The main session of UN climate talks in Copenhagen stalled yesterday after African countries accused rich countries of trying to kill the existing UN Kyoto Protocol.
Talks failed to start as planned at 10:30am because of the African protest. The session was to seek ways to end deadlock on core issues, four days before about 110 world leaders aim to agree a new climate deal to limit global warming that scientists say will bring more heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels.
“This is a walk-out over process and form, not a walkout over substance, and that’s regrettable,” Australian Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said of the protest by African countries at the meeting, which ends on Friday.
“A range of developing countries have expressed their concerns and acted accordingly. This is not the time for people to play procedural games. We need to resolve the process issues and get onto the substance,” she said.
African countries accused rich nations of trying to kill the UN’s existing Kyoto Protocol for cutting greenhouse gases. They said the outline of the talks planned yesterday would sideline their concerns.
Developed countries are trying to “collapse” the entire 192-nation talks, Kamel Djemouai, an Algerian official who heads the African group, told a news conference.
He said that plans by rich nations “means that we are going to accept the death of the only one legally binding instrument that exists now,” referring to Kyoto. Other African delegates also said the rich wanted to “kill Kyoto.”
Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, predicted that the negotiations would get back on track in the early afternoon.
“The vast majority of countries here want to see the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol,” he said. “I’m not aware that any countries are trying to block anything.”
De Boer said that Danish Minister Connie Hedegaard, presiding at the meeting, would hold talks to appoint environment ministers to try to break deadlock in key areas, such as the depth of cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by developed nations by 2020, and cash to help the poor.
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