants clarification on the $30 billion pledged last year at the Copenhagen, Denmark, conference by developed countries as "fast-start" climate aid to the developing world.

"The accord clearly stated that it's for small islands and least developed countries, which effectively takes out the Philippines from the prioritization," she said ahead of the Cancun talks, Manila's BusinessWorld newspaper reports. "That was one of our criticisms of the accord. That's why we are going through consultations."

Sering said the Philippines also wants "direct access" to the long-term commitment of $100 billion in funding per year by 2020 pledged in Copenhagen.

Sering is leading her country's delegation of 51 to Cancun just a week after she was sworn into her position. She replaced Heherson T. Alvarez to resolve what was considered a festering leadership crisis in the Philippines' climate commission.

The Philippines accounts for only 0.27 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the World Bank says.

But Manila, with a population of about 11 million, is at risk of extreme flooding in the next 40 years mainly because of the effects of climate change, says a report released last month by the Asian Development Bank, the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the World Bank.

The report warns that even if the government implements proposed flood infrastructure plans, the scope of areas in Metro Manila that could be flooded by 2050 could increase by 42 percent.

"The stakes are high for us, because without an international agreement on mitigation and adaptation, the Philippines is left on its own to fight the serious challenge of climate change," said Antonio G.M. La Vina, an environmental lawyer based at Manila University who is part of Sering's delegation to Cancun.

While La Vina said a binding agreement on emissions cuts was not likely to come out of Cancun, he was optimistic delegates would agree on a framework for climate change adaptation to developing countries, financing for agriculture and REDD-Plus financing (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries).

For his part, Philippine President Benigno Aquino, in declaring Global Warming and Climate Change Consciousness Week on Sunday, urged Filipinos to adjust their lifestyles to prevent further damage to the environment.

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