Madam President,

1. I have the distinct honor to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

2. Allow me at the outset to congratulate you on your election as President for the sixteenth session of the Conference of Parties and the sixth session of the Conference of Parties serving as a Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. The Group would also like to pay special tribute to the leadership which Mexico is providing in the negotiations. Over the last year, the work done by the Mexican side as an incoming presidency has helped restore trust amongst parties in engaging together once again since Copenhagen. This is no mean achievement.
 
3. We are confident that this spirit would continue during the next two weeks and that our work will remain party-driven transparent, inclusive, and open for participants. More than ever, today is the need to ensure that these principles remain fundamental to our work.

4. I would also like, on behalf of the Group, to take this opportunity to express our appreciations and gratitude to the Government and people of Mexico for the warm hospitality since the moment we arrive to this beautiful city of Cancun, and for the excellent arrangement and facilities which will enable us to achieve our objectives. We would also like to thank the Convention's Secretariat for the excellent arrangements.

Madam President,

5. Over the last three years, since we all agreed to launch the process to enable the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention through long-term cooperative action, now, up to and beyond 2012, the Group of 77 and China has been engaging constructively in this process and posited concrete proposals meant to facilitate the process of negotiation. We believe that it is time to secure an outcome that fulfills the mandate that we agreed upon in Bali. In this context, the Group of 77 and China stresses that balance between the two negotiating tracks, i.e. AWG-KP and AWG-LCA, must be respected and that balance in the degree of details of decisions within each track must be maintained. It is also our firm belief, however, that whatever outcome we might reach in Cancun must not compromise or prejudge the overall objective of reaching a comprehensive, fair, ambitious and legally binding outcome in the future.

6. The Group of 77 and China highlights the technical and financial difficulties that developing country parties are facing which impeded the preparation of their national communications. Predictability of funding and the provision of the agreed full costs for the preparation of National Communications from Non-Annex I Parties are crucial.

7. The Group of 77 and China would also like to underline the fact that developing countries continue to suffer from the adverse impacts of climate change. As we deliberate on the implementation of the financial architecture of the Convention, there is a lack of inflow of capital to the Special Climate Change Fund and the Least-developed Countries Fund, bearing in mind the fact that these funds are under-funded to start with. Therefore, we call for more contributions to these funds, and in particular for the latter, to assist developing countries to tackle the adverse impacts of climate change. In this context, we encourage our partners to show flexibility and commitment towards the adaptation needs of the developing countries, specially LDCs and SIDs, and to treat adaptation in an equal manner exactly as the case for mitigation.

8. One of the key components of Cancun outcome is an outcome on Finance. The Group of 77 and China wishes to reiterate its proposal on the New Fund and Governance and Oversight of Climate Finance and the provision by developed countries through a percentage of their GNP to address climate change in developing countries. The Group of 77 and China would like to underline that a decision on establishing a new climate change fund must address the four components i.e. structure, scope, scale and sources.

9. The Group strongly supports the need for establishing, under the Bali Action Plan, a Standing Committee to be supervised, at present, by the AWG-LCA and ultimately by the SBI, to provide guidance to the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism; make recommendations to other organization dealing with climate change finance to ensure coherence in delivering of climate finance; assure the accountability of the operating entity/entities of the FM; assess the adequacy of climate finance for the developing countries; manages Registry for measuring, reporting and verifying the fulfillment of contributions by developed countries, flow of total financial resources/commitments from the developed to the developing countries through all sources and review the contributions by the developed countries. The group would like to reiterate its desire to immediately engage on the two issues, the establishment of the new Fund under the Convention and a mechanism for continued governance of this fund, with a view to their finalization at the earliest. We also reiterate the importance of advancing our discussions toward establishing the adequate institutional arrangements for adaptation and technology transfer.

10. Implementation of decision 1/CP10 has been a big concern for the group for many years, the group in this session, will continue its involvement, looking forward to progressive and serious consideration of its submissions, views and concrete proposals on different elements towards the implementation of decision 1/CP10. in order to meet adaptation needs of the developing countries.

Madam President,

11. On the data related to greenhouse gas emissions from Annex I Parties to the Convention the Group of 77 and China wants to express its concerns on the trends visualized in the report on national GHG inventory data from Parties included in Annex I to the Convention for the period 1990-2007 where it is demonstrated that Annex I Parties increased by 11.2 percent their emissions excluding LULUCF and by 12.8 per cent including LULUCF. This shows the tendency which goes against the commitments those parties have, according to paragraph 4.2 of the Convention. Therefore the Group of 77 and China considers that further actions are needed, in order to assure the fulfillments of existing commitments of developed country Parties and their compliance.

Finally, Madam President,

12. I would like to assure you that the Group of 77 and China will continue to work constructively and in good faith during the course of this session to make Cancun a success.

I thank you.