EU disappointed by lack of progress on climate change talks

(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission voiced disappointment on Monday that international climate change negotiations last week failed to yield progress in the countdown to a major summit in December.

Senior environment official at the commission Karl Falkenberg lamented that "no major advances" had been made during 12 days of talks that wrapped up last week in Bonn.

He regreted that participants had camped on their "national positions" while there had been "multiplication" of proposals, leading to "no particular positive outcome from Bonn."

"Works continue to see what we can report from the G8 summit in July in Italy, but the positions are so divergent that it will be a challenge to get a joint ambitious text," he said.

Falkenberg nevertheless refused to entertain the possibility that negotiations would culminate in failure at a December summit in Copenhagen, which is supposed to yield new long-term pledges for fighting climate change.

He said that one of the current problems was that the US administration was working on national measures and that it was difficult to make international commitments before national actions were determined.

The EU has collectively pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels as of 2020, increasing to 30 percent if other big polluters make ambitious commitments in Copenhagen.