Alister Doyle PlanetArk 14 Dec 10;
The world's governments face a new battle in South Africa in 2011 between rich and poor about slowing climate change, buoyed by some progress in Mexico but with faded hopes for a new treaty in coming years.
In 2011, governments will try to build on a deal in Mexico to set up a Green Climate Fund to help channel $100 billion in climate aid a year from 2020, along with new systems to protect tropical forests and share clean technologies.
The two-week meeting in the Caribbean resort that ended on Saturday showed an ever-broader belief that a legally binding deal is far off, partly because of opposition by China and the United States, the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases.
"We still have a long and challenging journey ahead of us," said Connie Hedegaard, the European Union's Climate Commissioner, of hopes for a legally binding global deal.
Cancun rejected calls by small island states, which fear they will be washed off the map by rising sea levels, to set a deadline for a treaty when environment ministers next meet in Durban, South Africa, in a year's time.
Opposition in the U.S. Senate to President Barack Obama's calls to legislate curbs on U.S. emissions makes it hard to imagine a new U.N. treaty in coming years -- it would need 67 of 100 Senate votes to be ratified.
Durban is likely to be the scene of a battle between developed and developing nations about how to extend or replace the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, which obliges nearly 40 developed nations to cut emissions until December 31, 2012.
Cancun made little progress toward resolving splits over Kyoto, long-term curbs on greenhouse gases or ways to bolster fragmented carbon markets that are intended to drive trillion-dollar shifts in investments from fossil fuels.
COPENHAGEN TO CANCUN
All sides agreed that a main success in Mexico was to get the 190-nation talks back on track after the U.N.'s Copenhagen summit in 2009 failed to agree a treaty and merely came up with a nonbinding deal among 140 countries.
Many of the goals adopted in Cancun -- such as limiting a rise in world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above preindustrial levels, or the target of $100 billion in aid from 2020 -- were in the Copenhagen Accord last year.
"Another 'failure' would have been crippling, if not fatal, to the whole enterprise," said Elliot Diringer of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Another step forward was that Washington and Beijing, at odds on issues ranging from trade to interest rates in 2010, did not bicker in Cancun.
Many nations say the talks lack urgency compared to threats such as desertification, floods and heatwaves.
On Kyoto, Japan has led calls for a new treaty beyond 2012 binding top emitters including China, the United States and India which have no binding targets for 2012 under Kyoto.
In a tussle over shifting global influences in the 21st century, when China has overtaken Japan in economic influence, emerging powers insist that rich nations must extend Kyoto first before they agree a less onerous deal.
Hedegaard said that deadlock in Cancun would have meant "we are headed to Doha rather than Durban." An EU official clarified that she was alluding to the stalled Doha round of U.N. trade talks -- not to the Qatari city that is vying to host the climate negotiations after Durban, in 2012.
In Cancun climate talks, India enjoys place in sun
Shaun Tandon Yahoo News 14 Dec 10;
CANCUN, Mexico (AFP) – India has emerged as a new global power on climate change, with major nations voicing praise -- and surprise -- at New Delhi's agile diplomacy that helped produce a deal in Cancun, Mexico.
Jairam Ramesh, India's outspoken environment minister, was instrumental in breaking a deadlock over how to verify nations' climate actions and, for the first time, said that his country would consider a binding deal in the future.
Ramesh told reporters in the Caribbean beach resort that India needed to change with the times as it seeks a greater global role and the world inches toward a new comprehensive agreement on fighting climate change.
"India is moving ahead. India is being progressive. It can only attain global leadership by expanding its negotiating space," Ramesh said. "A negotiating position must evolve over time."
Ramesh faced criticism at home, with the political opposition and some environmental activists accusing him of selling out India's position to please the United States, which has warming relations with New Delhi.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also played down the statements by Ramesh, who has found himself in trouble before over his plain-spoken remarks overseas.
But some climate negotiators and experts saw his comments as a major -- even historic -- shift by India, which since its independence in 1947 has fiercely fought global agreements seen as imposing mandates on the developing world.
"India's stance in climate negotiations has been much more open and much more active," French Ecology Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said. "This is something that is new and very encouraging."
Ramesh drafted a compromise on verification, an acrimonious dispute during last year's chaotic Copenhagen summit with developed nations insisting that all nations offer proof that they are meeting pledges to fight climate change.
Ramesh proposed that all countries responsible for at least one percent of carbon emissions blamed for climate change report their actions internationally every two years, but not face repercussions for falling short.
The final agreement in Copenhagen was more vague, but delegates said Ramesh's proposal helped bridge the gap between the United States and China, which stood on opposite poles over the dispute.
Ramesh's compromise offer was "very, very constructive," said Todd Stern, the chief US negotiator.
"It did most of what we thought needed to be done and had the benefit of not being ours," Stern said. "Diplomatically, that can be a good thing."
While Ramesh's role was among the highest profile, other major developing nations also played a more active role in Cancun.
China, stung by accusations that its intransigence ruined the 2009 Copenhagen conference, conducted an image makeover. China, the world's largest carbon emitter, highlighted its efforts on climate change and promised flexibility on the verification issue.
Brazil teamed up with Britain to solve a dispute over whether to extend the Kyoto Protocol, coming up with language that was acceptable to Japan -- which considers the treaty unfair by not including the United States and China.
South Africa also played a role, with President Jacob Zuma among the few heads of state to visit. The next major climate talks -- which some hope can seal a comprehensive deal -- is slated for Durban at the end of 2011.
But the highest praise -- from almost all countries in the talks -- was reserved for host Mexico. Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa painstakingly included all countries in talks, turning a page on bitter divisions in Copenhagen.
Dessima Williams, a diplomat from Grenada who heads the bloc of small island states that fear climate change threatens their very survival, said the Cancun talks showed a renewed influence "of the global South."
"Mexico is leading the way in the revival of an invigorated international system," she said.
The Cancun talks set up a "Green Climate Fund" to administer billions of dollars in climate aid promised for worst-hit poor countries. The deal also called for deep cuts in emissions to hold back temperature rises at two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
