A European plan to unblock UN climate talks
with a new global treaty is being held up by India and some developing
countries who feared it would take too long to negotiate and lead to weaker
pledges by wealthy countries.
The "Durban
roadmap" came to the fore on Sunday night during the climate talks
because the first phase of the Kyoto protocol treaty will expire next year,
with several rich countries refusing to commit to further emission cuts and
deadlines.
The EU compromise proposal offers to preserve
the Kyoto protocol with a legally binding parallel treaty which would force all
countries to cut emissions, but at different speeds and timescales.
Europe and the South African chair of the
talks are thought to have persuaded the 42-strong Alliance of Small Island
States coalition and the 48 least developed countries to back the EU.
"China is
sending signals of flexibility, Indonesia, South Africa, and Brazil are
sympathetic but India is still saying the current treaty is a red line,"
said an EU source.
As the UK energy secretary, Chris Huhne, and
senior ministers from more than 190 countries flew to Durban for high-level
negotiations, deep divisions remained between the world's biggest emitters and
many smaller countries over finance, forests and how to raise the ambition of
cuts.
Many African and Latin American countries
said they feared richer countries were wasting time trying to re-negotiate the
Kyoto protocol.
"Instead of concluding negotiations now, they are trying to launch
a new route which is in danger of superceding what is already there with an
even weaker system. We fear that we will not have legally binding targets and
timetables", said a diplomat from one African country.
A spokesman for Venezuela said:
No comments:
Post a Comment