Richard Ingham Yahoo News 14 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN (AFP) – Negotiators raced against time to prevent a UN climate summit from ending in catastrophic failure Monday after developing nations staged a five-hour walkout and China accused the West of trickery.
As the White House said Barack Obama wants a deal that imposes "meaningful steps" to combat global warming, ministers admitted they had to start making giant strides before 120 heads of state arrived for the summit's climax Friday.
But their hopes were hit when Africa led a boycott by developing nations of working groups, only returning after securing guarantees the summit would not sideline talks about the future of the Kyoto Protocol.
That core emissions-curbing treaty ties rich countries that have ratified it to binding emissions curbs, but not developing nations. Related article: African frustration erupts at UN climate talks
It does not include the United States, which says the Protocol is unfair as the binding targets do not apply to developing giants that are already huge emitters of greenhouse gases. A first round of pledges under Kyoto expires at the end of 2012, and poorer nations are seeking a seven-year commitment period.
The walkout delivered another blow to the summit, which has already been marred by spats between China and the United States.
A White House spokesman said President Obama was "committed to pursuing an accord that requires countries to take meaningful steps" but acknowledged there was work to be done.
"There's no doubt that there are issues that will remain outstanding for quite some time," Robert Gibbs said.
In Copenhagen, senior US negotiator Todd Stern said Obama would address the conference early Friday. Related article: Copenhagen a four-corner fight
"There is still a long way to go if we have an agreement to reach," he said, describing the talks as "one of the biggest, most complicated conferences ever."
Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren, whose country is the holder of the revolving EU presidency, said everyone was aware the clock was ticking.
"We are running against time. The world has waited long enough," he said.
UN chief Ban Ki-Moon, speaking to reporters in New York before he was to leave for Copenhagen, also warned "time is running out".
"If everything is left to leaders to resolve at the last minute, we risk having a weak deal or no deal at all. And this would be a failure of potentially catastrophic consequence."
In an apparent concession, China said it might not take a share of any Western funding for emerging nations to fight climate change.
But in a pointer to the tensions backstage, Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said China would not be the fall guy if there were a fiasco.
"I know people will say if there is no deal that China is to blame. This is a trick played by the developed countries. They have to look at their own position and can't use China as an excuse," he told the Financial Times.
The G77 group of developing nations also said they were being excluded from key negotiations by the conference chair Denmark.
"We are faced with a process in which we have no hand. We are very concerned," Bernadita de Castro Muller, coordinator of the G77, told reporters, charging that the process was "totally undemocratic, totally untransparent".
From Brussels, EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso voiced fears of a failure.
"How are we going to look on Friday or Saturday if there are more than 100 heads of state and government from all over the world and that what we say to the world is that it was not possible to come to an agreement?" he said.
Campaigners were even blunter, with Greenpeace saying the summit had five days "to avert climate chaos". Emissions targets so far offered by Western leaders such as Obama amounted to "peanuts", the group added. Related Article: Chaos in Copenhagen as participants flood climate summit
The gathering's daunting goal is to tame greenhouse gases -- the invisible by-product derived mainly from the burning of coal, oil and gas that traps the Sun's heat and warms the atmosphere.
Scientists say that without dramatic action within the next decade, Earth will be on course for warming that will inflict drought, flood, storms and rising sea levels, translating into hunger and misery for many millions.
The stakes were underlined when a new UN report said that some 58 million people have been affected by 245 natural calamities so far this year, more than 90 percent of them weather events amplified by climate change.
African protest hits U.N. climate talks in final week
Krittivas Mukherjee and Pete Harrison, Reuters 14 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A protest by African nations accusing rich countries of doing too little to cut greenhouse gas emissions slowed U.N. climate talks on Monday just four days before world leaders are due to forge a deal in Copenhagen.
After a five-hour standoff, the African nations let talks restart after assurances their objections would be heard. They accused the rich of trying to kill off the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges many industrialized nations to cut emissions until 2012.
"We're talking again," said Kemal Djemouai, an Algerian official who leads the group of African nations at the December 7-18 meeting. Talks on a pact to succeed Kyoto have been sluggish since they started two years ago in Bali, Indonesia.
But negotiators have scant time to reach a new U.N. deal to fight global warming at a summit of 110 world leaders on Friday, shifting the world economy from fossil fuels in a bid to avert heatwaves, floods, mudslides or rising sea levels.
In Washington, the White House said President Barack Obama was working this week to help advance the Copenhagen talks ahead of his visit for the summit.
And White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said developing countries such as China and India would have to do their part to reach a climate accord. China is the top greenhouse gas emitter ahead of the United States.
After overcoming the African objections in Copenhagen, negotiators on Monday appointed pairs of ministers from poor and rich nations to seek solutions to the most contentious issues ahead of the summit.
Ghana and Britain would examine ways to raise billions of dollars in new funds to help the poor, Grenada and Spain would look at disputes about sharing out the burden of emissions cuts by 2020. Singapore and Norway would look at a possible levy on bunker fuels to help raise funds.
