Blame flies over climate talks

2009-12-21 16:54

London - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday accused countries of holding the UN climate summit to ransom as bitter recriminations swirled over the outcome of the negotiations.

While China's Premier Wen Jiabao insisted his government had played an "important and constructive" role, Britain said the meeting had lurched into farce and pointed the finger of blame at Beijing.

And the summit host, Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, rapped the lower-level negotiators for failing to make headway in nearly two weeks of talks and then leaving their masters with too much to do at the climax.

Brown said lessons must be learned.

"Never again should we face the deadlock that threatened to pull down those talks. Never again should we let a global deal to move toward a greener future be held to ransom by only a handful of countries," he said.

Farcical picture

While Brown refrained from naming countries, his climate change minister Ed Miliband said China had led a group of countries that "hijacked" the negotiations which had at times presented "a farcical picture to the public".

The agreement finally put together by a select group of leaders set no target for greenhouse-gas emissions cuts and is not legally binding - omissions Miliband blamed on Beijing.

"We did not get an agreement on 50% reductions in global emissions by 2050 or on 80% reductions by developed countries," he wrote in The Guardian.

"Both were vetoed by China, despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries." Miliband's aides told the daily that Sudan, Bolivia and other left-wing Latin American governments were included in the criticism.

China, the world's top polluter, doggedly resisted pressure for outside scrutiny of its emissions.

Wen however rejected any suggestion it had played a negative role and said China had "expressed its fullest sincerity and made its utmost effort".

The Copenhagen Accord set "long-term goals" for the global community in addressing climate change, Wen said, according to comments released by the foreign ministry.

Frustration

"This is the result of the efforts from all sides and has wide approval. This result did not come easy and should be cherished."

France's Prime Minister Francois Fillon, on a visit to Beijing, trod delicately, but showed Europe's frustration with the outcome.

"France, like all of the European Union, would have wanted the Copenhagen Accord to go a bit further," he said.

His comments echoed those of US President Barack Obama who acknowledged that all of the world's polluters would quickly have to do more after the "extremely difficult and complex negotiations".

Rasmussen, heavily criticised for his stewardship of the summit of around 130 leaders, said the agreement was "better than nothing".

The Dane said the conference had become quagmired before the arrival of the leaders for Friday's finale with negotiators having made negligible progress since its start on December 7.

"When the leaders arrived, there was not even a framework agreement to discuss and we had 24 hours, which is too little time, to create a text which should have been negotiated during the two weeks of the conference," he told Danish television.

Islands threatened

As failure loomed, Rasmussen helped steer negotiations involving the leaders of the US, China, India, Brazil, SA and major European countries that resulted in the final agreement.

The accord promised $100bn for poor nations that risk bearing the brunt of the global warming fallout, and set a commitment to limit global warming to 2°C.

That however stopped short of the demand for a 1.5° limit low-lying island nations whose existence is threatened by rising sea levels.

Scientists say hundreds of millions of people are threatened in the next few decades by worsening drought, floods, storms and rising sea levels as a result of rising temperatures.

- AFP