Draft text at UN climate talks survives first outing (wait 'til they get to the 'nitty-gritty')

AFP on Yahoo ^ | 6/1/09 | Richard Ingham

[NormsRevenge]

PARIS (AFP) – The draft of a negotiating text for a new pact on climate change survived its first hearing at UN talks on Monday, providing a boost on a road still strewn with many obstacles, delegates and officials said.

Despite criticism from the United States and others, the document was "basically welcomed as a good starting point for the negotiations," said Michael Zammit Cutajar, who framed the text.

The June 1-12 meeting in Bonn gathers a 192-country forum tasked with steering the world to a new treaty that will whip the threat from global warming.

If all goes well, the accord will be finished in Copenhagen in December and take effect from the end of 2012, committing countries to curbs on greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 that will be deepened by 2050.

But the process has made only snail-like progress, hampered by discord between rich and poor countries as to how deep these cuts should be and friction between advanced economies as to who should shoulder most of the burden.

The Bonn session is a key test as to whether Cutajar's broad roundup of proposals can be used as a format for detailed haggling or whether it would have to be scrapped and started again, thus further braking movement.

Cutajar, speaking in a webcast press conference, said the response from nations was "a good start to the session, a very positive mood, and I'm very pleased with that."

Further work would begin on Tuesday for addressing countries' reservations and whether it would be better to deal with these concerns in smaller groups or in a wider setting.

The text is likely to expand and become more complex as countries get down to the nitty-gritty, he cautioned.

[NormsRevenge]

The US strangles itself to death economically in the pursuit of certain disaster if we don't take radical actions to avert global calamities, the likes portrayed as the worst ever and it's all man's fault.

How's that for a solution?

CHina may have to think twice on that one and India.

File photo shows a pedestrian walking past a power plant in Beijing. The draft of a negotiating text for a new pact on climate change survived its first hearing at UN talks on Monday, providing a boost on a road still strewn with many obstacles, delegates and officials said. (AFP/File/Teh Eng Koon)

[NormsRevenge]

Arctic native peoples gather on the tundra in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge near Arctic Village, Alaska, calling for permanent protection of the refuge and urgent action on climate change in this May 30, 2009 handout picture. The human banner reads "Save the Arctic" with an image of a caribou in the center. REUTERS/Lou Dematteis/Spectral Q/Handout

[NormsRevenge]

ANWR

Arctic native peoples gather on the tundra in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge near Arctic Village, Alaska, calling for permanent protection of the refuge and urgent action on climate change, against the backdrop of the Brooks Mountain Range in this May 30, 2009 handout picture. The human banner reads "Save the Arctic" with an image of a caribou in the center. REUTERS/Lou Dematteis/Spectral Q/Handout (UNITED STATES CONFLICT ENVIRONMENT)

[Nathan Zachary]

Arctic native people sure are gullible.