Tempers Rise as Climate Talks Stall; UN Official Sheds Tears

Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The head of the United Nations' climate unit walked out of global warming talks in Bali, Indonesia in tears, as tempers flared among nations wrangling over the terms of a new climate change treaty.

Talks aimed at setting a negotiating agenda leading to a new international treaty on fighting global warming to replace the Kyoto Protocol were suspended twice after China and India objected to some of the language in the draft document.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, left the auditorium in tears after China's delegation demanded to know why the session had twice been started while separate talks were ongoing elsewhere.

``The secretariat was not aware that meetings were going on elsewhere,'' de Boer said, before closing the book in front of him and walking off stage. He returned about 15 minutes later.

Tempers rose during an earlier session when Sun Guoshun, a member of the Chinese negotiating team, told the plenary meeting: ``I'm not sure whether the secretariat is our secretariat, and I would like to ask for an apology.''

De Boer was then heard to say ``I have been offended now,'' before Witoelar suspended the session a second time.

Talks overran yesterday's deadline and carried on into the early hours as delegates tried to reach a compromise. The European Union and developing nations clashed with the U.S. over language outlining greenhouse-gas emissions reduction targets for industrialized countries and possible commitments by developing nations such as China and India.

`Game of Chicken'

``It's a big game of chicken right now,'' said Andrew Deutz, senior policy adviser for UN affairs at the Nature Conservancy. ``The U.S. doesn't want to move unless they know India and China are going to move, and India and China of course don't want to move until the U.S. does.''

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon canceled a speech in Jakarta today to stay in Bali and push for a compromise.

``This has been a tough set of negotiations,'' said Australian Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, the co-chair of the Bali negotiations. ``We were cautiously optimistic last night about the progress that was being made, unfortunately that progress has not continued this morning. But we are still attempting to proceed to a negotiated resolution.''

Delegates resumed today for a plenary session designed to adopt all decisions made during the two-week conference and set a deadline for a new climate accord. When he came to the contentious document, Witoelar, the president of the conference, urged delegates to ``exercise leadership'' and accept the text.

EU Agrees

Portugal, speaking for the EU, agreed to the document, before India, speaking on behalf of the G77 group of developing nations, and then China, objected to language describing efforts developing nations should take, forcing the session into recess. The meeting resumed after a 100-minute pause, and the fractious exchange led to a second halt.

``When the ministers broke up last night there were two options'' for the disputed text, Prodipto Ghosh, an adviser to the Indian delegation, told reporters after the meeting was suspended for the second time. ``Our understanding was both would be available for discussion in the plenary. The president in his wisdom chose one option,'' he said, referring to Witoelar.

``Our minister would prefer the second option.''

At issue are two paragraphs in the so-called Bali Roadmap for a new climate treaty that calls for ``commitments or actions'' from all developed countries to reduce emissions blamed for global warming. Developing countries should take ``appropriate mitigation actions,'' according to the text.

``The Americans would like the two paragraphs to look as much alike as possible and the Indians want them to look as different as possible,'' said David Doniger, former head of climate policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and now climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He spoke in an interview in Bali.

`Not Good Enough'

The U.S. succeeded in its aim to have removed from the preamble of the text a statement that developed nations should slash emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020. Instead, a footnote was placed, referencing passages in reports by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that call for emissions cuts of as low as 10 percent in the same period. That left some delegates unhappy.

``An ordinary person picking up the text will then have to follow the reference and find it on page seven hundred and whatever it is,'' Grenadian Ambassador Angus Friday, a spokesman for 39 small island states, told reporters early today in Bali. ``That's not good enough.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Morales in Nusa Dua at amorales2@bloomberg.net ; Kim Chipman in Nusa Dua, Indonesia, at kchipman@bloomberg.net .

Climate change disaster is upon us, warns UN

A record number of floods, droughts and storms around the world this year amount to a climate change "mega disaster", the United Nation's emergency relief coordinator, Sir John Holmes, has warned.

Sir John, a British diplomat who is also known as the UN's under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said dire predictions about the impact of global warming on humanity were already coming true.

"We are seeing the effects of climate change. Any year can be a freak but the pattern looks pretty clear to be honest. That's why we're trying ... to say, of course you've got to deal with mitigation of emissions, but this is here and now, this is with us already," he said.

As a measure of the worsening situation, Ocha, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - part of the UN secretariat that employs Sir John - has issued 13 emergency "flash" appeals so far this year. The number is three more than in 2005, which held the previous record.

Two years ago only half the international disasters dealt with by Ocha had anything to do with the climate; this year all but one of the 13 emergency appeals is climate-related. "And 2007 is not finished. We will certainly have more by the end of the year, I fear," added Sir John, who is in charge of channelling international relief efforts to disaster areas.

More appeals were likely in the coming weeks, as floods hit west Africa. "All these events on their own didn't have massive death tolls, but if you add all these little disasters together you get a mega disaster," he said.

The only one of this year's emergency appeals not connected to the climate was an earthquake in Peru, in August. The others arose after an unprecedented string of catastrophic floods across much of Africa, south Asia and North Korea, and followed severe drought in southern Africa, Nicaragua's category-five hurricane, and extreme climate conditions in Bolivia, which brought both drought and floods.

The Ocha appeals represent the tip of an iceberg since they are launched only with the agreement of the affected country. India was badly affected by floods that hit the rest of the Asian region in July. But unlike its neighbour, Pakistan, India did not call on the UN for help.

Ocha believes that 66 million people were made homeless or were otherwise affected across south Asia. The lives of several million more people were turned upside down across Africa. Sudan, Mozambique, Madagascar, Zambia and Uganda experienced disastrous floods, and Swaziland and Lesotho declared emergencies because of severe drought that reduced harvests by half.

The latest appeal from Ocha was launched yesterday, to try to raise emergency relief funds for Ghana, where more than 400,000 people are reported to be homeless as a result of flooding. Appeals may also be started for Togo and Burkina Faso.

"The flooding in Africa just now is the worst anyone can remember," Sir John said, expressing frustration at how little media attention in the west was being devoted to what he terms creeping climatic catastrophe.

Flooding is likely to be common for a warming planet, and climate change has a double effect - causing an increase in the frequency of storms, while higher atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide curb the ability of plants to draw groundwater.

A climate-change summit is to be held in Bali in December, with the aim of agreeing the principles of a new international treaty to replace Kyoto, the accord that expires in 2012. But the talks face determined US opposition to mandatory emissions targets, and most climate negotiators doubt a real breakthrough can be achieved before the Bush government leaves office in 2009.

Sir John argues that whatever is done on greenhouse gas emissions, money has to be spent now on mitigating the impact that climate change is already having. "You can't actually stop disasters happening but you can do a lot to reduce their impact and reduce people's vulnerability to them by making sure people don't live on the coast or river plains, and that roads are raised and dams are in reasonable shape."

According to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is leading research on the issue, global warming will disrupt and potentially devastate the lives of billions of people.
And, just as global warming starts to make itself felt, there are signs that "donor fatigue" has set in. Of about $338m (£166m) requested for Ocha's 13 flash appeals this year, only $114m has so far come from donors.

The Guardian