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A much-needed legally binding agreement on commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will apparently not be the focus of the next major round of global climate change talks this year.

Rather, money, specifically that which will flow from rich countries to poorer countries, is likely be the focus of discussions when representatives of 180 countries meet for the 16th Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, in November.

Minister for the Environment Gusti Muhammad Hatta said in Bali on Friday that there was little chance of reaching a legally binding agreement during the Mexico talks.

“ [The conference] won’t be setting up a high target for a legally binding [result] because it’s going to be a difficult one to achieve, but we will want to make sure the talks go down effectively with specific issues, such REDD [Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plan] and even financial issues,” he said.

Gusti’s statement echoed other officials, including outgoing UN climate chief Yvo de Boer.

“If and when we see a legally binding treaty remains to be seen because as I tried to point out earlier, legally binding means different things to different countries,” de Boer said, explaining that some countries see the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change as legally binding, while others feel the need for a specific set of rules and guidelines.

December’s Copenhagen climate talks have been criticized for failing to come up with an agreement that would legally bind countries to fulfill commitments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, which scientific studies have pointed to as the cause of destructive global warming. The new agreement is needed to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in which developed countries have agreed to reduce their emissions by 5 percent from 1990 levels, when it expires in 2012.

The Copenhagen Accord instead focused on developed countries’ commitments to raise money for a green fund — $30 billion from 2010 to 2012, and up to $100 billion per year by 2020 — for environmental projects in developing countries such as Indonesia.

“What we need is not to raise higher expectations [to achieve legally binding agreement] but we need to be ambitious in our goals. So the point is to work together and build stronger trust, especially between developing countries,” said Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada, Mexico’s minister of environment and natural resources, after the informal ministerial meeting on climate change in Nusa Dua.

He said one of the main discussion points would be the money transfer from developed countries to the developing countries in order to preserve forestry.

However, Karl Falkenberg, the European Union’s director general for environment, emphasized that the green fund was “not for free.”

“It is money that comes with an outcome where everyone is making an effort, that we are helping developing countries to make more effort than they could do on their own. But the sums are clear,” Falkenberg said.

“What is not totally clear today is the governance structure of this green fund, who will sit in there and what are going to be specific projects that should be supported,” he said. Fidelis Satriastanti