Climate change talls

Radio New Zealand must have got this headline direct from minister Tim Grosser

Climate campaigners protest slow progress

Environmental campaign groups have walked out of a United Nations conference on global warming.

Radio NZ

23 November, 2013

Several hundred people left the talks at Poland's national stadium in Warsaw expressing anger over the slow pace of negotiations on Thursday. However, some of the Government negotiators indicated that a deal was possible on contentious issues.

Campaigners walk out of the climate change conference Warsaw.

AFP

The talks began almost two weeks ago in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan with an emotional plea for rapid movement from the Philippines' lead delegate, the BBC reports.

Yeb Sano, said it was time to "stop this madness" but his call has fallen on deaf ears according to many civil society groups such as Oxfam, WWF and Action Aid.

"Governments are not doing enough," Oxfam's Celine Charveriat said as she walked out of the talks. We need to tell them you are not allowed to make a mockery of this process. We can't continue to watch in silence. Enough is enough."

Earlier, Japan surprised the meeting by announcing that it would have to significantly revise its targets on emissions cuts, and instead of being able to cut their carbon dioxide by 25% below 1990 levels, the Japanese admitted they would actually rise by 3%.

Australia annoys

There was also annoyance among negotiators from developing countries about the attitude of Australia's new Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who has signalled a more sceptical approach to climate issues.

But campaigners reserved most of their wrath for Poland's government, which gave its backing to a meeting of the coal industry in the capital on Monday, and on Wednesday, sacked the environment minister who was chairing the climate talks.

Participants are trying to develop a framework for a global deal in 2015, that would be legally binding and applicable to all.

Some richer countries are fighting tooth and nail against the idea of a legally binding compensation arrangement, that in their words, would see them on the hook for every storm in every part of the world, forever, the BBC reports.

The talks are expected to finish on Saturday.

Warsaw climate change talks falter as EU and developing countries clash

EU chief chastised for expressing frustration with failure to agree timetable on emission cuts and attempts by some to opt out

The Guardian,

22 November, 2013

United Nations talks on climate change were on the brink of breaking down on Friday as a group of developing countries launched a furious attack on the European Union over plans to set out a timetable towards a global deal on greenhouse gas emissions.

Rows over whether rich countries should pay compensation to the poor for the effects of climate change, and over how governments can move to a historic global deal on emissions, have disrupted the fortnight-long talks, which have been marked by walk-outs and recriminations.

As the talks dragged on into the night, the EU's climate chief, Connie Hedegaard, expressed frustration with the failure to agree a timetable on emissions cuts, and with attempts by a small number of developing countries to opt out of the proposal.

In a dramatic intervention late on Friday, Venezuela's head of delegation, representing a group of "like-minded countries" including China, India, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, accused the EU of "damaging seriously the atmosphere of confidence and trust in this process". Claudia Salerno said: "We are shocked by the brazen attack against our group by Hedegaard – it is incredible that she has chosen to accuse our group of blocking progress."

Talks had been inching towards a conclusion, with participants reporting "productive" meetings and "modest progress". The negotiations were meant to lay the groundwork for a crunch meeting in Paris in late 2015, at which governments are supposed to sign a new global treaty on climate change, to come into force from 2020, which would be the first to include commitments on emissions from both developed and developing nations.

Before this can happen, it is crucial thatall countries set out national targets on emissions well in advance of the Paris talks, so that other participants can assess the targets – which would lay out cuts into the 2020s and beyond – and can see whether they are sufficiently ambitious to head off dangerous levels of climate change.

The US, the EU and many other rich and poor countries see such a programme as essential. But as the talks dragged on into extra time in Poland's national football stadium on Friday night, there was still no consensus.

Salerno's outburst underlined the fractious nature of the talks, and the new divisions between some rapidly emerging economies, some of them with large fossil fuel interests, and other developing countries that have more to lose from the effects of climate change.

The spokesman for Hedegaard said some countries wanted to portray the talks as divided between the developed and developing world. "It's not like that. It is the willing versus the unwilling."

The EU and US are also anxious to ensure that rapidly growing economies – especially China, which is now the world's biggest emitter of C02 and second biggest economy – take on responsibilities for their emissions, which they did not under the Kyoto protocol.

In another strand, the highly contentious issue of "loss and damage", by which developing countries stricken by the effects of severe weather would receive assistance, was moving towards compromise.

That would involve a mechanism for channelling funds to vulnerable countries when they suffer natural disasters related to global warming. This is very different from the "compensation" that some developing countries want from the rich world, and which rich countries have ruled out, but they may accept this compromise as it would allow them to receive funding when disaster strikes.

Ed Davey, the UK's energy and climate secretary, said: "I think we will be able to reconcile these views."