U.S. climate stance is ‘blowing negotiations apart’, PNG envoy declares
By Kim Chipman and Alex Morales
7 December 2011 The U.S. view that no new global climate deal is possible before 2020 is derailing negotiations aimed at slashing the world’s oil and coal emissions, according to an envoy at the talks. “The present U.S. position of no new agreement until post- 2020 is really blowing negotiations apart,” Papua New Guinea’s chief climate delegate, Kevin Conrad, said in an interview in Durban, South Africa, where United Nations-led climate talks are divided over when to seek a new treaty to curb global warming. The U.S. won’t begin talks until China and India agree to take on legally binding actions without preconditions. In the meantime, countries should focus between now and 2020 on a voluntary emissions-cutting pact reached last year, according to U.S. lead climate negotiator Todd Stern. Other countries say it’s crucial to pursue a stronger agreement now. “We can’t wait for the U.S.,” Italian Environment Minister Corrado Clini said today in Durban. The European Union is pressing for a new treaty by 2015 and says it won’t move ahead with cuts under the Kyoto Protocol, the world’s only climate treaty, without a commitment from all nations to negotiate a new pact. The 27-nation bloc so far has shown no signs of softening its position during the two-week UN talks that end Dec. 9, leaving the future of Kyoto in doubt. Kyoto’s rules helped spur carbon trading and created the Clean Development Mechanism, generating $26.5 billion of credits and secondary trading of $68.2 billion, accounting for 18 percent of the carbon market since 2005, according to data from the World Bank. UN carbon credit prices have tumbled 54 percent since June partly because of concern the Kyoto limits on emissions won’t be extended. Canada, Russia, and Japan say they won’t continue under Kyoto after an initial phase of cuts expires next year. The U.S. never ratified Kyoto because it doesn’t require mandatory action from China, the world’s bigger carbon emitter. Meanwhile, China, India, and Brazil are pushing industrial nations to extend Kyoto, saying any climate pact must recognize the historical responsibility of the nations that caused the problem to act first. […] While the U.S. isn’t against the notion of a legally binding treaty, Stern says it won’t begin negotiations because China, India and other big emerging economies aren’t yet willing to be equally bound by such an agreement. At the center of the climate discord is a 2007 UN agreement reached in Bali, Indonesia, that treats China, India, Brazil and other big developing countries differently than industrialized nations. At the time, Bush administration negotiators reversed opposition to the pact following public pressure from other countries including Papua New Guinea. “If you cannot lead, leave it to the rest of us,” Conrad said during a final plenary session at the 2007 Bali meeting. “Get out of the way.” […]
U.S. Climate Stance Is ‘Blowing Negotiations Apart,’ Envoy Declares
I'm glad you keep posting this stuff. It continues to show that Americans are the stupidest, most self-righteous, arrogant and indifferent people on the entire planet. These adjectives fit right in our warmongering terrorism of the entire world too.
Nobody should look to the United States for leadership in anything, unless you want to count fat people, stupidity, illiteracy, war profiteering or how many truly stupid politicians you can fit into a New York taxi cab.
I'd like to see the entire world turn its collective back on America, the sooner the better, because a harsher reality check is overdue. We're simply unwilling to accept facts, data, science, truth or give our colonial ideas of Empire.
Too bad for all of us. I always knew we'd be the ones that would drag down the rest of the world as they choke and drown on our excesses.