Fears of deadlock as Climate Change Summit begins in Durban
Tue 29 November 2011
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Climate treaty negotiators fear deadlock in the upcoming Climate Change Summit in Durban, South Africa. The meeting will involve 10,000 officials from 194 countries in wide-ranging and complex negotiations as the world community tries again to negotiate a deal on climate change.
The Independent comments on 'entrenched disagreements' over renewing the current climate treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol – between China and India on the one hand and Japan, Canada and Russia on the other – which look likely to produce a stalemate.
The dispute over Kyoto, essentially an argument between rich and poor countries about who does what to combat global warming, can not be delayed any longer because the Kyoto Treaty runs out at the end of 2012.
Developing countries, led by China, now the world's biggest carbon emitter, and India, now number three, want Kyoto renewed because it commits them to no action of their own, while imposing binding emissions cuts on industrialised states. This position is opposed by America - now the second biggest emitter in the world - and other major economies (Japan, Russia and Canada) who say they will not sign a renewed Kyoto under any circumstances.
The Independent says that the deadlock is critical because the latest figures on CO2 show emissions rising above what anyone contemplated four years ago, when the last IPCC report was produced. Global CO2 emissions in 2010 reached 33.51 billion tonnes, up from 31.63 billion in 2009 – an increase of nearly 6 per cent, believed to be the highest-ever percentage increase year on year.
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