The EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard is suggesting it is unrealistic to expect a new global climate agreement at the next climate summit in Mexico in November.

“There’s not much time until Mexico, and perhaps it would be better to go for concrete results on, for example, financing, adjustment and technology in November, to be followed by a final, legally binding agreement in South Africa in 2011,” the EU’s new commissioiner tells Politiken.

Hedegaard has suggested to the 27 EU member countries that the EU should consider a ‘step-by-step process’ of a couple of years.

Denmark’s view
But Hedegaard’s successor as Danish climate minister, Lykke Friis, says it is too early to give up hope of an agreement this year, adding that Denmark is still chair of the United Nations COP negotiations until Mexico and should maintain its ambitions.

“I think it is too early to say how far we can get in Mexico. As COP chair I had a good meeting with representatives of all of the world’s regions recently. There are different views about the process, and that is something we have to discuss,” Friis says.