Blame for climate change stirs turmoil at UN talks
WARSAW, POLAND— A rift has widened at UN climate talks as developing countries look for new ways to make developed countries accept responsibility for global warming — and pay for it.
With two days left, there was commotion in the Warsaw talks Wednesday after negotiators for developing nations said they walked out of a late-night meeting on compensation for the impact of global warming.
“We do not see a clear commitment of developed parties to reach an agreement,” said Rene Orellana, head of Bolivia’s delegation.
U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern played down the dispute, saying American negotiators who had attended the meeting were surprised to hear of a walkout.
“The meeting ended with everyone leaving,” Stern told reporters.
Contrasting views on what has been said and done in closed discussions is not unusual in the slowmoving UN effort to curb global warming. Progress has often been held back by mistrust between rich and poor countries.
The question of who’s to blame for global warming is central for developing countries, who say they should get financial support from rich nations to make their economies greener, adapt to climate shifts and cover the costs of unavoidable damage caused by warming temperatures.
They say the fact that rich nations, historically speaking, have released the biggest amounts of heat-trapping CO2 by burning fossil fuels for more than 200 years means they need to take the lead in reducing current emissions.
Developed nations blocked that proposal, however, saying the world should look at current and future emissions when dividing up the responsibility for global warming.
China, considered a developing nation at these talks, overtook the U.S. to become the world’s biggest carbon polluter during the past decade, and developing countries as a whole now have higher emissions than the developed world.
To focus only on past emissions “seems to us as very partial and not very accurate,” Stern, the U.S. envoy, said.