Commodity Corner
Views on commodities and energy
Getting down to business at U.N. climate talks a hard task
A U.N. concession to delegates at this week’s climate talks in Bonn to take off jackets and ties due to recent high temperatures may be going to some participants’ heads.
Breaking the back of negotiations for a new climate pact after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 is proving hard work even though the talks’ chair hopes to have a new negotiating text on the table by the end of the week.
Developing nations are still blaming the rich for global warming and the issue of who will contribute most to climate financing is still a matter for debate.
A year-end meeting in Cancun looms closer and the pressure is on to get the job done. Yet, the acronyms being bandied around — LULUCF, CDM, AAU, AWG-KP, AWG-LCA, REDD, to name a few — are enough to make your head swim.
Even a Chinese negotiator on Tuesday admitted he did not understand a complicated forestry and land use presentation the previous day by the European Union.
Talks kicked off on Monday with a three-hour session during which countries spent an inordinate amount of time thanking the chair and congratulating the new U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres on her post.
Delegates didn’t manage to finish the day’s business by the evening and had to continue into Tuesday, despite calls from the chair of the talks to keep to a very tight schedule.
It is amazing that some third world countries send delegates when their life expectancy due to their dictatorial rulers is 40 years old. It doesn’t seem like climate change would be the most important thing on their mind unless of course it is free money. And isn’t that what this whole global warming thing is really about – income redistribution.