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Progress slow at UN meeting on global warming

A demand by China, India and Brazil that rich nations accept that they are mainly responsible for global warming has held up progress at a key UN climate change conference here, delegates said yesterday.

The three nations' insistence since the talks started on Monday that the developed world recognize their dominant role in climate change has taken up precious time meant for debate on how best to tackle global warming, they said.

"Progress is slow," one delegate from a European nation, who asked not to be identified, said.

"Brazil, India and China are trying to put on the shoulders of industrialized nations the historic responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions in order to clear their own emissions [of blame] and to protect themselves in any discussion," the delegate said.

At least 400 scientists and experts from about 120 countries are attending the week-long third session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN's leading authority on global warming.

Their report, expected to be released at the end of their meeting tomorrow, aims to lay out ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent a climate catastrophe without seriously hurting the global economy.

But China has also insisted on specific figures, which lay the blame for global warming on rich nations, be inserted into the conclusions, according to documents obtained by Agence France- Presse.

Industrialized countries should formally recognize that they were responsible for 95 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from the pre-industrial era to 1950, and for 77 percent from 1950 to 2000, according to China's submission to the IPCC.

One of the French delegates, Renaud Crassous, said China was proving to be a dominant force in this week's talks.

"China is distrustful regarding everything that could draw a conclusion that it is easy to reduce emissions," Crassous said.
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