12-day climate meet only assured another meeting

AT THE end of 12 days of negotiation, the chairperson of the working group on Kyoto Protocol locked up all negotiators for two hours at night. His purpose: to pressure them into reaching a consensus. The rich nations agreed to a concession: to discuss targets for emission reduction in June 2009.

Delaying tactics
The meeting was supposed to draft the negotiating text for preparing an action plan on climate change. But a sharp divide between rich, industrialized countries and developing nations prevented an agreement. Under the Ad Hoc Working Group on Kyoto Protocol (awg - kp), developing nations demanded that the aggregate as well as individual emission reduction targets of rich and industrialized (Annex 1) countries be specified and put into the negotiating text. The EU, Australia and Japan argued that reduction targets can be fixed only if the rules for land use, land use change and forestry, and the base year for emission reduction are fixed. Lead Chinese negotiator Yu Qingtai called this stand a diversionary tactic since rich countries are involved in land use and forestry negotiations as well.

A numbers game
The negotiating parties agree on keeping the rise in temperature within 2