Developing countries that face huge climate change burdens demand wealthy countries shoulder more of the costs, as a leaked Danish document and new evidence of global warming raises temperatures among nations at the U.N. climate conference.
Negotiators on Wednesday attempted to bridge the gaps among 192 countries and stem the increasing discontent between rich and poor countries over climate change initiatives on the third day of the U.N. climate conference.
A key speaker will be Lisa Jackson, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, head, who recently provided the Obama Administration with new ideas on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Obama will join more than 100 country leaders converging in Copenhagen for the final days of bargaining late next week.
Meanwhile, small-island nations, poor countries and those seeking funds from the developed world to preserve tropical forests were upset over competing draft texts attributed to Denmark and China outlining proposed outcomes for the historic summit on Dec. 7 to 18. Reports from some of the poorest nations stated fears that too much of the burden to curb greenhouse gases is being hoisted onto their shoulders. Developing countries seek billions of dollars in aid from wealthy countries to deal with climate change, which melts glaciers and leads to increased sea-levels and causes regions to become drier and threatens food production.
Diplomats from developing countries and climate activists complained that the Danish hosts pre-empted the negotiations with a draft proposal. Lumumba Di-Aping of Sudan, the head of the 135-nation bloc of developing countries, said the $10 billion fast-track pledge from the U.S., European Union, Japan and other rich countries paled in comparison to the more than $1 trillion spent to rescue financial institutions. “If this is the greatest risk that humanity faces, then how do you explain $10 billion - unless it is an inducement for some countries to accept the western-backed proposal?” he said. “Ten billion will not buy developing countries' citizens enough coffins.”
The Danish text is a “serious violation that threatens the success of the Copenhagen negotiating process,” declared Sudan's Lumumba Stanislas Dia Ping, who heads the Group of 77 bloc of developing countries. He said poorer countries would not boycott the talks. “The G77 members will not walk out of this negotiation at this late hour because we can't afford a failure in Copenhagen,” he told journalists. “However, we will not sign an inequitable deal. We can't accept a deal that condemns 80 percent of the world population to further suffering and injustice.”
The Danish draft proposal would allow rich countries to cut fewer emissions, while poorer countries would face tougher limits on greenhouse gas emissions and more conditions on money available to adapt. “(It focuses) on pleasing the rich and powerful countries rather than serving the majority of states who are demanding a fair and ambitious solution,” said Kim Carstensen of the environmental group the World Wide Fund for Nature, or WWF.
A sketchy counterproposal attributed to China would extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 industrial nations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming by an average 5 percent by 2012, compared with 1990 levels. The Chinese text would incorporate specific new, deeper targets for the industrialized world for a further five to eight years. Developing countries, on the other hand, including China, would be covered by a separate agreement that envisions taking actions to control emissions, but not in the same legally binding way. No targets would be specified for them.

Hürriyet