CANCUN, Mexico, (Reuters) – Resolving a dispute between rich and poor nations over cuts in greenhouse gas emissions is key to unblocking progress on all issues at U.N. climate talks in Mexico, a senior official said yesterday.
New draft texts at the Nov. 29 to Dec. 10 talks gave widely varying ways out of the deadlock pitting Japan, Canada and Russia against developing nations who accuse them of breaking promises of future cuts under the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol.
The issue of reining in emissions is “the big question that has to be answered in some way, shape or form,” John Ashe, chair of the section of the U.N. talks on the future of the Kyoto Protocol, told Reuters.
The issues are “not independent of each other,” he said, adding that a deal on curbs could unlock a wider modest package.
The Cancun talks are also seeking a deal on a new fund to help poor nations, ways to protect tropical forests and share clean technologies. The effort comes amid predictions that global warming will bring devastating droughts, heatwaves, floods, more powerful storms and rising sea levels.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in the Caribbean beach resort to address an opening session for ministers from around the world yesterday. The talks are the first since the U.N. summit in Copenhagen fell short of a treaty last year.Japan, Russia and Canada have been adamant in Cancun that they will not approve an extension to Kyoto when a first period runs out in 2012 and want a new, broader treaty that will also bind emerging economies led by China and India to act.
But developing states say rich nations have emitted most greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution and must extend Kyoto before poor countries can be expected to sign up. Kyoto binds almost 40 nations to cut emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels during the five-year period 2008-12.
“We are putting great pressure on Japan to back down,” said one developing country delegate.
s from Antigua and Barbuda, said that one option, mentioned at previous talks, was simply to extend Kyoto beyond 2012 with the existing goals for cuts, rather than new ones.
“The current commitment period could be extended while we sort out the question of the level of ambition,” he said. The option had not been discussed yet in Cancun.
One draft suggested ways to ensure that developing countries do more — a key demand of rich nations.
That might oblige emerging nations with more than 0.5 or 1 percent of world emissions, such as China and India, to report emissions levels every two years. Currently, only rich nations have to report emissions, annually.
The talks are trying to restore confidence after Copenhagen soured relations between rich and poor in a world of shifting influences. Developed nations are suffering from anemic growth while growth in China and India is raising their power. The U.N. Environment Program reiterated yesterday that planned cuts in greenhouse gases were far too small to meet a non-binding goal set in Copenhagen of limiting a rise in world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times.