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Climate talks run into old divisions

Developing countries most at risk from climate change expressed frustration half-way through a two-week UN climate conference that rich countries had not made stronger commitments on cutting greenhouse gases.

More than 10,000 delegates from 192 nations are gathered in Poznan, Poland, to draft a new international climate change treaty, slated for completion by December next year.

The global economic crisis has made already delicate negotiations more difficult.

Many developed nations have shown signs of wavering on earlier promises to slash carbon emissions. Developing and poorer nations — including major carbon polluters such as China and India — say the industrialized world should lead by example, and must help them pay for clean-energy technology and the inevitable impacts of global warming.

The Poznan meeting aims to lay the groundwork for a shared vision on how to broaden the fight against climate change after the first round of rich-nation commitments under the Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012.

But the debate so far looks more like trench warfare, delegates and observers say, and is reminiscent of the old north-south divide that once animated debate over international relations.

“On Thursday, China called — quite forcefully — for a firm commitment right here in Poznan on a range [of emissions reductions] for 2020, even before [US president-elect Barack] Obama takes office,” one European observer said.

For Pierre Radanne, a member of the French delegation and a veteran of climate negotiations, the anger of developing countries is “on the whole legitimate.”

“After all, they have seen almost nothing since the beginning — industrialized countries made commitments [in Kyoto], but more than half of them have not kept them,” he said.

Nor has it gone unnoticed that rich nations that had been reluctant to invest in the developing nations’ fight against climate change suddenly coughed up hundreds of billions to save their own banks, he said.

Also See: Climate debate rages on while those least responsible suffer
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