Copenhagen: The December 7-18 climate summit came to a dramatic halt here for the second day running on Thursday as Pacific island nation Tuvalu insisted that its concerns be addressed right away, though India, China and many others pointed out this would delay progress towards a global treaty to tackle climate change.
With little time before Denmark’s Environment Minister Connie Hedegaard reports to her colleagues gathering here this weekend from around the world, the move by Tuvalu halted for the second day the process of advancing the Kyoto Protocol (KP) - the current treaty to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) that are warming the globe.
Now the major decisions to come out of this summit are being discussed behind closed doors, with the Danish government preparing another “political declaration” that it will circulate this weekend, though it was forced to withdraw its last draft in the face of concerted opposition from developing countries.
At the open sessions, India, China and many other developing countries were keen to see rich nations commit to significant GHG emission reductions for the post-2012 phase of KP - but that was effectively halted as Tuvalu, one of the few developing countries outside the Group of 77, did not agree to a two-day postponement of its proposal.
The issue had first flared up on Wednesday when the Tuvalu representative said the proposal his country had made in June for a treaty stronger than KP to tackle global warming be discussed immediately.
Other countries, including India, pointed out this would halt all other work and the impasse led to a suspension of the plenary session of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference.
Over 10,000 NGO representatives following every step of the talks here were at first strongly supportive of the Tuvalu position, and there was some talk of giving India the “Fossil of the Day” -- the NGOs’ badge of dishonor given to the country that had been the most obstreperous. Indian NGO representatives scotched that move.
When Tuvalu stuck to its guns on Thursday despite all-night negotiations and the pleas of Hedegaard, who chairs the plenary sessions, negotiators from other developing countries saw this as a tactic by some rich countries to scuttle KP.
Ministry of Environment and Forests Secretary Vijai Sharma pointed out that an hour had been set aside to discuss the proposal, but this did not appease the Tuvalu representative.
Just before the stormy session started, Sharma had told the sources, “If discussions on the Tuvalu proposal start now, they will go on for years and stall everything else. Of course, we should discuss every proposal by every country, but we have to have an outcome from this conference as well. There are 12-13 proposals on the table, including one we (India) had made with 37 other countries. Where’s the time to discuss all of them?”
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer agreed on the need to preserve KP.
“It will and must survive because any new treaty will take time to be ratified and enter into force - KP took eight years - and the world can’t wait that long to tackleclimate change.”
De Boer was, however, optimistic that something would come out of this conference. Asked about the lack of progress, he responded: “Huge expectations create nervousness. But now the negotiators have started to settle down.”
The one area on which the negotiators made progress on Thursday was technology transfer, with all countries agreeing to establish regional green technology development centres - an idea mooted at a New Delhi conference last month. But the ever-widening rift between small and large developing countries threatened to overshadow all progress.
African countries have opened a new front by joining the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) to say it is not enough to keep global warming to two degrees Celsius. All current GHG emission reduction calculations are based on the two-degree goal endorsed by the G20, but AOSIS, and now the Africa Group, have reiterated their demand to keep the warming down to 1.5 degrees.
AOSIS head Dessima Williams of Grenada said that with 0.8 degree Celsius warming, “some of our countries are going under the sea, some are losing their freshwater, some the infrastructure along the coast, some their coral reefs and some their fisheries.
“For us, climate change is not about what it can do but what it is doing. We can’t agree on anything more than 1.5 degrees. We want this conference to work towards keeping greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere down to 350 parts per million.”
It is at 387 now.
Williams also said the Tuvalu position was supported “by a large number of countries” but insisted: “The G77 is not breaking up. These differences are entirely normal.”
Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping of Sudan - the current G77 chair - announced the Africa Group’s insistence on the 1.5-degree goal.
He said a two-degree rise in global temperature would mean a 3-4 degree rise in Africa, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “That will expose Africa to immeasurable suffering and will devastate the continent. It is certain death to Africa. We can’t trade right to life with feasibility and economics of the Copenhagen deal.”
Di-Aping insisted there was enough money available to fight global warming better. “The International Monetary Fund alone has $200 billion in SDRS (special drawing rights) that are lying idle. This should be made available in the global effort to address climate change and the US Congress should vote for this.”
-- IANS