Small island states and poor African nations on Wednesday wanted the climate conference to aim at a legally binding deal tougher than the Kyoto Protocol. Richer developing countries opposed the proposal.
Marianne Bom
Marianne Bom
After a highly unusual split within the developing countries’ bloc, the small island state Tuvalu asked for – and got – a suspension of climate negotiations to gain time to resolve the issue behind the scenes on Wednesday. The split appeared after several small island states and poor African states had demanded a legally binding treaty to aim at a maximum global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius. They also wanted greenhouse gas concentrations stabilized at 350 parts per million (ppm) rather than the 450ppm favored by developed countries and some major developing nations. The small islands states and their supporters claimed the existing agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, was not tough enough for the countries most vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. They wanted a new legally-binding protocol to run alongside the existing Kyoto Protocol. The demand was opposed by fast-growing developing economies such as China, India and South Africa, who thought it would retard their economic development, BBC News reports. “The main task of this (conference) is to adapt an agreed outcome from the Bali Action Plan [agreed in 2007] and we should very much focus on that,” said China's lead negotiator Su Wei, according to BBC News. “We have a very valid system to combat climate change,” he added.
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BBC News: Developing countries split on CO2
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BBC News: Developing countries split on CO2
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