Tianjin: UN climate talks were set to
wrap up on Saturday with China and the US locked in a stand-off,
slowing down progress ahead of a major summit next month on
global warming.
The major powers sparred throughout the six days of talks
in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, prompting the hosts
to warn on the penultimate day that the atmosphere for
negotiation had deteriorated.
"I want to emphasise no compromise on the interests of
developing countries," the Chinese foreign ministry's special
representative for climate change, Huang Huikang, told
delegates yesterday."We are losing trust and confidence."
Delegates from more than 170 countries attended the
latest round of the long-running UN negotiations that are
aimed at eventually securing a binding global treaty on how to
limit and cope with climate change.
World leaders failed to broker such a treaty in
Copenhagen last year as developed and developing nations
battled over who should carry more of the burden in cutting
greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for global warming.
The Tianjin meeting was the last big gathering before an
annual UN climate summit, which will be held in Cancun,
Mexico, from November 29 to December 10.
Delegates reported that progress had been made on some
specific issues in Tianjin, but many others also said that
negotiations were not moving quickly enough to limit global
warming below dangerous levels.
"We want to call for greater urgency in the
negotiations," Dessima Williams, Grenada delegate and chair of
the Alliance of Small Island States, told reporters yesterday.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, October 09, 2010, 15:38