The European Union and United States sparred on Thursday as negotiators raced against the clock to come up with framework deal to fight global warming after 2012.
As exhausted negotiators fought over draft text behind closed doors, the 11-day-old conference received a jolt of star power as Nobel laureate Al Gore arrived to join the talks on the Indonesian island of Bali.
Hundreds of delegates waited eagerly in line to hear an address by the former United States vice-president, who became a tireless green activist after narrowly losing the race for the White House to George Bush in 2000.
Environment ministers or their stand-ins from more than 180 countries have until Friday to agree a framework for tackling global warming past 2012, when pledges under the Kyoto Protocol expire.
The EU, angered by what it sees as US-led efforts to water down the final text, warned it would snub climate talks called by Bush next month in Hawaii if the Bali meeting collapsed.
”If we would have a failure in Bali, it would be meaningless to have the major economies meeting,” said Humberto Rosa, secretary of state for the environment from European Union president Portugal.
Rosa denied the EU’s stance was a boycott threat.
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which is organising the talks, earlier issued a stark warning that the talks risked collapsing ”like a house of cards”.
”I am very concerned about the pace of things,” said de Boer. ”At twelve noon tomorrow (4am GMT), the time is up.”
But he later reported progress, saying: ”I am a lot more optimistic than I was five hours ago.”
He said the talks had yielded an agreement on ways to finance technology transfers to developing countries in the frontline against global warming.
But he said the two sides still needed to work out the scope of the ”ambition” for the future negotiations.
The European Union, backed by developing countries, green groups and small island states, wants a reference by industrialised countries that a cut of 25% to 40% in their emissions by 2020, compared to 1990 levels, will be a guideline for those talks.
It says these figures are essential for showing rich nations are serious about making concessions to fix a problem that they created and have the most resources to address.
”What is a roadmap without a destination?” EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas asked sardonically.
The United States is opposed to the 25% to 40% figures, and delegates say its position is also shared by Japan, Canada and Russia.
Dimas expressed particular disappointment that Australia’s new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who signed the Kyoto Protocol as his first act in office and headed to the Bali talks, had not backed the text on the 25% to 40% cut.
”But still there is time because otherwise the Kyoto signing, which we applauded, will not have the substance that we expect from Australia,” he said.
Rudd’s signing of the Kyoto Protocol left the United States as the only nation to shun the environmental treaty.
James Connaughton, chairperson of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, rejected blame, saying: ”Every country has a negotiating position, not just the US.”
”We will lead, the US will lead, and we will continue to lead, but leadership also requires others to fall in line and follow.”
Bush has bluntly rejected the Kyoto Protocol, arguing it is too costly and unfair as fast-growing emerging economies are under no binding obligation to slash carbon emissions.
”This is the most irresponsible action done by an American administration in our lifetime,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, the US-based environmental group.
In a report issued this year, the IPCC predicted that by 2100 global average surface temperatures could rise by between 1,1C and 6,4C compared to 1980 to 1999 levels, stoked by heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels.
More powerful storms, droughts, floods and rising sea levels are among the risks that will escalate in coming decades, threatening hunger and homelessness for millions, it said. – AFP
