Agence France-Presse reports that, “Africa led a (five-hour walkout by) developing nations (yesterday), only returning after securing guarantees the summit would not sideline talks about the future of the Kyoto Protocol.”
“At the heart of the dispute is that developing nations want to extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (which does not include emission reductions for them) and work out a separate new deal for the poor (on climate financing).”
“A first round of pledges under Kyoto expires (on December 31) 2012, and poorer nations are seeking a seven-year commitment period.”
“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, co-ordinator of the G77, told reporters, charging that the process was ‘totally undemocratic, totally untransparent.'”
“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.”
The report is at http://www.nationalpost.com/m/story.html?id=2340611&s=Today’s%20Newspaper.
