| TIANJIN - China said rich nations must vow to make greater cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and warned of lost trust in talks over a climate change deal.
Feuds on Friday over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, a key United Nations treaty on fighting climate change, have diluted hopes that negotiations in Tianjin municipality can lay a firm base for agreeing on a new, binding climate deal next year.
The weeklong talks end on Saturday and are the last before a high-level meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in less than two months.
Kyoto's first phase ends in 2012 and what happens after that is in contention, with rich and poor countries disagreeing over whether Kyoto should be extended or replaced with a new treaty that covers all big greenhouse gas polluting nations.
In a sometimes combative meeting of hundreds of negotiators, Huang Huikang, China's special representative for climate change negotiations, said negotiators were losing trust in each other.
"Today here in Tianjin we really need to rebuild trust and confidence. We are losing confidence and trust," Huang said. "We are all concerned about the slow status of our negotiations."
China wants to keep the Kyoto Protocol and its firm division between the duties of rich economies and poorer ones.
Washington and other rich nations want a new pact to reflect the surge in emissions from the developing world, now accounting for more than half of annual global greenhouse gas pollution.
And China wants developed countries to offer far more ambitious carbon cuts before emerging economies also shift.
"Now the key issue is the lack of any substantive progress on the developed countries' side. If Annex 1 (developed) countries take the lead in the mitigation process, I suppose developing countries will do their part," Huang told reporters.
Kyoto Protocol binds 37 rich, or Annex 1, nations to meet quantified emissions reduction targets.
Under the protocol, developing countries take voluntary steps to curb the growth of their emissions.
The European Union's climate chief, Connie Hedegaard, urged negotiators in Tianjin "to make compromises within the next 24 hours".
"We need a substantial package of decisions to be taken in Cancun in order to keep the momentum, to show that international negotiations can deliver," she told reporters in Helsinki.
Reuters |
