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Top ministers tackle details in Cancun

Dozens of high-ranking ministers arrived in Cancun on Monday, where they and their deputies are expected to spend the next three days negotiating a series of minor agreements aimed at laying the groundwork for a new global carbon reduction deal that could be struck next year in South Africa.

While few observers expect the Cancun conference to produce anything close to a pact to replace the sweeping Kyoto protocol, which expires at the end of 2012, many hope to settle a series of minor issues.

Reuters reports the following areas of possible agreement:

- Decide new national targets either under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol or the 1992 U.N. climate convention, or both

- Refer to a long-term goal, for example to limit warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F)

- Mention the widely held scientific view that emissions targets pledged so far are too weak

- Agree to measure developed country emissions, for example annually, and also their contribution to climate aid funds

- Agree to measure developing countries greenhouse gases and their actions to slow emissions growth, perhaps every two to four years

- Agree common accounting standards, for example on measuring carbon emissions from forests

- A political agreement to pay tropical countries not to chop down natural forests, called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD)

- A political commitment to establish a new long-term fund to help especially the least developed countries cut carbon emissions and prepare for climate change

- Create a disaster relief mechanism, to help countries which have suffered extreme weather events

The Cancun conference, which is being attended by delegates from nearly 200 nations, is scheduled to conclude on December 10.

Monte Paulsen reports on carbon shift for The Tyee.

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