Climate negotiators from the world’s biggest polluters clashed over how deeply to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases, but decided to hold new talks aimed at reaching an accord.
They also agreed on the enormity of their task.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, addressing the negotiators on Friday, warned that global warming is threatening food supplies and risks sparking a dozen Darfur-like conflicts — involving displaced, starving populations — around the world.
A South African participant said unchecked global warming would cost the world a staggering US$200 billion a year to overcome, the meeting’s co-chairman Jean-Pierre Jouyet said.
No fixed targets were set at the two-day Paris meetings, which were “dominated” by debate over how much to cut emissions, said Jouyet, France’s junior minister for Europe.
“There were divergences” between the EU and US positions, he said, without elaborating.
The EU has pledged to cut its emissions by 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, while the US has not committed to fixed cuts.
The so-called Major Economies Meetings bring together delegates from 16 countries that produce about 80 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. They are feeding broader UN efforts to follow up the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which requires signatories to reduce emissions. The pact expires in 2012.
The major polluters meetings were launched last year by the US with the goal of producing a climate agreement at the G8 summit in Japan in July.
A key idea being floated is a 50 percent cut in global emissions by 2050.
Since this week’s talks produced no fixed goals, the participants agreed to two more meetings, later this month and next month, Jouyet said.
No dates or venues were given.
Participants described this week’s talks — which ran several hours late into Friday night — as difficult, tense and lively.
The South African report of a US$200 billion annual cost for mitigating global warming sparked intense discussion about where to get all that money.
“The amount is so huge it is not a question of debating whether it is correct. What we need to do is make funds available immediately,” said Koji Tsuruoka, director general for global issues at Japan’s Foreign Ministry.
US, Japanese and French participants welcomed a Mexican proposal for a global fund, involving private and public money, focused on climate change.
The French president urged massive new flows of private investment to fight climate change.
Sarkozy also said that water shortages were already “having a considerable impact on security,” especially in Africa.
Participants at the talks came from the US, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia and South Africa.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RSS