Poor Nations End Boycott of Climate Talks

(AP)  Last Updated 1:27 p.m. EDT

Poor countries ended a temporary boycott of the U.N. climate talks Monday after getting assurances that rich nations were not conspiring to reduce their commitments to cutting greenhouse gases, European officials said.

Informal talks resolved the impasse between rich and poor nations and ended the daylong boycott, which was started by African countries and backed by 135 developing countries including China and India.

The boycott disrupted efforts to forge a pact on global warming, delaying the frantic work of negotiators who are trying to resolve technical issues before more than 110 world leaders arrive in Copenhagen later in the week. It appeared aimed at shifting the focus of the U.N. climate talks to the responsibilities of industrial countries and making greenhouse gas emission cuts the first item for the leaders to discuss.

Andreas Carlgren, the European Union environment spokesman, said both rich and poor nations "found a reasonable solution." Developing countries agreed to return to all negotiating groups that they had abandoned earlier Monday, said Anders Frandsen, a spokesman for conference president Connie Hedegaard of Denmark.

The developing countries want to extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which imposed penalties on rich nations if they did not comply with its strict emissions limits but made no such binding demands on developing nations.

"We are really prepared to discuss all issues in the negotiations. It means also absolutely all issues under the Kyoto Protocol," Carlgren said.

The dispute came as the conference entered its second and critical week. Poor countries, supported by China, said Hedegaard had raised suspicion that the conference was likely to kill the Kyoto Protocol.

The United States had withdrawn from Kyoto over concerns that it would harm the U.S. economy and that China, India and other major greenhouse gas emitters were not required to take action. China is now the world's largest greenhouse gas polluter.

"We are seeing the death of the Kyoto Protocol," said Djemouai Kamel of Algeria, the head of the 50-nation Africa group.

An African delegate said developing countries decided to block the negotiations at a meeting hours before the conference was to resume Monday. He said applause broke out every time China, India or another country supported the proposal to stall the talks.

"This is all part of the negotiating dynamic, especially as you get closer to the end game," said Jake Schmidt of the Natural Resources Defense Fund.

Canada's Environment Minister Jim Prentice said the dispute was a setback to negotiations.

"We have lost some time. There is no doubt about that," Prentice said. "It is not particularly helpful, but all in all it is our responsibility to get on with it and continue to negotiate."

Scientists say global warming will cause problems worldwide, including rising seas, melting glaciers, more drought, more extreme weather and the extinction of some species.

A report released today at the conference said new data shows that - more than double the amount predicted in the 2007 report published by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate
change, said new data suggests the Arctic polar ice cap may disappear in the summertime as soon as five to seven years from now.

In Washington, The White House on Monday announced a new program drawing funds from international partners to spend $350 million over five years to give developing nations clean energy technology to curb greenhouse gas emissions and reduce global warming.

The program will distribute solar power alternatives for homes, including sun-powered lanterns, supply cleaner equipment and appliances and work to develop renewable energy systems in the world's poorer nations.

The funding plan grew out of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) established among the world's top economies earlier this year.

The U.S. share of the program will amount to $85 million with the remainder coming from Australia, Britain, Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland, the White House said in a statement.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Energy Secretary Steven Chu is to coordinate with partners in the group to insure immediate action on the program.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office said he would arrive in Copenhagen on Tuesday - two days earlier than previously planned - in an attempt to inject momentum into the climate talks.

"His view is that these negotiations can't wait until the last minute. He believes that we have learnt the lessons from the G-20, that it takes leadership to get involved and try to pull together what is required as soon as possible," Brown's spokesman Simon Lewis told reporters in London.

Lewis denied that Brown - facing a national election by June - was seeking to personal credit if a deal is struck. "He is not seeking to push himself forward, but he has taken a personal view that it is important that, if world leaders can, they should get there early," the spokesman said.

Earlier Monday, British Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said it's up to him and his counterparts in Copenhagen to help bridge that gap between rich and poor countries and "not to leave everything" to the world leaders.

"There are still difficult issues of process and substance that we have to overcome in the coming days," Miliband said. "Can we get the emission cuts we need? We need higher ambition from others and we will be pushing for that."

In downtown Copenhagen today, police detained about 20 people among 3,000 climate activists protesting outside Parliament.

More than 1,200 others were detained in weekend protests, although almost all were released after questioning. About a dozen were arraigned on preliminary charges of assaulting police officers or carrying sharp objects.

Police spokesman Henrik Moeller Jakobsen said 12 cars were set on fire overnight Monday, and vandals also smashed windows and threw red paint at the headquarters of the Danish Immigration Service. It was not immediately clear whether those attacks were related to the climate conference.


For more info:
United Nations Climate Conference (COP-15) December 7-18, 2009

[bubbadubba]

More proof Bush and the Republicans gave our country to the wealthy.
China is listed as a poor country and yet China owns almost 50% of the US debt and we pay them interest on the loans.
Now tell me Limbetts and Hannitones, if China is a poor developing country and they own half of the US what does that make us?
You got it, worse than poor and developing.
Thanks Republicans.

[ffoulkes-2009]

They don't own have the US, ya moron...just half our debt. The US is worth a WHOLE heckuva lot more than that 800 billion.