Despite the huge amount of work ahead, U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said: "The desire will be that nothing is booted upstairs," for Obama and other world leaders to hash out when they arrive in Copenhagen.
Earlier, African delegates said that the rich were trying ditch the Kyoto Protocol, which binds almost 40 industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
KILL KYOTO
Australian Climate Minister Penny Wong accused the African nations of staging a "walkout" and said it was "not the time for procedural games" so close to the end of the meeting, for which 35,000 people are registered.
At the heart of the dispute, developing nations want to extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and work out a separate new deal for the poor. But most rich nations want to merge Kyoto into a single new accord obliging all nations to fight global warming.
Industrialized nations want a single track largely because the United States never ratified Kyoto. They fear signing up for a binding new Kyoto while Washington slips away with a less strict regime [nLDE5BD1DU].
In a sign of the impacts of warming, a report by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said world sea levels could rise by up to 2 meters by 2100, with worrying signs of a thaw in Antarctica.
"It is now estimated that sea levels will rise between 0.5 and 1.5 meters by 2100, and in the worst case by 2.0 meters. This will affect many hundreds of millions of people living in coastal areas," they said in a report.
Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed said that it may be too late to help low-lying island states. "If all the developed nations stop their emissions today, and if we take business as usual, we will still drown," he said.
And a group of activists dressed as polar bears staged a protest urging the talks to "save the humans."
Differing from the African nations, a senior Chinese envoy said that developing nations' top concern was to secure funds from the rich to pay for carbon emissions cuts and cover the cost of adapting to a warmer world [nLDE5BD1I3].
"If you list them in order of priorities, the most pressing issues where developing countries want to see results are: firstly finance, secondly emissions reduction targets, third technology transfer," He Yafei, China's deputy foreign minister, told Reuters.
Many world leaders will turn up early to try to bridge the gaps. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown would travel to Copenhagen on Tuesday, his office said.
Brown hopes to meet Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi before other leaders begin arriving.
Organizers said the formal start of the intensive, high-level stage of talks in Copenhagen would be held on Tuesday evening (1630 GMT), when U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will address an opening ceremony.
(With extra reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison, Gerard Wynn, Richard Cowan, Sunanda Creagh, Writing by Alister Doyle; Editing by Dominic Evans)
African frustration erupts at UN climate talks
Jerome Cartillier Yahoo News 14 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN (AFP) – Africa's frustration at the UN climate summit boiled over Monday as delegates walked out of key talks and continental giant Nigeria warned the negotiations were now on red alert.
Sources at the marathon talks said Africa led a five-hour boycott of working groups, with the backing of the Group of 77 developing nations, and only returned after securing guarantees that the summit would not sideline talks about the future of the Kyoto Protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol ties rich countries -- but not developing countries -- that have ratified it to legally binding emissions curbs.
It also has an important mechanism enabling the transfer of clean-energy technology to poorer nations.
Yet it does not include the United States, which says the Protocol is unfair as the binding targets do not apply to developing giants that are already huge emitters of greenhouse gases.
Algeria, speaking at a press briefing on behalf of the 53-member African Union, demanded that there should be a special plenary session devoted to Kyoto.
"Otherwise we are going to lose everything," Algeria's chief negotiator Kemal Djemouia told reporters.
Asked about the state of negotiations, Nigeria's pointman rang the alarm bell.
"It is 'climate code red' right now, we are in code red right now, we stand at the crossroads of either hope for Africa or hope dashed in 'Hopenhagen'," Victor Ayodeji Fodeke told AFP.
He said that climate change was already triggering widespread migration in Africa, further increasing the competition for precious resources.
"Look at the situation in Africa," he said.
The Millennium Development Goals will be a mirage, poverty will be further exacerbated. Right now you have climate refugees ... Look at the droughts in east Africa. Climate change is a reality in Africa."
The Nigerian negotiator said that Africa had the support of emerging giants China and India in insisting that Kyoto does not get ignored.
"They are certainly behind us, they are with us that Kyoto must not die."
Yvo de Boer, the UN's climate chief, said there was widespread sympathy for Africa's concerns.
"I think this is not just an African concern," he told a press conference. "The vast majority of countries here want to see an extension of Kyoto."
Scientists say African countries will be in the frontline of climate change this century.
The continent faces greater risk of heatwaves, drought or changed rainfall patterns that could spell misery or malnutrition for millions. Yet it has the slenderest resources of all for coping with these threats.
Activist groups said they fully backed the Africans' stance, arguing that a voluntarist, non-binding approach would deprive the poor of their sole international safety net.
"Africa has pulled the emergency cord to avoid a train crash at the end of the week," said Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International.
"Poor countries want to see an outcome which guarantees sharp emissions reductions yet rich countries are trying to delay discussions on the only mechanism we have to deliver this -- the Kyoto Protocol.
"This is not about blocking the talks, it is about whether rich countries are ready to guarantee action on climate change and the survival of people in Africa and across the world," Hobbs added.
The environmental pressure group WWF said that uncertainty about the future of Kyoto was "creating a lot of mistrust and resentment within these negotiations".
