It’s a big week in international climate negotiations with concurrent meetings of the G8 and Major Economies Forum (MEF) in Italy set to tackle – once again – the intractable issue of national commitments to lower greenhouse gas emissions. This would form the basis a collective global treaty of action to follow on from the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period.

Commentators are describing the meetings as a critical juncture on the road to Copenhagen in December, the deadline set in the UN Bali Roadmap for settling on a new accord for the post-2012 period.

The cornerstone issue to be resolved is the level of greenhouse emission reduction targets to the year 2020 to be taken on by developed countries. And, on the basis of these, what commitments to curb the growth in emissions developing countries will then accept. This is also dependent on what financing commitments developed countries will make to help the developing world cut emissions growth and adapt to climate change.

Hopes are high in some quarters that a breakthrough may come on these big questions that have held back a new world climate agreement. Any major progress is more likely to come at a G8 or MEF meeting where the real decision makers – national leaders or climate change ministers from the big emitting nations are present - than in a pre-Copenhagen UNFCCC session.

However, it is also quite likely that these meetings will not be much different to other G8, MEF or UNFCCC negotiating sessions over that past two or three years, delivering any more than incremental progress. There are still such large gaps between nations on the crucial questions and the global recession, largely unforeseen in Bali, has come at the worst possible time for the 2009 deadline. So it remains more likely that the stand-off in negotiations between developed nations, and between developed and developing nations, will continue until Copenhagen.

The starting point for talks for two years now has been the cuts recommended for developed nations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change needed to avoid 2-degrees-plus global warming – a range of 25 to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

In 1990 terms, Europe has committed to 20 per cent cuts, Japan 8 per cent, Australia 5-15 per cent and Canada 3 per cent. Russia’s recent commitment to 10-15 per cent cut actually implies a rise from current levels, while New Zealand has chosen at this late stage to embark on a national consultation over its 2020 target. The US target is dependent on what Congress will finally agrees in debate over the Clean Energy and Security Act. But it is now fairly clear the US will at most commit to taking emissions back to around 4 percentage points below 1990 levels.

In their rhetoric at least, developing countries have if anything only hardened their calls in recent months for developed nations to commit to the IPCC range. They want to see the upper end of the range met, and some are now calling for 45 per cent cuts.

Big emitters China and India have so far been adamant they will not take on absolute emissions cuts nor consider slowing emissions growth until rich countries commit to these steep cuts. But there is a perhaps a glimmer of hope in signs that China, while publicly sticking to its hard line, is ready to accept come form of curbs to its emissions growth if rich nations sign up to their own substantial reductions.

China is key among developing nations. Other big developing emitters like Mexico and South Africa are already taking some steps on emissions and it will be hard for other more-industrialised developing nations to avoid what China accepts. This in turn would make rich countries more comfortable in committing to steep cuts.

But this all still leaves the world five months to bridge some pretty big gaps that have defied negotiators for a matter of years now. Don’t forget that UN climate meetings in Montreal, Nairobi and Bali all aimed to make major progress on these issues without success. This is not to denigrate the efforts of negotiators at the UN who have by and large worked hard to find the necessary common ground over that time but have been held back by their governments.

There may well be some degree of tactical play in the positions of some countries at the moment – particularly on the part of Japan, China, Russia and India. Their current stance may be early negotiating positions open to movement. But extracting 20 per cent cuts or more from the key player, the US, is just not going happen, even under President Obama.

Alternative negotiating paths have been put forward although they haven’t yielded much so far. Former UK prime minister Tony Blair says that success in achieving the overall global requirement for 2020 emissions cuts can be achieved by a portfolio of sectoral measures. In an updated report of the Breaking the Climate Deadlock Initiative he spearheads, Blair argues a big chunk could come from reducing deforestation alone, possible if developed countries pay developing countries to preserve tropical forests (the emerging REDD concept).

On another tack, if the base year were to be shifted to 2000 or 2005 rather than 1990, rich countries’ emission reductions commitments start to look a lot more even given the very different emissions trajectories between the EU and the non-European developing countries. While this offers another way path for an agreement, at this stage it appears there is enough opposition to close off that avenue of possibilities.

There is also speculation that a global commitment for a limit of 450 parts per million of atmospheric CO2 – needed to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius this century – might emerge this week and provide an important stepping stone. The US appears now willing to embrace such a commitment. But for a number of countries, the question quickly follows as to how commitments to reach that goal would be shared out and we’re soon back at square one.

For the moment, the probability of reaching a detailed and comprehensive global agreement that resolves the big target questions and the other important areas such as financing, the future of the CDM, implementing REDD and others, by December must be considered low. At the very least, however, a broad agreement on targets will have to emerge – the condemnation that would befall world leaders and their ministers should they fail completely at Copenhagen should provide enough impetus. But even with time running out, it’s still more likely to come later rather than sooner, and leave plenty of work still be done from 2010 to 2012.

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