( dpa )- Untied Nations-sponsored climate change talks designed to take the Bali Road Map for cutting carbon emissions a step further began Monday in Bangkok.
The meeting, coming three months after a landmark agreement reached in Bali to set a road map for strengthening international action on climate change, is tasked with setting the work programme for negotiations to be concluded by the end of 2009 on concrete plans to halt the increase in global carbon emissions by 2015 and dramatically cut them by 2050.
"What this meeting has to do is agree to a work programme and agree what is going to be discussed so that we know that we can meet the deadline in a year-and-a-half time," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Clomate Change (UNFCCC) that is hosting the meeting.
In Bali, parties agreed to formally launch negotiations on enabling the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Kyoto Convention. These negotiations need to conclude in an agreed outcome by the end of 2009.
The challenge is to design a future agreement that will successfully halt the increase in global emissions within the next 10-15 years, dramatically cut back emissions by 2050, in a way that is economically viable and politically equitable worldwide.
The Bangkok meeting aims to map out how to tackle this challenge and begin by establishing without delay a clear work programme for the next two years.
Parties meeting in Bangkok will identify the areas that need to be further clarified as well as the issues where work needs to be done.