Mr. Chairman,

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

First, Mr. Chairman, allow me to congratulate you on your election to lead the AWG-KP during this critical stage of the climate change negotiation process. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you every success in your chairmanship and assure you of our full support and cooperation.

Mr. Chairman,

As I stated in my opening statement of the previous session, the Group reiterates its serious concern on the extremely slow progress of the AWG-KP in completing the milestones of its work programme. As we all know, the primary objective of the last session was to adopt conclusions on the scale of emissions reduction for Annex I Parties in aggregate and reach conclusions on a draft amendment text. These objectives were not achieved during that session and are now deferred to this session and, as agreed at AWG-KP 7, with a key focus on the scale of emission reductions by Annex I Parties in aggregate.  Further, the Group notes that our work programme agreed to in Poznan stipulates that the AWG-KP will adopt conclusions on the contribution of Annex I Parties, individually or jointly, to the scale of emission reductions to be achieved by Annex I Parties in aggregate.

In this context, the Group has a serious concern that both the agenda and the organisation of work proposed in your scenario note does not include items on 2 of the central tasks to be achieved in this session, specifically those items agreed to in paragraph 49(a) and 49(b) of our work programme we agreed to in Poznan.

Mr. Chairman,

We therefore note with great concern that many Annex I parties have not made any concrete proposals on the scale of emissions reduction to be achieved by Annex I Parties in aggregate or on the contribution of Annex I Parties, individually or jointly, to this in aggregate scale of Annex I Party emissions reduction. In addition we note with concern that most of the emissions reduction targets submitted thus far by Annex I Parties are clearly far below the level of ambition indicated by the science that will be required to effectively mitigate climate change.

 
Mr. Chairman,

We reiterate that a key focus of this session is to complete the task of last session. We do hope to that our partners will show real leadership and allow the AWG-KP to adopt conclusions on the aggregate scale of emissions reduction by Annex I Parties and also adopt conclusions on the contribution of Annex I Parties, individually or jointly, to the scale of emissions reduction to be achieved by Annex I Parties in aggregate. Furthermore, we would like emphasise that this session will be the last opportunity to reach conclusion on amendment text in accordance with Art. 3.9 of KP because it has to be communicated to Parties at the latest by 17 of June 2009 in order to respect the 6-month rule. Therefore, this is a crucial session to achieve concrete results towards the successful completion of our mandate in Copenhagen.

The Group welcomes the opportunity to continue its deliberations on the potential environmental, economic and social consequences, including spillover effects, and we look forward for constructive discussion in this session with a view to forwarding the results of our work for the CMP at its fifth session.

Finally, Mr. Chairman,

The Group would like to pledge its continuous support and commitments to engage in a constructive and open manner in the negotiations in this session with the view to reach conclusions on a draft amendment text in accordance with our very clear mandate of Article 3.9 of the Kyoto Protocol.

I thank you.