Developing countries yesterday rounded on the US and its allies at emergency climate talks, accusing the world’s richest nations of stalling a deal aimed at preventing runaway global warming.
Experts from around the world have been locked in discussions over the past week in Bangkok, aiming to reach a comprehensive rulebook for countries to implement the landmark Paris Accord on climate change.
However, talks have foundered over the key issue of how efforts to limit climate change are funded and how contributions are reported.
Photo: AFP
Delegates representing some of Earth’s poorest and smallest nations said on the final day of the summit that the US and other Western economies were failing to live up to their green spending commitments.
“Developed countries are responsible for the vast majority of historic emissions, and many became remarkably wealthy burning fossil fuels,” said Amjad Abdulla, the head of a negotiating bloc of small island states.
“Yet, we face devastating climate impacts and some of us could be lost forever to rising seas” without progress on the Paris deal by the end of the year, he added.
Photo: AFP
The Paris deal, struck in 2015, aims to limit global temperature rises by the end of the century. To do this, countries agreed to a set of promises, including to establish an annual US$100 billion fund to help developing nations react to our heating planet.
The US and other developed economies want less oversight on how their funding is gathered and more flexibility over how future funding is structured, but developing nations insist they need predictable and open funding in order to effectively plan their fight against the fallout from climate change.
A senior source within the African nations’ negotiating bloc said the US and others were reneging on pledges made in Paris by refusing to discuss future climate funding.
“It’s as if we started from scratch” in Bangkok, the source said.
The Bangkok talks were organized as an emergency negotiating session after little progress was made at previous rounds towards a final rulebook.
Under the timeframe set in Paris, the guidelines for nations must be finalized by the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change summit in Poland in December.
While delegates have made some progress on areas such as new technology and carbon markets, activists said the US — with Western acquiescence — had stonewalled any momentum on the key funding issue.
Harjeet Singh, global lead on climate change for NGO ActionAid, yesterday the Paris deal was “on the brink.”
“Developed countries are going back on their word and refusing to agree clear rules governing climate finance,” he told reporters. “If they remain stuck in their positions and fail to loosen their purses, this treaty may collapse.”
The US under is scheduled to leave the Paris process in 2020, but multiple delegates in Bangkok said that it was still actively hindering progress in talks.
One senior negotiator said the US was “poisoning” the atmosphere of trust that led to the Paris accord.
Activists also called out the EU, Britain and Australia for falling into line with Washington’s position.
In related news, tens of thousands of people across the globe on Saturday took to the streets to demand that governments step up action on global warming.
Nearly 1,000 events in more than 90 nations delivered a two-pronged message: speed up the shift to a world powered by renewable energy rather than planet-warming gas, oil and coal; and protect the people most vulnerable to rising seas and climate-enhanced extreme weather.
The rolling, 24-hour protest peaked in San Francisco, where thousands snaked through the city chanting and carrying handmade signs and banners.
The protests came ahead of a three-day summit in San Francisco that opens on Wednesday
Additional reporting by AP
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in