They make no promise on extending financial and technology support to developing countries. With just a day left for the informal negotiating session on climate change in Bangkok to conclude, the chair of the Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA), Aysar Tayeb of Saudi Arabia, expressed dismay at the progress made so far. AWG-LCA, which was mandated to cease functioning by the end of the year at Doha, is one of the three tracks under which negotiations are on and has a slew of elements under it.

Climate change caused by greenhouse-gas emissions has become the greatest threat to Planet Earth. The impact of relentlessly rising temperatures is already apparent in frequent extreme weather events, people’s displacement and economic devastation. The North’s industrialised countries are primarily responsible for causing climate change, but its harshest effects are manifest in the developing South.

The impasse in the climate negotiations runs very deep, and is ultimately rooted in the nature and limits of the current development model. That said, there is a great deal that could be done to build momentum and prepare for the global emergency mobilisation that is needed. Up to this point, however, con!icts and tensions between the ‘North’ and the