[gosstom]

This is all part of the negotiating dynamic, especially as you get closer to the end game," said Jake Schmidt of the Natural Resources Defense Fund.
You're right, Mr. Schmidt. This is a game, as most people are now realizing that Gullible Warming has been, is, and will be in the future, a silly, incredibly costly and completely useless mind game.

[kbbpll]

We could have been 100% solar, wind and geothermal by 2030, but we spent the money in Iraq instead.

[ubrew12]

Right on. What a complete WASTE...

[Justaneocon]

This is a joke right the conference will put more carbon into the air in a week the 60 third world countries will in a year.

Their will be 140 private jets flown there and once there, they will use 1200 limo's. It is ridiculous the hypocrisy in the tree hugging bark humping circles.

Once the people crying wolf and catastrophe start riding bicycles to work and disconnect power and heat from their homes then I'll believe something is wrong but right now it is just a power and money grab on phony science.

[Cyber998]

Any references for those figures, or are they all just pulled out of the hot thin air?

I take it these are those Fox News figures which people like to quote, which seem to count any chartered flight as a "private jet" and any hired car as a "private limo". I was on a chartered flight once, certainly didn't have the "private jet" feel, but then I don't run a news network whose internal motto is "ratings, ratings, ratings".

[nowhiningallowed]

Exactly what will these poor developing nations do to limit their pollution? So far all they seem to want is a handout and more pandering. It's not up to the rich nations to keep bailing them out with handouts. These nations need to step up to the plate and get with the program and advance themselves from a third world archaic society to at least the 19th or 20th centuries. As long as the rich nations keep giving them handouts without also demanding improvement and responsibility and accountability, these poor nations will continue to blindly go about their business in a vacuous stuper.

[ffoulkes-2009]

Sounds a bit like our own Welfare system...all handouts with no incentives to become productive.

[stn_sage]

This treaty is based on a decade of fraudulent science...and that is NOT a basis for ANY sound, rational, reasonable treaty!

The main purpose of this treaty...not portrayed to the public...is to surrender the national sovereignty of nations through the United Nations!
To create this so-called New World Order.

In the process, over a billion so-called 'third world' peoples will be starved out of existence and economic stability with continue to erode in Western capitalist nations resulting in mass unemployment and eventually mass extermination there, also!

Also, ANY such treaty must be THOROUGHLY reviewed and approved by Congress, and I would suggest, in the case of ANY clause that alters the formation of the U.S. govt, it's obligations, structure, or very existence...a NATIONAL REFERENDUM must be presented before the public to vote upon!

THESE type of changes CANNOT LEGALLY be enacted by an executive order by the President! For him to attempt to do so, it can and should be construed as an act of treason! And, is not binding upon any citizen of the United States!

If this were to transpire, all govt officials have sworn to abide by, protect, and defend the Constitution, and they must ACT to do so, by taking whatever action is necessary to defend this nation against enemies foreign or DOMESTIC!

This meeting should be NO more than a gathering and serious discussion
of the problems at this time with ongoing discussions in the immediate future! But under the current situation, it would be seriously irresponsible to take ANY lasting long term actions!

[ubrew12]

Go ahead and review the science AND the treaty. Just remember that Scripps Institute estimates that Lakes Mead and Powell will go dry within 12 years (50% chance). My own personal estimate is that in 20 years, the Florida Keys, Waikiki, NC Outer Banks, New Orleans, Malibu, and many places on our coastlines will be underwater. WHEN that happens, if you are still posting your bvllsh8t, you better watch your back.

tic, tic, tic,

[ubrew12]

Any catastrophe that is SO OBVIOUS that Lyndon Johnson was warning Congress about it 45 years ago, is not a catastrophe I want to be preaching against when it happens.

[troutfishyman]

What should the reaction be of countries like the Maldives, which will eventually be underwater? If they are damaged by the actions of others, do they not have a right to financial compensation?

[ubrew12]

They have No right at all (/sarcasm). However, WHEN that happens I wouldn't be surprised to find America targetted by terrorists who are other than Muslim.

[kerry4ever]

Why am I not surprised that they are so quickly back with the begging bowl? All they are waiting for is for some gullible, guilt ridden western politicians to fill it. Step forward Obama and Brown.

[Brokennews]

Nothing to worry about here! With all the spending that we're doing we won't be a rich country within 3 or 4 years and won't have to worry about reducing carbon emissions. We'll be on par with Uganda!

[cattiej]

Use your computer to Google Earth, stoplight over the big cities in China and India...Some of their earth you can't see for the polution. Here in Illinois, Obama is backing a new "Clean Energy Campus", a coal mine...there is not such thing as a clean coal mine. (Remember the devistation caused by the run-off from the TVA coal mine in Tennessee) As long a people of America will buy the crappy items made in China, China will become more powerful and more powerful and more powerful. China pays slave wages, folks we are next. China will call in their markers and we will be at their mercy because of elected government officals have sold their souls to China and now India. I want to read comments from some of you people who are reading this and have lost your jobs to oursourcing, now you will be losing your home and your health insurance. Congress wants to change Medicare to cover down to the age of 55. There's goes Medicare and also the cost of Medicare will double. We have Medicare and another insurance and we pay more money because the hospitals & Drs. bill us and we pay for the people who don't have insurance. Think not, well I used to do medical billing, I saw it happen everyday. Also, the poor people of Mexico can get heath insurance in Mexico, not here unless the are LEGAL citizens. I think we should boycott buying junk made in India and China. This is the best Christmas present you could give yourself.