Africans return to climate change table - 3rd Update

Mon, 14 Dec 2009

Copenhagen - African delegates returned to the negotiating table Monday after forcing a brief suspension in the Copenhagen climate change talks because of concerns that their voices were not being heard. "All countries" are now talking, several sources told the German Press Agency dpa.

Angry African delegations caused a several-hour suspension in the formal negotiations, prompting the conference's president, Connie Hedegaard, to start an informal round of discussions with its participants.

"The open-ended informal talks will allow ministers to focus on the key issues that need to be resolved," said the UN's climate chief, Yvo de Boer, who played down talk of an African walkout.

African delegates staged a highly publicized walkout during a previous round of negotiations in Barcelona earlier this year.

Negotiations in the Danish city are proceeding on a so-called two- track approach - one aimed at updating the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which for the first time imposed legally-binding greenhouse gas emission cuts on the world's rich nations; and a second track extended to all countries, including those that did not ratify Kyoto, such as the United States.

However, African nations complained Monday that Hedegaard was not paying enough attention to the Kyoto track.

"The killing of Kyoto will mean the killing of Africa," said Mama Konate, a member of Mali's delegation.

The Copenhagen talks are aimed at limiting global warming to within 2 degrees centigrade against pre-industrial levels. This is to be achieved predominantly through massive emission cuts by the world's richest nations.

Konate said a temperature increase of 2 degrees would cause a 25 per cent drop in his country's staple crop yields. This would result in "hunger for 44 per cent of the Malian population by 2020."

Jeremy Hobbs of the charity Oxfam International said Africa had "pulled the emergency cord" in a bid to prevent the Copenhagen train from crashing.

"Poor countries want to see an outcome which guarantees sharp emissions reductions, yet rich countries are trying to delay discussions on the only mechanism we have to deliver this - the Kyoto Protocol," Hobbs said.

Asked about the Africans' position, de Boer said: "This is not just an African concern. The vast majority of countries here want to see a continuation of the Kyoto protocol."

While the European Union has already committed itself to deep cuts, the world's biggest polluters - China and the US - have both expressed reservations about adopting a legally binding text in Copenhagen.

But de Boer rejected the view that a final deal would only be possible if the so-called G2 came to some form of agreement among themselves.

"This is more than a negotiation between the US and China," de Boer said.

With the conference having surpassed the half-way point, officials said they expected discussions to step up a gear with the arrival of environment ministers from all continents. The conference is due to end on Friday.

"Leaders start to arrive tomorrow evening. That should focus the mind of negotiators," said Ed Miliband, Britain's Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was expected to be among the first of more than 110 heads of state and government due to arrive in the Danish capital. Brown was expected in Copenhagen on Tuesday evening, while most of the others, among them US President Barack Obama, would only head for the conference during its final days.

The fact that Brown is coming so early is "a sign that the negotiations are moving too slowly," Miliband said.

"We need to collectively get our act together," he said.

Despite the fact that a week of discussions has already gone by, deep divisions remain over the most important issues on the table, with the sides still at odds over emission targets and funding to the developing world.

According to the United Nations' expert panel on climate change, the IPCC, rich countries should cut their emissions by between 25 and 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 if they want to prevent average global warming from rising by more than a potentially dangerous 2 degrees centigrade.

The European Union has already pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 per cent against 1990 levels, but the US and China have so far come up with less ambitious targets.

Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren on Monday predicted "tough talks down to the wire" in Copenhagen.

The EU wants more to be done by the US and China, which together account for about 40 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen said the amount of emissions produced by the US and China showed that the two countries held "a special strategic position" in Copenhagen.

Miliband agreed that the US aim of a 17-per-cent cut in the country's emissions against 2005 is insufficient, but noted that the Obama's Democratic party administration had at least moved "massively" forward compared to the previous Republican party administration of George W Bush.