"We believe a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol is a necessary part of the ... outcome of Copenhagen, and we support Africa's demands for this," it said.
Tense atmosphere clouds climate talks
Arthur Max, Associated Press Yahoo News 15 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN – The atmosphere at the U.N. climate conference grew more tense and divisive after talks were suspended for most of Monday's session — a sign of the developing nations' deep distrust of the promises by industrial countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
With only days left before the conference closes Friday, at least one world leader said he would come early to try to salvage the negotiations, and others reportedly were considering the move.
The wrangle over emission reductions froze a timetable for government ministers to negotiate a host of complex issues. Though procedural in nature, the Africa-led suspension went to the core of suspicions by poor countries that wealthier ones were trying to soften their commitments and evade penalties for missing their targets.
Talks were halted most of the day, resuming only after conference president Connie Hedegaard of Denmark assured developing countries she was not trying to kill the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 document that requires industrial nations to cut emissions and imposes penalties if they fail to do so. Kyoto makes no demands on developing countries.
Among the issues put on hold: whether China will be asked to make sacrifices similar to those demanded of the United States and other rich nations; whether it will open its carbon books to outside inspection; how to ensure every country counts its carbon emissions the same way; and how to raise a steady flow of money for poor countries to combat climate-linked economic disruptions such as rising seas, drought and floods.
The delay came just days before President Barack Obama, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and more than 110 other world leaders were scheduled to arrive to cap two years of negotiations on an agreement to succeed Kyoto.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office said he would go to Copenhagen on Tuesday — two days earlier than planned — to try to inject momentum into the talks. Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and several others reportedly were considering early arrivals.
Former Vice President Al Gore told the conference that new data suggests a 75 percent chance the entire Arctic polar ice cap may disappear in the summertime as soon as five to seven years from now. Gore, who won a Nobel Peace prize for his work on climate change, joined the foreign ministers of Norway and Denmark in presenting two new reports on melting Arctic ice.
The world leaders are aiming for a political agreement in Copenhagen rather than a legally binding treaty. Still, the goal is to nail down individual targets on emissions cuts and financing for developing countries in a deal that can be turned into a legally binding text next year.
Conference officials were struggling to cope with the increasing crush of people, which will only get worse when the leaders arrive with large delegations and their own press corps.
More than 40,000 people applied to attend the conference, already straining to accommodate 15,000. Nongovernment agencies, which sent thousands of people, were told only 1,000 will be allowed in at one time on Thursday and Friday. Journalists will be confined to a media center and forbidden from mingling.
Throngs of newly arrived delegates, journalists and activists waited for hours to pass security and get accreditation Monday, the start of the conference's second and final week. Authorities shut down the subway stop outside the hall because it was too crowded.
Police watched for further demonstrations after briefly detaining 1,200 people over the weekend. About a dozen were arraigned on preliminary charges of assaulting police officers or carrying box-cutters or other sharp objects. There were sporadic reports of vandalism across the city overnight.
The negotiations were meant to extend the Kyoto pact for at least another five years, with deeper emission targets for rich countries. A separate stream of talks dealt with the United States — which rejected Kyoto — and obligations by the developing countries in exchange for tens of billions of dollars a year.
The Africans protested when Hedegaard wanted to lump all the talks together.
"We are seeing the death of the Kyoto Protocol," Djemouai Kamel of Algeria, the head of the 50-nation Africa group, told reporters.
Mohammed Nashid, the president of the Indian Ocean archipelago nation of the Maldives, helped resolve the deadlock with an impassioned speech to the African nations to return to the talks, delegates said.
Outside the conference, Nashid voiced his frustration.
"In all political agreements, you have to be prepared to negotiate. You have to be prepared to compromise, to give and take. That is the nature of politics. But physics isn't politics. On climate change, there are things on which we cannot negotiate," he said.
U.S. special climate envoy Todd Stern said that with leaders due to arrive soon "any lost time is unhelpful." He added that in any complex negotiation "it never goes smoothly, never according to plan. There are always bumps."
Canada's Environment Minister Jim Prentice said the dispute set back the talks. "We have lost some time. There is no doubt about that," Prentice said.
Sakihito Ozawa, Japan's environment minister, said the African demand to spend more time on the industrial nations' targets "wasn't feasible."
"When I listen to the comments made by the developing countries, it made me very worried," he said, accusing those nations of trying to disrupt the conference.
On the sidelines of the talks, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced a new program drawing funds from international partners to spend $350 million over five years to give developing nations solar energy systems and other clean energy technologies to poor countries. The U.S. share of the cost will be $85 million, with the rest coming from Australia, Britain, Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland.
The International Energy Agency said $8.3 trillion will be spent on new energy in the next 20 years, but the entire amount could be recovered in cheaper energy and in energy efficiency. IEA director Nobuo Tanaka told reporters 93 percent of the additional energy needed by 2030 will be required by developing countries.
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Associated Press writers Michael Casey and Jan M. Olsen contributed to this report.
