Doha climate talks to produce draft documents

All tracks of the Doha climate talks will produce new documents by Saturday for delegates to deliberate ahead of next week's high-level meetings, top UN climate official said here Friday. Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), made the announcement at a press conference on the sidelines of the talks. She said three working groups on the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol and the Durban Platform, respectively, will release some new documents by Saturday night to summarize this week's work. The working group on the Durban Platform, particularly, will put a draft document on the table for the first time since its inception in late 2011, Figueres noted. The platform is tasked with developing a legal instrument applicable to all UNFCCC parties concerning post-2020 efforts by 2015. The objective of the Durban Platform talks here is to develop "a work plan toward the 2015 agreement," Figueres said. The new working group will be the sole negotiating venue for future climate talks after the other two working groups close up this year in Doha. The two-week climate conference, which opened here on Nov. 26, will start to run its high-level meetings on Tuesday.