By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Progress made on technical issues, so it is said by the governments, but non-government groups criticise slow and convoluted pace of negotiations
Two weeks of tense global climate talks, which were rather kept quiet in most of the media in Britain, wrapped up on June 17, 2011, with countries insisting they had made progress on technical issues but accepting they were still nowhere near agreement in the three key areas of finance, greenhouse gas emission cuts and the future of the Kyoto protocol.
Several countries have stated loud and clear, Canada amongst them, that they will not sign a Kyoto follow on agreement, and thus we seems to be at a worse state than we have been for a long time.
Non-governmental groups said they were deeply frustrated at the snail pace of negotiations and whole days lost while countries debated the agenda of the talks.
Bolivia, which was isolated at the end of the Cancún talks when it insisted on deeper emission cuts, said it was worried at the lack of ambition. "There have been some small advances in technical issues, but no advance at all in the key issue of pledges for emission reductions. If there are no new pledges [soon], we face a very difficult situation," said Pablo Solon, ambassador to the UN in New York.
"The developed countries are not moving. The problem we face is that we are on a path to [warming of] 4-5C. That is the reality. That worries us very much. The problem is the lack of ambition," he said
Quamrul Chowdhury, a negotiator with the G77 group of developing countries, said that the talks were like the end of a long cricket test match with both sides playing for a draw. "No-one wants to lose anything at this stage."
"Europe should use its power to secure a second commitment period of Kyoto, even if only as a stop-gap before the creation of an entirely new global deal," said Mohamed Adow, senior adviser on global advocacy for Christian Aid.
But we can very well bet our bottom dollar that that is not going to happen and that simply because there are way too many powerful lobbying groups that do not want a proper agreement and who want their industries to continue with the BAU model without any regard for the future of this Planet, aided and abetted by our supposedly elected representatives. Time we changed the model, mehtinks.
© 2011
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